We'll be back tomorrow night with more Hardball on CNBC and MSNBC. Donald Trump is a real estate developer and entrepreneur up in New York. Donald, thank you very much for joining us. You're one of the most well known corporate CEOs in the country. Is the answer more regulations or more sermons from the president? Well, I don't think it's a sermon. He really wants to do what's right and what's going on, Chris, is a shame. And I like to see people taken out in handcuffs when they're dishonest. We have to be careful however about the witch hunt because you don't want to hurt good people that are working hard that maybe make a mistake or whatever, but honestly, when you have people graduating from the Wharton School of Finance and from the Harvard Business School that supposedly don't know -- that are running companies that supposedly don't know anything about what's going on, as to all of these hidden treasures that we're just starting to find, there's something wrong. Is there a connection between greed here and dishonesty? Are these big guys packing away tremendous amounts of money even in bad times. Is that the problem, that there's too much greed even at the time we ought to be taking it easy at the top and not grabbing so much, is that it? Well, there seems to be dishonesty at certain levels. But I will say this, 99 percent of the people you're dealing with really are honorable, honest people. The people in business are really, they have done a terrific job. And what you don't want to do is frighten people to the point where they don't want to go in business where the whole system sort of tends to fall apart. You have to create incentives. I think it's unfair when somebody is making the kind of money that they're making and there is dishonesty, and those people really have to be put away. Let's talk about the Titanic. If a ship sinks, shouldn't the captain be the last person into the lifeboat, instead of the first person in the lifeboat like we saw with Enron? First of all, the Congress wants to pass a law, it's one of the amendments to the Sarbanes bill being talked about that no big time corporate executive should be allowed to sell his stock that he gets for being a corporate executive until he stops being a corporate executive. Is that a fair law? Well, maybe that makes sense. Frankly, from my standpoint, I think it might very well make sense. People are being mislead. People are being mistreated, losing their whole stake in life and really it's a very, very small percentage of the people, the businessmen that are running companies. You know, what you have to be able to do is separate, Chris. You have to separate the good from the bad. The good are most and the bad are very few, but they can be really bad as we've seen in a couple of these instances. Well, let's talk about the gray areas. You had a talk with Harvey Pitt, the head of the SEC within the last year. You worked it out. Is he a tough enough customer, a tough enough cop? Here's a guy who said he's going to offer a kinder gentler regulatory regime to the big boys like yourself and then he meets with somebody like you. If you were a courtroom, the judge would not be allowed to have ex parte meetings with one of the litigants. In this case, it seems like it's more of a gentleman's kind of agreement situation. Well, I think Harvey Pitt is a very, very strong guy, a very very smart guy and I think he's going to do an amazing job. I think he's going to do an outstanding job. I never knew Harvey Pitt before, and I think that Harvey Pitt really is going to do a very good job if people give him the chance. Do you think it's appropriate to meet with guys -- for him, he's the official, you're not, should officials of the SEC, especially the chairman, be meeting with people who have cases before them? Well, you can't just hide in a closet. At some point, maybe you're walking down the street and see somebody and you say, oh, I'm not allowed to do that. What's he supposed to do, run away? Well, that's what judges do, isn't it? Judges when they're denied the right to an ex parte communication, they make a real effort not to go to the same restaurant. They make a point of avoiding the person who they're dealing with. I think that you have to have access. I think that people should be able to meet and maybe work out. And if it gets into a very serious problem, maybe that access starts. But you have hundreds and hundreds cases that can be settled and to the good of the public and maybe they should be settled. I'm not really too quizzical about meetings. I think that really you just can't lock yourself in the closet. When you find dishonest people and very dishonest people like the people we're dealing with, Chris, something has to be done and as far as I'm concerned, lead them out with chains. Let me run you about my NBA parallel. When everybody watches an NBA game with these 7-foot guys coming at each other, these little refs, when those refs let the game get out of hand, these guys just pulverize each other. Have we run into a situation under President Bush where there's so little policing that guys figure they better grab for the money because that's the game right now? Is that's what happened with WorldCom with the CFO, with Sullivan? Is that what we saw with Enron? Is that what we're seeing with these other cases with ImClone and the other ones? I don't think so at all. I think that this has been going on for years. I mean Enron wasn't just founded 15 days ago. Enron has been there for a long time and all of these acts were committed over the last, four, five, six years, so we're really -- the Bush administration has just been there for a short period of time relatively speaking. I think Bush has taken a strong role. Harvey Pitt's a very strong talented guy, and I think they're going to get it solved. And again, you have to treat the bad ones harshly, there's no doubt about that. Let's look at this from the perspective of the little guy down there. He's looking up at guys like you and he's looking up at people like Harvey Pitt who are supposed to be policing you. Do you say the regulations that we have today are tough enough, there's enough teeth in them to keep the stock market sound so that people can invest confidently? Do you think there's enough and if it is, why isn't it working? I think the regulations are very tough, but I think they could be made tougher. And where they really have to be made tougher is when somebody is proven to be dishonest, not a mistake, not an honest mistake because look, people make bad business deals all the time. When somebody is proven to be dishonest really harsh punishment has to take place. When you're sitting there reading the financial pages daily. You pick up the paper in the morning, the Wall Street Journal Well, I think when people do things that are dishonest, that's a big difference between they made a bad deal or they made a bad decision. When people do things that are dishonest, they should be dealt with very harshly, Chris. Let me ask you about, the question's come up. It's been raised by other businessmen like yourself, that too much regulation will basically create kind of a freeze factor. People won't make big business decisions they have to make. They'll chicken out and that's going to slow the economy, make us a weaker country. What are the steps we can do to prevent the crime without slowing the economy? Well, the president is really doing it. He's doing a little bit of an honor system and maybe to a certain extent that's what it has to be. Because the fact is you don't want this country to slow down because everyone is so afraid of regulation. They're so afraid of gee, whiz, my secretary made a typo, and therefore maybe they've created an illegal act and you have to create the incentives and you can't make the business people of the country so frightened of doing anything that all of a sudden we're not the great country that we became. The fact is that you have a lot of other countries out there that are competing against us and you have to create that incentive and that flavor for people to compete. You can't stop them with regulation. Do you think Bush has a first rate economic team like he has a first rate foreign policy team? Well, I think they have some very good people. Do you think O'Neill is up to the job, the secretary of the Treasury? How come he's played no role in this thing. I hate to comment on people because I don't know him. I've watched him on television. I've seen him, but never met him. He has no impact on the Street, he's not a big shot in New York, is he? Well, he doesn't seem to be but hopefully he will have an impact on the street. We need it. Do you think the president has been clear in his message. Has he been a successful leader of this country in the economy? Well, he's doing well. I mean, he's certainly very popular. People like him. But the market tanked this past week. It was OK today. It was down to 300, back up again, but it's been a hell of week, hasn't it, because after the president east speech? It's been a bad couple of months for the market there's no question. Yet interest rates have kept the real estate markets very strong and that's a big factor in this country. I mean, if the real estate markets went bad that, that would be terrible, but the home market, I've never seen anything like it. I've never seen a stronger condominium sales market in New York what I have now and I've seen some pretty good markets and I've seen some bad ones also. This is the best market I've ever seen in terms of real estate and real estate sales. OK, thank you very much. It's great to have you on our big prime time night, Donald Trump . We're coming back with a man who's been crusading against corporate corruption, New York State Attorney General, Elliott Spitzer, and he's a hot one. You're watching Hardball. [Commercial Break]