Time Magazine's 30,000-word cover: Behind Trump's election as Bitcoin president

Original author: Eric Cortellessa "TIME"

Original translation: Liam Carbon Chain Value

This is the moment he has been dreaming of for four years. At 2:24 am on November 6, Donald Trump, surrounded by advisers, party leaders, family and friends, swaggered onto the stage of a banquet hall in Florida. The Associated Press had not yet announced the election results, but it was clear at the time that voters had pushed him back to the center of power. Trump gazed out over a crowd of supporters in red MAGA hats, basking in the near certainty of victory. "We have accomplished the most incredible political achievement," Trump said. "The United States has given us a mandate as powerful as we have ever known."

How Trump, 78, won reelection will become history, and America's choice can already be traced back to a few key decisions. For Trump's top aides, the theme of the campaign can be summed up in a simple slogan: "Maximize the role of men and control the role of women." That meant emphasizing the economy and immigration, which Trump did relentlessly. It meant distracting from the chaos of his first term, the abortion ban he introduced and the assault on American democracy four years ago. It meant a campaign that tapped into the resentment of disillusioned voters and played on the cultural divisions and tribal politics that Trump has long exploited.

Most of all, the result can be attributed to an extraordinary figure whose political trajectory back to the White House is unprecedented in the country's 250 years. Trump left office in 2021 as a pariah after inciting a mob of his supporters to ransack the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to overturn his election defeat. Three years later, he has engineered an unprecedented political comeback. Trump effortlessly defeated his Republican opponents, forced President Joe Biden out of the race, and defeated Vice President Kamala Harris in a landslide victory that exceeded almost everyone's expectations. In the process, Trump shook off 34 felony convictions and a slew of other criminal indictments.

His success was stunning. Trump took North Carolina, pulled Georgia back into his fold, and broke the blue wall. His campaign exceeded expectations by getting men to vote and women to vote. Exit polls showed Trump winning large numbers of Latino male voters in key battleground states, with support among that group rising from 27% to 42% in Pennsylvania. Nationally, Trump's support among Latino men jumped from 36% to 54%. Trump also increased the share of voters without a college degree, won over black voters in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and solidified support among white women nationwide, shocking Democrats who had expected an uprising after the Dobbs incident. Among first-time voters, Trump's approval rating is up to 54%, up from 32% four years ago.

He's had some big breakthroughs. When Trump launched his campaign after a third straight national rebuke, Republican leaders tried to ignore him. His primary opponents were too timid to confront him. A combination of friendly judges and legal delays delayed his toughest criminal trials until after the election. Until July, Trump's general election opponent was an unpopular incumbent who many believed was too old to continue in the office. Biden's poor performance in the first and only debate confirmed those suspicions. The Democrats' rush to replace the first-term president with Harris deprived them of a more experienced candidate with potentially broader support. Voters took Trump's advanced age and increasingly incoherent campaign rhetoric in their stride. Much of the country sees Trump’s legal woes as part of a larger corrupt plot to strip him and them of power. Trump has benefited from the global upheaval that has driven incumbent leaders from power around the world in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.

The consequences could be historic. Trump has dominated American politics for nine years, and the country has chosen to reinstall him after a turbulent four-year presidency that broke out into insurrection. Trump campaigned on an authoritarian agenda that upended America’s democratic norms, and he’s already preparing to deliver on it: mass detention and deportation of immigrants; revenge against political enemies through the justice system; deployment of the military against his own civilians. The question of how far he chooses to push the power the public has given him will determine the fate of the country.

For the Make America Great Again faithful, Trump’s victory was a galvanizing vision. For the less fervent supporters who helped him rise to the top, his rhetoric was mostly bluster aimed at reforming a government out of touch with America’s economic and social needs. To the rest of the country and much of the world, a second Trump term looks like a blow to democracy, both in the United States and elsewhere. That divisiveness will dominate American opinion for the next four years. The country is more polarized than at any time since the Civil War. But soon, at least one thing will unite us all: On January 20, we will all be living in Trump's America. This essay, based on more than 20 interviews over the past eight months, tells how Trump got there, offering a glimpse of what Trump might look like.

