Pres. Trump Interview on FNS today, part 1:
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: Mr. President, thank you for talking with us.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you Chris, very much.
WALLACE: Let’s start with the state of Donald Trump.
TRUMP: Right.
WALLACE: There are a number of stories out there that you’re angry about the mid-terms, about your treatment in the media, about the way you were treated when you were in Paris. One story even said that you were in a “cocoon of bitterness and resentment.”
TRUMP: Right.
WALLACE: We’ll get in to all the details later but how dark is your mood?
TRUMP: It’s very light, it’s fake news, it’s disgusting fake news. I read a front page story in the Washington Post, they never even called me, nobody ever calls me. You know, they hear – I don’t even think they have sources I think they just make it up like it’s fiction. And I will tell you I’m extremely upbeat, the White House is running like a well-oiled machine, it’s doing really well, I have great people. I will make some changes but not very many. I’m very happy with my cabinet, other than, you know a couple of exceptions and even there I’m not unhappy. And I will tell you that it’s so wrong, the reporting about me is so wrong. I’m loving what I’m doing, I did well in France, I did have a problem where I wasn’t able to go to a cemetery because the Secret Service would not let me do it.
WALLACE: We’ll get in to all of this sir—
TRUMP: No, but I’m just saying the Secret Service would not let me do it and they made it a big deal.
WALLACE: You’ve said a lot of things there, let’s try to unpack them. There’s a lot of talk about staff changes, your deputy national security advisor was moved out after your wife did something I’ve never heard of a first lady doing before: publically calling for her removal. Are you comfortable with the way that went down where it kind of looked like your wife was firing one of your advisors?
TRUMP: Well I didn’t know the advisor well, really, and I know they had a lot of problem. My wife did a great job in Africa and she was not treated properly by the press, she really worked so hard. They came to me. They wanted to go a little bit public because that’s the way they felt and I thought it was fine. I met with Mira two days ago and we’re going to move her around. She was with me for a long time, although I don’t know her. She’s really somebody I don’t know very well. But we’re going to move her around because she’s got certain talents. But, frankly, she is not — she’ll never be put in the United Nations, let me put it that way.
WALLACE: Meaning she’s not too diplomatic?
TRUMP: She’s not too diplomatic, but she’s talented.
WALLACE: Are you happy with Kirstjen Nielsen at DHS?
TRUMP: Well, I like her a lot. I respect her a lot. She’s very smart. I want her to get much tougher and we’ll see what happens there. But I want to be extremely tough.
WALLACE: What are the chances she’ll be DHS Secretary—
TRUMP: Well there’s a chance. But there’s a chance everybody — I mean that’s what happens in government you leave, you make a name, you go. The people that have left have done very well. The people that have left have done very well — from my White House. I like her very much, I respect her very much, I’d like her to be much tougher on the border — much tougher, period.
WALLACE: Back in July you said that Chief of Staff John Kelly will be here through 2020.
TRUMP: Well—
WALLACE: Can you still say that?
TRUMP: We — I wouldn’t — look, we get along well. There are certain things I love what he does. And there are certain things that I don’t like that he does — that aren’t his strength. It’s not that he doesn’t do — you know he works so hard. He’s doing an excellent job in many ways. There are a couple of things where it’s just not his strength. It’s not his fault, it’s not his strength.
WALLACE: Such as?
TRUMP: But I haven’t even thought about John in terms of this. But John, at some point, is going to want to move on. John will move on.
WALLACE: So 2020 is no longer written in stone?
TRUMP: It could happen. Yeah, it could — I mean it could be. But let’s see what happens. I have not — look, I have three or four or five positions that I’m thinking about. Of that, maybe it’s going to end up being two. Maybe, but I want to—I need flexibility.
WALLACE: You have already made at least one big change, naming Matt Whitaker as your acting—
TRUMP: Yeah.
WALLACE: —Attorney General. He has a long record of speaking out against the Special Counsel and his probe.
SOT: MATT WHITAKER: I could see a scenario where Jeff Sessions is replaced with a recess appointment and that attorney general doesn’t fire Bob Mueller, but he just reduces the budget so low that his his investigation grinds to an absolute – almost a halt.
WHITAKER: The truth is there was no collusion with the Russians and the Trump campaign.
WALLACE: Did you know, before you appointed him, that he had that record and was so critical of Robert Mueller?
TRUMP: I did not know that. I did not know he took views on the Mueller investigation as such.
WALLACE: And when you found that out?
TRUMP: I don’t think it had any effect. If you look at those statements those statements that can — they really can be viewed either way, but I don’t think it will have any impact—
WALLACE: Well, he said there’s no collusion, he says—
TRUMP: Chris, I’ll tell you what—
WALLACE: —he said you can starve the investigation—
TRUMP: He’s right. What do you do when a person’s right? There is no collusion. He happened to be right. I mean, he said it. So if he said there is collusion, I’m supposed to be taking somebody that says there is? Because then I wouldn’t take him for two reasons, but the number one reason is the fact that he would have been wrong. If he said that there’s no collusion, he’s right.
