TRANSCRIPT: President Trump Calls In to a Live Interview on Fox News' 'The Five', 3.26.26
[Video]
Greg Gutfeld: All right, President Trump joins us on the phone live. Hey, Mr. P. It's your favorite talk show host. How you doing?
President Trump: Well, that's true. That's true. Greg, how are you?
Gutfeld: I'm doing great. It's always good to hear your voice.
Trump: Good. Thank you.
Gutfeld: Yeah.
Trump: Congratulations. Congratulations on beating all of those frauds -- [Laughter] -- that try to compete with you at a certain time of the evening. You're a little earlier, but, uh, I will tell you, the numbers are incredible. Your numbers and their numbers are incredibly bad.
Gutfeld: Yes.
Trump: And they deserve it. They have no talent, but congratulations. [Laughter]
Gutfeld: Thank you, Mr. President. So we all have a bunch of questions. I'm sure we'll get to one of them.
Trump: Okay. [Laughter]
Gutfeld: Uh, I wanna ask you, like, how do you deal with people who, uh, might be disappointed, uh, because they voted, let's say they voted for you on the assumption of no wars.
Trump: Yeah.
Gutfeld: And then this happens, and it's inconsistent with their wishes. What would you say to them?
Trump: Well, I have to do something in terms of making America great and keeping America great. And when you have lunatics with nuclear weapons and the power is beyond belief, I will tell you as a president, I get to see it. My uncle was a great professor at MIT and he, he knew more about nuclear at the time than anybody.
He told me stories that were horrible in terms of the power, both beautiful in terms of putting it to good use, but really bad for destruction purposes. And, uh, his, his statements from years ago were, you know, he really, he really got it. He really got it. He was a highly respected man. Uh, he was there for 41 years at MIT as a great professor.
And he, uh, he told me about a thing called nuclear. And, uh, at the time, nobody knew too much about it and he said exactly what it was all about. And you can't let a madman or you can't let a, uh, mad ideology have a nuclear weapon. And we hit, as you know, we hit 50,000 in the Dow. Everyone said it would be impossible in four years. I hit it in my first year. We hit 7,000 in the S&P and everyone said that would be even more impossible. We hit it in my first year. And I said, "We have to take a little bit of a detour."
Gutfeld: Mm-hmm.
Trump: We have to take a, uh, a little journey to a place called Iran where these mad people were going to have a nuclear weapon and they could do tremendous damage, not only to the Middle East and Israel, but also to our country because we would be next. And I said, "We're gonna take a little detour and we're gonna go and we're gonna knock them out." And that's what we've done. We have the greatest military in the world.
Gutfeld: Mm-hmm.
Trump: And it started with the B2 bombers, which made it impossible for them to do the nuclear. They would've had, if we didn't hit them with the B2 bombers like eight months ago, if we didn't do that, they would have right now a nuclear weapon and they would've used it by this time. And it also happened with, uh, Barack Hussein Obama, if you've ever heard of him.
Barack Hussein Obama. [Laughter] Terrible president, absolutely a divider and a terrible president. And, uh, when he did the Iran nuclear deal, he gave them a path to a nuclear weapon within a short period of time. They would've had a nuclear weapon a few years ago, and they would've used it on Israel. They would've used it on the Middle East.
And you saw that when this all started, they had no huge problem with, no tremendous problem with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and you take a look and, uh, UAE, uh, the Kuwait, uh, Oman, they had no problem with them. They had, they were doing fine, and yet they hit them with, in the case of UAE, 1,400 missiles, ballistic missiles.
And, uh, what they were going to do is they were gonna hit the Middle East, and they would've hit it with nuclear if they had it, because they're stone-cold crazy. So in order to keep our country great, I said, "We're gonna take a fairly short detour. We're gonna show everybody that there's nobody even coming close to us militarily.
Nobody even comes close. We have the greatest weapons, we have the strongest military." And I rebuilt it. I built and rebuilt our military in my first term, and I got to use it a little bit more than I would have liked to be able, because we had Venezuela, now we have this, but, uh, we're gonna keep our country safe. You can't let this happen to us or, frankly, anybody else in the world. We're doing a big service to the world.
Gutfeld: Hmm.
Kayleigh McEnany: Mr. President, Kayleigh McEnany here, I do wanna ask you about the breaking news. You just put out on True Social that you will be pausing energy plant destruction by 10 days to Monday, April 6th at 8:00 PM Eastern Time because the negotiations are going very well. I would never ask you to reveal to the public specifics, but could you broadly characterize where we are at?
Trump: Well, the Iranians asked me to do that, and I was not happy with them because I made a statement that we're having productive negotiations. I don't know that they get there, maybe they do, maybe they won't. I mean, look, in a certain sense, we've already won because we've knocked out their Navy, we've knocked out their Air Force, completely knocked out their Air Force, just about completely knocked out, we knocked out 154 ships and pretty good ships.
In fact, I said, "Why don't we just take them instead of sinking them? We could have used them ourselves, right?" But, uh, they like, they like showing how tough they are. They like them at the bottom of the sea probably a little bit better. But think of it, we knocked out their Navy, we knocked out their Air Force, we knocked out most of their missiles.
