TRANSCRIPT: Joe Kernen of CNBC Interviews President Trump on ‘Squawk Box’ - 8.05.25
[Video]
Note: [Donald Trump called in to CNBC's 'Squawk Box' for a live phone interview during the 8 o'clock hour Eastern time on August 5, 2025. The following transcript was provided by CNBC after the interview. Minor edits in punctuation and spelling were made to correct it. Video and transcript courtesy CNBC.]
Joe Kernen: And now to the guest that we've been talking about all morning. President Donald Trump, Mr. President, welcome. Thanks for Thanks for calling in. Wish you could be here in person, but we'll do this.
President Trump: Good morning, Joe.
Kernen: We've been talking about the BLS and the employment numbers all morning long. Sometimes I know you get a chance to tune in. I want to bring up a chart. I hope you can see it, or else, I'll describe it to you. This is a response rate over the last 10 to 12, years for the BLS household survey. It's dropped from 90% or so on time down to 60 and sometimes even lower. It's arguably the most important number we get about the economy. Yesterday, we had Wharton Professor Jeremy Siegel on just bear with me, Mr. President. Listen to this. I know you're familiar with Wharton, but unsolicited, this is what Jeremy Siegel said yesterday about the numbers.
Note: [Begin audio clip]
Jeremy Siegel: [Audio clip] I'm not going to let the BLS off the hook. I mean, you know, you talk about how to fix it, you don't make these questionnaires mandatory and give them a time limit to fill it out, you know? I mean, I think the response rates down to 60% I mean, that's unacceptable for the most important statistic that we have. It's almost like we're sending them out, you know, fill it out when you can. We know you like to go to the beach in the summer. So it might be a little bit late. You know, this is just not acceptable today. We need it. That response rate has to go up, and when you make the biggest mistake in 50 years, why? Why wasn't there an explanation?
Note: [End audio clip]
Kernen: It's 258,000 less in two months. That was the biggest revision since 1968, Mr. President. So we're in the internet age. We still can't get any instant data. We're still using snail mail to get the responses back. It is the government, after all, antiquated, no doubt and certainly, not, certainly suboptimal, but rigged. Where do you get the notion that it's rigged? Or do you have any evidence there?
Trump: Well it is antiquated, but it's also very political. And, you know, I had an election recently where I did very well, won every swing state, won the popular vote, won everything, all right, one all the counties, it's, I think 87% of the counties were Republican up. That's never happened before, and yet I had to go through hell. And just days before the election, they put out numbers that it was like the country was on fire. Was doing so well. And then they did a revision about two weeks later, and the revision was down by almost 900,000 jobs. You remember that? And I said, But, man, I said, What would have happened? What would have happened if I lost, think of it, I would have said they gave phony numbers, and then they revised them a week and a half later.
Kernen: Those were benchmark numbers that happens. They do that. They do that twice a year, and it reconciles the monthly figures with like the overall numbers. And it was a big number. And obviously eyebrows were --
Trump: But Joe the numbers were rigged. Biden wasn't doing well. He was doing poorly. They announced these phenomenal numbers two days before the election and a little bit before that, always these great numbers. And you knew it wasn't doing well. You knew prices were through the roof, and inflation was terrible. The whole thing was bad. And but think of it. Then they did the biggest revision, I think, in history, of almost 900,000 jobs. And it turned out to be more than that, because later on, they did another revision, and so they gave phony numbers in order to win the election. After I won the election, I said, Too Big to Rig. But after I won the election, then they announced a downward number, in other words, to bring them back to reality. And I said, Wow, supposing I would have lost. I would have blamed that. And people would have said I was a conspiracy theorist. Crazy.
Kernen: Elaine Chao was on yesterday. And I know, you know she was, think she was Labor Secretary for eight years under Bush two, and she was your Transportation Secretary as well. And she said, you know, the Commissioner doesn't really even get involved with the actual minutia of putting all these things together. And there's no way that it could have been, that she could have chosen to rig these numbers to make them look bad, and these are statistical changes based on this antiquated system, and it's just a big leap to go to rig. And then it also, Mr. President. It makes anyone you pick is going to be critics are going to say, hey, he's picking a guy that's going to give him the number or gal that's giving him the numbers that he wants. So it undermines confidence in the system. To some extent. You had, according to many people, all the rights in the world to try to replace the commissioner when it's not hasn't gotten any better. But that is maybe a bridge too far, according to most people.