As always, Trump strategizes by instinct. In April 2023, days after making history by becoming the first former president to be charged with a crime, he huddled with advisers at Mar-a-Lago in Florida. The topic of conversation: How can he control the political narrative? Trump had just gotten off a phone call with his friend, Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White. There was a fight that Saturday in Miami. "I think those guys are going to like me," Trump said.

When Trump entered the arena on April 10, he was greeted with thunderous applause. There he met the Nelk Boys, a group of influential figures who host right-wing podcasts. Trump had appeared on their show a year earlier but was removed by YouTube for spreading election lies. The chance encounter led to a second appearance. His closest confidants didn’t realize it at the time, but the interview on the male-centric podcast would become a turning point in his extraordinary political resurgence.

It’s easy to forget how shaky Trump’s prospects were at the start of his campaign. He announced his third run for president in November 2022, days after the Republicans suffered a crushing defeat in the midterms—the third consecutive national election in which the former president was seen as a drag on the party. Trump’s handpicked candidates embraced his lies that the 2020 election was stolen and lost key races across the country. Republicans who elected saw it as a sign that the country was parting ways with Trump, and almost all of them shunned his grievance-filled opening speech at Mar-a-Lago. They just hoped he would go away.

But the early start of the campaign proved to be a smart move, allowing Trump to position the looming criminal prosecution as politically motivated. With each indictment, his support among Republican voters grew and he received millions of dollars in cash. His main rivals spent more time attacking each other than defeating those who stood in their way. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, arguably Trump's most formidable opponent, dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses. By March, Trump had secured enough delegates to become the candidate for the Republican nomination. It was the most hotly contested presidential primary in modern U.S. history.

Trump's overwhelming victory in the primary was the result of a carefully crafted strategy by his two campaign managers, Suzy Wells and Chris LaCivita. Wells, a veteran Florida strategist, worked for DeSantis during his 2018 campaign for governor, but the two fell out after he was sworn in. After the 2020 presidential election, Wells took over Trump's primary political action committee, Save America. While in exile, Trump is already plotting his way back to Washington, and he suspects the biggest obstacle in the 2024 primary could be DeSantis, according to sources close to him. And who better to help him than Wells?

Wells recruited La Civetta, an experienced Republican operative. Together they drafted a campaign strategy. They concluded that supporters of the Make America Great Again movement were strong enough to ensure Trump's victory in the Republican primary, giving them time to pilot a plan to defeat Biden in November. Trump's team focused on building an operation to identify and drive out Trump supporters who were not reliable voters.

Wells and LaCivita, political director James Blair and longtime Trump pollster Tony Fabrizzo believe gender will be key. In 2020, Biden maintained the 13-point lead Hillary Clinton had over Trump in 2016 among women voters, while closing the gap among men by 5 points. “Men lost us the last election,” said a senior source in the Trump campaign. “Our goal is not to let that happen again.”

The survey found that men, especially young men, were the most turned off by Biden, especially on the economy. In head-to-head matchups, Trump’s lead was most pronounced among unreliable male voters under 40. Advisers have focused on activating this group, who by and large view Biden as an old man who should not be president. These young people don’t get their news from mainstream media and don’t care much about reproductive rights or democratic rollbacks. When they do interact with politics, it’s mostly through edgy bro podcasts and social media. They admire Trump’s recklessness and habit of breaking convention. It’s a risk to focus so much energy on winning over voters who don’t care much about politics. But La Civetta often repeats a quote from Winston Churchill that became his campaign slogan: “Be safe everywhere and do nothing everywhere.”

As Trump courts male votes, he must also avoid losing among women by a wider margin than he did in 2016 and 2020 — no easy task, given that the Supreme Court justices he appointed helped overturn Roe v. Wade, paving the way for nationwide abortion bans. Whenever he talks about abortion, Trump insists that the issue is now a matter for the states to decide, and focuses as much as possible on the economy, immigration and crime — issues the campaign believes stoke anxieties among wealthy suburban women who would otherwise support him.

When Trump spoke to Time magazine in April 2024, Biden’s poll numbers were slipping and the Trump camp believed they were on the path to a decisive victory. In two interviews, Trump laid out a second-term agenda that would reshape America and its role in the world. Meanwhile, a constellation of Trump-aligned groups, such as the Heritage Foundation’s 2025 Project and the Center for American Renewal, were laying the groundwork to implement Trump’s strongman vision. Many of their ideas—from imposing strict abortion restrictions to rolling back environmental protections to bringing the entire federal bureaucracy under presidential control—were unpopular with a broad swath of the electorate. But Trump seemed to believe victory in the fall was a given.