They're down to about 9%. We knocked out their missile launchers, which is a big deal because without the missile launchers, the missiles don't do very well. You can't go to your window and say, "Let's throw a window out, uh, missile out of the air." And, and we knocked out all of their communications, their telecommunications, and very importantly, we knocked out their anti-aircraft apparatus, which was very good, but it didn't last long because we, we hit it the second night, and they, we, we're just, we're just free flying right over the middle of Tehran, do whatever we want.
And one other thing we knocked out was their leaders, so we knocked out the Supreme Leader as they called him, uh, Khomeini. We then knocked out, they then named another one, we knocked them out. And we knocked out part of the third group and we're just holding for the rest. We know where they all are. And it's one country that does not want to be, you have very few people wanna be the leader.
You know, everyone wants to be president of the United States. Everyone wants to be president or whatever, prime minister of a certain country. There are not a lot of takers to be the head of Iran right now. I will tell you, they're all fighting not to, we don't want that position. But they asked me if they would, uh, Kayleigh, importantly, they said to me, very nicely, through my people, "Could we have more time?" Because we're talking about tomorrow night, which is pretty quick.
And if they don't do what they have to do, I will knock out their power plants. And they said, "Does that include nuclear? Because they have nuclear, you know, plenty of money. They have a lot of money. And they built nuclear and they built regular power plants, but they're massive and very expensive, billions of dollars.
And so I gave them, uh, a 10 day period. They asked for seven. You're gonna say, "Oh, Trump's a terrible negotiator. They asked for seven." And I said, "I'm gonna give you 10," because they gave me ships. [Laughs] We talked about the eight ships, you know, the President that I talked about the other day, but, uh, they asked for seven and I gave them 10. You got 10 days.
And they were very thankful about that. Now, they may say, "Oh, we're not speaking." That, I don't like that because that wasn't true the last time, as you found out. But, uh, we are speaking and it's going fairly well. And so I gave them 10 days.
Kennedy: Well, that was nice. You're very generous, Mr. President, it's Kennedy.
Trump: I am.
Kennedy: [Laughs] Yeah. Um, so you, you talk about some of the people in Iran who are left in the regime. They don't wanna be the Supreme Leader, uh, because they know it's probably a short term position. There are a lot of Democrats in this country who would like to be president. They would like to succeed you and they are using this war, uh, as a battering ram, uh, people like Seth Moulton who ran in 2024, he is saying that, or sorry, 2020. He's saying, "You are losing this war." And my question for you, in terms of people who may be giving you pushback on the Democrat side, and even some within your own party, what does winning this war look like?
Trump: Well, we've already won the war. Militarily, we've totally won the war. Uh, we even knocked out all their mine, they call them mine droppers. They drop, how'd you like to have a, a country that has 22 ships that do nothing but drop mines in the water? [Laughs] You know, you know you're off to a bad start when you hear that.
Now, a guy like Moulton, I don't know who he is, I don't think I ever met him, but he's a loser. I mean, I watch him on television, he's a total loser. And they use this, you know, I watch poor Chuck. I mean, Chuck Schumer is a great Palestinian, represents the Palestinian nation right now. He's no longer Jewish, I guess. [Laughter] What he's done to the Jewish people is incredible.
They hate him. But, uh, remember this, uh, they are good at one thing sticking together. They have horrible policy and they lie. And, you know, they did everything they could to beat me. I won three times. Unfortunately, the election was rigged the second time and everybody knows it, and now all the proof is coming out.
It's coming out loud and clear. We won by millions of votes the second time. But I don't talk about it. I go onto this. Let's do it again. You know, if I didn't think I won the second time, I knew I won by a lot, I wouldn't have run the third time because, you know, that's like the ultimate poll. But I knew how well we did the second time, but the third time we made it too big to rig.
So, uh, for those people that say the level of popularity, CNN, your friends at CNN, fake news CNN, one of the worst networks you'll ever see, one of the most dishonest, disgusting groups of people. But what happened is they did a poll and the poll came out yesterday or day before, and, "Is Trump losing MAGA support?" The poll was 100%, and you know their pollsters, he's got a lot of energy and he's pretty good.
He probably won't have a job very long, but he said, "Whoa, whoa." It was 100% of the people, the MAGA people and, which is mostly, I think MAGA's almost the whole Republican party, you want to know the truth. Almost everybody endorsed wins. E- -- almost every single person that I endorse wins and Kayleigh knows that better than anybody. She was witness to it for a long time.
McEnany: Mm-hmm.
Trump: And she's doing a good job by the way. But almost everybody. So they did a poll at CNN two days ago and, uh, you, I think you probably saw it, maybe you put it on, but it was 100% support. So it's wrong. We have people that are weak or stupid or low IQ people that don't mind having Iran have a nuclear weapon.
The MAGA people are smart. Now, that doesn't mean they want us over there for, like Bush, for, for years. You know, just for years. I always said, "Don't go into Iraq, but if you do, keep the oil." Well, we are a very powerful military. We're the most powerful military nation in the world, and we did a big number on them, and our people like it because they don't want to see us, 100%, think of it, 100% in a CNN poll.
