Transcript - Interview: Steve Scully of C-SPAN Interviews Donald Trump at The White House - July 30, 2019 | Factba.se

Steve Scully

00:00:00 - 00:00:06 (7 sec)

Mr. President, two and a half years into your presidency. What's been the biggest learning curve? What's been your biggest frustration?

Donald Trump

00:00:06 - 00:00:29 (23 sec)

So I think probably in terms of a learning curve, it's a little patience, it doesn't go as quickly as it can do and as you do in private. But, not that much different than I expected. We've accomplished a lot, I think, you know, I go around saying, Steve, that we've accomplished more maybe than any president has in two and a half years.

Donald Trump

00:00:29 - 00:00:58 (29 sec)

But I've loved every minute of it. We've had fun. I think the biggest frustration is the way the media covers me, the way that media covers perhaps this agenda. And I'm disappointed by it. I'm very surprised by it. Generally I think over my lifetime I've gotten pretty good press, and here, no matter how big a victory, they really cover it incorrectly, and hence the term fake news etc.

Donald Trump

00:00:58 - 00:01:15 (18 sec)

etc. I'd say that's been somewhat of a disappointment. I thought that after I won, I was covered, I thought, very poorly during the campaign, I thought after I won, they'd be different. And actually they've probably gotten worse. So, that would be somewhat of a disappointment to me.

Steve Scully

00:01:15 - 00:01:18 (2 sec)

What is fake news?

Donald Trump

00:01:18 - 00:01:36 (18 sec)

Well, when you do something and they report it incorrectly. And the problem is that I would know and the public wouldn't, although I think the public, a lot of the public, believes in me when I say it. So I would know what happened, and when they cover it, knowing what I know, but they cover it incorrectly, that to me is fake news.

Donald Trump

00:01:36 - 00:01:46 (11 sec)

And it's unfortunate that it takes place, but it does, and at a level that I wouldn't be believed. And also with frequency. It's pretty amazing, actually.

Steve Scully

00:01:46 - 00:01:58 (11 sec)

I went back to your book, The Art of the Deal, and you wrote quote, "Most people are surprised by the way I work. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops." Do you take that same approach, or do you adjust that?

Donald Trump

00:01:58 - 00:02:22 (24 sec)

Well, I think I do. I think, you know, you get in and I say, what's the event of the day, what's going on, who's calling, what's happening, and my life has been a pretty rapid, you know, I've seen a lot of changes, a lot of rapid changes. I see it certainly in the White House. You come in and everything is going great, and then you find out that there's a tremendous conflict with another nation, you know, big stuff.

Donald Trump

00:02:22 - 00:02:42 (20 sec)

There's something happened with respect to another country, or something happened with respect to a tragedy that takes place. I mean, things happen when you're president, and I take it very seriously. So, yeah. You have to see what happens that morning. You have to see what happens that evening. No question about it.

Steve Scully

00:02:42 - 00:02:45 (4 sec)

What was your most difficult day thus far?

Donald Trump

00:02:45 - 00:03:17 (32 sec)

Well we've had a lot. I mean, you know, when you have a school shooting, is tremendously, it angers me actually, really angers me. It frustrates everybody. You say, how could a thing like this happen, how is it possible, when you see innocent children being killed, teachers? That's something that you just never can really get over, and you say, is there something we can do? What can we do? What can, you know, because there's so many different sides to it.

Steve Scully

00:03:17 - 00:03:18 (1 sec)

What can we do?

Donald Trump

00:03:18 - 00:03:49 (30 sec)

Well you can do a lot of the things that we've done. We did a report. The Florida shooting was horrible. And for some reason, that group of people, they're terrific, I got to be friendly with a lot of them. And we did a report, and they really appreciated the report. We did it with them, and with experts, and I'm going to give you a copy of it, because I'd like to, I actually have another meeting, I think it was really comprehensive, really good.

