I am very honored to welcome to the program my very first guest to my very first program, a man who has been a friend for decades. He happens also to be the 45th President of the United States, President Donald J. Trump. Thank you so much, Mr. President. Well, thank you and congratulations on the new show. That's great. It'll be successful. Knowing you, it'll be successful. I appreciate that. I appreciate your -- you live in the middle of a hurricane. Your life is so different than it -- than it was when you were simply a billionaire businessman. I picked up in The New York Times today and I'm reading about Rod Rosenstein, your deputy attorney general. He told Andrew G. McCabe -- I'm reading from the Times -- then the acting FBI director, that he might be able to persuade Attorney General Jeff Sessions and John F. Kelly, then Secretary of Homeland Security, and now the White House chief of staff, to try to recruit support for your removal under the 25th Amendment. I said to myself, when I read that, what the hell is this revenge of the nerd? Or is this a palace coup? What's your reaction to what Rod Rosenstein has done? It was a year ago, but my goodness, this is very profound, Mr. President. Well, I think it's a very sad story, and people are obviously -- we are looking into it, but it's a very sad state of affairs when something like that can happen. And, you know, I say to everybody, that nobody's done, and you -- you've actually said it. Nobody's done what I've done in the first two years as a president, between the economy, which is the best economy we've ever had as a nation. The regulation cuts, the many, many appointments of judges that will be a record-setting appointment of judges. And hopefully, we'll have a second judge very shortly, who has a fantastic -- fantastic man, a fantastic talent and intellect. Hopefully, Brett Kavanaugh will go onto the Supreme Court, in addition to Neil Gorsuch, and what we've done, and you know, you take a look at North Korea, when I started with North Korea. You know that before I got there, it was close to war. And now we have very good relationships, and it's working along and it's going actually faster than anybody would understand But will you fire Rod Rosenstein based on this treachery? Well, I don't want to comment on it until I get all the facts. I haven't gotten all the facts. But certainly, it's being looked at in terms of what took place -- if anything took place -- and I'll make a determination sometime later. But I don't have the facts. But aren't you -- I mean, it seems to me, I mean, I... I really, I feel deep affection for you, and I regret the fact that you have the worst press of any president ever. Everything you say or do is construed in the most evil way possible, and now apparently, you know, it seems that there are people in your own inner circle, some -- this guy's in charge of the Russia collusion investigation for goodness sake, and he's ready to stab you in the back. I mean, you must be unsettled about it. I'm not unsettled about anything, but I'll tell you what, we are looking at it, and it is you know, he was he was hired by Jeff Sessions. I was not involved in that process because, you know, they go out and they get their own deputies, and the people that work in that department and Jeff Sessions hired him. We are looking at it Geraldo. It's very early. We just read the reports of, you know, very shortly very, you know, the various reports that came out and have been coming out and I -- we will make a determination, and I'm sure you're going to be very, very early on this than those that know. But it is certainly a very sad story when you see it. A sad story. Infuriating. To me it's, you know, here you are, you're doing what you are doing and very effectively you cite your achievements, particularly in the economy. I think you're, you know, you've created a rising tide that's lifting all boats, minority unemployment, record blows, youth unemployment, record blows. Everything is humming along. You know, I was at the Cleveland Brown's game and I was sitting with Jim Brown, who you know well, the football great. You know, and we were were talking about how Jim, and Kanye West, and Tiger Woods, and I, you know all men of color support you in a way that you're not generally credited. I -- You think you could do more in that regard? You know I was talking to Jim, he's willing to speak out on your behalf. Well, he has spoken out on my behalf and he's great. And you know I see those old clips of him running. And boy, oh boy, what -- the money he'd be making today right? I imagine. There's probably nobody like him. And when he -- I'm a big fan. I'm a big fan of his. And when he came out out of the blue he said, "I support President Trump." And he's a smart guy. He sees African-American unemployment is the lowest it's ever been in history. The history of our country. It's the best. Median income is up for African-Americans and for everybody, but it's the highest it's ever been. Doing better than they've ever done. And I'll do much better than that. Don't forget they've always been, you know, as a group are largely voting for Democrats. And you remember my statement: "What do you have to lose?" Vote for me. What do you have to lose? Well, they voted for me. I've been there less than two years and now the unemployment rate