How are you doing? I know that coronavirus has hit here as well. How are you doing? Your team? Your inside teams? PRESIDENT Donald Trump And it's very sad for a lot of families that it has so horribly hit -- and so unnecessary. They could have stopped it. They could have stopped it in China where it came from. But it didn't happen that way. I want to ask you about China. I'll get to that. But let's talk about the reopening of America right now. About half of the states have begun this process. Right. Is it too soon? There are some calls out there that they're talking about a relapse in the fall. Is it too soon? So I want them to open when they can, when they want. The governors are opening them. Most of them are either opened or opening or considering it. I think that we have to get back to work. We have to get our country back. We have to take it back. It was artificially closed. I think we're doing incredibly well, considering the fact that we had the greatest economy, Maria, in history. You report it every morning. The greatest that anyone's ever seen -- the best job numbers, best stock numbers, best everything. We had the best everything. And in addition to military being strong, all of the things we've done, and we had to just one day, boom, close it. We did the right thing, and now we've got to get back. We've got to bring our country back. And it's going to happen, and it's going to happen fast. We're going to -- I call it a transition to greatness. You're going to have the third quarter -- people are starting to get into that right now, but it's going to be a transition. That's a transition quarter. We're going to do well in the fourth quarter, and I think next year, with all of the stimulus, all of the things we've done, I think we're going to have one of the best economic years we've ever had. Dr. Fauci is saying a different thing. He says he's worried about spikes turning into outbreaks. He said it seems like it could be too soon and that the major message he wants to convey is that the danger is, if you skip over the checkpoints and the guidelines to open America again, then we risk the danger of multiple outbreaks. So Anthony is a good person, very good person. I've disagreed with him. When I closed the border to China, he disagreed with that. And then ultimately he agreed. And he said I saved hundreds of thousands of lives, which is what happened. Everybody disagreed when I did that. I think that we have to open our schools. Young people are very little affected by this. We have to get the schools open. We have to get our country open. We have to open our country. Now, we want to do it safely, but we also want to do it as quickly as possible. We can't keep going on like this. We're going to have -- you're having bedlam already in the streets. You can't -- you can't do this. We have to get it open. I totally disagree with him on schools. And we will have, I call them embers. I call them spikes. And he called -- I noticed he used the word spike. Well, you might have that, and we'll put it out. You know, we've learned a lot. We didn't know anything about this. This is a horrible disease. This is a horrible plague. I call it a plague. It's a terrible thing. We've learned a lot. And we also know how to put it out. But we have to open our country. We have no choice. You know, people are dying this way, too. When you report this -- better than I could ever report it -- but people are report -- they're dying with this closure, with this shutdown of a country where they're in the house, they're in their apartment. They're not allowed -- some people are too tough on it. They're not allowed to go out. They can't. They're losing their jobs. We're not going to let it happen. Do you think your critics want you to keep it closed going into the election? Yeah. I do, I do. I think it's a political thing in addition. I think some are saying -- [Crosstalk] But they're saying you're putting money, business, ahead of lives. They don't know. I think the people that want to see the right thing happen; they agree with me. We have to get our country open. You know, if it was up to some people, let's keep it closed for a long time. OK? A long time. And watch the United States go down the tubes. Not going to happen. Never going to happen on my watch. [Crosstalk] -- I want to ask you, I mean, do you see long-term damage done the longer that you stay closed? Because Jay Powell said that as well, that there is a long-term impact the longer it stays closed. Yeah. So I -- what I do see is this. I see we're losing a tremendous number of lives. So is the world. You know, the world... 184 countries. It's now more than that. Think of it. The tremendous lives lost. So that can never -- when you talk about damage, that can never be replaced. We're going to lose over 100,000 perhaps in this country. Now in all fairness, that's at the bottom level of the scale. We would have lost two million, we would have lost more if we did it a different way. But you're talking about 100,000 more, a little bit less, more -- who knows? It's a terrible thing. No. So that can't be replaced. We're spending trillions of dollars on all of the damage economically, financially, that it's caused. So it is a terrible thing. It's just an incredible thing. We were sailing. Two months ago we were sailing— [Crosstalk] -- certainly. And now we're talking about 33 million people filing for unemployment, even after $10 trillion in stimulus -- [Crosstalk] That's all going to come back. [Crosstalk] -- bankruptcy. The lives won't come back. That's all going to come back. It's going to come back fast. No. With that we're spending money, we're borrowing money, we're spending money. All of that stuff is bad. But all of that's going to work out. That's going to all come back. We have a strong dollar. We have a great country. The people want to go back to work. And they don't want to lose their jobs, by the way. So you want a strong dollar. Because in the past you've said you didn't want a strong dollar -- [Crosstalk] I'll tell you what. It's a great time to have a strong dollar. Because the whole world -- you know, we're paying zero interest, right. That's never happened either. We're paying so low. Everybody wants to be in the dollar, because we kept it strong. I kept it strong. Now, from a trade standpoint, it's tougher. But from a country standpoint and an inflation standpoint, you don't have inflation, you don't have problems. No, we have a strong dollar. And right now it's good to have a strong dollar. Mr. President, what's the -- [Crosstalk] And I can live both ways. You understand that. But right now having a strong dollar is a great thing. What's the right mix of policies to get us back? You had a policy program in 2017 and you moved the needle on economic growth. That was tax cuts, that was deregulation, that was turning on the energy spigot, and it was a new trade situation. Is it the same playbook to get us back? So we're going to have maybe a different playbook -- stronger than I would have ever said. I was very much a pro-USA person. I was America first. Right? Always. You've known me -- ever since you've known me, and I was right about that. Strong borders. Our border is very strong. We have some of the best numbers we've ever had. Southern border, the best numbers we've ever had and -- [Crosstalk] This is what you campaigned