Donald Trump joined conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Friday and said Kamala Harris is a “better” option for Democrats than Joe Biden.

Could anyone be worse than Biden?

If there’s anyone who possibly could be worse than Biden, it’s Harris.

However, Trump commented that Democrats can’t choose anyone worse than the White House resident.

“It seems like he’s locked into her for a lot of reasons. He has to choose her. I understand. It would seem like the Democrats, if he doesn’t run, have to run her. That’s what all of the professionals like you are saying. I’m not sure that that’s correct, but that’s what they’re saying. Yeah, you’re locked into her. And she might be, I can’t say worse. I think she’d be better than him, actually. I actually think that. I don’t think you can have worse than him,” Trump said.

Trump made similar remarks to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson during an interview in August.

The New York Post reports:

The former president told Carlson during an interview broadcast on X that “a lot of people” — though he never said who — wanted Harris kicked off the Democratic ticket in 2024 and her public appearances gave a “bad” impression.

“I don’t think other people would stand for it,” Trump said of Harris being removed as Biden’s running mate. “She has some bad moments. Her moments are almost as bad as his, I think his are worse actually.”

“She speaks in, uh, in rhyme. It’s weird. It’s weird,” Trump added. “The way she talks, ‘The bus will go here. And then the bus will go there. Because that’s what buses do.’ It’s weird. The whole thing is weird.”

Trump also spoke to Hewitt about possibly participating in future debates.

From the Washington Examiner:

Trump also told Hewitt that he would consider debating one of his GOP rivals if there was a small polling gap between him and the rival following the New Hampshire primary next month. He has skipped all four of the Republican debates put on by the Republican National Committee, citing his massive lead in the race.

The former president also said he would participate in the general election debates if he wins the party’s nomination, despite criticizing the organization that hosts them, the Commission on Presidential Debates, as being “Democrat-leaning” and corrupt.

“They are totally corrupt, and they’re terrible,” Trump said. “With that being said, I would do 20 debates, even if it was organized by them. I’ll do as many debates as they want. I’d do a debate every night with [Biden]. But he’ll never show up to a debate.”

Hugh Hewitt provided the full transcript for his interview with President Trump:

HH: I am joined now by the former president of the United States, Donald Trump. Mr. President, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Great to have you.

DT: Good morning.

HH: Merry Christmas.

DT: You, too. You, too. We’re going to have a good here, I hope.

HH: Oh, I think we’re going to have a great year. I was just talking with Ben Domenech and Sarah Bedford. We don’t think President Biden has given more than three long interviews. I’m about to ask you maybe 20, 30 questions. We think he’s given three long interviews this year to Conan O’Brien, Stephanie Ruhle, and Scott Pelley. What do you think that tells us about President Biden?

DT: Well, he’s incompetent. And he was 25 years ago, too, if you look at his policies. But he’s grossly incompetent. He’s not fit for office. And I really think he’s a danger to democracy. I really believe that because of his incompetence.

HH: Now Mr. President, I’m not going to talk to you about the trials on which you are under an order not to speak, because…

DT: You mean the Biden trials? These are Biden trials.

HH: Yeah, I consider those orders to be…

DT: They’re all Biden trials. Yeah, but Hugh, yeah, people have to understand these are all Biden trials. These were all inspired by and pushed by DOJ. So this is somebody attacking a political opponent like never before. Every single trial is a Biden trial. That’s okay. Go ahead.

HH: And I believe they’re unconstitutional. I believe those orders are unconstitutional. They’re broad. They’re overly broad. I think they’re vague. They’ll be reversed. But we can talk about the Colorado case.

DT: Sure.

HH: I think that is a joke, the biggest joke I’ve seen from a state court ever. Have you already appealed it?

DT: We’re in the process of doing it. Everybody thinks exactly what you’re saying. They’re trying to take the election away from the voters. And this is the same group, I guess it’s true. I’ve beaten them about 20 times. I beat them on emoluments. They sued me, they sue on anything. It’s a group of radical left lunatics. And they sue any time they can, and this one is really a crazy one. And if they ever did that, it would be so bad for this country, you have no idea. And you understand it would be, it would be a big problem for the country.

HH: Oh, I think it will be a 9-0 reversal. I hope it comes today. But I want to make sure you appealed.

DT: Well, I hope so, too. I think that’s the kind of reversal. It should not be given any credit, not even the credit of one Supreme Court justice.