is the lowest in history. OK. And in the history of this country. So, and not only with African-Americans, with Asians with Hispanic. Hispanics are doing phenomenally well under my administration and under my policies of economic growth. And so we've done a lot. No president has done more than what I've done and it's less than two years. And if you look at regulations and if you look at tax cuts, and if you look at getting rid of the individual mandate. And Anwar, which is one of the biggest drilling sites in the world, they've been trying to get it for 45 years. If you look at what we've done with that vets on choice and accountability. Things that for over 40 years they couldn't get, they couldn't get approved. I got them approved. Where veterans now have choice, where if they have a line and they have to wait days to get and see a doctor, which often happens. They can go and get a private doctor and we pay the bill. And it's so great. They've been trying to get that approved for, I think it was 48 year years. You're really not getting the credit you deserve in many areas. I know we don't... I don't. I don't get any credit from the media. The media's absolutely terrible. I mean, every time I pick up the paper, and you know that they take a hit at you in every story. But you mentioned that Judge Kavanaugh... There's nothing I can do to get a good story. Well, you're talking to me. They'll get one right now. First is North Korea. And North Korea. Absolutely. We were going to go to war. Now he's a friend of mine. I hope -- I hope that bears fruition. You mentioned it. I might as well stay there. I think it will. I think they want to do it. I think we're moving along at a nice pace. But we were going to war. Before I came in we were going to war. In fact, President Obama indicated that that's by far his biggest problem, and he had no idea what to do with it. He had no idea what to do with it. We were heading to war and I was very rough at the beginning, if you remember. I was very, very rough at the beginning, but it ended up great. We had a very successful summit and it ended up great. And I had a very successful summit with Putin. But the press won't, you know, won't say that. They won't, they won't say anything I do. They won't say -- and that's OK. Now when I say fake news and the fake news media. It's probably 80%. 20% is very fair, it's very good. And then I have very big social media presence, which is important. And then I can speak to somebody like you. That's a fair [Inaudible]. That's right. And we follow each other too. But let me get to Kavanaugh before I run out of time here. You've dominated this man. He seemed cruising toward confirmation by the Judiciary Committee then the full Senate. And then Dr. Christine Blasi Ford, you know the woman who says at the age of 15 she was sexually assaulted by Judge Kavanaugh when he was 17 years old. They were both in prep school. You know, he or she now has agreed to testify on that, we think, Wednesday or Thursday. Are you worried that people will believe her allegations? Do you worry that the allegations are true, and that your confirmation whether your selection to the High Court Judge Kavanaugh will be thwarted at the last minute? Well, I think he's not sanding man. We went through a whole hearing. The hearing was over, and then all of a sudden a letter that was being held by Senator Feinstein emerged, it could have emerged much earlier. I think that was a shame. I think that was disgraceful not to bring it up in proper course. And now I can say this, "The Republicans are doing everything in their power to let her have her voice." And you get to listen to her and you're going to listen to Brett, and you are going to vote the way you have to vote as a Republican and as a Democrat. But we'll probably get to that no matter what. No matter how good, no matter how perfect things were, we'll get almost no Democrat. We may get a couple of the states who -- where I won by many, many points. You understand that. But we'll essentially get no Democrat at all. Let me -- let me ask you this, mister... That's a shame. But I can say this, she is one of the finest people. But what if their allegations were true? What if Dr. Ford -- if people believe that this really happened 30 odd years ago. Do you think he should still be confirmed to the High Court? No. 1, I don't think that will happen. And No. 2, I want her to have her voice. Let her have her voice, let her say whatever she has to say. Let him say what he has to say, and that's the end. The senators will make a choice. Do you believe that Roe V. Wade should be overturned? Yeah. I don't want to talk about it now because that's a controversy that I'm going to leave to the courts. And if -- if people believe her what about his confirmation? I mean, do you -- do you agree that it has -- that this has gummed up the works at the very least. Well, we're going to have to see. I mean, somebody said that today some news came out about one of her friends who was at the party. I won't go into what they said because you'll see it better yourself. But one of her friends that was at the party maybe is not confirming what she said. So you're going to have to see. But look, they're giving tremendous voice to Dr. Ford and that's fine with me. At the end, the Senate is going to vote and they're going to do what is best and hopefully he'll be confirmed. He's an outstanding person. This went 36 years without a complaint. 