on. I did. And we've now built 182 miles of wall. You know, what that is, 182 miles? We'll be at close to 500 miles by early next year of wall. [Crosstalk] Of new wall. Brand new. All brand new. And renovated, too. But I'm not even talking about that. We're talking about over 500 miles of wall. And we have -- you have to understand. I had a party totally -- they want open borders. They want people pouring in. And even they don't mention it. You notice? I have all the financing. They didn't even bother with it at the end. Because I turned out to be right. They didn't want to be the party that was opposed to having walls, of having strong borders. But they are. They want open borders. They want people pouring into our country, and now they look at it and they say, they pour in, do they have COVID-19, do they -- what's the problem? You know, what problem do they have? OK. And so they want to stay away from that subject. But when you think of what we've done -- and I was always America first. Make America Great Again. Right? And basically it's that, but it's that plus -- because a lot of people fought me on China. You hear what that -- you hear all that honking? You know what that is? That's trucks. They love their -- [Crosstalk] Trucking protestors, right? Well, they're not protestors. They're supporters of me, because we're getting things for the truckers and all those great truckers that are all over the country -- They want the economy open. [Crosstalk] They're honking, and they're -- they're really very thankful that I'm president, frankly. So when I hear the horns -- [Crosstalk, Laughter] -- there's a thousand trucks outside. It's great. So what we're doing is what I was doing before but even more so. And I'm even, you know, stronger about it. America first. China, I made a great trade deal. The ink wasn't dry when the plague came over from China. The ink wasn't even dry. They didn't tell you about it when they came here on the 15th of January -- [Crosstalk] No. -- and shook everybody's hands. That was never even a subject. That was not anything that anybody really understood or knew about at the time. But China -- I'm very disappointed in China. I will tell you that right now. I have a lot of -- [Crosstalk] And Maria -- -- on China -- [Crosstalk] We can -- we can do things in our country. We can -- you know, we used to make our own product. Would you believe it, right? We used to make our own product. We don't need 37 pencils, we can buy 2 pencils—and they can be better. But you know went astray, the whole thing, we went astray. I've been talking about this for 20 years. Probably it's the number one reason I ran for president. Because I saw that our car industry is leaving, going to Mexico. You know, Mexico makes 30 percent of our cars. It's not even believable. Well, businesses want -- [Crosstalk] And Canada makes a lot of our cars. [Crosstalk] Businesses wanted cheap labor, but they also wanted lax environmental rules. But see, the cheap labor turned out to be very expensive, because when you add what this has costing -- you just take a look at what's happening. And when you add what's costing by us with our drugs, our pharmaceutical products, so many different things -- Minerals. So I put tariffs on China, and we've taken in tens of billions of dollars. I gave a lot of those -- that money to the farmers, because they were targeted by China. And every other president let China do whatever they wanted. You know, we were -- we were losing anywhere from $200 billion to $500 billion to China a year. Think of it. We rebuilt China -- and I give them a lot of credit. But I don't give our past presidents and leaders a lot of credit, because they got taken to the cleaners. And worst of all, was the last eight years under President Obama and Biden, where his son gets -- [Crosstalk] I'm going to get to that. [Crosstalk] -- his son gets a billion and a half dollars, and then they're supposed to be tough on China. Doesn't work that way. He traveled on Air Force Two. [Crosstalk] His father got him to hundreds -- look. It's impossible to do what he did. If you talk to Steve Schwarzman, if you talk -- and I asked him, I said, Steve, is something like that possible. He said -- [Crosstalk] To get that kind of money. He said it's impossible. You can't get that money. He said, this guy had no experience. He didn't even have a job. And he walked out of China with $1.5 billion dollars to invest for them, of which he makes hundreds of thousands -- and actually millions -- of dollars. What is this? So how do you get us back? When you look at these numbers -- we're going to be going into the election with a double-digit unemployment rate. I mean, could we get below 10 percent by September, on unemployment? [Crosstalk] No, but by -- [Crosstalk] And what are your policies -- [Crosstalk] By next year I think we're going to be very, very strong again. We have tremendous powers that other people don't have. We have tremendous job capacity. And I think what's going to happen is next year is going to be one of our best years. I feel that we will transition in this third quarter; fourth quarter is going to be good. Next year's going to be incredible. Are there industries that you're thinking of that will lead us out of there? That are more poised to open and have economic activity than others? And what about states, are there states out there that have become a model for you? I know Georgia did well. Florida as well, in terms of their openings. [Crosstalk] Many -- many states did. What can you tell us about the openings so far? [Crosstalk] But don't forget, those states, none of them would have done well without what we did in the federal government because we became the ventilator maker of the world. I mean, we are now doing things with ventilators that nobody thought possible. When we took over, we didn't have ventilators. Nobody knew what a ventilator was. We're making thousands of ventilators now a week. And also, by the way, everybody's got ventilators. We're giving them now and selling them to other countries who desperately need them. Other countries are calling up. They desperately need them. We're the testing capital. You see the numbers. I mean I -- you've seen this before. But they want -- this is us in the globe. [Crosstalk] You're up to 10 million. No, look at this. Over 10 million tests. [Break in interview] Can we get to a place where the White House is, in corporate America, where every time you go to work you just get your temperature taken, you get a test? Is that where we're going? Is that -- [Crosstalk] You don't want to be doing that. Look. We want to go back to, like you want to see a baseball game or you want to see a basketball, a football -- you want to walk into a stadium. I went to the Alabama/LSU game last year. They had 110,000 people in the stadium. I don't want to see 25,000 people where we have empty seats all over the place -- [Crosstalk] When do you think we can get back to that Mr. President? How long is this going to take to get back to normalcy? I think we're going to have a vaccine by the end of the year. We're doing very well with a vaccine. And I will tell you something, I just literally left a meeting. We're mobilizing our military and other forces, but we're mobilizing our military, on the basis that we do have a vaccine. You know, it's a massive job to give this