Trump: Well, I think when somebody says the commissioner is not involved, I don't want to get into any arguments with anybody. Why should I? She's a very nice women.
Kernen: Exactly.
Trump: But when they say that the you know that nobody was involved, and that wasn't political. Give me a break look. Before the election, I had this massive, massive outflow of beauty for Biden, I mean, he didn't know he was alive. And for Biden, the economy was roaring. It was a beautiful thing. And I said, There's no way this is happening. It's going the opposite direction. And two weeks later, they said I was right. But even if you look at the original, the ones from the other day, the numbers were very timid. And then they announced something that made them even more timid. On top of it, on sort of the reporting day. I don't know why, it just seemed a little bit more more important than most times when they announced numbers.
Kernen: Mr. President we talked earlier, the unemployment rate is still low. It's 4.2%
Trump: It's fine. I'm not saying earth shattering. I will say this, the numbers before the election were earth shattering. I'm not saying these were earth shattering. But then they announced a couple of 100,000 to make it look a little bit worse from you know, months before I said, Where did those numbers come from? Highly political. It's a highly political situation. It's totally rigged. Smart people know it. People with common sense know it. A lot of people like their head under the covers and just not believe it.
Kernen: Let's move on to this. Which number do you believe at this point, because if you noticed suddenly the chances of what you've wanted for months, and argue for months, the chances of a rate cut soared because of these numbers. Do you not believe the current numbers? Because they're playing right into what you want the Fed and Jay Powell to do. They're not horrible, as you said, but you know, perhaps with the tariffs, some businesses delayed, some spending, some consumers may have been less certain about the future, so maybe we're seeing a slight slowdown in labor, but you're going to get exactly what you want based on these numbers. Which ones do you believe? Do you not believe the revised numbers either?
Trump: It's not what I want. I don't want that. I wanted it a year ago. I wanted it a long time ago. Jay Powell is highly political, and I think, you know, I call him too late. Jerome, too late Powell, he's too late. He's too late always. He always has been, except when it came to lowering interest rates before the election. You know that he that he did, he worked that out.
Kernen: Who would you replace him with did I know you watch the show occasionally, and we had an extended interview with one of the prospective replacements, Kevin Warsh. Were you watching that day or --
Trump: I was very good. He's very good. Sometimes they're all very good, until you put them in there, and then they don't do so good. But a lot of them, I think, I think he's a very good guy. I think I say Kevin and Kevin, both Kevins are very good, and there are other people that are very good too, but a lot of times, a lot of times, they're very good, like this character that we have in there now Jerome too late Powell, he was very good. He said, Sir, I'll keep interest rates so low. I'm a low interest rate person, sir, you can always hear him talking over the debt. Somebody that worked for me was a big fan of not a fan of his. He hardly knew him, but he wanted him so badly. I did somebody a favor I put him in there, no, he's too late. He's too late. That name will stay with for always.
Kernen: Can you handicap it at all or you don't know? When will you know and when will you announce it?
Trump: The two Kevin's are doing well. And I have two other people that are doing well. Look, it's in the end. There are numerous people that are qualified. Everyone on your phone right now, in terms of at your beautiful studio, would be very qualified. In my opinion, you guys are better than most of the people that do it for a living. But that watched, I watched a lot, actually, no, I think that it'll be one of four people.
Becky Quick: Are the other two names –
Trump: I'm gonna make the decision soon? And don't forget, we have somebody that left early, which was a pleasant surprise. We have a woman that left early, she announced two days ago, that she's leaving, and I'm going to be announcing that very shortly too. That will be most likely. It'll be for the four months, you know, for the short period of time. But a lot of people say that when you do that, why don't you just pick the person who's going to head up the Fed? That's a possibility, too.
Quick: President Trump, you said there are four names. There are two other names that have been mentioned in the press. One is Governor Waller. The other is the Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent. Are those the four that you're considering?
