[Dr. Marc Siegel, Fox News Chief Medical Correspondent, interviewed Donald Trump at The White House. The interview aired in two parts on June 22, 2020, split between Tucker Carlson Tonight and Fox News @ Night with Shannon Break. Other than combining the parts, the video is unedited. The transcript is courtesy of Fox News and was checked and verified for accuracy.] Mr. President, great news today on vaccines again. Yes. Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, 100 million doses being purchased by the federal government for $2 billion. It seems like therapeutics and vaccines are really proceeding at a major speed. They are, Marc. They are going really well. I watch you all the time. And I watch -- you're almost like my guide to this, because, frankly, you really have a good take on it. You know how important it is. The vaccines are doing well and therapeutics. I mean, you tell me, but I almost would prefer the therapeutics even first. You go into the hospital, you make people better. But we are doing very well with Remdesivir and other things. The steroids are turning out to be great. Plasma is turning out to be really good. We have made tremendous progress. And I think that's why you see the death numbers -- it's a horrible thing to say, but that's why you see the death numbers really looking much better. More on vaccines. I'm concerned about vaccine compliance in this country. Thirty percent of people have said they wouldn't even take this vaccine. Right. As Commander-in-Chief and leader of the free world, would you consider being one of the first to take this vaccine to send a message to the American public? Well, you know the way it works. If I'm the first one, they will say, he's so selfish, he wanted to get the vaccine first. And then other people would say, hey, that's a very brave thing to do. I would absolutely -- if they wanted me to, if they thought it was right, I would take it first or I would take it last, Marc, because you know that if I take it first, I will be -- either way, I lose on that one, right? If I take it first, and if I take it -- if I don't take it, they will say, he doesn't believe in the program. But whatever I think is best, whatever we all agree is best, I would certainly do that. I will make you a deal. I will take it, and then you... We will take it together, OK? That's right. Good. Talk to me about lockdowns. I'm, as you know, very disturbed about the -- you probably more than me, disturbed about the economic... Yes. ...mental, physical, medical costs of lockdowns. And Democratic governors are again talking about lockdowns. What's your view? You know, you can almost see it on television. I have watched some of these guys. I watched -- well, I won't say, because it's not somebody I have a lot of liking or respect for, but a certain comedian that's been locked in his house for a long period of time, and he's, like, withered away. He's lost the whole deal. He's lost the wit. He's lost so much. I almost would like to use him as an example. But you can use more than just him. It's hurting people. These lockdowns are hurting people. We did the right thing, Marc. I don't know if you agree, but I think you do. We closed it down. We understood the disease. We didn't know anything about this. This came in. This was new. We understood the disease. We banned China from coming in, which was a big move. In fact, Dr. Fauci actually said that I saved tens of thousands of lives. And if you remember, I was the only one that wanted to do it. Nobody -- we had an office of 21 people. Everyone said no. But I said, you've got to do it, because you could see the infection in China. We banned. Then we banned Europe from coming in, which was good, with Italy and all the problems. But we did it right. We closed it up. And now we're opening. And we have learned. For instance, we have learned that the elderly especially, obviously -- you can say this better than anybody -- the elderly who have diabetes or have heart problems, have a problem, they are really susceptible. And you know, when people like to compare it to the flu, it is interesting, because I see the flu numbers, and they are very bad. But when I look at flu numbers, and I -- look, I never lost anybody to the flu. I never had somebody -- over my life, I have heard many people had the flu. They had the flu. How you doing? I have the flu. Nobody died. I never remember anybody saying, like, you know, he had the flu, he died. I have lost five people, probably six, actually, as of this moment, I think, pretty soon. But I have lost five friends that went in. One of them tested, great guy, Stanley Chera, one of the top real estate people in New York, very successful man, good man, too, never into politics until I ran. He was -- he became like a political wild man. He loved it, but a great guy with great spirit. He said: I tested positive. And I said: Well, that's too bad, but you will be OK. Oh, I will be OK. He went to the hospital. Two days later, he's in a coma. I say, how is Stanley doing? He is in a coma. And, two days later, he died. And you know, that's happened on numerous occasions. Probably happened to you with people, too. I never remember anything like that. It didn't -- I mean, I never remember this happening with the flu. So, this is a very serious thing. But