Transcript - Interview: Ed Henry of Fox News Interviews Donald Trump at the Border Wall - September 18, 2019 | Factba.se

Ed Henry

00:00:00 - 00:00:08 (8 sec)

Let's start with some breaking news from the Fed today. You were pretty upset that they only cut it a quarter of a percentage point and you said that Chairman Powell has no guts. Why?

Donald Trump

00:00:08 - 00:00:21 (13 sec)

Well, I think we should do more because other countries have done more. If you look at Germany, if you look at Japan, if you look at so many others, they're cutting much more. In fact, they're borrowing money and getting paid to borrow money, and we're paying interest. And we're the most prime in the world.

Donald Trump

00:00:21 - 00:00:32 (11 sec)

We're doing -- we have this great economy. We're doing better than we've ever done. Our employment numbers are the best they've ever been and unemployment numbers also. We are doing great. But we should be cutting. There's no inflation.

Ed Henry

00:00:32 - 00:00:36 (4 sec)

So you're worried he's putting sort of a wet blanket ahead of 2020?

Donald Trump

00:00:36 - 00:00:44 (7 sec)

Yes, I think what he does is -- I don't think he knows how to play the game very well. They've raised too fast. And I've been saying this openly.

Ed Henry

00:00:44 - 00:00:44 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:00:44 - 00:00:56 (12 sec)

And they've lowered too slow. And he took 25. Some people were hoping for 50. He did 25. But the fact is, when Germany gets paid to loan money, I mean they're loaning -- they're borrowing money.

Ed Henry

00:00:56 - 00:00:56 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:00:56 - 00:01:01 (5 sec)

So they're borrowing -- think of it, they borrow money, and when it comes time to pay it back, people pay them.

Ed Henry

00:01:01 - 00:01:02 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:01:02 - 00:01:11 (9 sec)

And we can't participate in that and it's because of the Fed. So I'm not thrilled with the Fed. But, despite that, we have an incredible economy, and we don't have inflation.

Ed Henry

00:01:11 - 00:01:13 (2 sec)

And Chairman Powell's job is safe?

Donald Trump

00:01:13 - 00:01:15 (3 sec)

It's safe. Yes, it's safe. I mean, sure, why not.

Ed Henry

00:01:15 - 00:01:16 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:01:16 - 00:01:36 (19 sec)

No, I don't pause. I mean he's got a job and, you know, I'm disappointed in him. I'm very disappointed in him. I think he raised far too fast. He also did quantitative tightening, which was not a good thing to do. But it's all right. And, look, we have a great economy and that's not going to make the difference, but it would have given us an edge.

Donald Trump

00:01:36 - 00:01:39 (3 sec)

And instead somebody else has an edge. But they're so far behind us, they can't catch us.

Ed Henry

00:01:39 - 00:01:52 (13 sec)

Yes, on Iran, you announced tough new sanctions today. "The Wall Street Journal" is reporting that you are behind the scenes trying to work the diplomatic angles at the U.N. and have something short of actually war. But why did you tweet "locked and loaded" if you don't want to go to war?

Donald Trump

00:01:52 - 00:02:09 (17 sec)

Well, we'll see what happens. I mean you may have some very strong hit. We're the strongest military in the world by far. When I came in, we were depleted. Now we're very powerful. We have new planes, new missiles, new everything. Every form of equipment. We're building many new ships, as you know, new submarines.

Donald Trump

00:02:09 - 00:02:26 (16 sec)

We're doing things that we haven't done in many, many years. I came in, we were depleted. I told you yesterday, they were very low on ammunition. And I'm being nice when I say that. And I said, that should never happen to another president. Well, we'll see what happens. A lot of things could happen. If we can have a peaceful solution, that's good.

Donald Trump

00:02:26 - 00:02:31 (6 sec)

It's possible that that won't happen. But there's never been a stronger country militarily. Not even close.

Ed Henry

00:02:31 - 00:02:40 (8 sec)

Let's talk about what's behind you because I've interviewed various Democrats on the show, and they'll tell me, this is a fantasy. There's no new wall being built. They've said that. What is this?

Donald Trump

00:02:40 - 00:02:49 (9 sec)

Well, this was not here two weeks ago. So this is all brand new wall. This goes miles up the mountain over here. This goes -- I mean you're seeing that this goes miles down in this direction.

Ed Henry

00:02:49 - 00:02:51 (2 sec)

Yes. They said about 14 miles so far.