36 years, Geraldo. Nobody ever -- I mean, he's been confirmed five or six times for major position. Other -- other position. I agree. And it never came up. [Inaudible] Here's another quote. "The battle over his confirmation has swelled into an event of Titanic consequence in the country's evolution on matters of gender and women's equality." It's almost like Kavanaugh, the person doesn't matter. This is -- this is like the war of the sexes. This is, you know, this is about abortion. This is about issues that are so grand. You know, here you're trying to -- in this nomination, if confirmed will affect the American policy and the way forward for decades to come. Are you comfortable with this man on the high court. Well, I am. And I also want to hear what's going to be said during the week, but I can tell you. I am. I think he's got an outstanding record. Very smart top-of-the-line education, the best student no matter where he went. And honestly, the best character unless she can prove otherwise. And we're going to give her a chance to do that. Let me give you a chance to say something about Puerto Rico. We were together in Puerto Rico, and I have to say Mr. President, I lament in a very deep way, because you know my dad was one of 17 children. My goodness, scores of relatives. I was with you and the First Lady in Puerto Rico, and then to see how people blamed you for the power outage not -- never mentioning the corrupt utility there, the public utility. The inept. In fact, they were bankrupt. I mean, do you want to -- do you want to respond to the critics of the response to Hurricane Maria. Go ahead. Sure. Let me just respond by saying, No.1, it starts with, you have the mayor of San Juan who's incompetent. She should never be there. She's -- she doesn't know what she's doing. She's a totally incompetent person. You have -- as you know, locally they did a very, very poor job. The electric was broken before the storms. They got hit by two storms, not one. Right. Erma. Erma knocked out 70%. Right. We started going in and by the time we got there we had to, you know, make all sorts of provision to get out, because the second storm was right on top of the first storm. And the second storm hit dead zero, right, smack. I mean, you couldn't -- you couldn't have designed it any better if you were looking for trouble. It was horrible. It was a perfect, you know, it was a perfect hit. And really a horrible hit, and it was one of the biggest storms that they've seen in years, and certainly the biggest storm -- one of the biggest -- the biggest to the Puerto Rico's ever seen. So what happens is the electric plant was bankrupt, this is before the storm's hit, for many years. It was bankrupt. It was in receivership. It didn't work. They had no electric. It was a obsolete old plant that didn't work and people didn't have electric on the island, or if they if they were lucky they would have 30% and 35%. It was a disaster. Now the storms hit and to build that -- it's a big deal. Takes years, you know, it takes a long time to build it and to fix it. But it was in receivership, it was a total mess, it was corrupt, couldn't be worse. The storms hit and they said, "Oh, let's blame Trump for the electric. Let's -- Trump -- let's have Trump fix the electric plant." Which takes a long time to get to rebuild it, which is a big deal. "Let's blame Trump for everything." And we did a great job. I did a great job in Texas. I did a great job in Florida. I'm now doing a great job in South Carolina and North Carolina. You see that. I see that. Terrible. Well, we did just as good a job in Puerto Rico as if not better in a sense [Inaudible. Let me say this about Puerto Rico. Let me just say. Go ahead. It was very -- it was a very tough situation because you're surrounded by ocean, you can't drive trucks there. And you have to ship, you know, you put everything on ships. It's a very big deal. We did a great job. And just to finish on the death count, I left and the official number was in all the newspapers even recently. The official number that I left, and that was about 10 days after the storm, was 16 people had died. The 16 people was then lifted a couple of months later to 64, and that was the official number. And that was it. And that's terrible. That's a loss of life. And I love Puerto Rican people. I love... Gracias. How do you know that? You're not Puerto Rican. I love you. Right? I feel the same. I have a great feeling for the spirit -- to have incredible spirit. OK. It was 64 people, and then all of a sudden I read a report many, many months later, a long time later, that they did a report 3,000 people died. Then I said, "Wait a minute. You went from 16 to 64." We did a great job. "And then you went from 64 to 3000? How did that happen." And they couldn't explain it. And if you read that report, it's not explainable. In fairness, in fairness... I was fighting for FEMA.. Right. I was fighting for the military, and I was fighting for the first responders, and all of the people that did such a great job in Puerto Rico. But the truth is you have incompetent leadership and the mayor of San Juan is a grossly incompetent person. We would deliver supplies, and you have to study what she did with