Donald Trump

00:03:49 - 00:04:11 (22 sec)

And there were a lot of red flags with that shooter. I think they said there were 36 red flags, and you're pretty disappointed, you know what I mean by a red flag? There were warnings out there. This was not a Boy Scout, and people didn't do what they should have done. And now there are other cases where there are no warnings whatsoever, it comes out of the blue.

Donald Trump

00:04:11 - 00:04:24 (13 sec)

Maybe in certain ways that's almost more frustrating, because you'd say how could a thing like this happen. So those are events that really are, they're very tough to take when you're the president of a country.

Steve Scully

00:04:24 - 00:04:27 (3 sec)

You've talked a lot about Baltimore in the last 48 hours.

Donald Trump

00:04:27 - 00:04:28 (1 sec)

Steve Scully

00:04:28 - 00:04:49 (20 sec)

It's not the record that you have with African-Americans, but it's the rhetoric that we've been seeing. And I want to go back to what you said on election night. You say, "Now it's the time for America to bind the wounds of division. I say it's time for us to come together as one united people. I pledge to every citizen of our land that I will be president for all Americans."

Donald Trump

00:04:49 - 00:05:19 (30 sec)

It's true. And I mean it maybe even more now than I meant it then. But there is a tremendous divide between Republicans and Democrats, between ideologies, you know, whether it's health care, I listen to some of the health care plans that would be so destructive, and you see what we're doing, and you see what, you know, when you want to take 180 million people off private health insurance where they love it, they just love it. They fought for it. They want it. They work hard for it. And you want to take it away from them.

Donald Trump

00:05:19 - 00:05:46 (27 sec)

There is a divide. And that's one of many things. And I'm actually surprised by the level... Look, it was here for President Obama. It was here for President Bush. It was certainly here for President Clinton if you go back. But there is a divide, there's no question about it. And I think it can change, I really do. It started on a bad foot when this whole hoax was created with the Russian hoax.

Donald Trump

00:05:46 - 00:06:07 (21 sec)

Today you see there, somebody even said it with respect to Mitch McConnell. Mitch McConnell could not care less about Russia. It's when they start, they throw out these phrases, and they think it's wonderful, and they say let's play it. I do believe that there's a chance that we can do something. Probably it would be in a second term.

Donald Trump

00:06:07 - 00:06:30 (23 sec)

I really think we could probably do something, and a lot better. That would be one of the things that I'm a little bit surprised at. I thought there'd be better unity. We're accomplishing a lot. We're getting what we want. The military is being rebuilt, the tax cuts we got, the regulation cuts are the biggest of any president in history, even if it was a much longer term of years.

Donald Trump

00:06:30 - 00:06:41 (11 sec)

But with all of the things that we've got, I mean think of VA Choice, think of all of the things that we've got, you would think that that would make people happy.

Steve Scully

00:06:41 - 00:06:45 (4 sec)

But they read the tweets. Do you think that that you're a uniter as President?

Donald Trump

00:06:45 - 00:07:03 (18 sec)

Well if I got fair coverage, I wouldn't even have to tweet. It's my only form of defense. If the press covered me fairly, I wouldn't need that. But they don't cover me fairly. For instance, today I was in Jamestown. I made a speech that was said to be a very good speech. It was not a political speech at all.

Donald Trump

00:07:03 - 00:07:34 (30 sec)

It talked about 400 years ago. I mean it an amazing, very important period of time. And there was one protester stood up. And he stood up and he held up a sign, and he said, whatever he said, something. He got more publicity than the speech got. Now I don't need publicity, Steve, at all, but I just thought it was so terrible, and it was on Fox with John Roberts, and he talked about the protester for almost the entire segment of that.

Donald Trump

00:07:34 - 00:07:52 (18 sec)

And I said, isn't that a shame. One guy stands up, not an impressive person, he stood up and he got all of this. He took the whole thing away. One person. It wasn't like, gee, we have 25,000 people going crazy. There was one person. And I say, that's pretty sad.

Steve Scully

00:07:52 - 00:07:56 (4 sec)

We cover your rallies in their entirety. We'll be with you Thursday in Cincinnati.