HH: I agree. Now let’s move to substance. On Israel, you moved the embassy to Jerusalem. You backed the annexation of the Golan Heights. You shepherded the Abraham Accords. Given your experience with Israel, how do you assess Joe Biden’s support of Israel? He did go in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, but it’s been awfully wobbly, in my view, since then. What do you think?

DT: Well, since then, he’s gotten weaker and weaker and weaker. But where he’s really let them down is what happened during three years. When I was president, Iran was broke. Anybody that did business with Iran couldn’t do business with the United States. And they were totally broke. They had no money. They had no nothing. And they would have made a deal if the election weren’t rigged, which you and I disagree with, which is fine. But they would have made a deal. I would have had a deal with them in one week to two weeks after the election. They were absolutely broke. I did such a job. No money for Hamas, no money for Hezbollah, no money for anybody. In fact, you once did a story on the fact that there’s very little money going out to these terror groups. Under Biden, he took away all the sanctions. Anybody, under me, anybody that did any business whatsoever, including especially the buying of oil, and I told President Xi, and I told everybody, anybody buys oil, India, France, anybody buys oil, we don’t do business with them. They were down to just selling literally drops of oil, and they were bust. They had almost no money. They were in big trouble. And then Biden came in and he made them rich. He took all the sanctions off. Now, they have $250 billion dollars. They have more money than most countries, and they’re loaded up with cash. On top of, and this is peanuts. You know, everybody talks about the trade that we made for the hostages a few weeks ago where they got $6 billion dollars for that, and then they got another $10 billion dollars because they sold some electricity to Iraq which we gave them. $10 billion dollars. Think of that. $10 billion. So, but I’m not even talking about that. The big one is they have $250 billion dollars in cash. Biden gave it to them over a three-year period by taking away my sanctions. And now, you can’t talk to them, because they’re rich as hell, and they won’t talk to the United States.

HH: And they’re funding their terrorist proxies. The Iranian proxies have attacked American troops…

DT: Biden made that, though. Without Biden, you wouldn’t have had the attacks.

HH: They’ve attacked American troops dozens of times in the last 10 weeks since Israel was invaded by Hamas.

DT: That’s right.

HH: What would you have done if American troops had been attacked this way?

DT: I would hit them so hard, I don’t want to say where, I know exactly where, but I would, you know, it’s very tough to say exactly what I’m going to do on your radio show and announce it to the world. It’s so crazy when I guess they call that democracy, but it’s a very crazy thing. But I would hit them so hard. They know where. They would have never done it with me, and they would have never done it, because they were poor. But they now, really, never would have done it. You know, it was very interesting. I saw a Democrat Congressman being interviewed a week ago, two weeks ago on one of the crazy shows, maybe Deface the Nation. And I was watching this thing, and he said well, one thing I will say, Iran was broke during the Trump administration. And it’s exactly the word to use. They were broke. Now, they’re rich as can be, and that’s all because of Biden. So words don’t mean anything. Now even the words, however, he sounded very good the first day, and then the second day was okay. Now, he’s not, he’s not on Israel’s side at all. He’s not at all himself…

HH: Well, they’re going to not veto the Security Resolution today. Let’s talk about the Houthis. They’re firing stuff at our ships and cargo ships every day. We haven’t done anything.

DT: Yeah.

HH: What would you do if the Houthis attacked our ships and cargo ships?

DT: Well, first of all, it would have never happened. Well, I’ll tell you what. The attack on Israel would have never happened. We wouldn’t be in this position. And excuse me, in Ukraine, wouldn’t have happened. And inflation wouldn’t have happened. None of it would have happened, Hugh, so it’s so sad to see. But it’s happening now because they don’t respect our president. They don’t respect our country. You’d hit them so hard like they’ve never been hit before, and that would end it.

HH: I do believe you’re right about Ukraine. I want to know if you would have left the U.S. citizens, the Green Card holders, the SIV applicants and billions of dollars in weaponry in Afghanistan like President Biden did.