vaccine. Our military is now being mobilized. So at the end of the year, we're going to be able to give it to a lot of people very, very rapidly. [Crosstalk] -- just got out of that meeting. [Crosstalk] And you're just doing something with syringes as well, so that you can have -- it's plentiful. That's right. You have enough vaccines. We will have -- tremendous force, because assuming we get it, then you have to distribute it. Right. And unless you're mobilized and ready, you're not going to be able to do it for a long time. So we're starting now. We're of the assumption that by the end of the year we're going to have a vaccine, and then we have to be able to give it, to use it, on most of our population. Yeah. Now we'll focus on elderly. We're going to focus on nursing home, and you know, senior citizen centers, because that's really -- if you look at it, that is so -- that is a very vulnerable group. It's a terrible thing, but -- so we're going to be focused on that. We're going to go through with the vaccine -- [Crosstalk] Can you divide the country saying, OK, if you're below 50, you're healthy and strong, you're OK, go back to work. Elderly, divide them... Well, we're doing that, and I'm actually saying, like with the schools, open the schools. But if a teacher is 65 or older, especially if they have diabetes, if they have a bad heart, if they have a problem, we say relax for a longer period of time. But if you look, there's been very little damage done to people that are healthy and young, and frankly, medium aged people. But the elderly have been decimated, absolutely. Let me get back to getting us back to where we were. Nancy Pelosi has a stimulus package now. We know that it is $3 trillion. Kevin McCarthy's been tweeting about this, and apparently it includes diversity provisions for the marijuana business. It includes tax breaks for blue state donors, federal election takeover that mandates mail-in voting. What is your take on proxy votes and mail-in voting? This is part of the speaker's stimulus package. So she knows it's dead on arrival. We had a very interesting evening last night, as you know. In Wisconsin, we won very, very, by a lot, and this is not a primary, this is an election. It was a special election. We won a House seat. Supposed to be close, we won by a lot. We had a great person, now Congressman Tom Tiffany. And -- [Crosstalk] Republicans won in California, a special election. And in California. We're just getting the numbers. And it looks like we won that big. And he's been a tremendous candidate, Mike Garcia. He went out. He worked, and he won, and he took back a seat from the Democrats in California. Think of that. In an area that nobody thought possible. It was held by a Democrat, as you know -- a Democrat who had a lot of problems. And Mike went out and he won, and he won that seat. These are two -- now the press doesn't even write. But if we lost those seats, it would be headline news. Rough time for Trump. Because I'm running against sleepy Joe Biden, but I'm also running against the Democrat machine, and I'm running -- and you see how bad they are, with all of the things that are coming out. When you look at these releases that are just being given to you, just now as we sit down -- [Crosstalk] We're going to talk about that. But I'm running against the Democrats, and I'm running against the media. I'm running against the radical left. I'm running against some really stupid Republicans that don't understand how good they had it, because we have some -- I'm at 95 or 96 percent with the Republican Party, but we have some people that claim to be Republicans, and they've gone crazy. And the reason is I've defeated them all. You know, they were all my opponents, and they've never gotten over it. Guys, Weaver, and Schmidt, all losers, and they go out and they try buying commercials. And you say, gee, we've rebuilt our military, we've taken care of our vets. Our vets are in the best shape. You've never seen anything like with the vets, you know, with choice, with everything else. We've done such a good job. And then you add the judges and you add protecting our Second Amendment. And what are these guys going to do? Support Joe Biden and -- [Crosstalk] No -- [Crosstalk] -- you know, because Joe has been brought way left, way, way left. [Break in interview] they've never gotten over losing to me. It wasn't supposed to happen. And then I had another race. It was against crooked Hillary Clinton, and she's never gotten over it either. Well, she's been tweeting already saying that we have to vote by mail. Now, I know that there was interference in the 2016 election. They were out to get you, and they wanted to take you down. There's another kind of interference, and that could be fooling around with voting machines. I mean, in terms of voting by mail, vote proxies, what's your take? Do you want that? So -- [Crosstalk] She's been tweeting about that, Hillary. Voting by mail is very dangerous because people can grab them. People can take that proxy, sign a name. They can -- they can do all sorts of things, especially harvesting. They go out and they say just -- let's put them all together. And that's happened and by the way, we were thinking it might happen in California. We were worried about the race. But look, in California, they actually won. They voted by mail, the one we just won. Today, we just won it -- vote by mail. And they were losing, because when you vote by mail, you see the tally -- how it's going, right? And we were losing. We were losing that issue. So we lost that issue. We're voting by mail. We're winning. What happens? They immediately set a voting booth up -- wasn't supposed to -- in the middle of a Democrat area so they could get votes. But they still didn't do it. We won the race. It's pretty amazing. So why would Nancy Pelosi come up with this $3 trillion -- [Crosstalk] I think she wants -- yes, yes -- [Crosstalk] -- plan if she knows it's dead on arrival, she's knows nobody's going to go for a marijuana business in the middle of a pandemic. What -- I mean -- More than anything else, she wants the voter, the way of voting change, because if you did that -- look, they have had some very dishonest things. You look at California. Look at Los Angeles, where Judicial Watch settled a case where they agreed that a million votes were fraudulent. A million votes in one area were fraudulent. And they could have done a lot more, but it was almost -- it was so ridiculous, there was no reason to go any further. They came to a settlement. They agreed on a million votes. The level of dishonesty with Democrat voting is unbelievable. If you told a Republican to vote twice, they'd get sick at even the thought of it. And you have people that vote numerous times. What's happening is crazy. So now they want to send out vote by mail. Who's going to -- who knows who's signing this stuff? Not only should they come and vote. Now, if you're a senior citizen, if you're this or that, like in Florida, there's a great system of voting. But it's a fair system, and it's a very closely watched system. So in some cases, age, you're not feeling well, you should be able to do it. But you have to go out and vote. And if you don't do that, it can be -- we'll have the worst rigged election since Bernie Sanders, because Bernie Sanders has had a lot of bad things happen to him. You