Transcript - Interview: Ainsley Earhardt Interviews Donald Trump on Fox and Friends - August 23, 2018 | Factba.se

Ainsley Earhardt

00:00:00 - 00:00:03 (4 sec)

Mr. President, thank you so much for sitting down with me. How are you doing?

Donald Trump

00:00:03 - 00:00:22 (18 sec)

I'm doing great. We had an incredible rally last night in West Virginia. It was beautiful. A tremendous crowd. And think we're going to win a race, big race over there. And I guess you could say that our number's in winning, whether it's for the Senate or for Congress or for governor, has been very good.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:00:22 - 00:00:25 (3 sec)

How is our country's first lady doing, and how are your children?

Donald Trump

00:00:25 - 00:00:31 (6 sec)

She's doing great. She's a terrific woman. She goes through a lot with all this publicity. But she is a terrific woman. She's doing great.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:00:31 - 00:00:33 (2 sec)

How do you handle all of that?

Donald Trump

00:00:33 - 00:00:51 (18 sec)

Well, it's part of my life. I guess my whole life has been this way. Somebody said, "Oh gee, this is always some such controversy." And, I don't know, I've always had controversy in my life and I've always succeeded. I've always won. I've always won. It was controversial when I ran, and I won, and now the country is doing better than it's ever done.

Donald Trump

00:00:51 - 00:01:05 (14 sec)

You know, we have the best economy we've ever had -- in the history of our country. And more jobs, today literally today we have more jobs, more people working in the United States than ever before in the history of our country.

Donald Trump

00:01:05 - 00:01:23 (18 sec)

Black unemployment, Asian unemployment, women unemployment, Hispanic unemployment -- historic lows. It's been an amazing thing. And, you know, unfortunately the media never covers that. They don't like to cover that kind of thing. They like to cover nonsense. But it's one of those things.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:01:23 - 00:01:31 (8 sec)

Well, speaking of, yesterday huge news day. There's a lot breaking today as well. Michael Cohen. Tell me about your relationship with him?

Donald Trump

00:01:31 - 00:01:49 (18 sec)

Well, he was a lawyer for me for -- one of many. You know, they always say "the lawyer" then they like to add "the fixer." Well I don't know him as a fixer. I don't know where that term came from, but he's been a lawyer for me. Didn't do big deals, did small deals. Not somebody that was with me that much.

Donald Trump

00:01:49 - 00:02:14 (25 sec)

They make it sound like I didn't live without him. I understood Michael Cohen very well. He -- well, it turned out he wasn't a very good lawyer, frankly. But he was somebody that was probably with me for about 10 years. And I would see him sometimes, but when I had deals and big deals I had outside lawyers, and I have a lot of inside lawyers too in addition to Michael. I always found him to be a nice guy.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:02:14 - 00:02:22 (9 sec)

He said, one story said you didn't know anything about payments and now he's saying that you directed him to make these payments. Did you direct him to make these payments?

Donald Trump

00:02:22 - 00:02:38 (16 sec)

He made the deal. He made the deals. And by the way, he pled to two counts that aren't a crime, which nobody understands. I watched a number of shows -- sometimes you get some pretty good information by watching shows. Those two counts aren't even a crime. They weren't campaign finance.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:02:38 - 00:02:40 (2 sec)

Did you know about the payments?

Donald Trump

00:02:40 - 00:02:55 (15 sec)

Later on I knew. Later on. But you have to understand, Ainsley, what he did -- and they weren't taken out of campaign finance. That's a big thing, that's a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn't come out of the campaign. They came from me and I tweeted about it.

Donald Trump

00:02:55 - 00:03:18 (23 sec)

You know, I put -- I don't know if you know but I tweeted about the payments -- but they didn't come out of campaign. In fact, my first question when I heard about it was, "Did they come out of the campaign?" because that could be a little dicey. And they didn't come out of the campaign. And that's big. But they weren't, that's not, it's not even a campaign violation.