Donald Trump

00:07:56 - 00:07:57 (0 sec)

Steve Scully

00:07:57 - 00:08:02 (5 sec)

When you're standing behind the podium looking at that crowd, what are you thinking?

Donald Trump

00:08:02 - 00:08:22 (20 sec)

Well for one thing I'm thinking that never in the history of politics has that happened, and you understand what I mean, because I've never had an empty seat. I don't believe, from the beginning, from the time I came down the escalator, and I think, you know, because you do cover it really well, one of the reasons I'm doing the interview, respect for you and also the fact that you do really do a good job of covering the rallies.

Donald Trump

00:08:22 - 00:08:42 (20 sec)

But others cover the rallies too. I don't think we've had an empty seat. I don't think you've seen an empty seat, with thousands of people outside. And sometimes we take ads or we communicate, please don't come. Think of it. We'll have a 22,000-seat arena, including like a basketball, an NBA arena, or even bigger stadiums, we've never had an empty seat.

Donald Trump

00:08:42 - 00:09:07 (24 sec)

And when you think about that, it's never happened before. When you look at, I saw Biden's opening, where he couldn't get 150 people to an opening in a little basketball, high school gymnasium. And it's a very unique thing. I will tell you, people are surprised that I look comfortable. But there's such love in those arenas, there's such love in those stadiums and those rooms that I speak in, it's really not hard.

Donald Trump

00:09:07 - 00:09:27 (20 sec)

It's hard to explain that to people. I have friends that are very successful. They say, how do you get up, and much of it is not even, you know, sometimes I'll have a teleprompter, or I'll have some notes or something, but much of it's just off the cuff, because there's tremendous love in those rooms. There's an amazing, and I'm sure that you see that, it's an incredible love.

Donald Trump

00:09:27 - 00:09:35 (8 sec)

And I have to say that I believe that it's stronger now than it was even Election Day in 16. I really believe it's stronger now than I've ever seen it before.

Steve Scully

00:09:35 - 00:09:40 (5 sec)

When Congressman Elijah Cummings calls you a racist, your reaction is what?

Donald Trump

00:09:40 - 00:10:03 (22 sec)

Well, I think the word has really gone down a long way, because everybody's called a racist now. Her own party called Nancy Pelosi a racist two weeks ago. The word is so overused, it's such a disgrace. And I can tell you, I'm the least racist person there is in the world as far as I'm concerned, and they use it almost when they run out of things to criticize you.

Donald Trump

00:10:03 - 00:10:23 (20 sec)

They say he's a racist, he's a racist. Now in some cases it's true, there are people that are racist, bad people. But with me, they have a hard time getting away with it, and they don't get away with it. And if you look at what I've done for African-Americans between, I mean look at criminal justice reform.

Donald Trump

00:10:23 - 00:10:39 (17 sec)

President Obama tried so hard to get it, he couldn't get it. You look at Opportunity Zones. And then of course, look at, the Opportunity Zones are a tremendous success by the way, not covered. But we did that as, really an experiment. It's most successful. I think it's one of the most successful things ever done for the inner cities.

Donald Trump

00:10:39 - 00:11:10 (31 sec)

It's turned out to be... Tim Scott of South Carolina worked very hard on it, so many other people did. And it's really become a great success. The biggest beneficiary are African-American, the African-American population. It's incredible what's happened, but between that criminal justice reform, and then of course the biggest thing is the lowest unemployment rate in the history of this country for African-Americans, lowest in the history by far, it's not even close.

Donald Trump

00:11:10 - 00:11:32 (22 sec)

So when you when you see those things, and when people, I mean if the news, the lame stream, or mainstream, or whatever you want to call it media, or fake news, if it would be covered, people would feel a lot different. But they don't talk about that. They don't talk about Opportunity Zones. I don't think I've ever seen anything about Opportunity Zones.

Donald Trump

00:11:32 - 00:11:49 (17 sec)

I don't think I've seen, you know, when I did criminal justice reform, everybody would say, oh, I won't tell you names because I'm not looking to build them up, but the biggest names were there on the other side, liberals, and conservative side, it was very bipartisan. But they don't even talk about it anymore.