Trump: Well, I love Scott, but he wants to stay where he is. I will. I'll take him off the because I asked him just last night, is this something you want? Nope, I want to stay where I am. He actually said, I want to work with you. It's such an honor. I said, That's very nice. I appreciate that. But no, Scott wants to do what he said. He's doing a great job, and he wants to do what he's doing, so just take him off. He does not want it. He would. He likes being Treasury Secretary. He's doing a really good job. We made the greatest trade deals in the history of our country. We had to because we were being ripped off by the world, not like we had a choice. If we would have gotten these trade deals, if you would have had a normal President that would have just continued to allow every country in the world to rip you off. We would not have a country anymore. Your show would be off the air. There'd be nothing to look at. It would be a disaster. We were in such bad shape when I took over, eggs had tripled in price. More than that everything was up, and prices are down. And it bugs me. I looked at CNN the other night, which is a failing deal. It's got no ratings. And I'm probably the only guy watching, and I watch these guys talking about, well, withdraw. Prices are up. No, no prices are down. Since I came in, down. All prices, just about except for the price of stock. The price of stock is way up, okay, but prices are down. And if you give you an example, Joe, energy is way down. Energy is down to $2.20 a barrel, a gallon. Now for a car, it's down to a level.
Kernen: I've seen 2.80 --
Trump: You're down, I guess, around $65 a barrel. But it's going down. There's tremendous energy. And if you notice OPEC, and OPEC, plus, they're drilling more. They want to drill more because I think they want me happy, because if energy goes down low enough, Putin is going to stop killing people. That will be nice, even though they're his own people that are dying him and Ukraine. But Putin will stop killing people. If you get energy down another $10 a barrel, he's going to have no choice, because his economy stinks.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Mr. President, it's Andrew here. It's great to speak with you. I wanted to ask, I just wanted to ask you about you mentioned tariffs, and on Sunday, you talked again about this idea of dividends for middle and lower income folks that might come off of the tariffs and the revenue that's coming in from the tariffs. And I wanted you to maybe explain how that might work in practice, and how you're thinking about that, and the trade offs between paying down the debt, which I thought was something you had been talking a lot about, versus sending checks out, because obviously that creates its own debt for us.
Trump: So we're taking in trillions of dollars, Andrew. If you look at Japan, we're taking in $550 billion and that's like a signing bonus that a baseball player would get. He would get slightly less than that, how good he is, right? But they give a signing bonus of a million dollars, or $2 million or $20 million or whatever the hell they give today. It's so out of control. But a signing bonus. I got signing bonus from Japan of $550 billion -- that's our money. It's our money to invest, as we like. European Union, $650 billion. Think of it. And they're going to buy $750 billion worth of our energy. And they're going to do this, and they're going to do that. And by the way, they're going to open up their countries, which they've never done. Japan has never -- if you did business in Japan, they would arrest you. You're not allowed to do any business. And now Japan has totally opened up their country. They're even taking our rice, which is something that nobody said was possible. But more importantly, they're taking our cars. They're taking the very beautiful Ford 150 which does very well, and I'm sure we'll do very well there, and other things that do very well here will also do well there. You'd be surprised at some of the great things we make. But Japan has opened up all of these. Indonesia has opened up their country. South Korea has opened up their country. But not only opened up, and that's going to be huge business -- when you open up South Korea, it's a closed country. And now all of a sudden, we're allowed to sell cars into South Korea and trucks and SUVs. I mean, we're really opening it up. Vietnam is opening up their country. You know, these are all closed countries. But the EU was closed. They wouldn't take our agriculture. I said to -- let's say, let me just say, a prime minister -- a very nice prime minister -- a couple of years ago, I said, "How many cars are you taking a year? Let me guess, is it one or two?" She said, "No, no, no, you -- we don't take any of your cars." I said, "That's right. That's not nice." I said, "That's not right. That's not a nice thing, Angela." But they took none of them, and now they take all our cars, all our trucks, everything is open 100%. In addition, the EU is going to pay us $650 billion -- we're going to round it off, actually, because of certain things, to $600 billion. And think of it, they're going to put up $750 billion -- we're a rich country again. Now, these are just deals that I'm announcing. These are the biggest ones, because EU is, you know, essentially Europe. We made great deals with all of the countries and they're being and fair about it --
Sorkin: Mr. President --
Trump: One other thing, I mean, for your listeners that perhaps are a little bit less wealthy than some of your listeners, I'm doing something that nobody's ever done before. As you know, for 30 years, Europe has had drug prices that are, in many cases, one-tenth the cost of drugs here. Same manufacturing plant, same everything. One to -- I've invoked Favored Nations. Now there is no Favored Nations -- I've just said there is, because we're not going to pay 10 times more for a pill --
Sorkin: Mr. President --
Trump: -- than they pay in Europe. Then that's going to have a tremendous impact on the price of medicine.
Quick: Is that the reason --
Sorkin: Mr. President, what kind of teeth though are in those investments? What kind of teeth are in those investments? Meaning that would force the EU to make those investments. If they don't make those investments, what happens on the other side?
