Transcript - Interview: Andy Mehalshick of WBRE-WYOU News Wilkes-Barre Interviews Donald Trump - August 20, 2020 | Factba.se

Kaley O'Kelley

00:00:00 - 00:00:11 (11 sec)

Condolences about your brother. I'm very sorry to hear that.

Donald Trump

00:00:11 - 00:00:18 (7 sec)

I appreciate that. Yeah, he's a good guy.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:00:18 - 00:01:59 (101 sec)

Obviously you're here to talk about the wall, talk about border security. We just heard you speak to a lot of people. I want to talk about law and order. We've seen Seattle, we've seen Portland, we're seeing what's happening in Chicago. The country is hurting right now. We are deeply divided. Joe Biden may become president for the sole reason that America wants something different.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:01:59 - 00:02:06 (7 sec)

What would you do in a second term to change this, to unify the nation?

Donald Trump

00:02:06 - 00:03:34 (88 sec)

Well, we had it. It was done. And then the virus came in. We were very successful. The division was ending. We had the highest unemployment rates in a positive way. But we had the best employment numbers that we've ever had. And it was done. Success was bringing us together. And then the China virus came and now we have to do it again.

Donald Trump

00:03:34 - 00:03:52 (17 sec)

We're already doing it. The level of employment, the retail sales, the manufacturing numbers are higher than they were even before. So we're doing it again.

Donald Trump

00:03:52 - 00:05:28 (96 sec)

The problem areas that you're talking about, in every case they're Democrat run, weak run areas, whether it's Portland or Chicago or New York. And those are areas, Republican areas don't have any problem. If they don't straighten it out, I'll straighten it out. But we need law and order. But if they don't straighten it out, we're going to straighten it out ourselves.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:05:28 - 00:05:31 (2 sec)

What does that mean?

Donald Trump

00:05:31 - 00:06:28 (57 sec)

Well, that means we'll go in and straighten it out because we have no choice. Portland's been going on for almost 90 days. Last night I saw what they did to that young man, that was terrible, and a couple of women. These are thugs. These are anarchists. If they don't straighten it out, it's Democrat governor, Democrat mayor.

Donald Trump

00:06:28 - 00:06:41 (14 sec)

If they don't straighten it out, we'll straighten it out.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:06:41 - 00:07:31 (50 sec)

I want to talk to you about education because getting our kids back to school safely, it's highly political, it's extremely divisive. Here in Arizona, we've had health benchmarks. They were set, not met. Still, some schools are back on campus and the kids, the teachers, parents, parents like me, we're caught in the middle.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:07:31 - 00:07:44 (13 sec)

We had a school board member in Lake Havasu who wants schools open. And she said, "We need to have a conversation on what's an acceptable death count." Is she right?

Donald Trump

00:07:44 - 00:09:01 (76 sec)

I think that when you look at schools, it's a very unique situation. Young children, frankly, the younger they are, but they have a strong immune system, and they just don't have the problems. If you look at numbers just statistically, you take 1%, and then it's a tiny fraction of 1%. These are the ones that have big problems.

Donald Trump

00:09:01 - 00:10:19 (79 sec)

It's very, very little. We have to get our country back. Don't forget this shutdown stuff... And I had to shut the country down because nobody knew what was happening. We saved millions of lives. It wouldn't be the 170,000. It would be millions and millions of lives. And we've done everything right. We've done it.

Donald Trump

00:10:19 - 00:11:36 (77 sec)

We've done ventilators, we've gotten the equipment, we've stopped the whole country and everything. But we've learned about the disease. We have to open our schools. Hopefully we're going to be playing football. Now they're talking about the football stuff in colleges, et cetera. But we did the right thing.

Donald Trump

00:11:36 - 00:11:50 (14 sec)

We've done it right, and we have to open our schools.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:11:50 - 00:12:50 (60 sec)

You heard the naysayers though, when you said nobody's coming in. This was back in, was it February or March? I mean, you have to look back on that. There were a lot of people who were upset about that. And now, I mean, you look at this and --

Donald Trump

00:12:50 - 00:13:29 (38 sec)

Yeah. What I've done is I put the ban on China from coming in. And if I didn't do that... That was in January. That was a long time ago. And if I didn't do that, we would have, even Dr. Fauci said, We would have had hundreds of thousands of more deaths. I put a ban. And nobody agreed with me at the time, but now they all agree with me.

Donald Trump

00:13:29 - 00:13:40 (11 sec)

Biden was totally against it. He was going, "You're racist, xenophobic." And then he apologized because I was right.

Donald Trump

00:13:40 - 00:14:21 (41 sec)

Pelosi, the same thing months later. So we did the right thing. We've done a lot of really good, smart things. But, I heard about New Zealand, how well it was doing. They just had a big surge. I heard about all these places. We are doing well. Florida is down now. California is down. Arizona's way down.

Donald Trump

00:14:21 - 00:15:09 (48 sec)

He's done a... He's here now, the governor. They've done a fantastic job.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:15:09 - 00:15:22 (13 sec)

Pediatric numbers, the reports say they're up and that's feeding some of this fear when it comes to the kids.