DT: No, of course, not. I had it all set to leave. I was leaving also. We would have left with dignity and strength. Don’t forget. He took the military out first. Only a child, maybe, would do that, although I actually gave a quiz to young five-year old kids just out of a little curiosity, and they all agreed you leave the military and you take the military out last. A child would have taken the military out last. We took the military out first. So remember, 18 months, for 18 months, and you know this very well, not one American was killed. Not one American was even shot at until we had that horrible day with the airport and the planes lifting off with people falling off the planes and everything else, and soldiers killed. And by the way, leaving Americans behind and $85 billion dollars’ worth of the best military equipment in the world that I bought, that he gave to them. He gave $85…70,000 trucks, many of them armor-plated, 700,000 rifles and guns, goggles that are brand new, night googles where you can see perfectly when you fight at night. So now, they’ll be a nice fighting force. This guy is the worst president we’ve ever had.

HH: Now President Trump, you have been accused by all sorts of people in the Beltway of planning on being a tyrant and a dictator. I saw you on with our friend, Sean, and you made a joke. I thought it was a joke that you wanted to be a dictator for a day. But a bunch of them said oh, see, he’s serious, one day. So I want to put it to you bluntly. If you are reelected, will you peacefully surrender power at the end of your second term as required by the Constitution?

DT: Of course. And I did that this time. And I’ll tell you what. The election was rigged, and we have plenty of evidence of it. But I did it anyway. The other question you should ask is you should ask the other side will you cheat on the elections, because the only way we’re going to lose is if they cheat on the elections.

HH: Oh, I would ask Joe Biden that, but Joe Biden doesn’t do interviews.

DT: No, he doesn’t.

HH: Mr. President, you’ve also said immigrants are, illegal immigrants are poisoning our blood. What do you mean by that?

DT: When you look at it, and you look at what’s coming in, we have, from all over the world, not one group, they’re coming in from Asia, from Africa, from South America. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from prisons. They’re coming from mental institutions and insane asylums. They’re terrorists. Absolutely, that’s poisoning our country. That’s poisoning the blood of our country. And that’s what’s happening. And we’re not talking about a specific group. We’re talking about, these are, this is equal opportunity. They’re coming from all over the world, and we have no idea who they are, where they are. They have people coming in, we don’t even know what the language is that they speak. We have nobody that speaks the language. And they’re loading up our classes. We’re loading up our classes, our school classes, with children that don’t speak the language. They don’t speak our language, and nobody knows what’s going on. No, we are poisoning our country. We’re poisoning the blood of our country, and you have people coming in, think of it, mental institutions all over the world are being emptied out into the United States. Jails and prisons are being emptied out into the United States. This is poisoning our country.

HH: Now Mr. President, your critics say that you are using Hitlerian language that was used to dehumanize Jews by saying that Jewish blood cannot be part of German blood. Do you have anything like that in mind when you say poisoning our blood?

DT: No, and I never knew that Hitler said it, either, by the way. And I never read Mein Kampf. They said I read Mein Kampf. These are people that are disinformation horrible people that we’re dealing with. I never read Mein Kampf.

HH: So you intend no racist sentiment whatsoever when you say poisoning our blood.

DT: Dear, no.

HH: My recommendation would be say…

DT: In fact, if you look at the polls, if you look at the polls, I’m doing incredibly with African-American, I’m doing incredibly with Hispanic, the highest numbers anyone’s ever seen for a Republican candidate. And the reason is they know me. Look what I’ve done – criminal justice reform, colleges, I got the colleges and universities, black colleges and universities funded. Nobody else did that. I’ve done so much – opportunity zones with Tim Scott. I got that done. Nobody ever thought that would happen. And by the way, it’s one of the most incredible programs that nobody ever talks about now. But the opportunity zones…

HH: So you mean nothing racist by that, because your critics keep saying oh, he wants to be Hitler. He’s talking about poisoning our blood. He’s trying to be a Nazi. How do you respond to these people?

DT: First of all, I know nothing about Hitler. I’m not a student of Hitler. I never read his works. They say that he said something about blood. He didn’t say it the way I said it, either, by the way, It’s a very different kind of a statement. What I’m saying when I talk about people coming into our country is they are destroying our country. This country is, we have prisoners coming in. We have mental patients coming in by the thousands, really, by the millions, because you take a look. I believe the number will be 15 million people, maybe more than that, by the time this lunatic leaves office. 15 million people, and he’s destroying our country.

HH: If you are reelected…

DT: Yes.

HH: If you’re reelected, Mr. President, some of our critics said people will refuse to serve. Your former National Security Advisor, Ambassador O’Brien, was on my show two days ago. He gave me a long list of names of people who would come back, people like John Ratcliffe, Rick Grenell, Mike Pompeo, Senator Tom Cotton, Senator Joni Ernst, Senator Dan Sullivan, Congressman Mike Waltz, Congressman Mike Gallagher. O’Brien didn’t mention himself, but I’m sure he’d come back. Do you think you’ll have any doubt getting talented people on your team?