Trump: Well, then they pay tariffs at 35%. No, no. They brought down their tariffs, so they paid $600 billion and because of that, I reduced their tariffs from 30% down to 15%. And a couple of countries came -- how come EU is paying less than us? And I said, "Well, because they gave me $600 billion." And that's a gift. That's not like, you know, a loan, by the way. That's not a loan that, oh, gee, three years comes up. We have to pay it back. There's nothing to pay back. They gave us $600 billion that we can invest in anything we want.
Quick: The deal that you're announcing --
Trump: And nobody knows it, Becky. Nobody knows it because, you know, they don't know.
Quick: No, they -- we have been trying to figure out the details on that, Mr. President, so we appreciate the clarity on that.
Trump: Yeah, well there are no details. The details are $600 billion to invest in anything I want. Anything. I can do anything I want, whether -- and the purpose was, they've been, you know, ripping us for so many years that it's time that they pay up. And they have to pay up. We couldn't afford to have the deficits. Look, I did something with Switzerland the other day. I spoke to their Prime Minister. The woman was nice, but she didn't want to listen, and they paid essentially no tariffs. And I said, "We have a $41 billion deficit with you, madam." I didn't know her. I said, "We have a $41 billion deficit, and you want to -- you want to pay 1% tariffs. You wanted 1%." I said, "You're not going to pay 1%." We don't lose -- because I view deficit as loss -- you know, you have some people, by the way, I --
Quick: Pharmaceuticals are a big issue with Switzerland. I think Roche and Novartis --
Trump: Well I'll go into pharmaceuticals. They make a fortune with pharmaceuticals. And they make our pharmaceuticals in China and Ireland and everything else. And within the next week or so, we're going to be announcing tariffs on specifically, this is a, you know, this is a separate class than the 15% tariffs on sort of everything. These are excluded classes I call them. I like to call them excluded, like steel, aluminum, etc. --
Quick: Right, the 232 –
Trump: Well, we're going to be announcing on semiconductors and chips, which is a separate category, because we want them made in the United States. And by the way, they're being made in the United States. You know, we have the biggest in the world, as you know, from Taiwan is coming over and spending $300 billion in Arizona, building the biggest plant in the world for chips and semiconductors. But on pharmaceuticals, we'll be putting a, initially small tariff on pharmaceuticals. But in one year --
Quick: President Trump --
Trump: -- one and a half years maximum, it's going to go to 150% and then it's going to go to 250% because we want pharmaceuticals made in our country. And that's not the CHIPS Act like Biden did because he didn't know what he was doing, where they gave billions of dollars to companies that had more money than they knew what to do with --
Quick: President Trump, can I ask you about something that you're doing that's opposite of the Biden administration, too, and that's the latest –
Trump: Everything. I think everything.
Quick: -- the latest deal, though, that you're announcing with India. You're upset with the trade deal there, especially because they're buying Russian oil. The Biden administration sanctioned Russian oil, but then they kind of winked and nodded and appreciated that India and China were buying some of that oil because they were worried it would raise oil prices, and thereby prices at the pump. To you, is it more important to shut down the Russians on this than to worry about oil prices?
Trump: I'm not worried about prices because we're drilling at levels that nobody's ever seen before. And what Biden did is he stopped my drilling. And then prices, if you remember that first couple of months, prices went through the roof, and he immediately said, let's go back to what Trump was doing. Let's go back to it. But by that time, they had blown it, and the energy prices were so high, and that's what caused -- that and his crazy spending is what caused -- by the way, the largest inflation in the history of our country was during the Biden administration. Not 48 years. You know, they like to say 48 years. There was the largest in the history of our country, the inflation that we had during Biden, because the man obviously didn't know what he was doing. But with India --
Kernen: Mr. President --
Trump: -- with India, what people don't like to say about India, they're the highest tariff nation. They have the highest tariff of anybody. We do very, very little business with India because their tariffs are so high. So India has not been a good trading partner, because they do a lot of business with us, but we don't do business with them. So we settled on 25% but I think I'm going to raise that very substantially over the next 24 hours, because they're buying Russian oil, they're fueling the war machine. And if they're going to do that, then I'm not going to be happy.