The campaign’s confidence only grew in the three intense weeks that began with Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27. On July 13, Trump survived an assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania, with a gunman’s bullet through his ear, and stood up, pumping his fists and bleeding from his face, a scene of defiance that electrified supporters. Days later, Trump announced 39-year-old Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate at the Republican convention, seeming to signal his confidence that the MAGA movement would endure long after its leaders left politics.

The high didn’t last long. Three days after the convention, Biden announced he would not seek reelection and endorsed Harris. Within days, the vice president had solidified Democratic support. Soon she was outraising Trump by hundreds of millions of dollars and hosting rallies that drew attendance and enthusiasm not seen by the GOP since the Obama era. Trump’s victory no longer seemed a foregone conclusion.

In a series of meetings in Palm Beach and at Trump’s New Jersey golf club, Wells, La Civeta and their staff held multiple sessions to counter the threat posed by a new opponent. A younger candidate makes it harder for them to appeal to voters disillusioned with Biden. It will be even harder to contain losses among female voters when running against a woman. Democratic efforts to tie Trump to an extreme agenda like the "2025 Plan" are beginning to bear fruit. Early internal polling points to the challenge, according to Trump sources. Fabrizio’s surveys show a widespread desire for change, and their biggest risk is to make Harris the change agent candidate.

The Trump team began running ads and putting their surrogates on cable TV to blame Harris for Biden’s presidency, speculating that she would inherit many of her boss’s weaknesses. They focused on her role in the administration’s immigration affairs, where she was assigned to address the root causes of Central American migration, blaming her for a surge in border crossings. Meanwhile, Trump began distancing himself from the 2025 plan while working to portray Harris as more left-leaning than she actually was.

Privately, the campaign viewed Trump’s message on abortion — leaving it up to the states — as insufficient. Polls show abortion rights are the third or fourth most important issue for voters. After months of wavering on federal restrictions, Trump’s top lieutenants told him it was time to tackle the issue head-on. On Oct. 1, Trump posted on Truth Social that he would not support a national ban.

There were challenges internally, too. Trump was growing increasingly restless. He brought in allies from previous campaigns, including Corey Lewandowski, one of his 2016 campaign managers. Lewandowski, one of Trump’s strongest supporters of “Let Trump Be Himself,” according to multiple campaign officials, believed Wells and LaCivita had botched it. In August, Lewandowski had a meeting with Trump in which he suggested that the Republican candidate fire the entire campaign leadership, according to two sources familiar with the meeting. Trump made no promises, just nodded and listened. Wells and La Civetta soon held a meeting with Trump, saying that Lewandowski was a distraction and was derailing the campaign. Wells told him that what they had been doing was working and that now was not the time to get off track. Trump agreed. On the next plane, he held a meeting with everyone, including Lewandowski, who was sidelined as an adviser and appeared largely only on cable news in the final weeks of the campaign. Harris' momentum seemed to continue into September. She won the only debate between the two candidates, baiting Trump into making a mistake. "We were very concerned internally that she was a more formidable opponent than we realized and that the dynamic had changed," said a senior Trump official. But a week later, when polls showed the debate had done little to change the race and the candidates were tied in the polls, the campaign breathed a sigh of relief. Trump returned to his mantra: accelerating efforts to win over young male voters. In late July, Wells tasked Alex Bruzewitz, a 27-year-old Republican consultant, with providing Trump with a list of celebrities to interview on online podcasts, several people familiar with the matter told TIME. The next morning, Bruzewitz and another senior Trump adviser, Daniel Alvarez, approached Trump on the golf course.

“I have a list of podcasts I’d like to recommend to you,” Bruzewitz said. Trump interrupted him. “Have you talked to Barron about this?” he asked, referring to his 18-year-old son.

“No, sir,” Bruzewitz replied.

“Call Barron and see what he thinks, and let me know,” Trump said, and hung up. Brusowitz reached out to Barron later that day and learned that he was particularly fond of Adyn Ross, a firebrand known for working with celebrities to livestream video games like NBA 2K and Grand Theft Auto. They agreed that Trump should start there. The podcast strategy was in motion.