Donald Trump

00:03:18 - 00:03:39 (21 sec)

If you look at President Obama, he had a massive campaign violation but he had a different attorney general. And they viewed it a lot differently. You know, we have somebody that they seem to like to go after a lot of Republicans. But he settled his very easily. In fact, I put that out fairly recently.

Donald Trump

00:03:39 - 00:03:52 (13 sec)

So Obama had it. Other people have it, almost everybody that runs for office has campaign violations. But what Michael Cohen pled to weren't even campaign-related crimes.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:03:52 - 00:03:54 (2 sec)

Why is he doing this? Why -- he is your attorney.

Donald Trump

00:03:54 - 00:04:10 (16 sec)

Because he made a great deal, because he was in another business totally unrelated to me, where I guess there was fraud involved and loans and taxicabs and all sorts of things -- nothing to do with me -- because he had an outside business. He worked for me, you could really say was more or less part time.

Donald Trump

00:04:10 - 00:04:36 (25 sec)

He had other businesses, he had other clients. I'm not his only client. And Michael Cohen had I guess a taxi business and somebody reported him for some things in his taxi business. And that's how this started and they put the two counts of campaign violations in there. But a lot of lawyers on television and also lawyers that I have say they're not even crimes.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:04:36 - 00:04:42 (7 sec)

If you're saying the payments, if they're not illegal, then why would he even, why would he use that information for a plea deal?

Donald Trump

00:04:42 - 00:05:01 (19 sec)

Because he -- because he makes a better deal when he uses me, like everybody else. And one of the reasons I respect Paul Manafort so much is he went through that trial -- you know, they make up stories, people make up stories. This whole thing about flipping, they call it. I know all about flipping -- for 30, 40 years I've been watching flippers.

Donald Trump

00:05:01 - 00:05:29 (28 sec)

Everything's wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is or as high as you can go. It almost ought to be outlawed. It's not fair. Because if somebody is going to give, spend five years like Michael Cohen, or 10 years or 15 years in jail because of a taxicab industry, because he defrauded some banks -- the last two were the tiny ones -- campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly.

Donald Trump

00:05:29 - 00:05:50 (21 sec)

But if somebody defrauded a bank and he's going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail, but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump and you'll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal he made, in all fairness to him, most people are going to do that. And I've seen it many times -- I've had many friends involved in this stuff.

Donald Trump

00:05:50 - 00:06:05 (15 sec)

It's called flipping and it almost ought to be illegal. You get 10 years in jail, but if you say bad things about somebody -- in other words, make up stories if you don't know, make up stories. They just make up lies. Alan Dershowitz said compose, right? They make up lies. I've seen it many times.

Donald Trump

00:06:05 - 00:06:20 (16 sec)

They make up things and now they go from 10 years to they're a national hero. They have a statue erected in their honor. It's not it's not a fair thing. But that's why he did it. He made a very good deal. I mean, for what he did.

Donald Trump

00:06:20 - 00:06:38 (18 sec)

But I'll tell you there's somebody made a better deal -- Awan, the I.T. guy for Schultz, Congresswoman Schultz. He had all the information on the Democrats, he had all the information on everybody. He went to jail holding the hands of the Justice Department and the FBI.

Donald Trump

00:06:38 - 00:07:00 (22 sec)

They sat there together, they were smiling and laughing. And he got nothing. And he stole money. And he had more information on corruption of the Democrats than anybody. And they don't even have his computers and his servers. They just gave him -- you saw that, it was on your show -- they gave him nothing. Nothing.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:07:00 - 00:07:02 (1 sec)

Double standard?

Donald Trump

00:07:02 - 00:07:24 (23 sec)

Double standard? I mean, he was worse than anybody, in my opinion. He got nothing. He's a Democrat, he got nothing. The reason he got nothing, because the Dems are very strong in the Justice Department. I put an Attorney General that never took control of the Justice Department, Jeff Sessions. Never took control of the Justice Department, and it's a sort of an incredible thing.

