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Donald J. Trump
Interview: Lee Conklin of WTVG 13abc News Interviews Donald Trump in Toledo - January 9, 2020
StressLens
5 Topics
Entities
Moderation
2 Speakers
Donald Trump Full Transcript
Donald Trump
00:00:16-00:00:33 (18 sec)No Signal (0)
Well, it's Ohio, and it's been a special state for us. This is our first rally the -- of the year, and really, the first rally since we go into the new -- the new push for 2020, and Toledo has been great. Toledo, Ohio -- I have so many friends, but here -- here, but it's a great place, and it's been a little bit lucky, as you say.
Donald Trump
00:00:56-00:01:20 (24 sec)No Signal (0)
It's gonna be tremendous -- tremendous for the farmer, tremendous for the auto workers. You know, we have a whole special thing for the auto workers with Mexico, and we're not going to be taking companies out of our places anymore. It's one of the reasons I ran, if you want to know the truth. I would sit back and, as a civilian I'd say: why are all these companies leaving, going to Mexico -- some to Canada, but in the auto case, mostly to Mexico.
Donald Trump
00:01:20-00:01:45 (25 sec)No Signal (0)
The tariffs that they put on your farmer were so ter -- your farmers were so terrible -- up into Canada, and all of that goes away. We have an unbelievable situation. People won't be leaving us anymore. The companies aren't going to be moving down. We have a system that is just -- it's an incredible deal, and if it weren't great, if it weren't something that I want, I would've put on tariffs, and I would have said "forget it." But when they heard that they said, we'll give you the points.
Donald Trump
00:01:45-00:02:12 (27 sec)No Signal (0)
So this is phenomenal for the farmers. You see what's happening with the farm prices. They're starting to go up now. Now, plus, in addition to that, we just signed -- we're going to be signing, on January 15th -- I think it'll be January 15th, but shortly thereafter, but I think January 15th -- a big deal with China, one of the great deals with $50 billion being purchased in terms of farmers, and we just signed one with -- for $40 billion with Japan.
Lee Conklin
00:02:19-00:02:40 (21 sec)No StressLens
I want to go back to Tuesday night, about 5:30 local time here in Toledo, Eastern time. If you can, take us back to what you were thinking about 5:30 when bases with U.S. troops had been attacked by Iran. What were you thinking before you heard, Mr. President, about the possibility of American casualties or damage. What was going through your head?
Donald Trump
00:02:40-00:03:12 (32 sec)No Signal (0)
Well, I thought it was a probability, not even a possibility. We had heard that, initially, it was 11, and then 12, and then 14, and then ultimately, 16 missiles were sent in. We knew pretty much where they were going. We had a lot of great intelligence, frankly. But we knew where they were going, and there -- they were big and they were fast, and I tell you what: we were very happy when we learned, not only weren't any -- nobody was killed, but nobody was even hurt, and they landed in areas that were very good, as far as I was concerned.
Donald Trump
00:03:12-00:03:30 (18 sec)No Signal (0)
So you had 16. I think four of them didn't reach the location and the other -- the other twelve were -- they didn't hit, perhaps they didn't want to hit, or something happened, but there was nobody hurt nobody injured, and I think I was very happily surprised.
Donald Trump
00:03:37-00:03:56 (19 sec)No Signal (0)
Well, you have to keep presidential power, so we'll decide, maybe should that happen. I don't see that happening, but we would -- we have to have a position where we can do what we have to do, if we have to do it. So, we're talking right now to Congress. We're negotiating with a lot of different people. But we have to keep that presidential power.
Donald Trump
00:04:07-00:04:26 (20 sec)No Signal (0)
No, we're getting some very positive responses from Congress right now. They know what we have to do. As an example, if you look at that, I was -- I acted very quickly. We had the number one terrorist in the world -- should have been killed a long time ago. He should have been taken out, really, a long time ago, by other presidents.
Donald Trump
00:04:26-00:04:57 (30 sec)No Signal (0)
I mean, they -- long -- he's been there for a long time, 20 years, probably more than that. Killed a lot of people, killed a lot of Americans. His big thing was roadside bombs, he loved them, and we have so many young men and women walking around without legs and without arms, where the roadside bomb -- he was the king of the roadside bomb, and then they got bigger and more powerful, to a point where they could take out tanks, and now, he had to go and he did go, and that was a very fast decision, and you have to be able to make a decision like that as President.
Donald Trump
00:05:11-00:05:35 (23 sec)No Signal (0)
And I started the speech with that, and then I said good morning, right? So I mean, I wanted people to understand -- because it is about that: we can never allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon, and frankly, it's the biggest threat to the world. We can never allow that to happen. The deal they had was a horrible deal, the JCPOA, the -- the deal that was made -- the original nuclear deal -- didn't cover the right locations.
Donald Trump
00:05:35-00:05:53 (18 sec)Medium (1.532)
It expires very soon. I mean, if it was to run out -- we terminated it, but it expires very soon. You need a lot of length, as the countries, you know, we're talking about is not -- you're not renting to a candy store in a shopping center, and so what happened is, I terminated it, and I think we're making a lot of progress.
Donald Trump
00:05:53-00:06:16 (23 sec)No Signal (0)
We're making a lot of progress. But we took out the number one terrorist in the world, the number one terrorist for decades, and everybody knew it. Nobody wanted to do it, and I did it and they hit us, and nobody was hurt. Now, you have to understand, when we took him out also, it was not only for what he had done in the past, but in the very immediate -- a week before, an American was killed, and a number of other people were very badly injured.
Donald Trump
00:06:16-00:06:40 (24 sec)No Signal (0)
They were badly, badly hurt and this was the work of him also. Plus he was going after, in our opinion, our very intelligent opinion, he was going after our embassies, and things could have happened. We had the exact opposite to Benghazi. Benghazi was a disaster, and they didn't have the right, you know, response, and we had rapid response.
Lee Conklin
00:06:52-00:07:13 (20 sec)No StressLens
You said yesterday, you told the American public, that you believe the military threat had lessened. Iran was standing down, and with that, we're getting warnings from Homeland Security, that the cyber threat is up. What -- what is the administration doing to guarantee the safety of our systems? Our banking systems, our -- our grids, our computer systems in this country?
Donald Trump
00:07:13-00:07:31 (18 sec)No Signal (0)
Well, it's a great question. Cyber is a whole new thing. It's a whole new field. We have some tremendous people. We're better at cyber than anybody else in the world. But we weren't really using that power, that intellect, on cyber. We weren't doing it, and now we are, and we have -- I have -- incredible people in charge of cyber.