know, it's interesting with Bernie Sanders. That's a good point. I'm glad you're making that. If Bernie Sanders -- if Elizabeth Warren drops -- and nobody talks about this. I say it all the time because it's so basic. Elizabeth Warren was a failed candidate, but she got a lot of the super liberal votes, you know, the radical left I call it, and she didn't drop out of the race Super Tuesday. If she drops out of the race -- she doesn't even have to endorse Bernie Sanders. He wins every state -- almost every state against Biden. But she didn't, and then two other people who did drop out, they gave the support to Biden. If -- and despite that, if she does it- because she got you know thousands of votes -- every one of those races were very close, he would win almost every state, Bernie Sanders, and that was the establishment Democrats killing Bernie Sanders. Wow. You know, Mr. President there are a lot of people today that are very happy that you're so tough -- as tough as you are, because there's a statute, there's a 1947 statute that says Nancy Pelosi would yield all of the powers of the presidency if the president and the vice president could not -- consistent with the law, she could issue whatever executive orders she wanted, fire disfavored political appointees, and in general direct the Executive Branch as she pleased. She's third in line. Yeah. It's never going to happen. We'll keep our vice president very healthy and I'll stay healthy. Never going to happen. She would be a disaster. Look, Nancy Pelosi's a disaster, OK? Even doing a thing like that with her crazy vote -- what she wants to do is get involved with the voting. She just got back to Washington. Everyone said, what was so long. She just got back here. So let's just see how it all works out -- So -- But I think we're going to have a great election. I'm getting really good poll numbers. For the most part they're not being shown. And I saw Joe Biden on television yesterday. And if you watch him, he knows nothing -- he knows absolutely nothing -- Do you think he will be the candidate? I don't know. I just don't know. I mean, I'm looking -- normally, it's -- of course he's going to be the candidate. Again, if Elizabeth Warren, Pocahontas as I affectionately call her, because her whole life was a fraud -- if Elizabeth Warren just got out before Super Tuesday it would be Bernie. I don't care who it is, it doesn't matter. I actually would prefer, Joe, I think I'd prefer Joe. Who knows, right, about those things? But a lot of people wonder, is he going to be the candidate. But you know, how will you be positioning yourself for the election? Because people voted for you because they trusted your economic smarts, they knew you could turn things around for the economy and business. You're a business -- And I did. -- you were the first business president -- exactly. But now, we've got 33 million people filing for unemployment. We've got 20 percent -- Nobody blames me for that. Look -- -- unemployment -- [Crosstalk] -- we had [Inaudible] our country. We had the greatest -- as I said -- [Crosstalk] So will you position yourself differently going into this election? No, I don't think so. I'm going to do it again. I've got to do it again. I did it once, I showed it could be done. And you know it, I've been on your show plenty. I did it once, and I'll do it again. And he can't do it -- [Crosstalk] Are you thinking about a payroll tax holiday -- what do -- how? I like the idea of a payroll tax because it's very easy to administer, and I'd like it for both the small companies -- you know, et cetera, et cetera, and the people, because it's a double. It's a company tax, it's also for the people -- the worker. I'd like a payroll tax -- Cut -- a payroll tax cut, or how -- Cut -- yes, cut. Meaning cut. That's one of the taxes that I want to see cut. And by the way, we've already given -- we've given the largest tax cut in history. If we weren't so strong as a country, we wouldn't even exist right now. We built an incredible machine. It was a beautiful thing to watch. It was -- I even said, three months ago [Inaudible] -- every single day, better employment numbers, better stock market numbers, more jobs, the military's almost complete now. We've totally rebuilt everything. And then one day I have to turn it off. Now what's going to happen, Maria? We're going to rebuilt it again, and it's going to go fast. You have to give aid to the states -- we had Mayor de Blasio on the other day. He said he needs $7.5 billion right now -- yesterday. He said he needs to be made whole. What are you thinking in terms of aid to the states, to the cities? How are you going to decide who gets what? So you've had a lot of states and cities that have been very badly run for a long time. A lot of them are trying to use the COVID problem, you know that, for making up what -- what's happened over 25 years of bad management. Like your governor of Illinois, he wants money. I know the family, he wants money, this let's make up for 25 years and some very bad current years. Now there's one thing. If they spend the money, that's one thing, for COVID. But they want money for 25 years of bad management. It happens to be that, virtually, without exception, they were all in Democrat states. It's very interesting. Los Angeles wants money, New York wants money, Illinois is really having a hard time. They all want money. We have Republican managed states that are doing very well. You know, it's a big difference. I want -- I want to get to China, Mr. President. But let me ask you this. You've talked a lot about the supply chains. You've changed the conversation on China, obviously. And now we're seeing the average American understand that we cannot have 70 percent of our active ingredients in our prescription drugs made in China. But how are you going to get these companies to actually bring the supply chain back to America? Are you going to do tax breaks? How do you incentivize them to do it? I could tell you hundreds of stories of the stupidity that I've seen. As an example, we make a fighter jet. It's a certain fighter jet. I won't tell you which, but it happens to be the F-35. OK. It's a great jet. And we make parts for this jet all over the world. We make them in Turkey, we make them here, we make them there -- all because President Obama -- and others -- I'm not just blaming him -- wanted -- thought it was a wonderful thing. The problem is if we have a problem with a country you can't make the jets. If we have -- we get parts from all over the place. It's so crazy. We should make everything in the United States. It's better. Will they do it? Number one, it's better. So yes, we're doing it, because I'm changing all those policies. Look, we make F-35s, very important, the greatest jet in the world. Where the main body of the jet is made in Turkey, and then it's sent here. So what happens -- we have a good relationship with President Erdogan -- what happens if we don't -- with me -- what happens if we don't have? Are they going to say, well, we're not going to give you this so we have to now gear up and it -- [Crosstalk] China said that. They threatened us that they weren't going to send the prescription drugs -- [Crosstalk] We have many things -- [Crosstalk] -- we have many things, OK. Well, I've taken in billions of dollars in tariffs. And these drug companies have to