Donald Trump

00:07:24 - 00:07:48 (24 sec)

We have this country going so well. Mike Pompeo is doing incredibly -- all of my people, they're doing incredibly but the whole thing with, going on with the Justice and FBI when you see Strzok and his lover, Lisa Page, when you see Comey, with all the lies that he's told, when you see Mueller with the conflicts, he's so conflicted. Comey's his best friend.

Donald Trump

00:07:48 - 00:08:15 (27 sec)

He had a really nasty business transaction with me, which he never reported. I've been talking about, he never reports it. I mean, you look at the bad things -- he wanted the FBI job that Christopher Wray has. Now, Christopher Wray was recommended by Rosenstein. The FBI. I'll tell you what, if you took a poll in the FBI, I guarantee you one thing: I'd do very well.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:08:15 - 00:08:18 (3 sec)

Are you considering pardoning Paul Manafort?

Donald Trump

00:08:18 - 00:08:29 (11 sec)

I have great respect for what he's done in terms of what he's gone through. You know, he worked for Ronald Reagan for years, he worked for Bob Dole. He worked, I guess his firm worked for McCain.

Donald Trump

00:08:29 - 00:08:43 (13 sec)

He worked for many, many people many, many years. And I would say what he did, some of the charges they threw against him, every consultant, every lobbyist in Washington probably does.

Donald Trump

00:08:43 - 00:09:02 (20 sec)

If you look at Hillary Clinton's person, you take a look at the people that worked for Hillary Clinton. Look at the crimes that Clinton did with the emails and she deletes 33,000 emails after she gets a subpoena from Congress, and this Justice Department does nothing about it? And all of the other crimes that they've done.

Donald Trump

00:09:02 - 00:09:25 (23 sec)

And they don't look at Podesta -- Podesta was supposed to be Manafort on steroids. They made him close up his firm. He was going to be indicted the next day, we heard. Never happened. Instead they go after Manafort. So, look, I didn't know Manafort well, he wasn't with the campaign long. They got him on things totally unrelated to the campaign.

Donald Trump

00:09:25 - 00:09:35 (10 sec)

And by the way, they got Cohen on totally unrelated to the campaign. I'm not involved. I wasn't charged with anything. You know, people don't like to say that, but I wasn't charged.

Donald Trump

00:09:35 - 00:09:55 (20 sec)

But when you look at the the corruption on the other side and they refuse to look at anything. When you didn't look at Strzok, where he said basically, "We're going to take out the president," the insurance policy and everything else. You look at Lisa Page the two lovers back and forth with these horrible, these horrible texts.

Donald Trump

00:09:55 - 00:10:15 (20 sec)

You look at the kind of talk going on about, it's really subversion, and our Justice Department doesn't do anything about it. People would say, "Oh but you appointed Jeff Sessions." I said "I did." But I really feel as long as this is going out -- I don't have to do this, but I will stay uninvolved. And maybe that's the best thing to do.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:10:15 - 00:10:28 (13 sec)

Mr. President, a lot of people are frustrated, a lot of your supporters are frustrated with the DOJ, with Jeff Sessions. There are rumors that you're going to fire him after the midterms, and Rosenstein. They also want these documents, they're wondering if you will use your power to get these documents released?

Donald Trump

00:10:28 - 00:10:47 (19 sec)

At the right time I think I'm going to have to do the documents. I didn't want to. But I think I'm going to have to. There's such corruption. Before I got here. It's from before I got here. It's the Obama administration, and you look at what happened. They surveilled my campaign, it's very simple. The FISA report the phony, fake --

Ainsley Earhardt

00:10:47 - 00:10:49 (2 sec)

Rosenstein signed the last FISA report.

Donald Trump

00:10:49 - 00:10:50 (1 sec)

It bothers me. It's always bothered me.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:10:50 - 00:10:52 (1 sec)

Will you fire him? Will you fire Sessions?

Donald Trump

00:10:52 - 00:11:09 (18 sec)

Well I'll tell you what. As I've said, I wanted to stay uninvolved, but when everybody sees what's going on in the Justice Department -- I always put justice now with quotes -- it's a very very sad day. Jeff Sessions recused himself, which he shouldn't have done, or he should have told me.