A CNN poll, which are the worst polls, almost as bad as Fox polls, I hate Fox polls. [Laughter] Well, honestly, whoever does your polls, they're terrible. [Laughter] Rupert Murdoch has promised me for years he's gonna get rid of your pollster, but he doesn't do it. [Laughter] I don't get it. But your, your Fox polls are terrible.
But, uh, the pollsters that are good have me leading by a lot and leading every candidate if I, I'd love to run, but, you know, there's some things you can't do in life, I guess. Not allowed to do, but, uh, we're very popular. I mean, what can I say? MAGA loves the fact that they're not gonna have somebody with a nuclear bomb over their head.
MAGA loves the fact like in Venezuela, everyone said, "Oh, this is gonna be very unpopular." Well, we're now taking in hundreds of millions of barrels of oil from Venezuela, and we're giving them a lot and we're keeping a lot, and Venezuela's doing better than they've ever done. We had a hundred million barrels of oil in the first week.
We more than paid for the entire attack by, in fact, we made it, it, it probably four or five times more than the cost of that attack, but it showed the military power. I mean, the war was over in 45 minutes. And that's a strong military kind of, you know, i- -- if you go to Venezuela, everybody wears a uniform, all right?
There's a lot of people. But we, we're getting along great with them. Now, MAGA loves it because we're there and we're participating and it's, you know, one of the most valuable oil sites or oil countries in the world, just behind us. We're now, we're producing now more oil than Saudi Arabia and Russia put together.
And we don't need the Hormuz Strait. What bothers me is that countries that do, don't do anything about it. We're actually doing this for other countries. We don't, we don't need it. We did 1%. We don't have to do anything. We don't need the 1%. I think we did it just because we wanted to be nice to him.
We don't need it. But, uh, I think, I think I'm more popular than I ever have been. Look, when he heard 100%, he said, "I've never seen a poll like this. This is the craziest poll I've ever seen." It was 100% of the people. And the reason is they like that I'm protecting our country from lunatics with a nuclear weapon.
Jesse Watters: Uh, Mr. President, the next time you do this on The Five, can we have you on set because we really want you to sit next to Jessica. [Laughs] She, she, I think you'd be a good influence on her. Can you do that?
Trump: Well, I, I think, uh, I watch Jessica and I'm not a fan. [Laughter] And she, she uses fake numbers. She'll give, "Well, he's only polling 42%." That's not right. Polling, polling very high, actually. Uh, you know, polls are just like, I hate people that use fake polls because polls are just like bad journalists. You know, bad journalists, they write fake stories. Well, fake polls do damage also. But that's the thing. I'm sure I'd like her. I'm sure she's a lovely person.
Watters: Yeah, she's a lovely person.
Trump: She is --
Watters: She really misses the fact that --
Trump: She's just not for me.
Watters: -- she's not here. I get it.
Trump: Yeah.
Watters: We're, we're working on her, don't worry. [Laughs]
Trump: Now tell me, did she not want to do it --
Watters: No.
Trump: -- or did you kick her off the show?
Watters: No. [Laughs] We didn't kick her off. She had a --
Trump: Yeah?
Watters: -- a previous schedule that she couldn't change. But let me ask you about Iran. You kind of suggested that we'd knocked out Ayatollah Jr. Have we, and did the CIA tell you that Ayatollah Junior's gay?
Trump: Well, they did say that, but I don't know if it was only them. I think a lot of people are saying that, which puts them off to a bad start in that particular country, you know? I, I sort of have to smile to myself when I say, uh, I see people trying to defend the Palestinian regime for women, women for Palestine, but they kill women if you don't wear a certain group of, if you don't wear a certain cloth all over your face, you have no chance of living.
And, you know, when I look at, uh, gays for Palestine, but they kill gays. They kill them instantly. They throw them off buildings and I'm saying, "Who are the gays for Palestine?" And they have a significant amount of gays for Palestine. Now, I think when, you know, I did very well with the gay vote, okay? [Laughs] I even had, I even played the gay national anthem as my walk off, okay? [Laughter] And I think it probably helped me, but I did great with no Republicans ever gotten, uh, the gay vote like I did -- [Laughter] -- and I'm very proud of it. I think it's great.
Perhaps it's because I'm from New York City, I don't know. [Laughter] But, but the, the gay national anthem was my walk off and I think it probably had, but think of it, gays for Palestine -- [Laughter] -- but they kill gays in Palestine. So, when they hear that, I think probably we can talk them out of it. It shouldn't be too hard. [Laughter]
Dana Perino: Hi, Mr. President. It's Dana, and --
Trump: Hi, Dana.
Perino: -- I think it is alarming that we have not been able to see or hear from any of the Iranian people. And I imagine that is because their internet is shut down, and I think there is some general worry about them. Um, obviously their government treats them terribly and killed tens of thousands of them in January. Do you, a- -- again, I, like Kayleigh, I would never ask you to tell us something that is classified, but do you have any insight as to how they are doing? Do they have drinking water?
Trump: I do.
Perino: Do they have food? I, it's --
Trump: Right, I do.
Perino: -- it's, it's upsetting.
Trump: I do. But first, do you remember when we had lunch years ago in the base of Trump Tower when it was a brand new building?
Perino: It was a long time ago, yes.
Trump: A long time ago.
Perino: We're –
Trump: And you haven't changed.