In August, Trump appeared on Ross’s podcast, which went viral, racking up millions of views on the livestream. In the weeks that followed, Trump gave a series of fawning interviews with fellow buddy podcast hosts: Logan Paul, Theo Von, Joe Rogan. The campaign studiously avoided interviews with most traditional media outlets.

Trump took an unconventional approach to outsiders. Kennedy claimed he had neutralized a potential third-party threat by offering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. control of health care policy in exchange for dropping out of the race and endorsing him. The campaign outsourced its most labor-intensive field operations in key swing states to groups like Turning Point USA and America First Works. In the final weeks of the campaign, billionaire Elon Musk poured more than $100 million into his own political action committee to help Trump work in swing states. Musk, who pledged to lead a new “Government Efficiency Commission” that would oversee the myriad federal agencies that regulate his company, hired staff and incentivized them to reach out to voters by paying them. He personally camped out in Pennsylvania, which both parties consider a key battleground state, and handed out $1 million checks to registered voters who signed petitions. Musk also turned his social media platform, X, into a crucible of conspiracy theories and described the stakes of the campaign to his more than 200 million followers. In the final weeks of the election, he publicized far-right conspiracy theories that Democrats were “importing” undocumented immigrants into swing states to irreversibly tilt the electoral map in their favor. “If Trump doesn’t win,” Musk said, “this is the last election.”

As always, Trump’s self-destructive impulses posed challenges. A little more than a week before Election Day, he fulfilled a lifelong dream and held a rally at New York’s Madison Square Garden. Trump’s warm-up speakers delivered hateful, xenophobic and racist remarks at the event. The Trump campaign brought in a slew of vulgar punchers, including insult comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” The campaign did not vet his remarks or upload them to a teleprompter before his routine speeches, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, recently went on record saying that Trump had praised Hitler’s generals. Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Gen. Mark Milley, called him a “complete fascist.” Harris’s campaign’s internal polling showed the rally’s cloying atmosphere tilted late-decision voters toward her. It seemed Trump might collapse at the last minute.

Just after 9 p.m. on election night, Trump walked into Mar-a-Lago’s ballroom to thunderous cheers from a crowd filled with his wealthy donors. Behind him were his family, including his son Eric and daughter-in-law Laura, and his youngest son, Barron. For the next three and a half hours, he, along with Musk and White, watched in raptures as the election turned out to be even better than his most optimistic supporters had predicted.

Trump's transition team is packed with loyal followers, such as former Cabinet Secretary Linda McMahon and businessman Howard Lutnick, his sons Donald Jr. and Eric, and his running mate Vance. All of them are tasked with ensuring that only true believers join his incoming administration. He is expected to draw on a network of organizations that have been preparing to implement his ideas. Among them is Russ Vought, his former director of the Office of Management and Budget and head of the Center for American Renaissance, who has been drafting draft executive orders that Trump could sign within the first hours of his presidency.

The first and most radical agenda item is expected to be immigration and border issues. In an interview with Time, Trump said he plans to use executive power to begin mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, ordering raids by the National Guard, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and federal law enforcement. Tom Homan, a former Trump official now affiliated with Project 2025, is expected to lead the effort, according to campaign sources.

Meanwhile, senior Trump advisers told Time there will be a massive purge of the federal bureaucracy. They said the most satisfying part for Trump would be the firing of special prosecutor Jack Smith, who accused Trump of willfully mishandling classified information and conspiring to overturn the 2020 election.

Trump's most controversial move will almost certainly face a major legal and political fight. He vowed during his campaign to pick an attorney general who would investigate and prosecute his political opponents and critics. Trump was emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling last summer that granted the U.S. president immunity from certain criminal prosecutions for official actions. Judging by Trump’s psychological tendencies, his vows to seek revenge on his opponents, and the dismantling of many of the obstacles that stood in his way during his first term, scholars of authoritarianism see a country on the brink of crisis.

Ultimately, elections are a judgment on the American people and the president they re-elect. Trump’s resurgence is no accident. By launching a social and political movement that has given him coercive power over the Republican Party, Trump has systematically dismantled many of America’s long-standing norms and ushered in a cadre of minions who will satisfy his most authoritarian impulses. He will enter his second term committed to creating an environment of governance with few limits on his power. He makes no secret of it. This is what the American people have decided they want.