Donald Trump

00:11:09 - 00:11:27 (18 sec)

Even my enemies say that Jeff Sessions should have told you that he was going to recuse himself and then you wouldn't have put him in. He took the job and then he said, "I'm going to recuse myself." I said, "What kind of a man is this?" And by the way, he was on the campaign.

Donald Trump

00:11:27 - 00:11:37 (9 sec)

You know, the only reason I gave him the job because I felt loyalty. He was an original supporter. He was on the campaign. He knows there was no collusion.

Donald Trump

00:11:37 - 00:12:02 (25 sec)

Now what's coming out of Manafort? No collusion. What's come out of Michael Cohen? No collusion. This is stuff that they got. How about with Michael Cohen? In all fairness to him, they raid his office at 6:00 in the morning? And how about with Manafort they raided his home at like 5:00 in the morning I think, on a weekend and his wife is in bed and they go in with guns? This isn't Al Capone. [Break in Interview]

Ainsley Earhardt

00:12:02 - 00:12:19 (17 sec)

Let's talk about immigration. Mollie Tibbetts, another American killed by an illegal, an illegal alien. It's just adding fuel to the already controversial immigration subject that you've been outspoken about. What do you say to those who disagree with your immigration plan?

Donald Trump

00:12:19 - 00:12:38 (19 sec)

Mollie is this beautiful young girl who the father, I watched the father, he kept saying -- I sort of doubted it was going to happen -- "She's coming back. She just left, but she's coming back" and I'd say, that's called hope. And it's a beautiful thing in a way. It's hope. But now there's no hope.

Donald Trump

00:12:38 - 00:13:05 (27 sec)

She was killed by a horrible person that came in from Mexico. Illegally here. Found by ICE. Our great ICE, who's abused by the Democrats and the left. And without them, you might not be sitting here so comfortably right now. I just think it's so sad. We're building the wall. It's already started. We've spent 3.2 billion on it.

Donald Trump

00:13:05 - 00:13:16 (11 sec)

We're asking for 5 billion for this year's funding. The wall is going up, a lot of people don't know it. I'd like to build it even faster, but dealing with the Democrats is very tough.

Donald Trump

00:13:16 - 00:13:29 (13 sec)

The immigration laws are horrible. We're doing an incredible job, we're doing a record-breaking job. but we have bad laws. You know, when you have bad laws you can do good, but you can do a lot better if you had good laws, so they'll all get changed, but we have to elect more Republicans.

Ainsley Earhardt

00:13:29 - 00:13:38 (9 sec)

The Nazi prison guard living here in New York, living in Queens. ICE officials deported him. Why was that so important for you? Cause I know that was on your agenda, has been since the beginning.

Donald Trump

00:13:38 - 00:13:57 (19 sec)

I have a lot of Jewish friends who said to me about this man living in Queens -- I grew up in Queens, that's where I grew up. And he was a man that, not just a prison guard -- he was a prison guard that supervised the killing of many, many Jews. Many, many Jews. And he's lived here for decades.

Donald Trump

00:13:57 - 00:14:17 (20 sec)

And he walks the streets of Jackson Heights. I know Jackson Heights very well. I walk the same streets. And he, I dunno, people came up to me and they, from the beginning of the campaign they tell me about this Nazi who lived in Queens. Walks the street like he owns the place. Now he's an old man, he's 95 years old.

Donald Trump

00:14:17 - 00:14:35 (18 sec)

And the Obama administration was unable to pull it off. And frankly, the Bush administration was unable to pull it off. Dov Hikind, who's a very Democrat assemblyman from New York, heavy Democrat. I mean, this is a guy that never heard of a Republican, OK? He was giving me such praise.

Donald Trump

00:14:35 - 00:14:51 (17 sec)

It was so nice he said, "Thank you, Mr. President, thank you." It was so nice to watch actually, because, because of the fact he's a Democrat. He was so -- he said, "I don't care whether he's a Republican or a Democrat. What he did is something that nobody else was able to do."