we have learned people -- Stanley was an older guy. He perhaps could have lost a couple of pounds. Actually, I always thought of him as healthy, but other people that are healthy. The age is such a big factor. When you look in New Jersey, I happen to like -- he's liberal, but I get along with him very well, your governor of New Jersey, right, Governor Murphy. He said they had -- with the thousands of deaths, they had one death under the age of 18. And I believe that young person had diabetes, but one death out of thousands of people, one death. And that's an amazing statistic. So, we wouldn't have known that at the beginning. In all fairness, you didn't know the elderly would be so badly hurt. So, we're really taking care of the elderly population right now, at a level that has never happened before. Are we going to beat this virus? We're going to beat it, yes. We're going to beat it. And with time, you're going to be it, time. You know, I say, it's going to disappear. And they say, oh, that's terrible. He said -- well, it's true. I mean, it's going to disappear. Before it disappears, I think we can knock it out before it disappears. That's what I want. And if I had my choice of vaccines or therapeutics, give me therapeutics every time, because I'd love to walk into a hospital and give everybody something, and they start walking out in two days. That's what I'd like. Vaccine is very good longer term, but give me therapeutics. And we're doing really good work therapeutically. [Commercial Break] Presidential health or health of a candidate is going to be on the table, of course, as it always is. Yes. And I have been someone always asking for that. I have seen a lot about your health, being in good health. What do you think should come out or be the attention regarding Vice President Biden? Well, I think we have to be in good health. I'll tell you what. This is a very -- a very important job, to put it mildly. There's nothing like it. And I will also say -- and I think I have had to work harder than others, because I have been attacked from fronts that nobody ever got attacked on, you know, with fake investigations, fake Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine. I mean, nobody's gone through -- and yet I have done more than any president in the first three years in history. There's no president that has done what we have done with rebuilding the military, the judges, the -- we will up to almost 300 judges, including two great Supreme Court judges, at the end of this term. So, it's really something that's been great. But you need stamina, you need physical health, and you need mental health. And because you have so much fake news, every once in a while, you would say, first, they'd say, he wants to take over the world. He's going to take over the world. He's a dictator. The next day, they will say, he's crazy. The next day, they will say, oh, he's incompetent. The next day, they will say something else. So, the last time I was at the hospital, well, probably a year ago, a little less than a year ago, I asked the doctor. I said: "Is there some kind of a cognitive test that I could take? Because I have been hearing about it, because I want to shut these people up." They're -- they're fake news. They make up stories. I mean, like, I will do an interview with you. You -- I didn't say you can ask me about this, you can't -- I say, ask me anything. I did one with Chris Wallace. He was nice enough to say. He said, I just want to tell the audience there was no question that's off bounds, OK? And he's a tough cookie. And it was a good interview. I liked it. I enjoyed it. And it was good. But I didn't say, you can only ask this. You can only -- we have to be sharp. If you're in the office of the presidency, we have to be sharp. So, they were saying all these different things. It was going all over, whichever stuck. None of it stuck, fortunately. But one of the reasons it didn't is that I took a test. I said to the doctor -- it was Dr. Ronny Jackson -- I said: Is there some kind of a test, an acuity test? And he said: There actually is. And he named it, whatever it might be. And it was 30 or 35 questions. The first questions are very easy. The last questions are much more difficult, like a memory question. It's like, you will go person, woman, man, camera, TV. So, they say, could you repeat that? So, I said, yes. So, it's person, woman, man, camera, TV. OK, that's very good. If you get it in order, you get extra points. If you -- OK, now he's asking you other questions, other questions. And then 10 minutes, 15, 20 minutes later, they say, remember the first question, not the first, but the 10th question? Give us that again. Can you do that again? And you go, person, woman, man, camera TV. If you get it in order, you get extra points. They said, nobody gets it in order. It's actually not that easy. But, for me, it was easy. And that's not an easy question. In other words, they ask you to -- they give you five names, and you have to repeat them. And that's OK. If you repeat them out of order, it's OK, but you know, it's not as good. But then, when you go back, about 20, 25 minutes later, and they say, go back to that question -- they don't tell you this. Go back to that question, and repeat them. Can you do it? And you go, person, woman, man, camera, TV. They