get on the ball because they're going all -- not only to China -- So are you going to incentivize, you're going to give them tax breaks -- [Crosstalk] You look at where they're going, they're going to India and they're going to Ireland and they're going -- they -- all over the place -- [Crosstalk] Apple said now they're going to go to India. They're going to do some production in India away from China. If -- if they do -- you know, we gave Apple a little bit of a break because they're competing with a company that was part of a trade deal that we made, so it was a little bit unfair to Apple. But we're not allowing this anymore. You know, if we wanted to put up our own border, like other countries do to us, Apple would build 100 percent of their product in the United States. That's the way it would work. But -- So you don't think you need to do anything in terms of incentivize -- [Crosstalk] I have to do -- no, I have to do. [Crosstalk] Will it be tax breaks? One -- one incentive, frankly, is to charge tax for them when they make product outside. We don't have to do much for them. They have to do for us. Look, you have these companies and they build -- as an example, Mexico -- great relationship with Mexico. They've been very nice to us. They have 27,000 of their soldiers on our border because I insisted on it. Yes, I remember. But you have Mexico, they build a car and they send it over to the border, no tax, no nothing. When we build cars, we send them to other countries. If you take Europe, European Union, it was formed for the benefit of themselves against us. OK. It was formed to hurt us. If you take the European Union, Maria, it's so sad. They send cars over, no tax. If we want to sell a car over there, it's an impossibility. I feel like we've been talking about this for three years. Yes. You've been -- you've been opening the spotlight on this -- [Crosstalk] Oh yes. I -- -- for three years. And I've made a lot of changes, too. You're going to Pennsylvania Thursday. Yes, right. What is this about? This is partly to see what kind of manufacturing we can do here, right? It's about manufacturing, I want to bring it all back and I've been, look there's nothing good about what happened with the plague. OK, especially the deaths. But the one thing is it said Trump was right. Because I was getting a lot of fight back, even from people that I like a lot in Congress, et cetera, and now they're not fighting. These stupid supply chains that are all over the world -- we have a supply chain where they're made in all different parts of the world. And one little piece of the world goes bad and the whole thing is messed up. I said we shouldn't have supply chains. We should have them all in the United States. We have the companies to do it. And if we don't, we can do that. And now the services -- [Crosstalk] And it's how -- it's happening. -- part of our economy is getting crushed. Yes, yes. Hotels, restaurants. We need the manufacturing -- [Crosstalk] It's all happening. -- to be picking up. It's all happening. Let me turn to China, Mr. President. You called it an attack the other day. Was it deliberate? So a terrible thing happened, and you can look at it as a source. It took place in a certain -- at a certain point, and it could have been put out, and it should have been put out. And we asked to go over, and they said no. They didn't want our help. And I figured that was OK because they must know what they're doing. So it was either stupidity incompetence or it was deliberate. One or the other. But one of the things that is bad is they stopped people leaving. Nobody could go to China. You couldn't go to Beijing, you couldn't go anywhere in China, but you could go to the rest of the world. What was that all about? Why is it -- [Crosstalk] -- 430,000 people traveled from China to the United States after coronavirus was known. Right. OK, so we took in, as you know, a very small -- because I put on -- in January I put -- and I was criticized by everybody including Dr. Fauci -- I put in a wall. We put in a very strong wall. Only a small number of people were allowed in, and they were all U.S. citizens. I can't tell a U.S. citizen, you can't come back into your country. And then I put up a barrier to Europe, too, because what happened is these same people and others went to Europe. Europe became heavily infected. Italy, a very favorite place of yours -- Yes. Italy, Spain, France became very, very badly infected. Infected is a terrible word, isn't it? It all became a horror show. And then I closed it because I didn't want people coming in from Europe if you can believe it. This is what happened. But by doing this, we actually acted very early. We did a thing -- we did a great thing, but it's a disastrous subject no matter how you put it. Knowing what you know now, and as you start reopening things, and you're getting info from all of the governors, and you're tracking this, when would you expect international travel to come back? Is that a 2021 affair? All I can say is this, as soon as possible. We can't send planes over to a country that right now -- I mean, I'm not going to mention names of countries, but there are some that are very -- right now, very -- we talked about one just a little while ago -- really badly infected. So we can't bring people in that -- we just can't do it. It'll take awhile. It'll take a little while. But a lot of people are going to start traveling, more so in the United States. And they'll be back. We're going to have -- it's all going to be back together. And in many ways we've learned a lot. And we're going to bring back manufacturing that we could never have done without this. As bad as this has been -- because now people agree with me. A lot of people are saying Trump was right. I've been talking about this for a long time. I've been doing a lot about it, but you know, they become embedded. It's almost like it becomes a way of life. We have to do business. So much stimulus, tens of trillions of dollars. This is about our country. It's not about the world. We have to fix our country. The world, we want to be a leader, the leader. But right now I'm president of the United States, I'm not president of the world. I say it all the time. I want to make America great again, I want to do what we have -- you know, years ago we made our own product, we didn't rely on everybody in the world, they have their own problems -- So what happened, they just wanted to do it cheaper? They wanted lax -- [Crosstalk] They're globalists -- they're globalists. They're people that think we have to make the world wealthy at our expense. I don't even know where these people come from. But those days are over. And if nothing else over the last two months, it's been proven to be right. Let me get to China, because I also want to get to the unmasking and General Flynn. But I've got to get to China first, because Secretary Pompeo said that he has strong evidence that it did come from the virology lab. We've been reporting this, every Sunday, by the way from early on. You also said that you saw evidence. Can you tell us anything about the intelligence? No, no. But we have a lot of information, and it's not good. But you know, the worst of all, whether it came from the lab or came from the bats -- it all came from China and they should have stopped it. They could have stopped it at that source -- I