Kernen: A lot of deals signed. And I don't -- you know, I thought India was imminent. I'm not sure what, you know, what the sticking point is there, Mr. President, but let's just, since we don't have all day, we got to talk China --
Trump: Well the sticking point with India is that tariffs are too high. Now, I will say this --
Kernen: Right, but we --
Trump: -- India went from the highest tariffs ever, they will give us zero tariffs. And they are --
Kernen: So for China --
Trump: -- go in, but that's not good enough, because --
Kernen: Let's talk China --
Trump: --because of what they're doing with oil, not good.
Kernen: It looked like you were going to have a meeting, and people were talking about it with President Xi, and then you went out of your way to kind of say, other people are saying -- I think you even called it fake news or something. It almost -- it looked like you were indicating that you were unhappy, or the talks had broken down. And we've had a couple of frameworks or some positive moves and, you know, China, you've had a lot of success with other countries. China is a big deal and a big -- not quite the elephant in the room, but certainly an important trading partner. Where does that stand? What -- will there be a meeting between you and President Xi? Anything? Anything planned at this point? What's the sticking point now and how optimistic are you that we get a comprehensive view?
Trump: Well, I can have a meeting. We have a very good relationship, but I didn't call for the meeting. He called for the meeting. So the fake news announced Donald Trump wants a meeting with China. No, I didn't want it. No, he asked for a meeting, and I'll end up having a meeting before the end of the year, most likely, if we make a deal. If we don't make a deal, I'm not going to have a meeting. I mean, you know, what's the purpose of meeting if we're not going to make a deal? But we're getting very close to a deal. We're getting along with China very well. I will tell you, you know, you had a point, when I had 145% tariffs on -- I put in for fentanyl, I put in, I actually said to people, "Where are we now with China, by the way?" Because I kept adding more and more, they said, "Sir, you are up to 145%." I said, "You got to be kidding." So I sort of had to bring it down a little bit. But when there was up to 145% -- meaning we were doing zero business with China -- China was collapsing. I don't know if you know that. You haven't reported it, if you do. But China was collapsing. China is very reliant on the United States. My relationship with him is very good. I think we'll make a good deal. It's not imperative, but I think we're going to make a good deal. But no, they had a thing that Donald Trump really wanted to go there. No, I don't. It's an eight -- it's a 19 hour flight. It's a long flight. But at some point in the not too distant future I will. And just to end this conversation on China, I have a very good relationship with President Xi. Always had. Other than the Covid moment where I was very angry with him and essentially, wouldn't want -- didn't want to talk to him, frankly, because, you know, it did come out of Wuhan in all fairness, which I was saying for -- from day one. I was saying I knew exactly where it came from, but that did interfere with the relationship. But I -- no, I've had a great relationship with President Xi. We respect him a lot. They respect us a lot. They didn't respect Biden. They thought he was a numbskull. They couldn't believe he was the President of the United States, and neither can anyone else that that happened.
Sorkin: Mr. President, on a different topic, The Wall Street Journal is reporting that you're prepping an order that they say would punish banks that discriminate against conservatives, including potentially Bank of America. I'm going to be actually talking to Brian Moynihan here later today. Can you tell us about that executive order? What's in that? And what do you think the banks have done?
Trump: Well, they did discriminate. I had JPMorgan Chase -- I had hundreds of millions of dollars in cash. I can see if they want to, you know, if they want to do something bad, because you don't have any money, and you're defaulted. And they took people out, but I'll give you me as an example. I had hundreds of millions. I had many, many accounts loaded up with cash. I was loaded up with cash, and they told me, "I'm sorry, sir, we can't have you. You have 20 days to get out." I said, "You got to be kidding. I've been with you for 35, 40 years." They said -- and I mean, I had all this, I didn't know what to do with it. And I went to -- and you could ask him, maybe he's not going to admit it. So I said, you know, I was informed by my people that we have to get out of Chase Manhattan. That's Jamie and -- JPMorgan Chase. So I said, I can't believe it. Well, I was never in this situation before. I've never had anything like it. And it's not like, gee, you defaulted on a loan. You know, geez, I could understand that. That's different. But there's no default. I mean, there's nothing but cash. It's a really -- I have a really great company. Then what happens is I call a Bank of America routinely, because when I was President -- this was after I got out by the way -- I call a Bank of America routinely, and I speak to him, and I speak to a couple of people, and they have zero interest. Brian was kissing my ass when I was President, and when I called him after I was President to deposit a billion dollars plus and a lot of other things, more importantly, to open accounts, which banks always like. They like accounts because they get interest free, you know, the overnights and things. A lot of reasons for it, but they like accounts. I had hundreds of accounts. And he said, we can't do it. No, we can't do it. So I went to another one, another one, another one, another one. I ended up going to small banks all over the place. I mean, I was putting 10 million here, 10 million there. Did 5 million, 10 million, 12 million. I have them all over the place, the craziest thing. And it's lucky I even had them. They were doing me a favor, and that's because the banks discriminated against me very badly. And I was very good to the banks. I had the greatest economy in the history of our country when I was President. And by the way, our economy now will blow that away, and you see it happening. But our economy now, because we're a rich country again -- because of our trade deals, we've become a rich country again. But no, they did -- they totally discriminate against -- I think me maybe even more, but they discriminated against many conservatives. You know, I told that story and sitting around tables with other people that were conservative or Trump supporters -- I think the word might be Trump supporters more than conservative. And I believe what they did is they went to the regulators. You know, banks are not afraid of anything but a regulator. Their regulators and their wives. They're more afraid of their wives than the regulators. But the person -- the group they're really afraid of is bank regulators. And I believe that Biden or Kamala -- and I don't think they're smart enough to do it, but the people that are surrounding the beautiful resolute desk, you know, the high IQ people that are radical left. I believe they told the Banking Commission, the bankers -- that the banking regulators -- do everything you can to destroy Trump. And that's what they did. And guess what, I'm President. How did that happen?