Donald Trump

00:14:51 - 00:15:08 (17 sec)

But I've done many things like that -- they don't get reported. They don't get reported. What we're doing for health care is incredible. We're even keeping the remnants of Obamacare. You know, we've mostly got it killed. And we got rid of the individual mandate, but we're getting, the remnants of Obamacare.

Donald Trump

00:15:08 - 00:15:17 (9 sec)

The increase is much less than people thought. That's because of us. And we're getting rid of it slowly. We're putting in new health care systems, which is a beautiful thing

Ainsley Earhardt

00:15:17 - 00:15:25 (8 sec)

Seventy-six days away from the midterms. Hard to believe. If the Democrats take back power, do you believe they will try to impeach you?

Donald Trump

00:15:25 - 00:15:38 (13 sec)

Well, you know, I guess it says something like high crimes and all. I don't, I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job. I'll tell you what, if I ever got impeached I think the market would crash.

Donald Trump

00:15:38 - 00:16:02 (25 sec)

I think everybody would be very poor. Because without this thinking, you would see, you would see numbers that you wouldn't believe, in reverse. If Hillary Clinton got elected, instead of 4.1 up -- and each point is 3 1/2 trillion dollars and 10 million jobs. When I took it over it was at one. And it was going to be down, it was going down.

Donald Trump

00:16:02 - 00:16:23 (21 sec)

I freed up, I got rid of regulations. The tax cut was a tremendous thing. But even before the tax cut, right from first day I got rid of regulations. I approve the pipelines, 48,000 jobs. But it did a lot of things. Had Hillary and the Democrats gotten in, had she been president, you would have had negative growth.

Donald Trump

00:16:23 - 00:16:53 (29 sec)

We've picked up $10 trillion in worth. China, by the way, has gone down $15 trillion, OK? You know, when I came in China was a dominant force. Now -- they like me very much. I get along great with President Xi -- but I said, "We can no longer give you 500 billion a year on bad trade deals" and you see what's happened over the last 90 days. And the reason I even waited was because of North Korea, because I wanted China's help on North Korea. Otherwise I would have done it sooner.

Donald Trump

00:16:53 - 00:17:08 (15 sec)

And China has been a big help on North Korea. I hope they continue to be because eventually I had to say, "Look I have to get going now on trade." But last year China made 500 and se -- we had a deficit with China, $517 billion. Not gonna happen anymore. [Break in Interview]

Ainsley Earhardt

00:17:08 - 00:17:10 (3 sec)

What grade do you give yourself so far?

Donald Trump

00:17:10 - 00:17:26 (16 sec)

So, I give myself an A+. I don't think any president has ever done what I've done in the short -- we haven't even been two years. Biggest tax cuts in history. Soon to be two unbelievable Supreme Court justices.

Donald Trump

00:17:26 - 00:17:38 (12 sec)

I'm sure that Justice Kavanaugh will be approved. Justice Gorsuch has been a star. You look at all of the things we've done with regulations, the economy is the best it's ever been in history.

Donald Trump

00:17:38 - 00:17:54 (16 sec)

The only thing I'm doing badly in is the press doesn't cover me fairly. I thought after I won -- you know, they killed me during the campaign just killed me. I said, "Well one good thing about winning, I've showed them. So now I'm going to get fair press." Guess what? It got worse. It's worse.

Donald Trump

00:17:54 - 00:18:13 (18 sec)

So the press does as -- I would say, I would honestly give myself A+ and so would many other people. You go to the, you go to the people of West Virginia -- you saw them last night? -- that went to a state that was down and out and now it's flourishing. You go to some of these states that were down and out, and now they're doing fantastically well

Donald Trump

00:18:13 - 00:18:24 (11 sec)

And when I finish the trade deals you watch what happens for our farmers, which have been going down for 15 years. You watch what happens. They're going to be very, very happy. They're going to be very wealthy. [Break in Interview]

Ainsley Earhardt

00:18:24 - 00:18:25 (2 sec)

Is the press the enemy of the people?