Donald Trump

00:02:51 - 00:02:53 (2 sec)

And we're building -- and we're building -- no, we have -- we'll have --

Ed Henry

00:02:53 - 00:02:54 (1 sec)

Here. I mean just here.

Donald Trump

00:02:54 - 00:03:10 (16 sec)

Well, this section is 14, but we're building many that are 50 and 40 and 17 and different areas. We're building on many different sites all up and down along the border. And they get hooked in. Different contractors bid it out. This would be far too much for one contractor to build. But you see the length of this.

Ed Henry

00:03:10 - 00:03:10 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:03:10 - 00:03:11 (1 sec)

So that's just a Democrat --

Ed Henry

00:03:11 - 00:03:15 (3 sec)

But also you have two levels here because you've got 18 feed over here.

Donald Trump

00:03:15 - 00:03:26 (11 sec)

Well, this is Tijuana, and it's been a very, very tough section. A lot of people -- thousands of people are over there trying to get into our country. They can't get in. But, Tijuana, we have a double wall. That's an 18-foot wall.

Ed Henry

00:03:26 - 00:03:26 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:03:26 - 00:03:30 (3 sec)

That's the border. And then if they get over here, they can't get up this wall.

Ed Henry

00:03:30 - 00:03:36 (6 sec)

I was -- I interviewed some border patrol agents. They say sometimes dozens can get over with ladders, but none have gotten over the 30 feet.

Donald Trump

00:03:36 - 00:03:41 (5 sec)

No -- nobody. And we had mountain climbers. We had, in a couple of cases, championship mountain climbers --

Ed Henry

00:03:41 - 00:03:41 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:03:41 - 00:03:48 (7 sec)

And we tested various walls. You have to have the see through ability, otherwise you don't know who's on the other side. They weren't able to get over this wall.

Ed Henry

00:03:48 - 00:03:55 (7 sec)

One border patrol agent told me, no president has brought this kind of attention or resources so that now I can do my job. That's what he told me.

Donald Trump

00:03:55 - 00:04:10 (14 sec)

Well, we're making their job a lot safer, too. And, you know, what else is happening, people aren't even coming up. You see the numbers are going way down and we're not doing a catch and release anymore. And we wish we had help from the Democrats in Congress, but they've -- they want open borders. They don't want this.

Donald Trump

00:04:10 - 00:04:13 (3 sec)

They want criminals to come in. They want human traffickers, crooks.

Ed Henry

00:04:13 - 00:04:16 (3 sec)

But what about Republicans in Congress, sir, because you had two years at the beginning.

Donald Trump

00:04:16 - 00:04:28 (12 sec)

No, they've been -- I know, but they -- I know, but the problem is, I didn't have the votes because, in the Senate, we needed 60 votes and we only had, as you know, we were nine votes short. So we had 51. Now we then a good election and we picked up some more.

Ed Henry

00:04:28 - 00:04:33 (5 sec)

But you regret that Republicans who were in power in the House and Senate didn't push it harder because you could have gotten more of this.

Donald Trump

00:04:33 - 00:04:52 (19 sec)

Well, there's nothing -- but here's the problem. In the House we had no problem, we'd get it approved, right? But in the Senate, we had 51 votes and we needed 60. So that means we needed nine or 10 Democrat votes they wouldn't give us any. We had no democrats. So just, you know, it's a total misnomer. We had a very tiny majority and we needed nine to 10 votes.

Ed Henry

00:04:52 - 00:04:52 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:04:52 - 00:04:58 (7 sec)

And if we didn't get them and we couldn't get them. We had the Republican votes but we didn't have any Democrat votes. So they wouldn't give us the votes.

Note

00:04:58 - 00:04:59 (0 sec)

[Part one of the video ended here. Part two continued in a separate segment.]

Ed Henry

00:04:59 - 00:05:06 (8 sec)

Guns, we're told that your Justice Department, a couple weeks ago, gave you a package, a legislative package, you might move on it Thursday. What are you going to do?

Donald Trump

00:05:06 - 00:05:23 (16 sec)

No, we're not moving on anything. We're going very slowly in one way, because we want to make sure it's right. We want to -- we're doing a very careful job. We're working with the Democrats, we're working with Republicans. Our Attorney General has done a fantastic job in so many ways, he's also in on it and he's looking at it and looking at it very --

Ed Henry

00:05:23 - 00:05:32 (9 sec)

But you know what Beto O'Rourke and other Democrat -- Beto O'Rourke, today, said you have blood on your hands, because there were all these deadly shootings and that you can't wait, you've got to move, he says.