Kernen: Mr. President, you've talked about you want success, not retribution. The Justice Department now tapping a grand jury to look into the intelligence community's assessment of what was happening with Russia. Is that, you have nothing to do with directing the Justice Department?
Trump: Nope, I have nothing to do. Pam is doing a great job. I have nothing to do with it. I will tell you this. They deserve it. I was happy to hear it. I actually read it, just like you did. I have nothing to do with it. But what they did in the election, what they did in even the last election, but it was too big to rig, but what they did in the 2020 election is is grotesque. I mean, that was a rigged election. 100%--
Kernen: Okay, we can't relitigate that. We can't relitigate that–
Trump: No, no -- we're back to rigging again. Well you can use this because everyone knows it. You know what a year ago, you would have been upset if I said it. Today, it's different. I say it all the time. It was a rigged election. But 100% rigged.
Kernen: We can't relitigate because --
Trump: And I'm sure that's going to be brought up too.
Kernen: You know, independent sources, even your justice department, I but then I'm bringing up Bill Barr, but even they decided that there wasn't, there were, you know, things that happened, but nothing that would have swayed it.
Trump: Well, they were wrong, and Bill Barr was wrong, and Bill Barr didn't investigate, and he should have and why didn't Bill Barr give the, why didn't he give the Durham report? Why didn't he give that report, the stuff that's in there, that's all this stuff is coming out of it. Why didn't he give it earlier? I mean, you know, why did it take so long to do it, and why didn't he give it? Why didn't they announce it earlier? Because it morphed, what happened is, it morphed into the Biden administration, and the Biden administration buried it so you now it's too bad.
Kernen: How about Texas?
Trump: But no, they were wrong.
Kernen: Now we're going to do now we're going to do mid, mid-year or midterm gerrymandering based on that's going to be a quid pro quo or something with in blue states now, Mr. President. Did --
Trump: Well they did it to us, you know, those blue states that you're talking about.
Kernen: They started it.
Trump: You know, somebody gave a good example. In Massachusetts, I got, I think 41% of the voters are very, you know, blue state, and yet it's got 100% of Congress, 100% so I got 40, 41% or something, and yet 100% of Congress in Massachusetts, no, it shouldn't be that way. I should have, we should have a couple of Congress people but we have none. And think of this, 100%. In Illinois, where you have probably the dumbest of all governors Illinois. That guy's really sending, I mean the business is flowing out of his state. It's terrible. It's a terrible thing that Pritzker is doing. He's, you know, he was the black sheep of the family. They threw him out of the business. But in Illinois, what's happened is, is terrible what they're doing. And they, you notice, they go to Illinois for safety. But that's all gerrymandered. California is gerrymandered. We should have many more seats in Congress. In California, it's all gerrymandered. And we have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor, and we have good people in Texas. And I won Texas. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas, as you probably know, and we are entitled to five more seats.
Kernen: I don't know. I have to check on that. And you know --
Trump: Check it. Check it.
Kernen: They expect -- yeah, okay.
Trump: Why don't you check it because you know --
Kernen: The fact checkers expect us to check everything you say on the phone.