those supplies, because when you find out what she was doing with the stuff, we can only deliver it to locations they have to distribute it. When you find out what she did with the supplies you will be shocked. It was disgraceful. You said to me down in Puerto Rico that you are exploring the option of allowing Puerto Rico to declare bankruptcy and default on the $15 -- $75 billion in debt. You said that my friends on Wall Street were going to take a hit. Are you still contemplating allowing Puerto Rican bankruptcy? They are taking a hit. But you know the power plant and the power, as I said, was absolutely a disaster for many years. But will you let Puerto Rico to fault? It has nothing to do with President Trump, by the way. It has nothing to do with President Trump. I... When the storm hit and the power's -- the same disaster, it was not even work -- you know, other than the wires were torn but the plant itself was not even that much worse, but it was so bad. They like to say, "Oh, it was Trump." It wasn't Trump. It wasn't Trump. Our people did an incredi -- You know, Geraldo we floated in a massive, the largest in the world, we floated in a hospital and we had a hospital ship, you know -- you know the military hospital ship is the biggest in the world. It was incredible. I saw that ship. It was incredible. We did things that nobody could have done. [Inaudible] But what about defaulting on the bonds. I want to nail you -- I want to get this down. Will you let -- will you let them default on these billions in bonds? I don't want to talk about that. That's a financial situation. I don't want to talk about it. But I would certainly not -- I would certainly not want to be helping Wall Streeters that finance the plant that was underwater. Right. And various other things. How about statehood for Puerto Rico, isn't that the only way to really fix them? Nobody's mentioned that recently to me. Nobody's mentioned that recently. How do you feel about it? I will tell you this, with the mayor of San Juan as bad as she is, and as incompetent as she is, Puerto Rico shouldn't be talking about statehood until they get some people that really know what they're doing. She's running for governor, I hear. And if you have good leadership, Geraldo, that certainly could be something they talk about. But with people like that involved in Puerto Rico, I would be an absolute no. If you had people like the mayor of San Juan, whatever her name may be, she is a horror show. She was so bad to the -- and so disrespectful to our military, to our first responders and to our great FEMA people, who did a phenomenal job. The distribution of food was so horribly handled by the representatives on the island. They really did a horrible job. And the electric, you know, you talk about press, the electric was dead for years. And if you look at it they blame Trump for the electric. So you're hurt, I can feel the hurt in your voice with the way you were treated. No, no. Because I love the people of Puerto Rico. And I did a great job. I did an extra special -- I got things to Puerto Rico that nobody could have gotten. They had so much water they didn't know what to do with it. The problem is, the local people couldn't -- they didn't know how to distribute the water. The truck drivers didn't show up to work. The taxi drivers didn't show up to work. Now in all fairness, they were trying to save their [Inaudible] Their own families, right. But still they didn't have. So we had to send truck drivers onto the island. We had to send taxi drivers onto the island. We had to do things that you -- that nobody's ever done before. We did -- And instead of getting thank you we got nothing but bad publicity. And I'll tell you what, I got an A plus in Texas and then A plus in Florida we did more work. And in a certain way just as good. Can't do much better. But what happens is the local representatives, in particular, the mayor of San Juan, was incompetent and they didn't know what to do once she came there. All right. Let... You wouldn't want to take a look at what that woman did with the... I was there. I saw. Let me go to the state-side politics again. I just see an NBC poll out this morning that there may be a blue wave that Democrats have a 12-point advantage. Do you credit that? You buy that? Is that -- are you facing now a blue wave? I think we will do well because we have the greatest economy. I just went to Missouri where they had 25,000 people standing outside of 12,000 people in the hall. You saw that, you probably read it. I don't know if they write that. But you know we had 25,000 people outside. I just got back from Nevada and they had at least 10,000 people outside of a big, big convention. Thank you friend [Inaudible]. I love that. I saw their new show and you're hanging out. Yeah. They were all there and they saw. They had 10,000, maybe more, people outside that couldn't get in. I think we're going to do very well. And one of the reasons is because the economy is so good, because Black unemployment and Hispanic and Asian and everybody's unemployment. See, if I were you, I'd talk about the economy every hour. Just talk about how things are or helping everybody. You know, they like to get on other subjects like electricity in Puerto Rico. Yeah. I know that. I really think so. What about Ohio? You got -- first of all, will you