Former President Donald Trump gave a wide-ranging interview to TIME on April 12 at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, and a follow-up interview by phone on April 27.

In the interview, Trump discussed his second-term agenda, which includes deporting millions of people, cutting the number of American civil servants and intervening more directly in Justice Department prosecutions than his predecessor. He also discussed his views on other issues, including abortion, crime, trade, Ukraine, Israel and the prospect of political violence in this election cycle.

The following is a transcript of Trump's conversation with Eric Cortellessa, a national political reporter for Time magazine, which has been lightly edited by Time for clarity.

Let's start with Day 1: January 20, 2025. You said you were going to take a series of aggressive actions on the border and immigration issues -

Donald Trump: Yes. You've vowed to -- TRUMP: And energy. Yes, yes. We're definitely going to talk about that. You've vowed to launch the largest deportation operation in American history. Your advisers say that includes -- TRUMP: Because we have no choice. I don't think a country can afford to have, what we're going through, 15 million, maybe as many as 20 million people by the time Biden leaves office. 20 million people, many of them from prisons, many of them from mental institutions. I mean, you look at what's happening in Venezuela and other countries. They're becoming much safer. Well, let's talk about -- you said you were going to do a massive deportation operation. I want to get specifics on how you're going to do that.

Trump: If you look back to the 1950s, Dwight Eisenhower wasn't known for this, you wouldn't think of him that way. Because you see, Eric, but Dwight Eisenhower was very serious about keeping illegal immigrants out of our country. He deported a lot of illegal immigrants. He did it for a long time, and he was very skilled at it. He took them to the other side of the border, and a few days later they were back. And then he started taking them 3,000 miles away -

Do you have any plans, sir?

Trump: We're going to use local law enforcement. We're absolutely going to start with the criminals that are coming in. They're coming in in numbers that we've never seen before. We do have a new type of crime. It's called immigrant crime. It's, uh, you see it all the time. In New York, they're getting into fistfights with the police. And worse. You see it all the time. You can see it in all the cities, especially in the cities that are run by Democrats, and there are a lot of big cities, but it's worse in Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles than in other places.

Does that include using the United States military?

Trump: Yes. When we talk about the military, we're talking about the National Guard. I used the National Guard in Minneapolis. If I hadn't used it, I don't think Minneapolis would be here right now because it was really bad. But I think it was the National Guard. But if I think things are getting out of control, I'm completely free to use the military if necessary. We have to keep our country safe. We have to maintain law and order in our country. Whatever it takes, I think the National Guard can do it. You know, if Nancy Pelosi uses the National Guard, I'm willing to do whatever they ask, but I often -

Will you use the military both inland and at the border?

Trump: I don't think I have to. I think the National Guard can do it. If they can't do that, then I would use the military. You know, our situation is different. We have millions of people now, and we didn't have them two years ago.

Sir, the Militia Act says that the U.S. military can't be used against civilians. Are you going to ignore that?

TRUMP: Well, these are not civilians. They are not people who have come into our country legally. This is an invasion of our country. An invasion of the likes of which probably no country has ever seen. They are coming in by the millions. I believe we have 15 million right now. I think by the time this thing is over, you'll have 20 million. That's more than the population of almost every state.

So you can see yourself using the military to solve this problem?

TRUMP: I can see myself using the National Guard, and I'd have to go even further if necessary. We have to do everything we can to stop the problem that we have. Again, we have a great force being assembled in this country, 29,000 people have come in from China in the last three weeks, all underage, mostly male. Yes, you have to do what is necessary to stop the crime, to stop what is happening at the border.

Does that include building new detention camps for immigrants?

Trump: We don't have to do much. Because we're going to take them out of the country. We're not going to keep them in the country. We're going to take them out. We've done it before.

Will you build new ones?

Trump: Obama did it in the form of prisons, you know, jails. I got yelled at for four months for that. Then people realized it was him, not me.

So, are you ruling out building new detention camps for immigrants?

TRUMP: No, I'm not ruling anything out. But the fact is, we're going to be moving them out, so we don't need so many detention camps. We're going to be taking them back from where they came from.

The reason I ask this is because Stephen Miller, your close aide and adviser, has said that part of carrying out this deportation operation will include building new immigration detention camps.