WALLACE: He is going to have to make or could potentially make a lot of big calls in the Mueller investigation. If Mueller decides that he wants to subpoena you, the Attorney General Whitaker can block that. If Mueller issues a final report, he can decide how much goes to Congress or doesn’t go to Congress. You tweeted this week about, quote, “Bob Mueller and his gang of Democrat thugs.”
TRUMP: Right.
WALLACE: If Whitaker decides in any way to limit or curtail the Mueller investigation, are you OK with that?
TRUMP: Look he — it’s going to be up to him. I think he’s very well aware politically. I think he’s astute politically. He’s a very smart person. A very respected person. He’s going to do what’s right. I really believe he’s going to do what’s right.
WALLACE: But you won’t overrule him if he decides to curtail—
TRUMP: I would not get involved. And all these people that say I’m going to end the investigation, you know, they’ve been saying that now for — how long has this witch hunt gone on? It’s gone on for, what?
WALLACE: Since May of ’17.
TRUMP: OK, but how long have I been looked at? You know when I’ve been looked at? From the day I…
WALLACE: Since July of 2016.
TRUMP: From the day I announced. I was looked at as a candidate with nothing, no proof, with phony people like McCabe and Strzok and his lover — you had Lisa Page, his lover. These people were looking at me, they wanted an insurance policy just in case I won or Hillary lost, and this was the insurance policy. It’s a scam. There was no collusion whatsoever, and the whole thing is a scam.
WALLACE: Your team is preparing written answers to questions about—
TRUMP: No, no, no, not my team. I’m preparing written answers. My — I — I’m the one that does the answering. Yes, are they writing them out?
WALLACE: Yes.
TRUMP: Yeah. They’re writing what I tell them to write.
WALLACE: Are they going to be submitted?
TRUMP: At some point very soon, yes. I’ve completed them.
WALLACE: So you’re — you are submitting-—
TRUMP: And it wasn’t a big deal. By the way, it wasn’t a big deal. The answers — the questions were asked and answered. It wasn’t a big deal. You know, they make it like I had meetings for many, many hours — I got the questions, I responded, we wrote them out, I read them once, I read them a second time, we made some changes, that’s it. They’re very simple.
WALLACE: OK.
TRUMP: You know why? I did nothing wrong.
WALLACE: Here’s my question, though. You are submitting written answers—
TRUMP: Yes.
WALLACE: —to the special counsel about the issue of collusion but not on obstruction of justice?
TRUMP: Well there was no obstruction of justice.
WALLACE: I — I’m — let me — if i might, sir, just ask—
TRUMP: I think they’d probably agree with me.
WALLACE: If I may ask the question—
TRUMP: And all you have to do is look at Article II.
WALLACE: Is that your final position, that there’s going to be no sit-down interview and nothing written or in person on obstruction?
TRUMP: I would say probably. Probably. I mean, I can change my mind, but probably. I think we’ve—
WALLACE: No interview?
TRUMP: I think we’ve wasted enough time on this witch hunt and the answer is probably, we’re finished.
WALLACE: What are the odds? One in a hundred? What—What?
TRUMP: I don’t do odds, I gave very detailed—
WALLACE: You ran a casino sir.
TRUMP: You’re right, and very successfully actually. We gave very, very complete answers to a lot of questions that I shouldn’t have even been asked and I think that should solve the problem, I hope it solves the problem, if it doesn’t, you know, I’ll be told and we’ll make a decision at that time. But probably this is the end.
WALLACE: Turkish President Erdogan says that he has shared a tape with the U.S. and other countries that is of the killing of Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.
TRUMP: Right.
WALLACE: Have you one, either heard the tape yourself or been briefed on it and if so, to your mind what does it show?
TRUMP: We have the tape, I don’t want to hear the tape, no reason for me to hear the tape.
WALLACE: Why don’t you want to hear it sir?
TRUMP: Because it’s a suffering tape, it’s a terrible tape. I’ve been fully briefed on it, there’s no reason for me to hear it, in fact I said to the people should I? They said: “you really shouldn’t, there’s no reason.” I know exactly – I know everything that went on in the tape without having to hear it.
WALLACE: And what happened?
TRUMP: It was very violent, very vicious and terrible.
WALLACE: A month ago you said you had spoken with Saudi crown prince Mohammed Bin Salman and that he had told you directly that he had no knowledge of this.
TRUMP: That’s right, that’s right and still says that.
WALLACE: But we now know that some of the people closest to him, some of his closest advisors were part of this. Question, did MBS lie to your sir?
TRUMP: I don’t – I don’t know, you know who could really know but I can say this he’s got many people now that say he had no knowledge.
WALLACE: What if the Crown Prince speaking to you, the President of the United States directly lied to you about—
TRUMP: Well, he told me that he had nothing to do with it, he told me that I would say maybe five times at different points.
WALLACE: But what if he’s lying?
TRUMP: As recently as a few days ago.
WALLACE: Do you just live with it because you need him?
