Transcript - Interview: Laura Ingraham Interviews Donald Trump on Fox News in El Paso, Texas - February 11, 2019 | Factba.se

Laura Ingraham

00:00:00 - 00:00:09 (9 sec)

Mr. President, word broke late today, early this evening that there might be some tentative deal struck to avert a government shutdown. What can you tell us?

Donald Trump

00:00:09 - 00:00:27 (18 sec)

Well, I can tell you that a lot of things have changed and we'll see what happens. I can't go into the exact deal. I just heard it very quickly coming over to see you. It was between the -- the deal and you and I had to choose you because I had no choice. Right? And I'm very happy I did. But, yes, they're talking and we'll see what happens.

Laura Ingraham

00:00:27 - 00:00:43 (16 sec)

There's an opposing rally kind of going on at the same time as this rally tonight. Beto O'Rourke, young kind of up and comer they say in the Democrat party. He and others say the wall is really about hate and racism to -- to that you say what?

Donald Trump

00:00:43 - 00:01:09 (26 sec)

Well to that I say, number one very few people showed up to his rally and this place is packed with thousands and thousands outside and I guess he challenged us to an event. So maybe this means he's going to have to drop out of the race because this was not a good situation for him. I don't know why he did it and it has nothing to do with anything other than safety for the Americans, safety for our people, safety for our country and a wall is a very good thing not a bad thing.

Donald Trump

00:01:09 - 00:01:27 (18 sec)

It's a moral thing to put it in the opposite terms and we have tremendous support. We're building it right now. We don't even say build the wall anymore. We say finish the wall because we've built a lot and we're renovating a tremendous amount of old stuff that was really in bad shape but it had good structure.

Donald Trump

00:01:27 - 00:01:37 (9 sec)

So we're saying finish the wall. No, walls are very important. If you don't have it, all the technology Laura, all of the drones that they have flying around so nicely up in the air, they don't mean a thing.

Laura Ingraham

00:01:37 - 00:01:49 (12 sec)

What about all those border sheriffs? The ones at -- at the border, mayors, they always say, oh no, we don't need a wall. We're safe. They were challenging some of your statistics on El Paso and Juarez had had a terrible year last year for murders, another one.

Donald Trump

00:01:49 - 00:01:58 (9 sec)

Well first of all, Juarez is like the murders are tremendous and here they're very few. They are not correct. They know they're not correct.

Laura Ingraham

00:01:58 - 00:02:00 (2 sec)

They say their crime is low. Low -- low before the wall.

Donald Trump

00:02:00 - 00:02:10 (10 sec)

Their crime was -- was very high and then the wall got built and, you know, really you should talk about the sheriffs that agree with me which are like 98 percent of the sheriffs in the country maybe all of them.

Laura Ingraham

00:02:10 - 00:02:15 (5 sec)

Detention beds, they threw that out. Oh, we're going to reduce the number of detention beds. What -- what was that all about?

Donald Trump

00:02:15 - 00:02:30 (14 sec)

Well when you do that and the Democrats came up with that because that means that you don't detain people that are very dangerous. That means you have to put them out into our society because our laws are so bad. And if you look at what happened and what's been passed over the years in Congress, it's a shame.

Donald Trump

00:02:30 - 00:02:40 (10 sec)

It's a disgrace. That means we can't just put them back into Mexico or where they came. We have to put them back into our society. In some cases they're stone cold criminals. We can't do that.

Laura Ingraham

00:02:40 - 00:02:46 (6 sec)

Another good piece of economic news came out today, personal confidence in the economy. I think it's at a 16 year high.

Donald Trump

00:02:46 - 00:02:46 (0 sec)

Laura Ingraham

00:02:46 - 00:02:55 (9 sec)

With that -- why are so many millennials gravitating and some holes towards socialism over capitalism? And what can you do to reinvigorate their understanding of the free market?