TRUMP: We may do that to a certain extent, but we don't have to do it too much because once we start, we're going to get them out. We're obviously going to start with the criminals. We're going to use the local police because they know their first name, middle name and third name. I mean, they know them very well.

How are you going to get state and local police departments involved? What authority does the president have to do that?

TRUMP: Some people may not want to participate because they don't want to share the wealth. We have to do this. This problem is not sustainable for our country.

Does this mean that you will be providing funding incentives from the federal government for state and local police departments?

Trump: Very likely. I want to give the police immunity from prosecution because the liberal groups or the progressive groups (depending on what they want to be called, kind of liberal, kind of progressive) are very insistent that they want to bring everybody in, I don't know. You know, sanctuary cities are failing everywhere. I really believe that there is also a pent-up sentiment among those who support sanctuary cities to end sanctuary cities because it's just not working for the country.

So, by your own words, these are the new, bold, and aggressive actions that you're going to take.

Trump: I don't think they're bold actions. I think they're common-sense actions. But I really believe, Eric, that these actions - they're allowing so many people into our country, it's incredible, especially considering that most of them are not checked or vetted. They're just pouring in. They're pouring in in numbers that no country has ever seen. It's an invasion of our country.

Well, let me put it this way: They are new immigrants, and they will certainly be tested in the courts. If the court rules against you, do you commit to complying with all court orders that the Supreme Court upholds?

Trump: I will comply with court orders. I will act in a very legal manner, just like I built the wall. You know, I built a huge wall, and that gave us a lot of data. I was willing to do much more than I said I would. I was and am willing to -- they should finish that wall. I finished what I said I would do, and I did much more than I thought I would do. But when you do it, you find that you need to build more wall in different places, and people once thought you couldn't do it -- you don't need to do it.

But, frankly, the first time I found out that Biden wanted to open the border, because I never believed it. It just didn't make sense. The first time I really saw this was when he didn't want to install the wall that was already built, and that could have been removed, hundreds of miles of additional work that could have been done in three weeks.

I want to talk about your plans to build the wall in a short period of time, but back to that. So, you commit to complying with all Supreme Court orders? All orders that the Supreme Court upholds?

Trump: Yes, of course I will. I have great respect for the Supreme Court.

Going back to the border wall, because last term, you tried to negotiate with Democrats Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer on border funding and had the opportunity to get $25 billion. But the negotiations failed. In the end, you only got $1.4 billion -

Trump: But with the $25 billion, things became unacceptable.

Codifying protections for "Dreamers" -

Trump: Well, there were a lot of other things. There were a lot of bad things. Of course, they gave you money to build the wall. You know, I basically took money from the military. I think it was an invasion of our country, and I took money from --

So my question is, what are you going to do in your second term? Are you going to use federal funds on day one to continue building the wall? Are you going to legislate? What are you going to do?

TRUMP: I think what we're going to do is finish -- when you and I say finish the wall, I've built a lot more wall than I thought we would. But, as you build it, you find out you need it. We built it, and then we found out that there were holes in certain places, and they would leak. Just like politicians leak, they leak. We found that problem, and then we built it, and then we built other things. It's just a system, and we have a good system. We could have added another 200 miles of wall and good territory. Because walls really work, you know, walls and wheels. I would say, you know, a lot of things, look at what you have here, your tape recorder, other things will be obsolete in about six months. You'll have better things. But there are two things that will never be obsolete, and that's walls and wheels.

What you just said. You said, "We want to protect the police from being sued." What do you mean by that?

Trump: The police - their authority is taken away. If something happens to them, even if they do a good job, they're taken away from their houses, their pensions, I mean, they end up losing their families. They're taken away from everything. They sue people. We have to give the police the power and respect they deserve. Now, mistakes are made, and there are bad people, and that's a bad thing. But it's even worse now, when a department store was looted, the police stood outside while 500 young people walked out of the department store and took away air conditioners, televisions and other things. The police wanted to take action. But they were told to stay out of it. They said stay out of it. If you intervene, if you stop crime, we're going to threaten your pension, your house, your family, your wife or your husband. You know, police are sued all the time. We want to be immune from prosecution if they do their job.

Will you try to pass a law in Congress?

TRUMP: I'm sorry.

Will you push for a bill in Congress to do that?

TRUMP: We'll have to see.