DT: No. I have so many people, and the good news is you know, it’s very interesting. I told you this once before. So when I got elected, I was not a Washington person. I was there 17 times. I’d never stayed over, according to the press, but that’s probably right. 17 times, I never stayed over. I wasn’t a Washington, I didn’t know too many people in Washington. And lo and behold, I become president, and I go. And I had to rely on other people to give me advice, and I had a lot of great advice. We had a lot of great people, Hugh, with the biggest tax cuts and the rebuilding of the military, defeating ISIS, creation of Space Force. You know, we did unbelievable things, biggest regulation cuts in history. We had a lot of great people, but we had some people I wouldn’t have put in. Now, I know everybody. I was reliant on other people’s recommendation. And sometimes, I’d got to a RINO, I wasn’t sure if they were a RINO, and I’d get some RINO in office, or I’d get somebody that wasn’t good. I could name names very easily, but what’s the purpose? And, but for the most part, I had great people, because we had one of the most successful administrations in history. And that’s why we’re doing so well in the polls. I just see a poll came out, I’m leading by 60, 60 points nationally, leading Iowa by, I think it’s by 35 points, 30-35 points.

HH: Getting close in New Hampshire. Are you worried about Nikki Haley in New Hampshire?

DT: No, I’m not worried about it. No, I’m not worried about it. I think it was a fake poll. I saw the one poll where I was up by 4 or 5 points. It’s a fake poll.

HH: All right, now I want to go to vice president for a second. You know, I’ve written in the Post that your short list ought to be Tom Cotton, Mike Gallagher, Joni Ernst, Mike Pompeo, Dan Sullivan, or Robert O’Brien, the latter, of course, would bring you Latter Day Saint votes in Arizona and Nevada. Is someone, are you going to name your vice president before the convention? Are you going to give us a list of people you’re going to consider? And what do you make of my list?

DT: I think I’d make up a list. Some of those names are great. I agree, and maybe not every single one of them, you understand, but no, I think some of the names you have there are great. And we’ll have somebody that’s really going to be very, very popular and very, very good. I know a lot of great people. We have a lot of great Republicans.

HH: Will you debate Joe Biden if he is the nominee and you are the nominee?

DT: Oh, will I look forward to that. How about 10 debates? How about 10…

HH: Well, will you let the Presidential Debate Commission organize them? Or will it be your campaign manager, Susie, with their campaign manager, because that Presidential Debate Commission is corrupt.

DT: They’re corrupt, and we had, remember when they turned off my microphone?

HH: Yes.

DT: Remember that? They kept turning off my mic.

HH: I also remember they cancelled a debate without talking to anybody.

DT: That’s right. No, they’re totally corrupt. They’re totally Democrat-leaning, that’s being nice when I use the word leaning. They are totally corrupt, and they’re terrible. With that being said, I would do 20 debates even if it was organized by them. I’ll do as many debates as they want. I’d do a debate every night with this guy. But he’ll never show up to a debate.

HH: Will you do a debate with any of the Republican people challenging you if, after New Hampshire, there’s only one Republican left? Will you debate that Republican?

DT: Yeah, I would, if it’s very close. I would debate that Republican. Yeah, but it’s not close.

HH: You want me as your moderator?

DT: I’m leading, you would be a good moderator. You always are.

HH: All right. Thank you.

DT: You’re always fair and tough.

HH: I want to talk about fentanyl, because I asked the candidates about fentanyl. How do we stop fentanyl getting into the country, Mr. President?

DT: Well, I had it done pretty much, and then we had the election result. I’ll tell you what happened. I met with President Xi. He was going to criminalize the making of fentanyl. Most of it comes out of China, as you know. And then it gets passed through the border.

HH: Yes.