call it the source, right there, should have been stopped -- They made a decision to allow it to escape its borders. I don't know if they made the decision, but it got out of control. I think more likely it got out of control, but you know -- Senator Cotton said that they didn't want the Chinese economy to contract 20 percent and the rest of the world to contract 2 percent. So we were beating them very badly before this. We were beating them -- between the tariffs and other things we were doing, and we were going up. And they were having a very bad year. They were having the worst year they've had in 56 years. This was before -- [Crosstalk] -- had Hong Kong protestors on the street -- And they weren't -- well -- and even beyond that. And we were really doing well. And that is a theory. But here's what I know for sure. They didn't allow this whole thing -- they didn't allow people to go into China, but they did allow them to go out to the world, including the United States. That's why Europe is a mess, that's why -- look at these countries. Russia's having a hard time -- everybody's having a hard time -- So will it get worse for those countries, do you think? For some of them. Some have just started the process. We're getting toward the end of the process. You know, so they downplayed the disease, they downplayed the virus. At the same time they're allowing international travel, five million people leaving Wuhan going to Italy, going to the United States, and they sat cornering the market on protective equipment even though China is already the largest producer of this stuff. [Crosstalk] That's not the big thing. Look, the big thing is they should have never let this happen. So I make a great trade deal, and now I say it just doesn't feel the same to me. The ink was barely dry and the plague came over, and it doesn't feel the same to me. [Crosstalk] Are they going to renege on it? They're not going to buy the $250 billion, are they? They will buy $250 billion. They said somewhere, I see, they'd like to renegotiate the deal. We're not going to renegotiate. Look, I'm not happy about anything having to do with that particular subject right now. But everything I said turned out to be right. You go back 10 years, 20 years -- every -- I'm telling you, it's why I'm sitting here. There's the beautiful Oval Office -- because of trade, not only with China, with other countries also. You look at other countries, they charge us tariffs to do business, and we're not allowed to charge them. What are you going to do about it? Right now as we speak they're continuing to steal intellectual property. The word is out, the FBI puts the warning out, they're stealing intellectual property on science data, on research. They want to get a COVID-19 vaccine before us. Are they going to beat us to the COVID-19 vaccine -- [Crosstalk] They've always been doing it, and they were never called. Now they're being called out all the time with me -- for a long time, long before this. So you can stop them from doing this? Well we can stop them. They're going to try doing it. I mean, you could also stop doing business with them, that's one thing. Look, we have lost a fortune dealing with China. We have rebuilt China. They've done a great job. But the people sitting in this seat have allowed them to rip us off like you've never seen before, and that includes President Obama and Biden, sleepy Joe. He allowed them to rip this country off. We spent hundreds of billions. We gave them hundreds of billions of dollars year-in, year-out. [Break in interview] Have you spoken to Xi Jinping? I have a very good relationship, but I just -- right now I don't want to speak to him. I don't want to speak to him. Because, you know, Senator Cotton was saying maybe we should be limiting the amounts of visas that we give to students who want to study things like quantum computing and AI. There are many -- there are many things. There are many things we could do. We could do things. We could cut off the whole relationship. Now, if you did, what would happen? You'd save $500 billion if you cut off the whole relationship. Look, at what point does it -- and I said this for years. I said it with other countries also. China's not the only country ripping us off. At NATO where we defend Europe for nothing, by the way, essentially nothing, I was able to get them to pay hundreds of billions of dollars more. You know, my biggest fan in the world? Secretary Stoltenberg. He has said that to me on this show actually. He said he's been there a long time. He said nobody's ever gotten -- you know, we were paying more and more. They were paying less. You have to see the chart of what they pay. So we are defending Europe, and then they're taking advantage of us on trade. It's all one way, and it was all turning -- and it is all turning around. And you pulled back the money. But we've been proven to be right. Yes, I pulled back the money. You pulled back the money from the Thrift Fund. They wanted to put 10 percent of the Thrift Fund into MSCI index that was Chinese companies -- [Crosstalk] That's billions of dollars, billions. -- $50 billion. Yes, I pulled it back. Will you go one step further and force that Chinese companies have to follow accounting rules if they want to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq? So we're looking at the very strongly, but on the Thrift Fund, you know, it's run by the Obama appointments, right. And we said you got to do this, and we're going to find out whether or not they're going to do it very soon, and if they're not we're going to replace them very quickly. Do you -- [Crosstalk] And we are looking at your -- second part of your question. We're looking at that very strongly. Because Chinese companies like an Alibaba, any Chinese company, they're listed on the New York Stock Exchange. They don't have to report their earnings the way an American company does? Pretty amazing. But here's the problem with that. You know, look, I hate to say it, but let's say we do that, right? So what are they going to do? They're going to move their listing to London or someplace else. You see? Let's say you want to get tough, and you're going to do -- you know, everyone is -- everyone wants to be a tough guy. Look. I'm the toughest guy. But what happens is -- so we say, you're going to do this, and you're going to follow the rules of the New York Stock Exchange or Nasdaq. What do they do? They say, OK, we'll move to London or we'll go to Hong Kong. Mr. President, let me switch gears and ask you about General Flynn -- [Crosstalk] Yes. -- and what has taken place. We have breaking news today. The names of the people who unmasked General Flynn has been publicized -- Joe Biden, John Brennan, Jim Comey. Your reaction. It was the greatest political crime in the history of our country. If I were a Democrat instead of a Republican, I think everybody would have been in jail a long time ago. And I'm talking with 50-year sentences. It's a disgrace what's happened. This is the greatest political scam, hoax in the history of our country. Well, it is the biggest political scam in our history. And people should be going to jail for this stuff. And hopefully a lot of people are going to have to pay. No other president should have to go through -- and I'll tell you, General Flynn and others are heroes, heroes, because what's happened to them. They