Let's turn to the economy, sir. You have a 10 percent tariff on all imports, over 60 percent on Chinese imports. Can I ask you now: Is that your plan?

TRUMP: It might be more than that. It might be part of it. But there are always people who - look at them when they come in, they steal our jobs, they steal our wealth, they steal our country.

You're saying more than that, though: Are you saying over 10 percent tariffs on all imports? TRUMP: Over 10%, yes. I call it a "ring tariff." We have a ring country. In addition to what we're talking about, there are reciprocal taxes. If we did that, the numbers are staggering. I don't think it would have much of an impact because they make so much money off of us. I don't think the costs would go up that much either. A lot of people say, "Oh, that would be a tax on us." I don't believe that. I think it's a tax on the country. I know. I made billions of dollars from China. Nobody had ever done anything with China before. I also made people aware of the threat of China. China makes five or six hundred billion dollars a year, and nobody had ever mentioned China before me. It's very sad in Detroit because the mandate for electric cars is ridiculous because they don't go very far. They cost too much, and they're going to be made in China. They're all going to be made in China. Mr. President, most economists -- I know not all, there's no agreement on this -- but most economists say that tariffs are going to drive up prices.

TRUMP: Yes.

Are you willing to accept inflation?

TRUMP: No, I've seen it. I've seen some -- I don't think it's going to cause inflation. I think it's a no-brainer for our country. Because what's going to happen is other countries are going to do very successfully, China being the leader. India is very difficult to deal with. India -- I get along very well with Modi, but it's very difficult to deal with on trade. France is very difficult to deal with on trade, frankly. Brazil is very difficult to deal with on trade. What they do is they charge very high import fees. They say, we don't want you to ship your cars to Brazil, we don't want you to ship your cars to China or India. But if you want to build a factory in our country and hire our people, that's fine. That's basically what I'm doing. I'm doing it and I'm pushing it very hard, but right when we were about to really start, we got hit with COVID. We had to fix that. And we ended up doing a much better stock market than we did when COVID first came out. But if you look at how we did in our first few years, the numbers are staggering. There has never been an economy that—

Sir, there's no doubt that the economy was doing really well during your first term. But Moody's did say that your trade war with China cost the U.S. economy $316 billion and 300,000 jobs. [Editor's note: The $316 billion estimate was made by Bloomberg Economics, not Moody's. ]

Trump: Yeah. Moody's doesn't know what they're talking about. We have the greatest economy in history. Moody's admits that. How can we lose if we have such a great economy? Everybody admits that. If we didn't do that, we wouldn't have a steel industry right now. They dumped steel into this country. I put a 50 percent tariff on steel. It's going to go up. The people who love me the most are the businesses, especially the steel businesses. They love me because I saved their industry. The owners and executives of the steel companies would cry when they saw me. They say, no one helped us until you came along. China was dumping tons of steel into our country. We saved the steel industry.

Do you think that companies will pass on the cost of the tax to consumers?

TRUMP: No, I don't think so. I think it will cost the country - I think they'll have less revenue. I actually think the countries that are taxed will have less revenue. I don't believe -

Do you not believe that companies will pass on the cost?

TRUMP: No, I think the situation is that you manufacture. The way out of this whole situation is that you end up manufacturing, instead of importing products from China, because of the extra cost, you end up making products in the United States. Traditionally, that's been the case. If you look at what's happened. If you look at China, they don't want our cars. They charge a huge amount. You look at India. India is a great example. I get along very well with the people's representatives of India. Modi is a good man, and he's doing what he has to do. But we had some problems at Harley-Davidson, and I had the Harley-Davidson guys go to the White House. I said, "How are you guys doing? Is business good? Is everything OK?" I said, "Out of curiosity, how are you guys handling the relationship with India?" "Not very good." Now you have to remember, this was five years ago, four years ago, they said, "Not very good. We can't do business with India because they charge us such high tariffs, over 100%." ​​At prices like that, you know, consumers would break down and not be able to buy. They said, "But they're willing to do anything for us to build a Harley-Davidson factory in India. They don't want us to sell motorcycles to India, but they do want us to build a factory." I said, "Well, I'm not very happy about that." But eventually it happened. They built the factory in India. Now there's no tax, and we're going to do the same thing. We're going to build a factory here. There's something going on right now that no one talks about, and maybe doesn't know about, but I have a friend who builds car factories. That's what he does. If you asked him to build a simple apartment somewhere, he wouldn't know how to do it. But he can build factories, millions of square feet, the largest factories in the world. He's incredible. I said to him, "I want to see your factory." He said to me, "Well, are you ready to go to Mexico? Are you ready to go to China?" I said, "No, I want to see it here." He said, "We don't actually build factories here, the big ones are not built here, the big ones are being built right now in Mexico or China." China is building factories in Mexico right now to make cars for the United States. These factories are the largest factories in the world. If I were president, that wouldn't happen because I would put a 100% tariff on them. Because I wouldn't allow them to steal the rest of our business. You know, Mexico has taken 31% of our auto manufacturing and auto business. And China has a much larger share than that. We have a very small percentage of that business, and then you have a poor fool like this gentleman in the United Auto Workers who agrees with us to make all-electric vehicles, which is really sad because all-electric vehicles are not what consumers want at all.