Perino: Oh. [Laughs]
Trump: You have not changed. [Laughter] Uh, now I'm not allowed to say this. It's the end of my political career, but you may be even better looking, okay? [Laughter] So, I don't know what you're doing.
Watters: Oh, oh.
Trump: But I would not say that --
Perino: Fox hair and makeup has a lot to do with that.
Trump: I would not say that because that will end my political career. You know, you're not allowed to say a woman's beautiful anymore. You know that, Jesse, you gotta be careful.
Perino: Jesse's always in trouble. [Laughter]
Trump: No, he's borderline with this stuff.
Perino: Yes.
Trump: I mean, he's really, but, uh, no, it, it was great. I, I still remember it very well. And, uh, look, in, in my opinion, when you look at what's happened, uh, they're petrified because the one side has guns and they have very nasty guns. They have the worst guns and machine guns. And what they do is they shoot you.
And the people are brave, but they're not brave when they see people going down left and right, no matter who you are. I don't care how brave, unless you're really sort of stupid, you can't really protest. And the only reason they're not protesting is because they're being shot, one after another. And they're doing it with snipers, where they have snipers in buildings.
Not that they have to be snipers because they have, you know, free-range. But it started with the women. You remember about a year ago we had 250,000 women? Well, they had women being shot right between the eyes from snipers, four or five snipers in buildings pretty high up and a little far away. And when you see, and you're a woman or you're a man, frankly, and you see a person dropping to the ground, bleeding --
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: -- from the brain badly, and then you see another one on the other side, and then you'll see five or six or seven, that's all it took. You run, and they ran, and they never came back. And if you noticed, about two weeks ago, they put out a notice that if you protest, we will shoot you. They kill 'em. Look what they did to the wrestler.
They killed him for, for speaking up. They killed him. He was a star wrestler, great wrestler, actually. I- -- Iran has great wrestlers. And he was a star, one of the best. And he, they killed him because he spoke up, spoke against the regime, which is largely decimated. There is, I don't, you know, you could really say we have regime change because [Laughs] step up been killed. They're all dead. No- -- nobody really knows. You know, the reason they gave us the eight ships is I wanted them to prove that we're dealing with somebody that's allowed to --
Gutfeld: Mm-hmm.
Trump: -- deal and they say, "We will give you a present." And the present was eight ships. We're going to give you eight ships. And they actually made it 10. There was eight. And I heard on one of your shows two days ago, in the morning, a very good show hosted by very good people, Fox and Friends. [laughter] And by the way, and I have to say, Maria's great.
You got a lot of great people, you know? You switched back and forth. Maria's great. You have so many great people. Couple of bad ones, but what, you can't have everything. [Laughter] You have a couple of lousy ones. But you can't have everything. But, uh, I watched on the show in the morning, they said, "You know, it's very surprising.
There are eight ships coming up the Strait." And it's exactly what they told us they were gonna give. And then they added two more. And that proved to me that we're dealing with the right people. But then they didn't wanna say that publicly, and I said, "Well, you should say it publicly." And now they are saying it publicly.
Gutfeld: Mr. President, let's shift onto other topics. I'm debating whether to be serious or not serious. I'm gonna go to not serious.
Trump: Either way. Do you think Biden would do this interview? [Laughter] Can you imagine?
Kennedy: No, definitely not.
Gutfeld: No.
Trump: Sleepy Biden, sleepy Joe.
Gutfeld: No.
Kennedy: No way.
Trump: He would be --
Gutfeld: No, it --
Trump: It would've ended in the first 12 seconds. [Laughter] This is what we have.
Gutfeld: You know, you're doing the, uh, White House correspondence dinner, uh, for the first time and you're gonna attend.
Trump: Yeah.
Gutfeld: Why wasn't I asked to do the roast? [Laughter]
Trump: Uh, well, I would love it. Actually, if you would do it, I'd accept it. If they would do that, I would accept that 100%. But, um, you know, I haven't done it because right from the beginning I was treated rather rudely and crudely. You know, I won the election in 2016. It was one of the greatest elections ever.
And, uh, you're all witness to it. And I had great, but they were so nasty. The press was so nasty. I just, and so I didn't do it. And, you know, there's this theory that I was there while Barack Hussein Obama was speaking and he was hitting me a little bit. Actually, it was very nice. And I was actually, I loved it. I really loved it. I was saying to my wife, our first lady, our movie star first lady, now see, you know, I t- -- I always say, "There's only room in w- -- in a family for one star." This is serious.
This could be a problem, but she's a movie star. Can you believe it? [Laughter] But I was saying to her, I said, "You know, I love this. I'm having a good time." Because every joke was about me and I sort of liked it. I can handle that stuff. [Laughter] And they said, "I was so upset with that evening that I decided that evening to run for president," whatever it wasn't, but it was at the White House dinner, had nothing to do with my running for president. I actually enjoyed it, but I never did it.
Gutfeld: Hmm.
Trump: And I, I said, "I'll do it." Now, you know, we had a great election victory. Won the popular vote. We won, uh, i- -- if you take a look at the counties in America, 87% of the counties in America, that's why when you look at, they go by counties when they do the coloring and you look at a map of the United States, it's all red except for two little blue lines along the edge.