Trump: I want you to check it. I don't say --
Kernen: But for four years, those fact checkers didn't --
Trump: -- that's wrong.
Kernen: Fact check anything that was said about, we don't need to relitigate that either. But they expect fact checking immediately.
Trump: Joe, why don't you check it --
Kernen: Okay.
Trump: Because I'd like you to. I got the highest vote in the history of Texas. Okay, by a lot.
Quick: Mr. President. Mr. President, can I ask you back to the economy? And just on some of the things we've seen with the jobs report, the weakness in those numbers that came out last week, people are trying to figure out where the weakness is coming from. Part of it may be because of immigration. Now, people voted you into office because they were concerned about immigration policy in this country, but if you look at the jobs report last week, it did show 1.7 million drop off of foreign born workers from March to July.
Trump: That's a great number, by the way, that's a great number because it means we're putting Americans to work.
Quick: Well, the problem is immigrants have accounted for more than half of the US workforce growth over the last three years. And so you wonder if that gets into an issue. And I know you've spoken with farmers who have had concerns about being able to find temporary workers there --
Trump: That's right.
Quick: And I think their pleas have kind of hit you in a way where you you looked at that a little differently.
Trump: Well, I think this. We're getting the criminals out of our country because they had an open border policy, because they were fools, and they allowed people from prisons and gang members and drug dealers into our country. We're getting the criminals out of our country by the thousands, by the thousands, and they're taken. We have murderers. We have people that are mentally insane. They come out of insane asylums and and, you know, psych wards, and they come out of places that you don't want to know about. You would not like to see it, but they dumped everybody in our country, from the Congo in Africa to all over South America. They dumped millions of people into our country that are dangerous people and I'm getting them out. I'm working with the farmers, however, and the farmers have been great. I also got the highest vote for farmers, I think, that anybody's ever gotten. And I take care of the farmers. I love the farmers. They're a very important part of this country, and we're not going to do anything to hurt the farmers, and we're working on that, and we're going to be coming out with rules and regulations. I mean, you'll see a farmer with the same person working for him for 20 years. The person's even paying taxes and other things. And we're looking, look, we're looking for the criminals, the people that murdered, you know, we have 11,888 people that came into our country under Biden, under under with our great czar, a border czar. She never called one, you know, she never called. She was a border czar. She never went to the border and she never made one call to the border patrol. You know, other than that, she did a great job, but they had hundreds of people that were murderers, 11,888 murders, 50% of which murdered more than one person in our country. We've already gotten a lot of them out, and some of them --
Quick: But you're saying people who have been here for years --
Trump: Are so dangerous we don't want to bring them back. We want to put them in our own prison, because we don't want them coming back.
Quick: But the people who have been here for years paying --
Trump: But they allowed 11,888 murderers, many of which murdered more than one into our population, and we're getting them out rapidly.
Quick: But Mr. President, I just want to hear you clearly. You're saying the people who have been here for years and who have been even paying taxes, you're going to look at them very differently, and maybe they belong here in the workforce?
Trump: I want to work with them. And in some cases, we're sending them back to their country with a pass back in legally. And we're doing things that are that are very difficult to do and very complex, but it works really well. We're sending them back, and then they're schooling, they're learning, they're coming in, they're coming in legally. We have a lot of that going on, but we're taking care of our farmers. We can't let our farmers not have anybody. You know, these are very these people, they're you can't replace them very easily. You know, people that live in the inner city are not doing that work. They're just not doing that work. And they've tried, we've tried. Everybody tried. They don't do it. These people do it naturally, naturally. I said, what happens if they get it to a farmer the other day, what happens if they get a bad back? He said, they don't get a bad back, sir, because if they get a bad back, they die. I said that's interesting, isn't it? You know, these are very --
Kernen: Mr. President --
Trump: In many ways. They're very, very special people. Okay, go ahead.
Kernen: No, okay, so here we go. So you did get the highest number of votes in Texas, so that's true.
Trump: I did but you don't have to say anything more, Joe.
Kernen: I got to say this.
Trump: No, no, don't say anything more.
Kernen: No, I gotta.
Trump: Don't qualify it by saying. I got the highest number of votes in the history of Texas.
Kernen: I'm moving on, you did, you did. I'm moving on to your claim that that revision helped Biden for, hurt you for the 800,000. It was, it was in August. There was still plenty of time for voters to see that those --
Trump: No, after the election in November. I believe it was November something.
Kernen: No, this was in August.