Donald Trump

00:15:22 - 00:16:10 (48 sec)

You mean that children are up? Yeah. I mean, I've heard that it's such a small number. We have to open our schools. Look, when you shut down, you have other problems. You have depression, you have alcohol, you have drugs, you have a family squabbles, to put it nicely. You have a lot of bad things happen.

Donald Trump

00:16:10 - 00:16:33 (23 sec)

So it's not like, oh, let's do a shutdown. Shutdowns cause, I think probably, or possibly, much bigger problems than even the virus itself. Especially at this stage.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:16:33 - 00:17:06 (33 sec)

Huge Senate race here. Huge. Battleground state. We've got like McSally up against Kelly. Do you think people realize that a vote for McSally is a vote for you and a vote for Kelly is a vote for Schumer? I've heard that anyway.

Donald Trump

00:17:06 - 00:18:25 (79 sec)

I understand that. I hope so. Schumer is not a popular guy. Bad. As an example, Arizona wants very badly, they want the wall. So do other States that are along the border. They want the wall. They said, they're going to take it down. Biden, Schumer, they want to take the wall down. This is the wall. The wall is incredible.

Donald Trump

00:18:25 - 00:19:25 (60 sec)

It works. Nobody gets through. Nobody. And I mean, it's so high. This is just a small version of it. It goes way up, over 30 feet. And they want to take it down. It's worked so great. We put a lot of it right here. And already, wherever we put it up, the numbers go down to practically nothing. They want to take it down.

Donald Trump

00:19:25 - 00:19:52 (27 sec)

And I know the problems they've had in Yuma, but I've known the problems they have Arizona. And this has been a great thing for Arizona. And they want to take it down.

Donald Trump

00:19:52 - 00:21:10 (78 sec)

They also don't want things like fracking. They don't want oil. They don't want guns. They want to knock out the Second Amendment. How can they have this platform? How can it work? And they're very weak on religion. I have to say. So religion, guns, oil. Go to Texas, try it. Go right here and try it. It doesn't work well.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:21:10 - 00:22:10 (60 sec)

We're hearing that in the crowd. We've got people who are saying these very things. I want to ask you this because this is top of the news today. Today's decision by the postmaster general to suspend cuts until after the election. Can you assure Arizonans and the nation that our ballots, our medicine, our mail will be delivered on time?

Donald Trump

00:22:10 - 00:23:14 (64 sec)

The answer is yes, but the ballots, it's a bad thing. Absentee ballots are great. You request them, they send them. It's been happening for a long time. Florida, other states, that works. But just to send millions of ballots in the mail, who knows who's getting them. They pick up a stack of them, who knows who's getting them.

Donald Trump

00:23:14 - 00:23:20 (6 sec)

It's ripe for fraud. It will be fraud. It'll be a bad thing.

Donald Trump

00:23:20 - 00:24:17 (56 sec)

As far as the post office is concerned, for years they've wanted to cut the post office. I don't want to cut the post office. What I want is I want Amazon and other companies like that, that dump all their packages into our postal system, where we lose $2.50-$3 per package, I want Amazon to pay. And I don't want to fire people that work in the post office.

Donald Trump

00:24:17 - 00:25:36 (79 sec)

I don't want them also charging people for that. Amazon, they make a lot of money because they drop all their packages into the... Not all of them, but a big portion of them... They drop them into the post office. And the post office loses money every time they have a package, they bring you a package. They lose $2.5-$3. Even sometimes, I guess, more than that, depending on the package.

Donald Trump

00:25:36 - 00:25:45 (9 sec)

Now Amazon has to pay and I don't want people fired in the post office. It's very simple.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:25:45 - 00:25:58 (13 sec)

You understand why some of these people are saying, oh, he's trying to undermine the election. And can you speak to that?

Donald Trump

00:25:58 - 00:26:35 (38 sec)

Using that as a soundbite. Look, we're going to do very well. I hope we're going to do very well in Arizona. You had the best year you've ever had last year. And you're going to have the best year you ever had this year. And Martha McSally, we need her. She's really good. I don't know how she's doing. I'm not sure.

Donald Trump

00:26:35 - 00:26:49 (14 sec)

I can tell you though, that as a worker and as a voice in Washington, she's really, really good. And we need her in Washington.

Donald Trump

00:26:49 - 00:27:37 (47 sec)

And you're right. If Schumer ever got in with Pelosi, they would take down the wall. They'd open up the borders. They'd have sanctuary cities all over the place. They'd raise your taxes. They want to raise taxes. They want to quadruple your taxes. And I want to... I've already given you the largest tax cut in history.

Donald Trump

00:27:37 - 00:27:47 (10 sec)

We want to go further because it's going to be growth. We're going to have tremendous growth.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:27:47 - 00:27:50 (3 sec)

I got to know what you're doing the day after the election.

Donald Trump

00:27:50 - 00:27:56 (6 sec)

Hopefully celebrating. Hopefully celebrating. And I appreciate you. Very nice.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:27:56 - 00:27:58 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:27:58 - 00:28:01 (3 sec)

Really nice. Thank you very much.

Kaley O'Kelley

00:28:01 - 00:28:03 (2 sec)

Nice to meet you.