Donald Trump

00:11:49 - 00:12:09 (19 sec)

If somebody else did it, if President Obama did criminal justice reform, which is so good for the African-Americans, so good, so important, you know, letting Alice out, getting... 28 years left to serve. Jack Johnson, who was so unjustly convicted, the great heavyweight champion from the early nineteen hundreds.

Donald Trump

00:12:09 - 00:12:19 (11 sec)

I mean so many things we've done. When, if President Obama did that, it would have been great. But when I do it, when I do it, Steve, when I do it, people don't want to talk about it.

Steve Scully

00:12:19 - 00:12:27 (7 sec)

But there's a Quinnipiac poll that said 80 percent of African-Americans believe that your rhetoric is racist. So why is that message not getting out?

Donald Trump

00:12:27 - 00:12:56 (29 sec)

Because the press doesn't put what I've accomplished for African-Americans out, they really don't. They don't talk about criminal justice reform. I did it. It was hard to do too, I had to get people that, really, I had to really twist arms. It was hard to get some of the people and we got it. It's being hailed in certain, many people hail it, they talk about it, but they don't even mention that I had anything to do with it. It couldn't have happened without me. I was the one that was able to get it done.

Donald Trump

00:12:56 - 00:13:18 (22 sec)

So, if the press treated me fairly, I don't want to complain, in the meantime I'm president, right, so how bad can it be. But the truth is, if I wasn't able to get out my own message, I would not be elected anything, because the press is very unfair. Now, if the press did treat me fairly, I'd have tremendous support from the African-American community.

Donald Trump

00:13:18 - 00:13:42 (25 sec)

You know, when Kanye West comes out and supports me, it has a big impact. Jim Brown, I have so much support, Evander Holyfield, Mike Tyson, so many of these, really representatives, athletes, and so many more, so many more. But when Kanye did it, it was very interesting, because my numbers went really, you probably saw it, they really...

Steve Scully

00:13:42 - 00:13:44 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:13:44 - 00:13:59 (16 sec)

Well, the interesting thing is, people heard, they said well wait a minute, we didn't know this about President Trump. But that's the facts. That's the way it is. And we're not like, for instance I'm doing an interview with you, people seeing that well, they're going to say well, I didn't know he did criminal justice reform.

Donald Trump

00:13:59 - 00:14:21 (21 sec)

That was a Clinton thing that was horrible. And Biden. It was horrible for African-Americans. I'm the one that opened it up and got it unclogged. It was a terrible situation where people were going to jail for 50 years over something that in some cases wouldn't even be thought of for a year, or six months, or in some cases for nothing today.

Donald Trump

00:14:21 - 00:14:27 (6 sec)

So it was a very unfair thing. I'm proud of it. But you know, I get, people don't talk about it, the media doesn't talk about it.

Steve Scully

00:14:27 - 00:14:38 (11 sec)

As you know, John Kennedy relied on Dwight Eisenhower, George W. Bush relied on his father, Bill Clinton relied on Richard Nixon, have you reached out to former presidents, and if so, who and why?

Donald Trump

00:14:38 - 00:15:07 (29 sec)

Not too much. I mean I speak with George Bush. Spoke a little bit to the father. But really not too much. I mean it's hard when people were against you. I very much disagreed with the war in Iraq. So it's hard to say that all of a sudden I can forget that. I mean I'm in a situation where we're in the Middle East, where we've defeated, as you know, the caliphate in Syria.

Donald Trump

00:15:07 - 00:15:29 (22 sec)

We did, I did that because, I did that, I wanted to do that, and we did it, 100 percent of the caliphate. When I was at 99 percent, people said, oh you can't pull out, you can't pull out. Well, when I took it over it was a mess. Anyway, I defeated 100 percent caliphate. That doesn't mean ISIS doesn't go running around bombing a store and doing what they do, because they're stone cold crazy, but we've done a great job.