DT: And I had it down to the lowest level it was since it really, since its inception, which you know, was a sort of a more modern drug, as horrible as it is. It’s just horrible what they’re doing. They’re killing hundreds of thousands of our people. And I had, President Xi was going to criminalize it at the highest level, meaning the death penalty if you make fentanyl, send it over to the United States through Mexico or anywhere else. He was all set to do that, and then we had the election results, so he didn’t do it. And I don’t blame him for that. But he was all set to criminalize it, and there were going to be harsh penalties if he didn’t. This was not a nice conversation, and he was all set. We have to stop fentanyl. We have to stop it at the border, and we have to put tremendous pressure on China. And we have tremendous power over China. Biden doesn’t know how to use it, I really believe, because he’s taken so much money personally out of China, that I really believe he’s afraid to talk about it. Because any money that Jamie, who’s done a great job, and Jim Jordan, who’s done a great job, any money that they’ve found is peanuts compared to the real facts. And I believe that we have, we have a Manchurian candidate in Biden. He owes them so much. He has been paid so much money from China that you don’t even know about, that nobody’s written about. I really believe that he’s totally compromised on China. That’s why he doesn’t do anything.

HH: Do you believe Hunter Biden when Hunter Biden said he father knows nothing about his business? They’ve changed their story now that it’s incontrovertible that his father met with his business partners. But he says his father knew nothing about his business. Do you believe Hunter?

DT: Only a fool would believe that, because you see the pictures now. You see pictures. You see phone conversations. Now, they’ve changed their story. Now, he said well, I didn’t partake. Well, he partook. I mean, how many houses does he own? He’ve never been paid any money more than what a Congressman or a Senator would make. How many houses does this guy own? He owns houses all over the place. That family is corrupt, and Joe Biden is a corrupt president, and he’s an incompetent president, which is probably even worse.

HH: Can we talk about crime in the cities, Mr. President?

DT: Yes.

HH: D.C. has got a very big crime wave. We’ve got carjackings. We’ve had a new murder rate set. How will you help cities control crime in the streets?

DT: I’m going to redo the cities. We’re going to rebuild cities. We’re going to have tremendous power in cities. We’re going, I’m going to give immunity, something nobody’s ever even talked about, probably you haven’t even heard about it until I’ve been bringing it up over the last couple of months. I’m going to give immunity. We’re going to give a guarantee to police officers, a guarantee, because you know, an officer stops crime, and they throw them out of the police department, and he loses his pension, he loses his home, he loses his family or hers, a family. It’s a disaster. They’re afraid to do anything, and they’re phenomenal. They can stop crime immediately. So we’re going to give a guarantee that we are going to take care of their problems. Now there’ll be some bad ones, and it’s going to be a very small percentage, and I understand that. That’s what happens. You know, they’ll bring up one bad accident or incident out of 200. But we are going to give a form of immunity, it’s a guarantee that we are going to back that police person, and maybe the precinct. We might bring it to a precinct level. We might even bring it to a state level, because some of the states are having a big problem, because today, everybody gets sued for anything. I know that better than anyone. Remember, they’re all Biden suits. These are not suits. These are not indictments. These are Biden indictments. But we are going to indemnify, indemnify all police officers. They’re not going to be sued anymore, and they’re not going to lose their families and their pensions and everything else that goes with it. And we’re going to tell them to do their job. When they see 300 people walking out of a department store destroying the company, destroying the store, destroying lives, and by the way, killing people in some cases when they’re in the store and then walking out with television sets, those people are going to be hit very, very hard as they’re walking out of those doors, very, very hard. And it’s going to stop immediately.

HH: Now you know, Mr. President, I think you ought to, I think you ought to have a veteran as your vice-presidential nominee. That’s why my list are all veterans. But Elise Stefanik did a great job two weeks ago with the presidents of Harvard, MIT, and Penn. You’re a Penn graduate.

DT: Right.

HH: Were you embarrassed by the Penn president?

DT: Yes, I was. I was embarrassed by all of them. I was embarrassed equally by all. It sounds like they had the same law firm, and they had the same kind of an answer, which didn’t make any sense. I mean, how simple an answer is that? You say yes. If they’re going to say bad things, do bad things with respect to Israel, we will take it very seriously, and we will come down on that, you know, that person very hard. Why aren’t they able to say that? They’re just not able to say it. I think that they are, I think they’ve disgraced their university. And this woman from Harvard, she should be gone. She should be gone.

HH: Oh, well, that’s my alma mater, and I’m embarrassed, and I agree. Let’s move to K-12. Will you condition federal funding to the states on their providing school choice like as in Iowa, and Arizona, and Florida, and West Virginia, and, you know, there are like 8 states that have school choice. And if we conditioned federal funding on that, having school choice, we can revolutionize and save American K-12 education, Mr. President.