And the, if you look at the little New York and a little California. And I think California, I think we're, I think we have a chance. If they would have no mail-in voting in California, I would win California. [Laughter] And the right person, the right Republican could win, but they send out like 38 million ballots.
A lot of them go to Democrats. In many cases, you get two, three, four. The highest number I've heard was seven. And Republicans are there calling for their ballot. You know, they're saying, "Do you have my ballot, please?" So anyway, but, uh, we won 86% of the counties in America. So, you know, it was like a great election.
And I don't know, I think as bad as they've been, they've been better to me than they were in the first four years. It's hard to be bad. We have, we, we will soon, you'll see. I mean, we had up, up until I decided to make this little, uh, journey, as we talk about, to Iran, we've had the best economy ever.
We have $18 trillion being invested in our country. No country's ever had three. The record is three, happened to be China many years ago, 10 years ago. We have 18 coming in and they're building plants all over the United States. It's a- -- I just left the head of Micron. It's one of the hottest companies.
But, uh, you have Jensen, you have, uh, you have, from NVIDIA, you have all these people, they're all building plants one after another. I'm making it possible for them to do it. We're getting into the permits rapidly. We're letting them build their own electric because we have an old grid system that wouldn't allow it. So we're letting them build their own electric plants.
They're building electric plants for every one of their big buildings because they're massive buildings that we wouldn't be able to supply that kind of power. You know, they need these new, the new factories in this country need more than double the electricity that we currently have for the whole nation, for everything.
Think of it, more than double. We need twice as much electricity as we, and what we're doing is saying, "You build it yourself." This way, they can't complain, but we're getting them fast approvals. Lee Zeldin is doing a great job.
McEnany: Mr. President, Kayleigh again, two things happen tomorrow. TSA misses their second paycheck, $1 billion in missed paychecks, and Congress is set to go on a paid spring break vacation. Uh, Thune says he's given his last and final offer to Democrats, and you tweeted out today, "Terminate the filibuster." You said, Thune said, "I got a call this morning to that effect from the president." Where do things stand with TSA? Will they get paid and should Republicans nuke the filibuster to do it?
Trump: Well, look, I like John Thune and I, you know, it's not easy for him because he's got three or four people in there that, you know, I'm not big fans of, frankly, and that, uh, don't vote for us, uh, like they should. Uh, you have, uh, perhaps I shouldn't mention their names. [Laughter] But you have three or four people that I am not at all fans of, and, you know, it's not an easy job for John.
And I, and I'm telling you, the, the Democrats, the one thing they do is they stick together. They don't have these people like, uh, Massie, who's just a terrible congressman. They don't have Rand Paul. I call Massie Rand Paul Jr. They both come from Kentucky. I call him Rand Paul Jr. Never votes, no matter what.
You can give him voter ID and five other things that are perfect and he'll figure out a way not to vote. It's just, uh, there's something wrong with the guy. Uh, Rand votes, uh, you know, Rand said, "Trump is one of the greatest presidents in the history of our country." And I called him and I said, "I'd rather have you vote." [Laughter] "Take the statement back, just give us your vote." But, uh, you know, I, I sort of like the guy, but he just doesn't vote for g- -- good things. It's just crazy. Wants to be a libertarian, I guess. [Laughter] But he just said --
Perino: Wooh.
Trump: -- "I'm fine with libertarians." [Laughter] "I'm sort of a libertarian myself." But you have others. You have, uh, Murkowski from Alaska. I've given Alaska probably more. She's a very difficult person, very, very, very terrible person, to be honest with you. And, uh, you have Collins -- [Laughter] -- and I won half of Maine.
You know, I win Maine. I win the lumberjacks and the fishermen. I win those big, strong lumberjacks. They like Trump. But, uh, she wins the other part of Maine, and I hope she wins because we have to, she's a good person, actually -- [Laughter] -- but we have to, we have to win. We have to keep the majority.
Otherwise, all of the things that we've done are gonna go down the tubes. But I would terminate the filibuster and I'd take a vote, and I'd have everything done, and I'd vote on voter ID and I'd vote on, uh, s- -- uh, well, citizenship. I'd vote on no mail-in ballots other than if you're, you know, military, or you're ill, or you're traveling.
I mean, I'll be generous about it, but no mail-in ballots are inherently dishonest. Jimmy Carter said that. The greatest thing Jimmy Carter ever did was after he got out of office, he had, because his office, his, his tenure in office was not good. He did something that is, is horrible.
Note: [Crosstalk]
Trump: He gave away a thing called the Panama Canal for $1. This was perhaps the worst deal ever made. The Panama Canal for $1 was not good. It was most ex- --I don't know if you know. Panama Canal was the most expensive thing, if you bring it to current dollars, ever built in the history of our country, in the history of the world, and it was a massive.
We lost 38,000 people because of the mosquito and a particularly vicious snake. [Laughter] This was not a friendly area. This was not a hospitable climate for the climate change people. [Laughter] And they built the Panama, but they lose, uh, 38,000 American lives were lost, and it's a, uh, it was the most ex, at the time, it was. It's the equivalent to $5 trillion today, and he gave it away for $1.
McEnany: Yeah.