Donald Trump

00:18:25 - 00:18:39 (14 sec)

No not at all. But the fake news is, and the fake news is comprised of a lot, it's a big chunk, OK? Somebody said, "What's the chunk?" I said, "Eighty percent." It's a lot. It's a lot.

Donald Trump

00:18:39 - 00:18:59 (20 sec)

If I do something well, it's not reported other than in the 20 percent. I mean, New York Times cannot write a good story about me. Their crazed. They're like lunatics. If I do something well -- I often joke I'll do some great thing, like meeting with Kim Jong Un. That was a great success.

Donald Trump

00:18:59 - 00:19:21 (22 sec)

Hey, they've been working on this for so many years and they get nothing. I just got, I just left, what, three months ago or less? I left Singapore. You've had no missiles shot. You have no rockets shot. You have no nuclear testing, and we got back our hostages and I have a good relationship with them. You know, we have a good chemistry together.

Donald Trump

00:19:21 - 00:19:46 (25 sec)

I don't know if that's good or bad. We have a good chemistry. I spoke with Prime Minister Abe of Japan this morning. He started the call by saying, "I want to thank you for the great job that you've done with North Korea." He said, "We haven't had missiles shot over Japan in so long." He said, "The people of Japan feel safe, and, Mr. President, I want to thank you for the great job you've done with North Korea."

Donald Trump

00:19:46 - 00:20:05 (19 sec)

They don't feel that hostility. When I took over, President Obama thought we'd have to go to war with North Korea, and I asked him, "Did you ever speak to Kim Jong Un?" "No." I said, "Wouldn't it be maybe a good thing to give it a shot?" And if you remember the only thing they got me on, they said, "He spoke," "He met."

Donald Trump

00:20:05 - 00:20:21 (16 sec)

Look, I didn't give him anything. Gave him nothing except sanctions. We have very heavy sanctions on North Korea. We actually put some more on yesterday because we'd like it to move faster. But we have a good relationship. But I didn't give him anything.

Donald Trump

00:20:21 - 00:20:46 (25 sec)

And I'll never forget -- you talk about the fake news -- they said, "Donald Trump met" -- the first day it was incredible. Nobody could believe I was able to do it. Obama couldn't get a meeting. Clinton couldn't get a meeting. Bush couldn't get a meeting, with the family. Bush couldn't get a meeting. Nobody could get a meeting. And this one's tougher than the father. I say that with respect, but he's tougher than the father and tougher than the grandfather. They couldn't even get a meeting.

Donald Trump

00:20:46 - 00:21:06 (19 sec)

I got a meeting. So the first day it was like unbelievable even fake news CNN said it was unbelievable vented about you know five or six hours went by and they had to get their narrative straight. And they said -- very interesting -- "Donald Trump agreed to meet." I meet, and that was supposed to be like a loss.

Donald Trump

00:21:06 - 00:21:22 (17 sec)

It was a great success. My meeting with Putin was a tremendous success. I got killed by the fake news. They wanted me to go up and punch him in the face. I said, "I want to get along with Russia. I want to get along with everybody." They said I was too rough on North Korea. Remember that? Too rough.

Donald Trump

00:21:22 - 00:21:37 (15 sec)

But with Putin they said I was too soft. My meeting with Putin was a tremendous success, including Syria and Ukraine. And if you look at Crimea, that was given away by President Obama. Has nothing to do with me. Nobody wants to mention that.

Donald Trump

00:21:37 - 00:21:49 (12 sec)

So we've had tremendous success. And just to finish, NATO -- I raised hundreds of billions of dollars from these countries that weren't paying. They were delinquent, they weren't paying their bills.

Donald Trump

00:21:49 - 00:22:04 (15 sec)

The press doesn't like to talk about that. The press talks about the fact that I insulted a lot of the leaders because I was strong and the fact that they had to pay. I said, No, the United States is not going to be paying your bills." With that, I'm having a good time.