DT: You know, one of the many things, frankly, but one of the many things that people like is when I say school choice.

HH: Yup.

DT: And people want it. People want it. It’s fair. And you know who wants it more than anyone else? The African-American population, more than anybody else.

HH: Yes.

DT: They want school choice. Yeah, I would strongly consider that. We’re thinking about that very strongly.

HH: Do you expect the vast majority of the Republican Party to rally around you if you are the nominee, even though there are four people running against you now?

DT: I think so. I mean, it seems like that’s what’s happening. A poll just came out. I’m leading by 61 points nationally. I’m leading Iowa by 35 or 40 points. I’m leading New Hampshire by a lot other than this one fake poll that came. It’s a total fake. Nobody ever heard of it. It was put out probably by a guy who’s now turned out to be a very unpopular governor, Sununu. But no, it’s a fake poll. But I’m leading by 50-60 points nationally. We’re doing phenomenal in Nevada. We’re doing phenomenal in, you take a look at South Carolina, her home state. They don’t like her, and we’re doing very well there. We’re doing great in New Hampshire, by the way, and we’re doing great in Iowa, Iowa being first. So we’ll see what happens, but we’re leading by a lot.

HH: A couple more questions, Mr. President. Chief of staff – you had four of them. Chief of staff is so important.

DT: Right.

HH: Do you have anyone in mind that you will tell us? They’ve got to be an SOB. They’ve got to be nice to the public, but they’ve also got to be able to deal with you.

DT: Yeah.

HH: And you’re a very demanding boss. Have you got anyone in mind to be your chief of staff?

DT: Well, I had a couple that I thought really did a good job, but we were under a lot of pressure. Don’t forget, we had that phony, you know, I would say, to mention a name, Comey, and we had others. They were doing bad things.

HH: Brennan, Clapper, they screwed you before you started. I know they did. They set you up.

DT: They were, I came into that. I got screwed. That’s right. And thank you for using the word. I got screwed before I started. The day I was being sworn in, they were doing stories about impeachment in the Washington Post. We hadn’t even started, yet. And so we had a tougher route than others, and we beat them, and we ran, and we did a great job for four years. And we then had a great election, a much better election the second time than the first time. And we’re going to have a better election still, because you know, I have never seen spirit, and I think you can attest to this, I’ve never seen spirit like I have on this one. This is stronger than one, and stronger than two. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m in Florida, and you go from point to point, and all you see is Trump signs all over the houses all over Florida. And on a one-to-one in Florida, I’m beating DeSantis 85-9, and that’s in Florida, that’s a poll.

HH: Now Mr. President, I had a discussion with Kristen Welker about how to interview you, because Kristen’s interviewed you, and I’ve interviewed you. There are two ways. One way is to ask you a question and let you answer and then go on, another way is to interrupt you and try and fact-check you. I think the latter always interrupts the flow of an interview. If there’s something wrong, people can correct it later.

DT: That’s true.

HH: Which do you prefer?

DT: I prefer where they let me go, because you know, it’s just, I think it’s a much better interview. You know I speak in rather complex and long sentences.

HH: Yeah, I know that.

DT: And you have to really, yeah, but it’s, isn’t it nice to have somebody that can do that? You know, it’s really, actually would be refreshing. This guy can’t, I mean, I watched him the other day asking the people, he couldn’t pronounce their name like NBC, John of NBC. They asked him the question, he reads the answer. He was just reading the answer. He’s asked a question, and look, I never did that. I’d love to do it. I mean, I’d love to have that opportunity. Can you imagine?

HH: Oh, you spend more time on a press line than he does in a press conference. Mr. President, if people vote for Joe Biden, are they really voting for Kamala Harris?

DT: I think so. I mean, let’s see what happens. I’m not sure that he gets to the starting gate, to be honest. I don’t know. I would guess at the starting gate, but certainly, I think so. It seems like he’s locked into her for a lot of reasons. He has to choose her. I understand. It would seem like the Democrats, if he doesn’t run, have to run her. That’s what all of the professionals like you are saying. I’m not sure that that’s correct, but that’s what they’re saying. Yeah, you’re locked into her. And she might be, I can’t say worse. I think she’d be better than him, actually. I actually think that.

HH: All right, I want to close by talking about Xi Jinping.

DT: I don’t think you can have worse than him.

