[Donald Trump called in to NBC Sports on Sunday, May 17th, 2020 during a golf match. The replay of the video is not available on the Internet, but the following was transcribed directly from the full video as provided by NBC Sports without edits.] All right, Rich, as the players move over to the ninth hole and their three skins carry over there. We'd like to welcome in from the White House, the president of the United States, Donald Trump joining us now. Mr. President, you like so many, who are watching here today. You're a golfer and a sports fan, I'm just curious, what are your emotions watching live sports back on television for the first time in over two months? Well, it's about time, Mike. It's a wonderful thing to see. I'm getting a little tired of watching 10-year-old golf tournaments where you know who won. It's very nice to be watching and very nice to be with you. It's been about 10 weeks for you, I know you play golf as often as possible and love the game as much as anyone. What do you miss the most about not being able to get out there on a regular basis given what you're dealing with right now? Well, I do. I love golf and I love even the exercise. Sometimes it's not as much when you're running around in carts for speed but it's -- it's a great game and it's really so good to see these great players playing and it's -- I know them and really terrific people. But I do miss that I haven't -- I haven't played really since this problem that we have started. I haven't been able to play golf for a while I've been very busy and I think it's just one of those things. But we're getting back to normal we're going to be back at some point to -- to do bigger and better and stronger. But all of the deaths and all of the destruction that you've seen caused so needlessly came out of a location that should have -- we should have known, we should have been told maybe it could have been stopped but we weren't told so it's really a sad thing but it's a beautiful thing that you're doing today. You're raising a lot of money for COVID-19 relief as we see the players arriving over the ninth. Rory McIlroy is here. You mention you've played with these players but three years ago you and Rory played together. Rory said this week he enjoyed the round but he acknowledged the politically charged criticism that by association came with it. When you play with PGA Tour players as you have often. What do they talk to you about the most during a round? Well a lot of them are very political actually. Some like my politics very much and probably some don't. I guess the ones that don't I don't get to see as much but they -- they seem to like it. And you know we were doing better than any country has ever done economically in just a couple of months ago and we'll rebuild that again. You'll never make up for the lives that have been lost but we'll rebuild it again. We're going to be starting and really we're starting almost right now. You look at your event, it's at the beginning of live events and you're going to have a masters pretty soon there'll be a little unusual, that'll be slightly less than the usual crowd jab but it's great to be playing. I guess -- I know so many of the tour players and they're really fantastic people. I can't think of anyone I don't like. I can't say that necessarily in life but when you meet these tour players they're just great people. There's something very special Watching Matthew Wolff play now. We just watched Dustin Johnson tee off here at this 500 -- forty-five-yard par five. As Wolff hits his tee shot, Rickie Fowler is going to play next. I know Rickie he's been against of yours in the Oval Office back in 2017. He played with him most recently, anything specific about Ricky's game and playing with him as well? Well, you know, it amazes me how long Ricky is. He's really, you know, he's not as big as some people but he's a very strong guy and he is that a long way and he's a great player. And he had the one year, where he came in second in the majors. I think in four majors he came in second and that's, you know, quite an achievement. I don't know if he traded for one actually as when you traded for one and he sort of might have said yes but he -- he's a great player. He's going to have majors, he's going to have a lot of wins and he's a tremendous guy, really is, a great personality. They've all teed off the ninth as they walked out with their golf balls. Mr. President, you landed back from Camp David a couple of hours ago. He had some questions in the White House press corps and always multiple opportunities for them to ask you about what's truly important right now, the policy and the plans related to the pandemic. Given our limited time in our mostly sports audience, these last couple of questions I want to bring to you. Really related to that broader return of sports in America. You mentioned, a month ago you formed an advisory panel to deal with the reopening of the country [Inaudible], Jay Monahan of the PGA Tour on that. What guidance are you and the White House giving them about returning to competition? Right. Well, golf was very well-represented with, you know, so many of your friends and the commissioners and all of the people, heads of golf, and also of the other sports and we want to get sports back. We miss sports, we need sports in terms of the psyche, the psyche of the co -- of our country and that's what we're doing. We had -- I had great talks with -- with Jay, I had great talks with Seth [Inaudible] and anybody having to do with the sports and some are on the commission and some aren't and they'd call me up individually but we're getting it back, Mike. We're