Donald Trump

00:02:55 - 00:03:14 (19 sec)

Well I think they're, number one, they're young. They're idealistic if you call it idealistic. I think that capitalism is more of an ideal. But if you look at the poll numbers, you look at the kind of numbers that we have it's been great. I hit my all time high today, 52 percent and that's with only bad strories because the press only gives me bad stories.

Donald Trump

00:03:14 - 00:03:15 (1 sec)

You treat me fairly.

Laura Ingraham

00:03:15 - 00:03:22 (7 sec)

Were you surprise when some Democrats didn't stand up when you asked that question at the State of the Union about socialism? Are we -- we're never going to be a socialist country.

Donald Trump

00:03:22 - 00:03:23 (0 sec)

Laura Ingraham

00:03:23 - 00:03:24 (1 sec)

Not everybody stood up.

Donald Trump

00:03:24 - 00:03:44 (20 sec)

Because that's where they're coming from. When I see some of the responses, when I see some of the statements made by Congressmen and women I -- I say am -- are we living in the United States of America. Look, we have a country that's doing the best it's ever done. We are just lapping the world, you compare, you know, it used to be like we were a second sister to China.

Donald Trump

00:03:44 - 00:03:59 (15 sec)

Now China's looking up to us. We are doing so well and other countries are not doing well and that makes it tougher for us in a certain way because we do business with other countries. But we're setting records in so many ways including record unemployment meaning in a positive way. Meaning --

Laura Ingraham

00:03:59 - 00:04:11 (12 sec)

But they always say, well Obama started that and then they'll say this income inequality. That's the new buzz word. You're going to hear that a lot in 2020. Income inequality, let all the young freshman Congressman and some of the -- some of the candidates in 2020 are really gravitating toward that.

Donald Trump

00:04:11 - 00:04:28 (16 sec)

If I would have stayed with what President Obama did, you look at his last month. You look at what happened the first months coming into my term they were very low, the numbers, the GDP and everything else. If I would have stayed with those numbers Laura, we would have had an economy that would have been going way in reverse right now.

Donald Trump

00:04:28 - 00:04:44 (17 sec)

We opened it up. We got rid of regulations that were unnecessary. We did the biggest tax cuts we've ever done in our country. We opened up the oil. We opened -- you know we're the largest oil exporter now. We're the largest oil and gas in the world right now. Nobody thought that was possible this quickly.

Donald Trump

00:04:44 - 00:04:56 (12 sec)

No, we opened up our country. We're letting people work again. We have more people working today, almost 160 million people, we have more people working today than have ever worked in the United States. It's great.

Laura Ingraham

00:04:56 - 00:05:00 (3 sec)

And you know, we didn't have some people stand for that at the State of the Union. You said record low unemployment and --

Donald Trump

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

Laura Ingraham

00:05:00 - 00:05:09 (9 sec)

What does that tell you about -- are they -- I got lots of texts. They're trying to paralyze our economy with investigations, all these oversights. You're getting hammered, I know --

Donald Trump

00:05:09 - 00:05:09 (0 sec)

Laura Ingraham

00:05:09 - 00:05:12 (2 sec)

-- with requests for documents and so forth which is part of the oversight.

Donald Trump

00:05:12 - 00:05:12 (1 sec)

What's happening to me --

Laura Ingraham

00:05:12 - 00:05:13 (1 sec)

What's going on there?

Donald Trump

00:05:13 - 00:05:32 (18 sec)

Yes. What's happened to me should never be allowed to happen to another president. With investigations on things that never took place, like Russia. You know, the Russia collusion, delusion we call it. I call it a hoax and in fact it was very nice Richard Burr came out after almost two years of investigation.

Donald Trump

00:05:32 - 00:05:53 (21 sec)

They found absolutely no collusion between Trump and the Russia which I could have told a lot of people and which I have been saying to a lot of people. This has never happened to -- it's -- the Democrats know it's a hoax. This is a political game. So now the Russia thing is dead and now they say, well we're going to look at every company that Donald Trump was ever -- they don't have any information on anything.