weren't after General Flynn. They wanted him to lie about me, make up a story, and with few exceptions nobody did that. There were many people. I watched K.T. McFarland the other day. I watched where she was knock, knock FBI. You know, the FBI, OK. This was all Obama, this was all Biden. These people were corrupt, the whole thing was corrupt, and we caught them. We caught them. What you saw just now, I watched Biden yesterday, he could barely speak. He was on "Good Morning America," right. And he said he didn't know anything about it. And now it just gets released, right after he said that, it gets released that he was one of the unmaskers, meaning he knew everything about it. So he lied to your friend George Stephanopoulos. What kind of -- Explain to our audience what this means, because I mean, this is a serious thing. They are tracking phone calls. They were tracking a phone call of, I guess, Kislyak. And you're not supposed to -- [Crosstalk] I'll tell you what it means, it's very simple. So even before I got elected, you remember the famous -- the two lovers, right, Strzok and Page, the insurance policy, she's going to win, but just in case she doesn't we have an insurance policy. That means that if I won, they're going to try and take me out. That's all it means, it's very simple. It's an insurance policy. So, she's going to win, isn't she darling, isn't she going to win. [Break in interview] I watched Chuck Todd this weekend, what he did to a beautiful sentence made by our great attorney general, and he cut it in half, and then he complained that Bill Barr didn't say the other half of the sentence. And he said the exact same words that Chuck Todd used. These are corrupt people. These are people that shouldn't be allowed to be on television because -- you know, when I say the enemy of the people, that's the enemy of the people. That's corrupt, OK. That's corrupt. But this was a -- a terrible, terrible thing that happened to our country. It was a try -- they tried to overthrow a duly elected -- forget about me -- a duly elected president of the United States. They tried to do an overthrow with fiction by making up stories about Russia. Now it's all come out that actually they wanted Hillary Clinton, you saw that one came out yesterday. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win. Nobody's been tougher on -- and you can speak to Putin or anybody else, nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win. General Flynn was exonerated, but we all know, because of the -- the setup notes. And now, Judge Sullivan is delaying it. So what do you think about this federal judge saying, well, I'm not going to write off on the exoneration just yet. What is that about? I think it's one of the most incredible things that I and many other people, there's a lot of anger, have ever seen. I just had General Milley and some other generals in my office about an unrelated topic, right. And I said, do you guys know General Flynn. General Milley, head of Joint Chiefs of Staff, great military person bearing, he said, I've known General Flynn for a long time, sir. He's a great man, and he's a great gentleman. This should never have happened to him -- Three star general. He's a -- he's a great -- [Crosstalk] So the FBI said that they started the crossfire hurricane in July of 2016. But we know that there were informants running into your campaign associates as early as January, February of 2016. They were the Stefan Halper, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer. Who organizes that? Would that come out of the CIA? I know that Stefan Halper made a $1 million. I don't know what he was paid that $1 million for, but I -- So look, they got paid a fortune. These guys get paid -- [Crosstalk] -- government -- think of it, government money. They were interviewed. I never -- I don't know Papadopoulos. I never met even Carter Page. I never met this man. But they went after Carter Page, because they thought he was a person in the campaign. I think he was on a committee -- but I never met him. But they went after these people viciously all because they wanted to hurt the president of the United States. They figure they'll either hurt him, or they'll take them out. That would be the ideal. Comey is a corrupt person, but let me tell you -- Brennan bad, they're all bad, everyone. Clapper is, you know, not smart guy in charge of intelligence. But here's the thing, it was impossible for it to happen without the man that sits right in that chair in the Oval Office. He knew everything. Do you believe President Obama directed the U.S. intelligence agencies to spy on you? Yes, he probably directed them. But if he didn't direct them, he knew everything -- [Crosstalk] Once they couldn't find collusion evidence -- [Crosstalk] -- and you'll see that. By the way -- excuse me. You're going to see that when the papers come out. Remember the Lisa Page text to her lover saying POTUS wants to see everything? POTUS -- they're not talking about me, I wasn't president. They're talking about POTUS wants to see everything -- Well, there was a meeting on January 5th in the Oval Office. President Obama was there, Vice President Biden was there, Clapper, Brennan, and that's when the Logan Act came up. So should we believe that they were looking for collusion evidence, they couldn't find the collusion evidence -- there was none -- so they said, let's just use the Logan Act to take you down. First of all they stuck around White House Counsel. They went to see a very unsuspecting General Flynn. He's a general, he's not a lawyer. They said, you don't need a lawyer, and they started asking him questions. And they probably brought up the Logan Act, and they probably scared the hell out of him. But let me tell you a little secret, they go knock-knock -- and ask K.T. McFarland the way they knocked on the door, and many other people with Mueller -- that whole thing turned out to be a total fraud. The whole Mueller investigation's a fraud. It was all part of the same deal. But they -- what they did to General Flynn -- and others -- you know -- we know about General Flynn. You'll find out about others too. What they did to these people is a international disgrace. And all over the world they talk about it, because this is not America. And hopefully the people involved are going to pay a big price, because it should never be allowed to happen again. Mr. President, this is toward the end of your first term as president, and this entire term has been dominated by resistance. You've gotten so much done, tax legislation -- I mean, international things -- so much done. And yet FBI takedown effort, pushback on all of your supreme court judges, a complete drama around Brett Kavanaugh. The Democrats in Congress attacking your call with the Ukraine leader, then an impeachment trial -- Over nothing. Over absolutely nothing. And you keep -- I've never seen anybody who can take a punch and get right back up and keep punching. I mean, where does this resilience come from, that you keep getting things done in the face of all of this? A lot of people have asked me that question. Rush Limbaugh said -- I heard him the other day, he said, I've never met a man that could take this much -- this much punishment and still be a great president. So what I've done is more than any other president. You take the first three years -- we've