Donald Trump

00:15:29 - 00:15:48 (19 sec)

But I disagreed very strongly on having gone into the Middle East. We're in there now for more than $7 trillion, thousands of lives, millions of lives, you have to count both sides, because I actually count both sides, millions of lives. And they went into a country that did not knock down the World Trade Center, OK. They didn't knock it down.

Donald Trump

00:15:48 - 00:16:11 (23 sec)

It was not Iraq, and it was not Saddam Hussein. He had plenty of problems, OK, he was not a good person. But he didn't knock down the World Trade Center. So we got stuck in this quicksand, but we're extricating ourselves and we're getting out. I call them the endless wars. The endless wars have to end. And we're doing very well, and our military is being built up at a level that has never been built before.

Donald Trump

00:16:11 - 00:16:27 (16 sec)

When I took over, our military was depleted, totally depleted, and now it's being, you know, big numbers, but those numbers are more important to me than almost any numbers, because if we don't have protection from bad actors, then we're going to be in big trouble.

Steve Scully

00:16:27 - 00:16:44 (17 sec)

But all of that is coming at a price. So back in 2011, you tweeted, "I cannot believe the Republicans are extending the debt ceiling. I encourage them to stop this. It's an embarrassment." And yet your spending is going to be far exceeding what Barack Obama spent, another $2 trillion into debt.

Donald Trump

00:16:44 - 00:17:00 (16 sec)

Sure, but the difference is, he wasn't building up the military. The military was getting depleted. I have to build it up, and I have to build it up from both Bush and from Obama, because with Bush, you know we were in these wars all over the place, and with Obama the same thing, they just never ended. You look at Afghanistan.

Donald Trump

00:17:00 - 00:17:09 (9 sec)

We're spending $50 billion a year, $50 billion. Now we've pulled back a lot, I mean, I don't know if you know that, but we have, and we're continuing to.

Steve Scully

00:17:09 - 00:17:10 (1 sec)

Will we pull out?

Donald Trump

00:17:10 - 00:17:33 (23 sec)

Well we're going to see. We're working on negotiating a deal right now, as you probably have heard. And at some point, we want to get out as quickly as we can. But Afghanistan is one thing. And with Syria we're just about out, as you know, and we defeated the caliphate, and we're just about out. And no, I want to get out of these crazy wars that we should have never been in. We shouldn't have been in these wars.

Donald Trump

00:17:33 - 00:17:52 (18 sec)

These wars are wars... We could have done great damage through intelligence and other things, and not having gotten in. Now at the same time, I want to have the strongest military on the planet Earth, and we do, we now do. When I got here, it was really in bad shape. It was, I can't even tell you how bad it was.

Donald Trump

00:17:52 - 00:18:18 (26 sec)

And now we have new fighter jets, we have new missiles, we have, our nuclear has been totally renovated, fixed, and in some cases made brand new. We have tremendous submarines that we are building right now, tremendously powerful submarines, nuclear submarines. And a lot of good things are happening. I think we're going to end up making a deal with Russia where we have some kind of an arms control, because all we're doing is adding on to what we don't need, and they are too.

Donald Trump

00:18:18 - 00:18:38 (20 sec)

China is trying to catch us both. Right now it would be us, then Russia, and then China. But China's actually way behind, but they're trying to catch us. And one of the things I've done is, China had the worst year they've had in 27 years. I was in the Wall Street Journal yesterday, Steve, and they are not, they're not doing too well right now.

Donald Trump

00:18:38 - 00:18:57 (19 sec)

We're tariffing them, we're taking in many, many billions of dollars. I'm taking care of our farmers out of those tariffs because China hit them as a way of retaliating against President Trump. And I said, I'll tell you, our farmers are great patriots, they're incredible, and our farmers are going to be ultimately the biggest beneficiary.

Donald Trump

00:18:57 - 00:19:18 (20 sec)

So, a lot of good things are happening with respect to that. You know what, talking to China right now, but really, it's going to be up to me. We cannot let China do what they've done to us over the last 25 years. They've taken hundreds of billions of dollars out of our country every single year, hundreds of billions, with a B, not millions, billions.