Trump: It's also very profitable, by the way. Always was very, very profitable. Should never have given it away. So, you know, uh, I like to see things done. I would like to see the filibuster terminated. I think it's great. And here's the one thing, and, uh, I saw Greg say this the other night and I do like his show. I like all of your shows, actually. I'm glad Jessica's not there. [Laughter]
Perino: No.
Trump: Because I think, uh, no, actually, I think your show would be better without it, but, you know, who am I to say that? [Laughter]
Watters: Isn't that terrible?
Trump: I think it would be a lot better, but, uh, Kennedy, you're doing an excellent job.
Kennedy: Thank you. [Inaudible]
Trump: But, you know, you know, we have a filibuster that would give us the right to vote and we wouldn't need the Democrat votes, and you have a couple of Republicans, but remember this, and you all said it, they are going to vote for it. If they ever get in a position where they get the presidency and the, and hope that doesn't happen because they would destroy what we built, but if they ever got in the position where they got the majorities and the presidency, they will vote on it in the first hour.
Maybe the first day, but I think the first hour. And when you know that, why are, why are they doing this? They should vote on the filibuster and they should prove everything. And they should also get voter ID and all of those other things that I said. For instance, men and women's sports voted in, just voted in. We're winning it anyway, but voted in. There's so many things.
They're like a hundred, you know, I love when they say they're 20, 80-20. They're not 80-20. They're 98 to 2, and vote this stuff in. But some Democrats, uh, they stick together and, and the Republicans, we, it, it only takes three or four people. And, uh, we have, we have a few beauties.
Watters: [Laughter] Uh, Mr. President, speaking of mosquitoes and snakes, uh, Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris, they're both on book tour. Taking some --
Trump: Yeah.
Watters: -- shots at each other. Kamala took a shot in her book, uh, on Gavin. This is sound of Gavin reacting to that. Listen to this. Go.
Note: [Begin video clip]
Alex Thompson: [Video clip] Why don't you guys like each other?
Gavin Newsom: [Video clip] No, quite the contrary. It goes --
Thompson: [Video clip] So BFFs?
Newsom: [Video clip] Uh, it goes back 20 plus years ago. I think the press and pundits wanna make something of that. And so they try to color it in. Um, her, she, she gave me a little shot as it relates to the actual truth of the, the walk I was on. She added that in. I think it created some color for the book.
Thompson: [Video clip] Mm-hmm.
Newsom: [Video clip] It certainly helped her book sells, not my component part, but that book has done unbelievably well.
Thompson: [Video clip] Did you --
Newsom: [Video clip] Extraordinary well.
Thompson: [Video clip] -- did you read it?
Newsom: [Video clip] I did not fully read it. I've got it, I've read, I've read excerpts. I meant, Kamala, I have not fully [Laughs] absorbed the book.
Note: [End video clip]
Watters: So who do you think's gonna rise to the top? Newsom, or Harris?
Trump: Well, first of all, he said he can't read. [Laughter] Okay? You know, he did an interview. I have no idea who did the interview. I've never seen the gentleman. I'm sure he's excellent. But he did an interview a couple of weeks ago that was maybe the worst interview for a professional politician that I've ever seen.
He said he's mentally incompetent. He can't read a speech. He said things about his brain. He's got bad board scores. He's got bad this. And then he looked at the room and he said something to the effect that, uh, "I'm dumb just like all of you people." [Laughter] And he ends up being called a racist because of that statement.
This was the worst interview, but he admitted that he was a stupid person. [Laughter] And we don't want a stupid person as president. And if you watch him with the hands and everything else, there's something wrong with the guy. Uh, he's a nice looking guy, but he's losing the look. [Laughter] He's losing it. It happens. [Laughter] It happens.
It's all right. [Laughter] He's losing the look. And, you know, we want an intelligent person. He admits that he suffers from mental disability. He admits it. And somebody said, a, a reporter, a fake reporter said to me, "Well, it's not fair that you talk about he's mentally disabled." I said, "Yeah, but he said that he's essentially mentally disabled." And I, I think it's fine. I just don't want it in a president, okay?
Watters: Mm-hmm.
Trump: We have enough problems. We just had that, by the way. [Laughter] We went through four years of that, and look what it got us, not good.
Watters: [Laughs] Not good.
Trump: Sleepy. It got us sleepy Joe.
Perino: Um, uh, hi, it's Dana again. So I have a kind of a pop culture question for you.
Trump: Okay.
Perino: Um, so I was new to, I'm new to New York, relatively speaking, so 15 years. Um, and there's all these young people across America are watching Love Story, which is the story of JFK Jr. And Carolyn Bessette. Right. And I'm curious, did you know JFK Jr. And do you have any nostalgia for the '90s?
Trump: So a little bit, but actually I love the '80s a little more than the 90s. [Laughter] The 90s, I was fighting hard. You know, we were in sort of a depression, countrywide depression, and depressions aren't great when you're in the real estate business, but I did great in it. I did well. I always made money.
I made money in good times and bad times, but it was a, you know, it was a sort of a nasty time economically, a lot of the nights. But I actually knew him and liked him and he liked me, believe it or not. He actually put me on the cover of his magazine, George. And I got to be friendly with him and he would go down to Mar-a-Lago with me and with Carolyn.