HH: I want to close by talking about China. They are building ships one a month. We’re building like one a year. We don’t have shipyard capacity. We’re going to get our rear ends kicked if we get into a confrontation with them. Will you focus on shipbuilding? And if so, what kind? And where will you build it, Mr. President, because we haven’t got any capacity?

DT: That’s right. We used to build a ship a day. Do you know that? During the Second World War…

HH: Yes.

DT: We’d build freighters, tankers. We’d build them, a ship a day. And today, we’re not capable of doing that. We’re going to do that. We’re going to not only do that, we’re going to do airplanes. You know, you don’t mention airplanes. With the airplanes, they’re building planes at levels that nobody’s ever seen before, and we don’t build them very quickly. And then, they also take, my favorite plane is the F-22 fighter jet, right? The F-22, the most beautiful plane I’ve ever seen, just beautiful, and a really great plane, well, China copied our design exactly. You can’t tell any difference between whatever they call their plane and the F-22 fighter jet. None. And you know, we put that out with Boeing, and we put it out with another company that worked with Boeing, which you know, we don’t have the competition that we used to have, because they’ve all gobbled up all the competition. And we’re going to change that. But the F-22 is copied by China, and we don’t do anything about that. This plane is exact. You cannot, and I’m really good at this stuff – visual. I’m very good at visual. And you cannot tell the difference. And it’s a disgrace. We’re going to build planes, and we’re going to build ships, and we’re going to build them big and fast.

HH: You’re going to need a secretary of Defense. You had four of them. Now I’ve named a bunch of people. Cotton would be good. Pompeo would be good. O’Brien would be good. Mike Waltz would be good. Gallagher would. Have you got, will you put out a list of people that you will put into the cabinet?

DT: Yeah, that’s a good list to start off with. That’s, what you just said is a good list to start off with. We have, it’s such an important position. You know, we had Miller at the end who did a very good job.

HH: Yes, O’Brien mentioned him. Yup.

DT: I thought he was really good. I thought he was very good.

HH: Okay, last question. Will you stick with the Federalist Society making recommendations and take your choices from the list, because boy, are we getting some very liberal judges like the ones in Colorado that came up with this crazy decision?

DT: Oh, incredible. Incredible. It’s, we have some judges that would just, you know, you don’t have a chance in front of them. Not appointed by me, by the way. I’m very proud of our judges. We did a good job with judges. And we took the, you know, what do we know about that? We took from various groups, very strong statements, various, very conservative groups, actually, and I think we put some great judges in. You know, I put almost 300 judges on the court and three Supreme Court justices, so that was a record.

HH: Well, I hope the three Supremes join with the other six and toss this out. I want to close again with…

DT: Well, I hope so, too. I hope so, too, for the good of the country.

HH: …the poisoning our blood comment. It’s the most controversial thing you’ve said is the illegal immigrants are poisoning our blood. Will you explain again what do you mean by that?

DT: Exactly what I said. People are pouring into our country totally unchecked. Zero. We have no idea where they come from, who they are. They’re pouring in because of Biden. He has an open door policy which is insane. They’re coming from many different continents. They’re just not coming from the four countries that we talk about. They’re not coming from, you know, purely Mexico and Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador, which is more typical. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming from Asia. They’re coming from Africa. They’re coming from all over the world. They’re coming out of prisons. They’re coming out of jails. They’re coming out of mental institutions and insane asylums. These people are very sick. They’re many criminals, and there are many terrorists. You know, they did a recent story, they were showing that in 2019, during Trump, they found no terrorists for a long, for almost the whole year, they never, in other words, in recapturing or capturing, they had zero terrorists coming in through Trump, because they knew the penalty. I had the ban. I had the travel ban. I had a lot of things. They knew the penalty would be great. Under Biden, every day, it’s a record. They actually had none, I couldn’t believe it myself, to be honest with you. They had zero. They actually had zero.

HH: In 2022, Joe Biden had more than 165 people on the terrorist watch list. In the last year of your presidency, I believe, it was zero.

DT: That’s right.

HH: I had those numbers for the NBC debate, so you’re absolutely right.