Steve Scully

00:19:18 - 00:19:20 (2 sec)

But you think you can reach a deal?

Donald Trump

00:19:20 - 00:19:33 (13 sec)

I think I can reach a deal if I want to. I think they're right now hurting, the tariffs are killing them, companies are moving out of China, they're going all over, including they're coming here, by the way, because they don't want to pay the tariffs. And yeah, I think I'm going to reach a deal. Absolutely.

Steve Scully

00:19:33 - 00:19:40 (8 sec)

Let me follow up on two real quick points. First of all, you've issued 43,000 tweets. Did you ever regret sending one out?

Donald Trump

00:19:40 - 00:20:06 (25 sec)

Not much, you know, honestly not much. I sent the one about the wiretapping in quotes, and that turned out to be true. Remember the big deal that was? I heard like about a minute after I sent that, I was called by my people, sir, did you say, I said, yes, I did, what's the big deal? And the reason it was such a big deal is it turned out to be true.

Donald Trump

00:20:06 - 00:20:22 (16 sec)

I guess you could say, a lot of the times, the bigger problem is the retweets, which you know, you retweet something that sounds good but it turned out to be from a player that's not the best player in the world, that sort of causes a problem. But overall, I would say no, not at all. I think it's a modern-day form of communication, and it's not really tweet.

Donald Trump

00:20:22 - 00:20:40 (18 sec)

That's a typewriter. What it really is is, as soon as I do it, you put it on, everybody puts it on, it's breaking news. We have, every time I put out a tweet, even if it's good morning everybody, they say we have breaking news, the president has just said good morning. It's an incredible way of communicating, and you get it out fast.

Donald Trump

00:20:40 - 00:21:06 (26 sec)

Otherwise, I mean, I don't know, how would I combat news that's dishonest? How would I combat a reporter or a network that's totally dishonest? CNN is, you know, 100 percent negative. NBC is negative. I made a lot of money for NBC with the Apprentice. It was a tremendous success at a time when they didn't have any successes, but they forgot about that very quickly.

Donald Trump

00:21:06 - 00:21:22 (15 sec)

So, and they wanted to extend me, they went to do anything, I wanted to run for president. And I think we've done a great job. The country is right now on the right path. And I think we have tremendous potential. You know, you take a look at the European Union, that's doing poorly. You take a look at China, it's doing really poorly.

Donald Trump

00:21:22 - 00:21:38 (16 sec)

You take a look at other countries, they're not doing well. We're the hottest country in the world. We're doing great economically and otherwise. We now have a very strong military, a lot stronger after this last budget. And then at some point very soon, I'll be able to cut back. But we had to rebuild our military.

Donald Trump

00:21:38 - 00:21:46 (9 sec)

We didn't have a choice. You know, it's wonderful to say we have a balanced budget. But if we can't protect ourselves, having a balanced budget doesn't mean anything.

Steve Scully

00:21:46 - 00:21:54 (8 sec)

Final question. As you approach this job, in a day in the presidency here in the White House, walk us through that day.

Donald Trump

00:21:54 - 00:22:03 (9 sec)

Well, I stay up late. I like to read a lot, which is, people don't understand it, but I do read a lot. I also watch a lot. It's sometimes...

Steve Scully

00:22:03 - 00:22:04 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:22:04 - 00:22:26 (22 sec)

I watch a lot of Fox. I tend to not watch too much of CNN because, I mean, it's just, it's just such incorrect reporting. That's why their ratings went down so low. Although I'll be watching the debates tonight. You know, if I didn't, you'd say I can imagine, you know, I would like to know who I'm going to be running against.

Donald Trump

00:22:26 - 00:22:28 (2 sec)

Maybe you'll tell me after this interview, right?

Steve Scully

00:22:28 - 00:22:29 (1 sec)

Donald Trump

00:22:29 - 00:22:42 (13 sec)

I don't know. I mean, I would think the four or five top ones would seem to have a big edge. You have some people that shouldn't even be wasting time. But I would think the four or five top ones would be the ones that would be, you know, certainly have the best chance of getting in.