Donald Trump

00:05:32 - 00:05:38 (7 sec)

Part of the problem that we have is because of Beto O'Rourke's statement about taking away guns.

Ed Henry

00:05:38 - 00:05:38 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:05:38 - 00:05:54 (16 sec)

All of the -- a lot of Republicans and some Democrats now are afraid to do anything, to go down that slippery slope. A lot of people think this is just a way of taking away guns and that's not good, because we're not going to allow that. Look, I'm a very strong believer in the Second Amendment. You are too.

Ed Henry

00:05:54 - 00:05:55 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:05:55 - 00:06:01 (6 sec)

But, I'm a very strong believer in the Second Amendment, we're going to protect our Second Amendment, we have plenty of ideas. But, we're going to make sure those ideas work.

Ed Henry

00:06:01 - 00:06:05 (4 sec)

But, you like to Tweet that you've got about 95 percent support in the Republican Party, which you do.

Donald Trump

00:06:05 - 00:06:06 (1 sec)

Ed Henry

00:06:06 - 00:06:12 (6 sec)

So, are you willing to stand up to the NRA and other Republicans and say, look, we're going to meet -- we're going to do something?

Donald Trump

00:06:12 - 00:06:32 (20 sec)

I am, if it's not going to hurt a good, solid, great American citizen from keeping his weapon because they want that and they are entitled to that. We have a Second Amendment. I don't want to have crazy people have guns, I don't want to have bad people have guns, but we're going to do nothing to hurt the Second Amendment, and what we want to do is see if we can come up with a compromise and that's what we're working on.

Ed Henry

00:06:32 - 00:06:44 (12 sec)

The FBI and FISI, we heard these reports a week or so that Andrew McCabe might be indicted. Hasn't happened. The report came out on Comey, it was kind of a slap on the wrist. Are you worried that some of these guys, who you believe were going after you, are going to get off the hook?

Donald Trump

00:06:44 - 00:07:01 (17 sec)

Well, the reporter who called me was a horrible reporter and you'll have to ask the Attorney General about whatever is going on. And on McCabe, certainly, what he's done is just despicable. But, we'll see what happens, we'll see where it all goes. I think that there's a lot of things happening right now, but we'll see what happens.

Ed Henry

00:07:01 - 00:07:17 (16 sec)

Jimmy Carter said that he thinks when he was 80 years old he wouldn't have been able to be president and it was seen as a shot at Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden, and you put out a pretty tough web ad in the last couple days, quoting not Republicans, but Democrats, saying that Joe Biden is not ready, questioning his fitness for the job.

Ed Henry

00:07:17 - 00:07:21 (5 sec)

Are you getting ready for Elizabeth Warren or someone else who’s rising in the polls and not facing Joe Biden in 2020?

Donald Trump

00:07:21 - 00:07:31 (9 sec)

I -- I -- you know, whoever it is -- my attitude is, whoever it is, Elizabeth Warren is doing better than Joe right now. Joe's having a hard time. We'll see what happens, whoever it is I'll take them on and we'll do well.

Ed Henry

00:07:31 - 00:07:33 (3 sec)

And you feel good about your standing and you feel good about the economy?

Donald Trump

00:07:33 - 00:07:58 (24 sec)

I really think that my standing is the best it's been. We had a poll today, 51 percent, and that's despite all of the fake news and all of the -- I say the Democrats and the media, really, are like one. They're -- as if one. But, I think that we're probably doing the best we've done. I think people see what's happening here, people see what's happening with our military, what's happening with the vets where we got Choice (ph) approved.

Donald Trump

00:07:58 - 00:08:07 (10 sec)

You look at all of the things that we're doing, even where you have an attack like in Saudi Arabia where people thought that maybe our oil price was going to double, they barely went up and now they're coming rapidly down.

Ed Henry

00:08:07 - 00:08:08 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:08:08 - 00:08:14 (6 sec)

No, we're in great shape. I think we're going to be really in good shape. We've had a lot of fake news, but despite the fake news, our poll numbers are fantastic.

Ed Henry

00:08:14 - 00:08:18 (4 sec)

Mr. President, I know it's been a long day. It's hot here on the border, we appreciate your time. Thank you for doing this.

Donald Trump

00:08:18 - 00:08:19 (1 sec)

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Ed Henry

00:08:19 - 00:08:20 (1 sec)

I really appreciate it.