Uh, that, it was a tragic thing. Look, he was going to sell that magazine, which was, you know, a little bit of an anchor. It didn't work out too well. It was okay, but it was fine. Today, magazines are not doing too well, but in those days, they'd be all right. It was all right, but it wasn't great and it wasn't good for him.
You know, his mother didn't want, he wanted to be a, uh, Broadway actor more than any other thing. He wanted to be a Broad- -- I knew him very well, actually. He liked me. Can you believe it? [Laughter] He liked me. And, uh, and I liked him. Let me tell you, he's a very handsome guy. He was a handsome guy.
You don't get better looking and he was going to run for politics. He was going to run for the Senate, he told me, and nobody would have beaten him, and he probably would have ended up being president, because he had a lot of good things. He was a g-, he was sort of a great guy. Uh, I knew them both pretty well.
I knew him much better. They would go down to Mar-a-Lago together. And they had a very interesting relationship. They would bicker. I don't want to be nice. They would bicker together. They would.
Kennedy: Ooh.
Trump: In other words, they would have little fights. [Laughter] And then they'd make up and start kissing wildly. [Laughter] So it, it was, it was one of those relationships. And you never know how those relationships are gonna turn out. Frankly, I've seen him go on for years, and I've seen him go on for about two days before they broke up. [Laughter] But, but they would, they would bicker like, like few people I've ever seen.
But, you know, the bottom line is, and, and he was, he, every, every woman loved him. He was a truly good-looking guy that was a, a nice guy. And I think he would've been the senator easily. I mean, easily. And he's gonna run for the Senate in New York. And I think he would've gone on perhaps to be the president.
Gutfeld: Oh.
Kennedy: Well, someone who's a little less charming than, uh, JFK Jr. God rest his soul. Jimmy Kimmel.
Trump: Right.
Kennedy: Uh, one of those lackluster late-night hosts took aim at, uh, your new DHS chief. Let's hear what he had to say last night about Markwayne Mullin.
Note: [Begin video clip]
Jimmy Kimmel: [Video clip] Trump's got a whole new generation of thinkers lined up, including his newly confirmed Secretary of Homeland Security, Markwayne 'Chuck Mike Bruce Dave' Melon -- Mullin. [Laughter] Mel-, maybe Melon's better. He is the now-former senator of Oklahoma.
[Video clip] Before he was elected to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin was a low-level MMA fighter and a plumber. That's right. We have a plumber protecting us from terrorism now.
Note: [End video clip]
Kennedy: Uh, what do you think about those comments?
Trump: Well, I've watched this guy. He's a, you know, he's a loser. He gets no ratings. None. He's got no talent. He's got Trump derangement syndrome. I mean, I, I, whenever I watch, I just can't believe that he's even on the air. He shouldn't be on the air. He's got, he, you know, in the old days when you didn't have good ratings or you didn't have any ratings practically, you get fired.
He should be canned. Markwayne is fantastic. He's, you know, he became very successful. He took over a small company from his parents. And he made it very, very successful, made money. He was also a very good fighter, very, very good fighter. I don't know what, I've never heard low-level MMA. I mean, if you fight these guys, these are rough cookies, and if you fight, and he had a good record; he had a very good record in fighting.
Uh, but, you know, that's unimportant. He, but he is sort of a fighter. But more than any, you know, I call him country smart. He's a very smart guy. He's got a great way. Everybody loves him. He got a couple of Democrat votes, which is shocking nowadays, right? But everybody loves him, and I think he's gonna do a fantastic job. He's got a great way about him, and people respect him a lot.
McEnany: Mr. President, could I ask, where are you right now? I know that may be a weird question. Are you in the Oval Office?
Trump: Yeah. I'm in the Oval Office. I'm usually there waiting for a call. How are we doing on Iran? How are we doing in Venezuela? How are we doing in all different things, all different aspects? I cover a lot of different topics. No, I love the Oval Office. It's the greatest office anywhere in the world. You know, I have people come in, the biggest people in the world, presidents and prime ministers and the biggest business people.
And they walk into the office and they, they, you really are at an advantage because they are so freaked out by the Oval Office. [Laughter] They can't believe it, you know, that they're there. No, it's, it's the most precious piece of real estate in the world. And we're building a ballroom. You know, they've been after one for 150 years that we're building what will be, I think, the best anywhere in the world.
It, it'll be unbelievable. And, you know, it's interesting. You have the, uh, preservation, essentially, this group preservation. [Laughter] The, uh, uh, a group of preservative, they sue me for that. They sue me because the Trump Kennedy Center; I'm fixing it. It's in horrible shape. Actually dangerous shape with steel that's rusting and rotting, roofs that are falling in, rain is pouring.
It's the worst thing you've ever seen. It's gonna be incredible. They sue me, but they don't sue the guy that's billions of dollars over budget and destroyed, actually destroyed, the Federal Reserve Building. That's Jerome "too late" Powell. [Laughs] It's, it's, I said, "Did they sue him?" I built under budget ahead of schedule.
And by the way, there's no cost. You know, I'm building the, the ballroom, and it's a very big thing with the military and everything else. Military is very much involved. It's a big, big deal, and it's great. It's gonna be beautiful. But you would think that they'd go after a guy who's destroyed the Federal Reserve Building.