Steve Scully

00:22:42 - 00:22:48 (7 sec)

There's a picture of your dad in the credenza in the Oval Office. Would he be surprised that you're president today?

Donald Trump

00:22:48 - 00:23:11 (23 sec)

Well, he was always very proud of me. I did, you know, I went to schools, I did well. He just was very proud of me. And I came into his business, he was a man that never let anyone sign a check, and when I came in, I could sign checks, you know, he was just a very strong guy who just was a very dominant figure, and yet a very good man.

Donald Trump

00:23:11 - 00:23:37 (26 sec)

He was a very good person, he had tremendous heart, but a strong person. He'd be only surprised in that he never thought I'd be running for politics, for office. I think if I said I was going to run for president, I think he'd probably say I'd have a chance at doing it. So he never got to see this unfortunately, he died a little while before, but he was 93. And he led a good life.

Donald Trump

00:23:37 - 00:23:54 (18 sec)

He was a good, good man. Great mother, great father, great brothers and sisters, but, so in that way I was very, very lucky. But I think my father would say that if I wanted to run, I think he'd have probably said I would have done very well. Now who knew this was exactly going to happen? Who can say that?

Donald Trump

00:23:54 - 00:24:06 (12 sec)

I mean you have political families that everybody thinks are going to do great, and they didn't do so great. But my father would have been very proud. He loved this country. And he had confidence in me.

Steve Scully

00:24:06 - 00:24:09 (3 sec)

Your big agenda in a second term would be what?

Donald Trump

00:24:09 - 00:24:31 (22 sec)

Well, I think getting costs, now that the military is very close to being totally rebuilt, I think costs are going to be a big factor. We want to strengthen up Social Security so that nobody gets hurt later on. I'm going to strengthen a lot of the things up that really, I think we're going to do very strong health care, very, very strong health care, it's very, very important to me because you don't have, Obamacare is not good.

Donald Trump

00:24:31 - 00:24:53 (22 sec)

We've managed Obamacare really well, and I had a decision to make, do I manage it well, or do I manage it purposely poorly? Politically I should have managed it poorly, but we've managed it really well, much better than they managed it. It's still too expensive, and it's still not good health care. So we're going to make something really good, and I will leave that for the beginning of my second term.

Donald Trump

00:24:53 - 00:25:00 (8 sec)

If we can win the House, the Senate and the presidency, we will have health care that's going to be phenomenal, and many other things. We have a lot of things to do.

Steve Scully

00:25:00 - 00:25:05 (5 sec)

But just to be on the record, some budget cuts are in the works potentially in a second term?

Donald Trump

00:25:05 - 00:25:30 (24 sec)

Oh absolutely, sure, we'll be, we'll be... Well, just in terms of the military, once we're, you know, a lot of this money, Steve, is going to rebuilding, is ordering new planes. After you have a certain number of planes, they last for a long time. We have planes that were 45, 50-years old. You know the story, you've reported on it, right, where the grandfather flew the same plane as the young grandson that's now flying, OK. I mean we had old equipment.

Donald Trump

00:25:30 - 00:25:51 (22 sec)

We were getting parts from the graveyard in the desert, the plane graveyard, where they had the old, they don't make the parts anymore. They were getting parts, it's ridiculous. Now we have brand new F-35s and F-18s, and we have the best missile systems in the world, new Patriots, new Tomahawks, the best submarines, nobody's even close in submarine technology to us. And no, we have phenomenal stuff.

Donald Trump

00:25:51 - 00:26:02 (11 sec)

We have aircraft carriers coming on. We have the President Gerald Ford coming on, and it's out on sea trials right now. So we have a lot of really great things happening.

Steve Scully

00:26:02 - 00:26:04 (2 sec)

Mr. President, we thank you for your time.

Donald Trump

00:26:04 - 00:26:07 (2 sec)

Thank you very much. Great honor. Thank you.