say: That's amazing. How did you do that? I do it because I have, like, a good memory, because I'm cognitively there. Now, Joe should take that test, because something's going on. And I say this with respect. I mean, it's going to probably happen to all of us, right? You know, it's going to happen. But we can't take a chance of it happening. When you're dealing with Russia, when you're -- and there's nobody been tougher to Russia than me, nobody been tougher to China than me. I can tell you right now, they would love to see Joe Biden, instead of Trump. We have taken in billions and billions, tens of billions of dollars from China, which they never gave us anything. They had the worst year. Before the plague came in, they had the worst year in their -- just about in their history, 67 years. It was the worst year they had in 67 years, before the plague. And we were doing great. We had the best economy. But we have to have somebody that is sharp. If this person isn't sharp -- because, I can tell you, President Xi is sharp. President Putin is sharp. Erdogan is sharp. You don't have any non-sharp people that you're dealing with. And we can't have somebody that's not 100 percent. So, what I did is, when they announced -- when -- you know, it's a public test. And he said: You know, if you take this test, we may have to reveal that. I said: It's all right. I mean, is it tough? Tell me about it. I never heard of it. And I got a perfect mark. And the doctors were -- they said: Very few people can do that. Very few people get that. You understand. Yes. It's not that easy. There were other questions tougher than what I just did. But it's not that easy. But, as soon as they announced my score and that test, all the stuff went away about me. Is he competent? Remember, they're talking about 25th Amendment and nonsense. And they said, wow. And even the enemies, they don't say that anymore. But they do say it about Joe Biden. And, honestly, he should take the test. In a way, he has an obligation to, because you have to be able to show this country that the person that we're picking as leader is sharp, because we're dealing with people that want to do very bad things to us, if they had the chance. And you have to be sharper than them. So, in a certain way, Joe Biden has an obligation to take a test like that one or something else. [Break in Interview] What about testing? What's your plans going forward with testing, pool testing? Or how are you going to approach it? Well, I'm going with the experts. I happen to think -- we're doing more testing than anybody in the world, by far. I think second is India with 12 million. We're going to be at over 50 million tests this weekend. And, to me, it -- every time you test, you find a case, and you know, it gets reported in the news we found more cases. If, instead of 50, we did 25, we would have half the number of cases. So, I personally think it's overrated. But I am totally willing to keep doing it. You know, we have so many more tests than any other country, by far. And I -- the president of Mexico came to see me. I said: What do you do? And Mexico's got some very big problems. I mean, they test when somebody goes into a hospital. They might test a little area, but it's very limited testing. And this is true with most countries. We're spending a lot of money on massive testing. And I'm OK with it. The experts are saying it's a good thing to do. But we have done 50 million tests. And India, a pretty big country, 1.4 billion people, they have done one-third of the number of tests that we have done, one-fourth of the number of tests that we have done. So, I'm OK with it, if they want to do it. But I -- again, it makes us look bad, but they say it's good. I don't mind looking bad, if it's a good thing. But think of it. If, instead of 50 million, we did 25 million, we have half the number of cases. The cases would be down. Here would be the normal headline. Not for me, it wouldn't be, but for anybody else, they'd say, cases cut in half, OK? But they wouldn't report it that way. As a father and a grandfather, what do you want to see happen with schools? What will you do? I'd like to see them open. And, again, the children, whether it's immune system, I guess it's -- I was watching you one night. You said immune system. Whatever it is, they're a lot stronger than we are, because it just doesn't have an impact, doesn't have any -- almost any impact. It's a tiny percentage of one percent. It's like -- meaning much, much less than one percent. I'd like to see the schools open. The country has to open. You know, we did the right thing. We closed it down. We saved millions of lives. Now we're opening it up. And I think the Democrats are actually doing it largely for political reasons. They think the economy won't be as strong, because we're doing very well with jobs. You saw we broke the record two months in a row with job numbers. A lot -- I really believe the Democrats are doing this for a political reason. If you close down California -- you know, it's a big state -- you close down some of these places, it's not going to show. Watch. On November 4, everything will open up. Masks. There's a difference of opinion between two great governors. They both support you. Governor Abbott in Texas, universal mask policy. In