miss John Kasich as governor? No. I won't miss him at all. And he's not a very popular governor anymore, and his healthcare turned out to be not good. In fact, when the lieutenant governor campaigned for governor she disavowed his healthcare plan. No. I wouldn't miss John at all. He's -- he's fine. He came in probably eighth or ninth, if you really look at it, he just wouldn't get out of the race. But guys like Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio, and Ted Cruz beat him very badly. The only difference is he just kept -- He'd get 1% and say, "I'm going on to the next state." No. I won't miss him. Mike DeWine, the former senator and attorney general, is running for governor as you know to replace Kasich. They've beaten him up pretty good though saying that he -- you know, he allowed drug prices to go up, that he's been insensitive, that, you know, he -- the precondition -- preexisting condition thing he attacked. Do you think that he will -- do you think he could beat Cordray, who is pretty good [Inaudible]? I think he will. He get up in the polls. He's very good. Ge's a very, very talented guy. And the lieutenant governor, they're running as a team, and I think you're going to win. Yeah. And they're up in the polls right now. He's very good. What about Renacci against Sherrod Brown? To replace Senator Sherrod Brown, who seems... Well, I don't know he got hit very hardly with the situation with the wife very, very hard on the last -- over the last couple of days. I don't know what impact that's going to have on the race. But I can tell you, you have somebody running against him who is very good, as you know, and we'll see what happens. You know, he's been there but he's been hit very hard over the last short period of time. You've got a -- I know you love golf. You're at Bedminster right now? Or are you in Jersey right now? I have meetings here. And the reason I come here, there's another thing I don't get credit for, I'd love to be in Manhattan, but if I do they close up the whole city. I know. I've been there. So what I do is I come here and instead of getting credit I get not. But that's OK. It's fine. Speaking about not getting credit. I was at that golf course with Eric, your son, and Laura they were raising money for the -- St. Jude. Right. And he raised millions of dollars and then got attacked. The attack for. Eric raised millions of dollars. The people at St. Jude said it was the most beautiful thing he's ever done that they've seen. He gave almost every single dollar. And then the New York state attorney general sued him for something he didn't even take a -- I don't even know if he took expenses. I don't think he -- you know some of these people there's no money left over by the time you take all of the expenses and they take salaries. Eric worked so hard for St. Jude and then in New York City they sued him and his foundation. He got a little foundation where the money goes all to St. Jude's. And they sued him, it was a disgrace. And they sued me too. I gave more money than we raised. I took no expenses, and they sued me too. That was Eric Schneiderman, who ended up getting thrown out of office. For being a sex assaulter. Yeah. And I literally have a foundation where I took in X dollars and I gave more money than I took in and they sued me. It's the most unbelievable thing. In other words, I had no expenses. No rent, no management, no nothing, and they sued me. It's a political lawsuit. It was started by Eric Schneiderman, who got thrown out for... [Inaudible] Yup. And he hated you. But what comes around, goes around. Are you worried about the Southern District of New York and Michael Cohen, your former lawyer? No. No, I'm not. Because I'm an honest guy, and I'm not. And that stuff is unrelated to me. That was -- Michael did that stuff. And Michael, I mean, you know -- you know the whole story I know him. Hey, Geraldo, I have many, many lawyers. I have very big law firms. I have -- that do my work. Michael... So you don't think that he knows anything that's going to be a problem for you? Well, I don't know anything because I'll be honest, I do everything straight. I do everything straight. So that's the way I do it. Aren't you sorry for Michael Flynn talking about doing everything straight? How he got chopped up in this thing. I'm sorry for Michael Flynn. I feel badly for Michael Flynn. I feel badly for everybody. I call it the witch hunt, they call it a witch hunt. They'd say what you want. They go into Michael Cohn's office early in the morning, they go into Paul Manafort office -- office or home... Both. over the weekend. It's a very sad thing. But I feel very badly for all of them since they got caught up in a horrible witch hunt. And let's see what happens and the news that you've been reading about over the last 24 hours is certainly very sad to read. Which story are you referring to? I have to go, Geraldo OK. Last question. Obama, Clinton, Bush, Trump play golf. Who wins? Trump would win at golfer Who has the longest drive? I already know. All you have to do is ask. Well, you could ask Clinton. But I don't say that you're asking me -- these are facts. OK. You know I like facts. Yeah. Good. Trump would win very easily. Anyway. Hey, Geraldo... I love you, Mr. President. Thank you very much. I love you. Thank you so much, brother. Take care. Bye-bye.