Federal Reserve building was so beautiful. He ripped down the wor-, the most beautiful part of it. I would've done that job for $25 million; that it would've been gorgeous, and I think they're gonna hit the four billion dollar mark for a renovation of a small little complex. It's a little complex. And I say, "Why aren't you suing Powell?" And t- -- they don't know.
They have no idea. But we're building a really, a beautiful w- -- it'll be as, I think it'll be one of the most beautiful ballroom, maybe the most beautiful ballroom anywhere in the world, and it's very much fitting with the White House, and the White House deserves it. But presidents for 150 years wanted a ballroom.
Uh, and many of you, I'm sure, were invited to big events. We have the president of China, you have France, our friend Macron, a wonderful friend, a wonderful friend, but he wasn't exactly there. He wasn't quick with the ships. [Laughter] When he heard we were fighting Iran, I wouldn't say he was quick to the draw. "Donald, Donald, may I call you back next week?" [Laughter] "Oh, yes, call me back." Then they all say, "No, we'll send them immediately," but I said, "No, I don't need 'em anymore.
We won. I don't need you anymore. I'd like you before we won, not after we won." But, you know, um, the people would have a tent and the tent would have a thousand people, because we have a very small room here, very small and much, ridiculously small. And if it rained, the water would always go, because it's at a low point on the ground, it's the only place for the tent, and so if it rained, if it rained hard, the water would be four, five inches off the ground.
So you can see the president of China, President Xi, sitting there, after having left one of the great ballrooms of the world, the Great Hall of China, they call it, [Inaudible] sitting there with water over his ankles. Now, we're gonna give, we're giving them one of the, and, and by the way, no taxpayer money used at all for all this stuff.
The arc, we're doing a triumphal arc, which is, which was, you know, the circle by the bridge, by the Arlington Bridge near Arlington Cemetery. It's been, they've wanted to be built for 175 years. A thing got in the way, a little event got in the way called the Civil War. [Laughter] The Civil War. They were going to build it, and then they had, had the Civil War. And, uh, that, I think it was a good excuse, but we're doing that. We're, we're getting it built. It's going to be beautiful. And we're doing a lot of good things.
Perino: Could we ask you one last final question before we --
Trump: Yes.
Perino: -- lose our show to Bret Baier?
Trump: Yes.
Perino: This comes from a very dear friend of mine. She's curious who you will be rooting for at the Masters.
Trump: Well, i- -- it's, it's such a danger. I have so many friends that are professional, top professional golfers that they're so good. Uh, Bryson DeChambeau, Rory McIlroy. I love Tiger, but he won't be there. He will be there, but he won't be playing in it. I have so many friends and they're such great players. They're such talented. They're long. You know, Jesse's gonna be a good player. I saw Jesse hitting a ball a little while ago. Jesse's gonna be okay. Not of this caliber quite. [Laughter] Right, Jess? But --
Watters: I'm getting there. [Laughter]
Trump: Jesse's getting there. But --
Watters: I need a little more time. I have two shows. It's -- [Laughter] -- it's hard --
Trump: Yeah.
Watters: -- to get out there and swing.
Trump: And you haven't been playing that long.
Watters: No.
Trump: No, he's got some golf talent. But so I don't, they're all, they're just great players. So it's hard for me. If I pick somebody, I'm gonna have enemies. I'll, I've, I'll have 10 guys that no longer speak to me. But you have great talent. These are very talented. Scottie Scheffler is amazing. He's num- the number one ranked player.
Bryson DeChambeau and the LIV, Bryson DeChambeau on the LIV Tour, in the last two weeks, he won both tournaments, you know? I mean, he's fantastic. So he's going in hot. Rory's hot. You got great players. The great talents that's gonna be, it's one of my favorite events of all time, the M- -- the Mast --
Perino: And hers too. Anyway, thanks, thanks for --
Trump: It's so beautiful.
Perino: -- taking that question. I had a feeling you would be, um, smart --
Trump: I, I have to be like --
Perino: -- not to answer it. [Laughs]
Trump: Right. I have to be a politician like --
Perino: Yes.
Trump: -- when they say who's gonna win the Super Bowl, you know? Stuff like that. [Laughter] So that's good. But it's a fair question.
Gutfeld: President Trump, it was a pleasure speaking with you.
Perino: Absolutely.
Trump: Thank you, Greg.
Gutfeld: Have a great evening.
Trump: Thank you very much. Well, this was fun. [Laughter] I have a, I'm a big fan of all of you, and I just, uh, thank you. It's an honor to be with you, and our country is doing fantastically well, and you can be proud of it. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world.
Kennedy: Who's gonna be the next president? [Laughter]
Trump: Well, I, I would say that it will be a Republican. I really believe that, and I think it'll be a good one. I think we have a combination of people that would be very good. You put together a little combination, I think it would be hard to beat the combination, so I think you can figure that out, but -- [Laughter] -- I think, I think it's gonna be, I do believe it's gonna be a Republican, I hope so, because we ma- -- we've made so many great strides. It would be a shame to see that thrown away.
Gutfeld: Thank you, Mr. President.
McEnany: Thank you.
Gutfeld: Thank you so much.
Perino: Thank you. It was great.
Kennedy: Thank you.
Trump: Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. Bye.
Gutfeld: Well, that was fun.