Donald Trump

00:05:53 - 00:06:07 (14 sec)

We're going to look at every company that Donald Trump was ever involved in. I did great. I made a lot of money. Now they want to go back and investigate every company. We want to go -- and we have, I think 79 different letters from different committees --

Laura Ingraham

00:06:07 - 00:06:09 (2 sec)

How are you going to respond to these letters?

Donald Trump

00:06:09 - 00:06:12 (3 sec)

Well for the most part they've conflicted. I got one from --

Laura Ingraham

00:06:12 - 00:06:12 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:06:12 - 00:06:30 (18 sec)

-- I got one from Pocahontas today where it said that Donald Trump, we want to investigate some company that -- it's so disgraceful. I said, just write her back and say she's got a conflict of interest. OK? And she should focus more on her heritage and not being ashamed of what she is. She should really focus on herself.

Donald Trump

00:06:30 - 00:06:33 (3 sec)

But we've gotten letters Laura from so many committees.

Laura Ingraham

00:06:33 - 00:06:33 (0 sec)

Donald Trump

00:06:33 - 00:06:43 (10 sec)

I didn't know we had so many committees. I think it's up to 79 letters. This is based on no information of any wrongdoing because I'm a very straight person.

Laura Ingraham

00:06:43 - 00:06:44 (1 sec)

African-Americans --

Donald Trump

00:06:44 - 00:07:07 (23 sec)

So we went through this whole Russian hoax, nobody's ever done what I did where I was hit with this. Now, think of this. Hit with it and we probably had the greatest first two years of any president in our history in terms of what we've accomplished with employment, with GDP, with everything. And companies are moving back into our country which is one of the great steps.

Laura Ingraham

00:07:07 - 00:07:19 (12 sec)

African-American's in this country, what would you say to the young African-American today in Virginia who's seeing the turmoil in that state? And just in -- in -- and what's the kind of understand what the race issue is like pummeling us on all sides?

Donald Trump

00:07:19 - 00:07:30 (10 sec)

Yes. Terrible situation. I think that the Republicans are going to do very well in Virginia. I think a lot of things are happening in Virginia. I didn't campaign in Virginia because I was said -- I was told that a Republican can't --

Laura Ingraham

00:07:30 - 00:07:32 (2 sec)

Not much. A few stops.

Donald Trump

00:07:32 - 00:07:53 (20 sec)

Virtually not but, yeah I started looking at numbers I said why aren't I there? But -- but I didn't, you know, they -- they sort of assumed that's a Democrat state and as you know I did very well there without having gone. I think Virginia's ready to flip over to something. I tell you African-Americans are coming to the Republican party like nobody can believe.

Donald Trump

00:07:53 - 00:07:55 (2 sec)

A lot of things are happening, a lot of very positive things.

Laura Ingraham

00:07:55 - 00:07:57 (2 sec)

Does Northam resign?

Donald Trump

00:07:57 - 00:08:21 (24 sec)

Well I watched his news conference, it was pretty sad. It was a sad -- look, let them figure out what to do. But I -- I felt actually -- I felt sorry for his wife and his wife saved him from doing, as you know, Michael Jackson. He was going to try and imitate Michael Jackson with the moonwalk. Nobody can imitate Michael with the moonwalk and this would not have been a pretty -- you add that little couple of seconds of footage onto what he did.

Donald Trump

00:08:21 - 00:08:23 (2 sec)

But it was -- it was a pretty bad situation.

Laura Ingraham

00:08:23 - 00:08:25 (2 sec)

Mr. President, thank you.

Donald Trump

00:08:25 - 00:08:26 (1 sec)

Thank you very much.

Laura Ingraham

00:08:26 - 00:08:28 (2 sec)

Thank you very much for being here.

Donald Trump

00:08:28 - 00:08:30 (2 sec)

Thank you very much. Appreciate it.