getting it back and it's going to be fast. I'll start off with small crowds if any. And you saw UFC the other night, they had -- really just a lighted ring in the middle of an empty arena and I'm not sure that so many people missed the fans, I don't think so, in that particular case. But look, we want to get it back to where it was. We want big, big stadiums loaded with people. We don't want to have 15,000 people watching Alabama-LSU as an example. And we want to have where you have the masses, we want to have big crowds. Now -- right now that's not what they're planning but you never know what happens. Things can happen very quickly and we're looking at vaccines, we're looking at cures and we are very, very far down the line. I think people are going to be very impressed with what -- what is being developed right now. Some tremendous things. I have meetings on it every day and we have the most brilliant minds working on it and we're working worldwide on that also. We have no ego when it comes to that but I think we have some tremendous things are be -- going to be coming out very soon. We've seen worldwide return to sports with news crowds soccer in Germany the Bundesliga started last week. Mr. President, for team sports to return, I've been talking to team presidents, athletic trainers, commissioners, at every level they say significant amounts of testing are going to be needed and you've talked about the ramp-up of testing, we've seen those numbers, but I have this question for you, how should the leagues and the sports balance the mass number of tests that they'll need to get athletes back safely and balance that with the needs of Americans for testing? Should the athletes come before folks who are playing pro sports? Well, you know, we've developed so much testing. We took over -- when I took over the administration, we didn't have testing and plus the testing had to be specific to this particular problem. And you know, we are -- we call it the problem that came in and the problem that beset us, we were all of a sudden we were surprised by this. And frankly, the tests that we've developed are incredible. We have tests that were five-minute tests -- we have extremely accurate tests and they're very short term now and we did last week we did -- we're doing over 10 million tests. We're up to 10 million tests and nobody thought that was even possible and now we're up to substantially more than that just in the course of a week. The athletes will be tested very carefully and the -- the people that want to go can be tested very carefully and ultimately I believe we'll end up with a cure and/or a vaccine, probably both. And I think that's not going to be at the very distant future. But even before that, I think we'll be back to normal. Matthew Wolff's going to play first of the four players here at this par five, reachable for the players. You see Wolff with an iron out as they play Seminole -- great golf course there, 90 minutes north of Miami just North West Palm Beach. You're familiar with that area? So -- I certainly am. Well, the second shot from 272, is away. Mr. President, you mentioned the fans, and the fans coming back first for PGA Tour events and not going to have fans. For the fans who were out there wondering if or when they can return to the stands, what timetable would you give them as they watch us here today? So, you're going to go, I think the first four events, without fans or certainly without very many fans and I think after that, hopefully, that it'll be back. And we really want to see it get back to normal. So when you have all of those thousands, tens of thousands of people going to your majors and going to golf tournaments, we want them to have that same experience and we don't want them to be -- we're having to wear masks and, you know, be doing what we've been doing for the last number of months because that's not -- that's not getting back to normal. But we want to be back to normal. We have the big crowds and they're practically standing on top of each other and they're enjoying themselves, not where they're worried. But in the meantime, they do the social distancing and they practice that and they've been doing really well. The country is ready to start moving forward. You know, I'm talking about transition to greatness. We were great. There was no country that could compete with us, like, you know that economically. We were beating everybody. Nobody close. We were leaps and bounds ahead of everybody and then we had to just turn it off because of this plague that came in. We turned it off and we did the right thing or we wouldn't have had numbers that would have been 15 to 20 times greater than the numbers you see. And one is too many, by the way. But we are -- we're going to get it back and we're going to get it back fast. We had the greatest economy ever, we're going to get it back. And well -- you'll see it's a transition to greatness. Third-quarter, we're going to be in transition. Fourth-quarter, we'll do good. And next year we're going to have a fantastic year from an economy standpoint. Now, with all of that being said, the number of people that died, the number of people that were so badly affected, that you can never replace. No, you can't. And it's here and we have to deal with it. And we hope that good health continues to follow including those who were impacted there in the White House as well. Mr. President, thank you for joining us and continued good luck in the COVID-19 battle with the entire country is going through. Thank you very much, Mike. And it was great playing golf with you, guys. I remember that very well and we had a good time.