TRUMP: Well, will anybody really know? All right, will anybody really know? But he did have certainly people that were reasonably close to him and close to him that were probably involved. You saw we put on very heavy sanctions, massive sanctions on a large group of people from Saudi Arabia. But at the same time we do have an ally and I want to stick with an ally that in many ways has been very good.
WALLACE: So, if Congress were to move to either try to cut off any U.S. involvement in the war in Yemen or to block any arms sales you won’t go along with it?
TRUMP: Well I want to see Yemen end but it takes two to tango. Iran has to end it also. And Iran is a different country than it was when I took over, it’s far weakened because of what I did with the Iran — so-called Iran deal, Iran nuclear deal, which was one of the great rip-offs of— of all time. But I want Saudi to stop but I want Iran to stop also.
WALLACE: When Democrats flipped the House back in 2006 and picked up 30 seats, President Bush 43 had a news conference the next day and said, “We had a thumping.” Last week, in this election, the House picked up, so far it’s 36 seats, it may be on the way to 40 seats and your reaction was that it was almost a complete victory.
TRUMP: I won the Senate, you don’t mention that.
WALLACE: But, well – I—
TRUMP: Excuse me, I won the Senate.
WALLACE: I understand that but—
TRUMP: I think they said 88 years.
WALLACE: But this was a — this was a historically big defeat in the House. You lost 36, maybe 40 seats. Some would argue that it was a thumping. And I want to talk about some of the ways in which you lost. You lost in traditionally Republican suburbs, not only around liberal cities like Philadelphia and D.C. but also red-state big cities like Houston and Oklahoma City. You lost among suburban women. You lost among independents and, in three key states that I think you remember pretty well — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan — you lost both the governor seats and the senate seats.
TRUMP: Are you ready? I won the Senate, and that’s historic too, because if you look at presidents in the White House it’s almost never happened where you won a seat. We won — we now have 53 as opposed to 51 and we have 53 great Senators in the U.S. Senate. We won. That’s a tremendous victory. Nobody talks about that. That’s a far greater victory than it is for the other side. Number two, I wasn’t on the ballot. I wasn’t—
WALLACE: Wait — wait a minute you said — you kept saying—
TRUMP: I said look at me — I said look me.
WALLACE: You said, “Pretend I’m on the ballot...”
TRUMP: But I have people and you see the polls, how good they are, I have people that won’t vote unless I’m on the ballot, OK? And I wasn’t on the ballot. And almost everybody that I won — I think they said it was 10 out of 11. And I won against President Obama and Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama in a great state called Georgia for the governor. And it was all stacked against Brian and I was the one that went for Brian and Brian won. Look at Florida. I went down to Florida. Rick Scott won and he won by a lot. I don’t know what happened to all those votes that disappeared at the very end. And if I didn’t put a spotlight on that election before it got down to the 12,500 votes he would of lost that election, OK? In my opinion he would have lost. They would have taken that election away from him. Rick Scott won Florida. You’d have to say, excuse me, a man named Ron DeSantis is now your governor — your new governor of Florida. A wonderful man named DeWine is your governor of the great state of Ohio. Remember what they used to say before my election? You cannot win unless you win Ohio. I won Ohio. We had a tremendous set of victories. You look at the victories—
WALLACE: But if you can’t carry — and you certainly didn’t carry it two weeks ago — Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania — you’re not going to get reelected.
TRUMP: I didn’t run. I wasn’t running. My name wasn’t on the ballot. There are many people that think, “I don’t like Congress,” that like me a lot. I get it all the time; “Sir, we’ll never vote unless you’re on the ballot.” I get it all the time. People are saying, “Sir, I will never vote unless you’re on the ballot. I say, “No, no, go and vote.” “Well, what do you mean?” As much as I try and convince people to go vote, I’m not on the ballot.
There are a number of stories out there that you’re angry about the mid-terms, about your treatment in the media, about the way you were treated when you were in Paris. One story even said that you were in a “cocoon of bitterness and resentment.”
I don't know why President Trump gives these interviews. I wish he would at least always ask WHO is the "some say" or Who verified the "One Story said". The press makes up a story and then challenges PDJT and other Republicans to defend against the made up accusations.
I Hate to bring it up but all this jives with Jamal trying to upset MBS by turning some of those close to him.Could well have been an attempted coup. Sounds like it.It's likely he,Jamal, knew who was going to be at the embassy and that's why he went alone.
When you are scared to death that you will be thrown in jail as he claimed do you go to a foreign embassy alone?Hell no!Unless you are relatively sure of who will be there!! He knew who was coming to the embassy he designed the coup.
Problem is when the participants heard what he had to say they wanted no part of it or it was a reverse sting and they never planned to go against MBS to begin with.We may never know.
As far as Kashoggis death it could have been any one of numerous things that went terribly wrong. As we have already seen MBS's style is to force the bad guys like Jamal to pay. Not kill them.So his death makes no sense and could be why MBS keeps saying he had no knowledge of it he probably didn't.