Florida, Governor DeSantis, who I have a great deal of respect for, is not -- not putting in that mask policy. Certain counties have it. Is there a role you will play in talking to the governors about masks? I'm not talking about a universal mask -- Well, on the masks, my attitude is that, when I was at the hospital, I felt very comfortable wearing the mask. I was seeing young people that were hurt very badly in military situations. And I felt for them, not for me, I felt for them my wearing a mask was a good thing. I felt extremely comfortable. I don't feel comfortable in other settings. When I'm all by myself on a stage and everybody's way far away, I don't think it's something that you have to do or should do. But everyone around me is tested. So, I'm not the perfect person to talk about it. But I believe that you should wear it, even if there's a one percent chance it helps. You know, when you look at Dr. Fauci and others -- and this isn't a knock, because this is just the way it -- if you look, early on, they were all saying, don't wear a mask. Don't wear a mask. That didn't make total sense to me, but don't wear a mask. Now they're all saying, wear a mask. My attitude is, it probably helps. Give it a shot, because we have to win this thing. So, it's not a question of pride. It's not a question of anything. We have to win this. So, when you're in a certain situation, I think you should wear a mask. Nursing homes, big, big fiasco, 40 percent of the deaths in this country in nursing homes. The governor of New York, who, as you know, was involved in this whole issue of a great number of nursing home deaths in New York, is now going around the country advising people on how to get out of a hotspot situation where of -- New York did really well. What do you think about him blaming the federal government for what happened in the New York nursing homes? Well, he did. And he was hit so hard that he stopped doing that. He was trying to say that he listened to a guideline, because, really, it was common sense. We gave them a tremendous facility that they really didn't use. We built a hospital with 2,800 beds. They could have used that. That was clean, 100 percent clean. And, unfortunately, they made -- and it was a mistake. And it was a sad mistake. But he's worked very hard. I mean, in all fairness to Governor Cuomo, he's worked very hard. We have gotten along very well. I think, overall, he's actually said we have done an outstanding job. He actually said, he's done a phenomenal job, from the federal government standpoint. So, we moved the ship in. We had a lot of room there. It wasn't utilized like it could have been. And we had the Javits Convention Center, where we had 2,800 beds built. And that wasn't used, or very -- certainly not very much. It would have been great, in retrospect, if they would have used that for some of these patients. Moving infected people back in certainly was not the answer. And we're very, very careful all over the country. I mean, you wouldn't even have to be. Every governor watched that. And they're all -- I think nursing homes right now are very heavily protected. They have to be. But they're very heavily protected. Dr. Birx is a big adviser of yours that isn't getting enough attention. Of course, everyone gets slammed, but I'm disturbed about that, because she's a woman. Can you talk to me about her role? So, I think she's one of the finest people I have ever met in the world of medicine, medical. You know, she is responsible for all of the incredible work that's taken place on AIDS in Africa. Millions of people are alive right now because of her. She's an unbelievable woman, a woman of tremendous substance and style, frankly. She has an amazing style. She walks into the room, and she can take a scarf and do 15 things with it. And she is really somebody that -- and that's the least important thing. She is a brilliant woman. She's a great woman. She gets some very unfair treatment, in my opinion. I read one story in "The New York Times," which is fake news, largely. But they want to knock her. I think they knock her because she probably is on my side. But she's a fantastic woman who's done a fantastic job. Long before this came up, she was -- she was involved in things. You have to look at her background. Her background is incredible. She's a brilliant woman who's a fine, fine person. Final question. This has been very over-politicized, the virus, very disappointing to me, as a physician. Can you talk to me about that and lessons you have learned that you would take into the second term in fighting COVID-19? It's highly political. And the Democrats are using it for political reasons and political purposes. And it shouldn't be. This should be a team effort. But, regardless, to a certain extent, it is what it is. It's going to burn out. But we're going to have vaccines. We're going have therapeutics. Some of the therapeutics that we already have are really working well, the Remdesivir. The hard part is getting so much of it. The steroids work. And I mean, I must tell you, you know some of the things that are happening are incredible. They're saving a lot of lives. But we're going to have -- in a short period of time, we're going to have some really good therapeutics. We're also going to have some really good vaccines.