Trump: There was a massive revision downward on that -- you'll find I'm right again.
Kernen: The first one, the 800,000 or 900,000 I think was in was in August, and then later it came out in March of 2025, it went to 598 not 818, but the original one --
Trump: Well, listen, 598 but there were other revisions downward from prior to the election, because the numbers were rigged, okay? And as you said, the number look, you take a look after the election, how many revisions downward there were. But let's get back to Texas, because you said you're going to say something else, I guess, I got --
Kernen: You did, okay.
Trump: The highest vote in the history of Texas, a record that they say won't be beaten unless I run again.
Quick: Are you going to run again? The constitution --
Trump: No, probably not.
Quick: Okay.
Trump: Probably not, I'd like to.
Kernen: And you're not going to fire Jay Powell, we'll get we'll go. We'll talk about all the stuff --
Trump: Hey, Becky, I'd like to run. I have the best poll numbers I've ever had. You know why? Because people love the tariffs --
Kernen: That's among, that's with Republicans.
Trump: They love their countries, and they love that foreign countries aren't ripping us off.
Kernen: But overall poll numbers --
Trump: For years, they ripped us off. Friend and foe. And the friend was worse.
Kernen: No, no, overall poll numbers, you don't.
Trump: What?
Kernen: Overall poll numbers you don't have the best you ever had in overall poll numbers. You know, I cited one of those.
Trump: I have the best, I have the best poll numbers I've ever had.
Kernen: For Republicans, among Republicans.
Trump: I had poll numbers where I'm 71%. I have the best poll numbers, look.
Kernen: Those are among Republicans. You know you've got --
Trump: No, no, no, among Republicans, 94 and 95%. No, I'm talking about generally. Let me put it this way. There was a gentleman on Harry Emden [Enten] yesterday on CNN, and he went crazy over how well Trump was doing. Now, you know, you don't put that on because I think CBS is a shade. Actually, CNN is a shade better than NBC. I think NBC is probably the worst of them all, but if you check CNN tomorrow, watch Harry Emden, and you'll see about the numbers. But that's okay. We have to defend ourselves, Joe.
Kernen: I know but there are others they can cite -- your haters cite polls that have you down in the 30s, Mr. President and you know --
Trump: But they're fake polls, Joe, I had a lot of fake polls. You also have me in the 70s, I have fake polls. Fox gives me terrible polls all the time. You know, they do nothing, but I never had a good poll with Fox. And then I win an election, and I go through the roof because, look, I won every swing state, did I not? I won every swing state. Andrew, I won the popular vote by millions of votes, even though they tried like hell to cheat. I won by millions of votes. I won the counties and the all of the counties. I won 7,000, no I won 2,750 to 502 and I won the election in a landslide. And obviously that's all they did, and we're only six months in, but my poll numbers are better now, much better than during the election. And a part of that, then part of that is because the Democrat Party is self-destructing. I mean, when you have low IQ people like Crockett, I wonder if she's in any relationship to the late great Davy Crockett, who is a great, great, a great gentleman. I wonder if she's got any relationship to Davy Crockett, the great old David Crockett. But you have this woman, Crockett. She's a low, very low IQ person. Somebody said the other day she's one of the leaders of the party. I said, you gotta be kidding. They, the Democrats are lost. They have Trump derangement syndrome so bad that they can't walk. They can't talk. They don't know where they're going.
Kernen: Well, that's what I mean there's --
Trump: Schumer is finished. Schumer -- I watched him the other day, he's lost all of his confidence --
Kernen: 40% of the country has. So you're never going to get above 60 in any poll. And it said because 40% have TDS, and we know that. Mr. President, we used to do this every Tuesday, it was called Trump Tuesday. Maybe we can start, this can be the start of something again. But we appreciate all your time today and hope to be able to continue this discussion on all these different issues in the not too distant future if we could.
Trump: Joe, let me just could I finish one thing?
Kernen: Yes, you're the president.
Trump: One year ago, one year ago, our country was dead. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world by far. And that was told to me by every leader of NATO, which they do whatever I want. That was told to me by the King of Saudi Arabia, by the leaders of UAE, by the leader of Qatar, by many, many, we were dead country one year ago. Today, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. And I'm, I'm very happy to help.
Kernen: Mr. President once again. Thank you. Thank you.
Trump: Thank you very much. Thank you.
Kernen: You're welcome. We'll see you soon. Thank you.
Transcript courtesy of CQ Factbase.