DT: We had zero, and that’s because, that’s because of my, let’s say that’s because of my way. They knew that they couldn’t do it, and they didn’t. But I was even surprised. I was very impressed by that number. It said zero. I had it checked, and they actually had zero. And he’s setting records. Every single week, he’s setting records of terrorists pouring into our country. So the answer is they are poisoning our country. They are poisoning the blood of our country. And I’m not talking about a specific group, and I never read Mein Kampf, and I have no idea what Hitler said other than I’ve seen on the news. And that’s a very entirely different thing than what I’m saying. They’re pouring, they’re destroying our country. They’re coming in from every continent, and we have no idea, we have no idea who they are, what they represent. Are they from jails? Are they from prisons? And I will tell you, a big percentage of the people coming in are from prisons and from mental institutions, and are terrorists. And we cannot let that…and that is poisoning our country.

HH: Okay, no joking around now, Mr. President. Do you…

DT: Yes.

HH: No jokes at all. Do you intend to rule as an authoritarian or a dictator?

DT: Not at all. No, I’m going to rule as somebody that’s very popular with the people. And the reason I have a 50-point or 60-point lead, I saw one today I have a 60-point lead, but the reason is because I had four great years. We had four great years. We had the greatest economy in history. I rebuilt, think of it, I rebuilt the military. I defeated ISIS. They told me ISIS couldn’t be defeated, or it would take four or five years. I did it in a matter of months. I knocked out 100%. You and I had a conversation. I said we were at 99%, we’re going to bring them home. You said why don’t you do 100%, and I thought about it, and I said you’re probably right. Let them do it. I said let other countries do it, because they were fighting ISIS, too. But I said let’s go, do it, and we knocked it out, 100%. I think you’ll confirm that.

HH: I will, but I’d like to know. Would you stand with Israel until they kill 100% of Hamas?

DT: Yes, you have to get rid of Hamas. They have to do it. They have no choice. People have already forgotten about October 7th, you know? It’s like incredible. Nobody else covers that.

HH: I haven’t. I’m glad you haven’t, either. It’s the worst thing I’ve ever seen, and I saw 9/11. But this was, they were depraved.

DT: Yeah.

HH: There were thousands of depraved people.

DT: The heads of 42 infants, we’re not even talking about, we’re not talking about just young children, which is horrible. 42 infants, beautiful, little babies, 42 babies, the heads were chopped off, okay? This is not acceptable, and you have to get rid of this group of people.

HH: Okay, I’m going to land the plane right here, Mr. President. If we’re down to one candidate after New Hampshire not counting Vivek, because Vivek’s never going anywhere. So if it’s just you and Nikki or you and Ron, or you and Christie, you’ll come back here and what, spend two hours with me and those two?

DT: I’ll spend time with you. You’re fair. Sometimes, you’re fair. Mostly fair.

HH: Aw, come on. I’m always fair.

DT: Today, I think you’re fair. One thing I will say, every time I get off, I say that was a nice interview, and the next day, it ends up being a front page story. But you know, I’ll say what I say. Look, I’m very proud of the job we did. I did a great job as president, and that’s why I’m leading so much in the polls. People loved it. We had the greatest economy. So many good things. I mean, had COVID not come, this would have been, nobody would have ever seen anything like it. But we did a great job with COVID, didn’t get the credit for it. We did a great job. You know, we did it the federalist way. We let the governors handle it, but we helped the governors. We did a great job with COVID. But had COVID not come, but even with that, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country, probably the greatest economy…

HH: Do you think that Tony Fauci misled you? He lied to me on this program. He actually just lied to me, and Dr. Collins misled me. Did they do that to you, too?

DT: I think that they were looking very, very strongly at it. I think they didn’t tell us about their relationships, long-term, long prior to me with China.

HH: Yeah.

DT: They had a lot of relationships with China that they didn’t talk about, and they should have talked about. I think they misled a lot of people, yeah.

HH: Mr. President, I’ve taken you too long. I appreciate the time. Merry Christmas to you. I hope you keep coming back, and I’ll see you for that debate after New Hampshire if we’re down to one, not counting Vivek, because Vivek’s never going to quit, right? What do you make of Vivek, by the way?

DT: Well, he’s actually, I like him. I like him. He thinks Trump was one of the greatest presidents ever. And I said, I kind of like that guy.

HH: Yeah, but he’s going to be in single digits after New Hampshire.

DT: Yeah.

HH: It’s just got to be you and Nikki or you and Ron. Whoever is number two, let’s just get a one-on-one going, and have a long conversation. I appreciate it, Mr. President.

DT: Okay. Very good. Thanks a lot, Hugh.

HH: Merry Christmas.

DT: Take care. Thanks. You, too.

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