done more tax cuts -- regulations. We've done more than any other president, ever. Jerusalem, al Baghdadi -- Well, I mean, Jerusalem -- just look at all of the things. Even -- if you look, what we're -- I came in and Iran was a powerful nation. Iran's a much different place right now. They'd like to make a deal. Iran would like to make a deal. But Iran was a very powerful place. So much we've done -- so much, and I'm so proud. By the way, how about rebuilding our military? Our military was totally depleted. Now we have the strongest military -- brand new jets -- everything is beautiful. All made in the USA. All of the things I've done, including taking care of our Second Amendment. Our Second Amendment was and will be -- if they get in, you're not going to have any Second Amendment. They will get rid of the Second Amendment all -- for all of those people that feel the right to bear arms is a big thing. All of these things that I've done -- and I've done it through -- I've had to fight through walls, like the wall that we're building on the southern border. I've had to fight through walls. It's not stopping, though. Are you ready to fight for another four years? It's getting much better. And we caught them in the act. Look, they have been caught in the act. We caught them. I consider it maybe one of -- you know, we -- I always say drain the swamp. Nobody knew the swamp was that deep or that bad. Guys like Comey at the FBI. These were bad people. You know, the FBI, you talk about General Flynn. The FBI said he didn't lie. They said he didn't lie. Trey Gowdy on my show this weekend said that leaking classified information is a 10 year felony. Yes. We know that some of those people did that. Well Comey did, and other people did too. How involved was John Brennan? Totally involved. He was totally involved. John Brennan was one of the architects in my opinion. You look at Brennan, you look at Clapper, you look at them all, but ultimately the president knew everything. The president knew everything. President Obama and Vice President Biden, they knew everything. So what can you do about it? And again -- [Crosstalk] What can you do about it? Let me just tell you, if I were in that position, it'd be a whole different thing. If this happened to Obama instead of to a Republican president that's popular -- 96 percent in the Republican Party -- but it's a whole different thing. If this happened to Obama instead of to me, you know what? Everybody would be in jail for years already. For years. It's a disgraceful thing. But it's -- we caught them in the act, Maria. It's a beautiful thing, and every day we're seeing more and more information come out. We caught them, and their guys are gone. They were guarding the fort. Comey and all these guys, they were guarding the fort. And once they left it got easier and easier. And now it's like an avalanche of really bad -- call it treason -- call it whatever you want, but they tried to take down a duly elected president of the United States. They didn't care that 53 million voted for you and wanted you in the office. More than 63 million. Just so you understand that -- they got caught in the act. They never thought that was going to happen. And they got sloppy. Where Lisa Page would text and send messages through service -- you know one of the other things that is missing? The DNC server, where is it? Why is it that the FBI didn't take it? They arrested all of these people, but they didn't arrest -- they went in to see the people at DNC, right? They go in to see, you know, her wonderful campaign manager. You know all about that, right? They went into see those people, whose brother by the way was supposed to be arrested, and the brother never got arrested -- Well, the same people were working on -- [Crosstalk] But why didn't -- why -- [Crosstalk] -- the investigation into the Trump campaign, they were also working on the investigation into Hillary Clinton's e-mails. Yes, oh yes. Except it was slightly different level of intensity, OK? How about where they were all -- [Crosstalk] They wanted that over by the middle of the year. They called it the mid-year review. How about they walk into see Hillary Clinton's people, five people I think, and they said you all have immunity. You're all have -- no problem. You all have immunity. And with our people they wanted to try to put them in jail, and in some cases they did. And those people are going to go down as heroes. You watch. Well Paul Manafort is now I guess spending the rest of his term at home because of COVID? I don't know, but I'll tell you what. They went after Manafort -- using -- you know the big black book on Manafort? Turned out to be a fraud. They found that out recently. The black book where they said he got money, got cash, he got all -- turned out to be a fraud. Ukraine said that. All of these things that they did, they were set ups. And I have great respect for these people, because look at Roger Stone. Look at the horrible treatment he's got. He's going to be OK. He's going to be OK. He got treated -- he wasn't even on my campaign. He was years before. He wasn't even on -- I think Carter Page is going to sue, and I wouldn't be surprised -- Well, I hope he sues. -- if General Flynn sues. And General Flynn's going to have a heck of a case. But he's got a judge that I guess doesn't like him very much, but maybe the judge doesn't like me very much, OK. Maybe the judge doesn't like me very much. I'll tell you what, I've read legal scholars, they can't even believe what the judge is doing to them. They can't believe. Los Angeles just said they may actually extend the shutdown throughout the summer. Elon Musk is fighting back obviously. He's doing the right thing, I'm all for him. Los Angeles, I think they're doing that for political reasons. Look, the less successful we are in opening, the better they are probably, maybe for an election. But I'm letting people know in many cases they're going it just for political purposes. So you think that you'd -- they would rather see a recession, a terrible economy, joblessness; than have you get another term? They would rather see our country fail. They would rather see our country fail. And you know what that means -- because part of failure is death. They would rather see that than have me get elected. I've driven them crazy. I don't know what it is. You've upended everything, and they want their power, I guess. Real quick on this Wuhan lab. I just want to get your take on this because people are questioning it, and I feel like I was among the early ones looking at this wondering if that's where it originated. And in the Wuhan lab, didn't we, as a country, give money to that lab? So what goes on -- [Crosstalk] Yes, as I understand it, before I got here, $7.5 million in 2014. And look, they said they were studying different things, and you know, things like that happen. But you know, money was given by the Obama administration early on. OK. And -- I ended it. You -- so, right, you ended it. No more money going into the Wuhan lab. But I mean why would -- [Crosstalk] I took a lot of heat too. They said, oh, we're studying all sorts of stuff. You saw what happened. I ended it. How are you going to have a partnership with China when you can't trust anything they say or do? It may be hard to do. It's OK. It's OK with me. It may be hard to do, but that's OK with me.