Sir, I understand your position -

TRUMP: By the way, I have no problem with all-electric vehicles. I think it's great. You can buy electric cars, which I think is great. They don't go far. They have problems. They don't work in cold weather. They don't work in hot weather. There are a lot of problems. When I was in Iowa, there were electric cars everywhere. They were all over the streets. It was minus 40 degrees on primary night in Iowa.

I was with you.

Trump: That's right. I've never heard of temperatures that low.

Just to clarify something you just said: Are you considering a 100 percent tariff on goods coming from China and Mexico?

Trump: I didn't say that. They charge us 100 percent. But their tariffs are much higher than that. India charges us higher tariffs than that. What is the tariff that Brazil charges us - Brazil is a very, very high tariff country. I ask people, who are the most difficult ones to deal with? I won't tell you because I don't want to insult these countries because I actually get along very well with them. But you'd be surprised. The European Union is very tough on us. They don't accept our foreign products. They don't accept our cars. We accept Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and BMW. They don't accept our cars. If we want to sell a Chevrolet, or even a Cadillac, a beautiful Cadillac Escalade, if we want to sell our cars to Germany, for example, they won't accept it.

We'll get back to Europe later.

Trump: I said to Angela Merkel, "Angela, how many Chevrolets are there in the center of Berlin?" She said none. I said, "You're right. But we buy your cars, including Volkswagens and other relatively inexpensive cars." I said, "Do you think that's fair?" She said, "Probably not, but no one ever mentioned it until you showed up."

Sir, you have criticized the way Israel has waged its war on Hamas. In a recent interview, you said Israel needed to "end the war" and "return to normalcy."

TRUMP: Yes.

So as president, would you consider withholding military aid to Israel to pressure it to end the war?

TRUMP: Okay. Let me start from the inside. [Aides turns down the air conditioner.] I don't have to start from the beginning. But as you know, Iran was bankrupt at the time. Iran was --

No, I know, but can you --

TRUMP: No, but think about what a great job I did. This would not have happened. You wouldn't have -- Hamas had no money. You know that?

I understand, sir, I'm just wondering --

TRUMP: No, but I wish I could point that out. During my tenure, there were reports that Iran had no money to give to anybody - very little terrorism. We had none. I had four years - we had no terrorism. We had no World Trade Center destroyed. You know, Bush once said, "Well, we're a safe country." I said they destroyed the World Trade Center during your tenure. Do you remember that debate? That's a good example. But it's true, absolutely true. But we had no terror - we were 100% free of ISIS. Now they're starting to come back.

I'm wondering - you said you wanted Israel to end the war. You said it needed to be "closed." What are you going to do about that? Would you consider withholding aid?

TRUMP: I think Israel has done a very bad job of public relations. I don't think the Israel Defense Fund or any other organization should be releasing pictures of buildings collapsing every night with people potentially inside of them, and they're doing that every night.  

So you're not ruling out suspending or limiting aid?  

TRUMP: No, I — we have to do it. Look, no president has ever done what I did to Israel. Look at everything I did, first of all the Iran nuclear deal. You know, Netanyahu begged Obama not to make this deal. I terminated the deal. If they were smart and energetic, they could have made a deal, other than trying to win over Trump, because they were in a bad position. They should have made a deal with Iran. They didn't sue. They didn't make a deal. But I did the Golan Heights.

You did.

TRUMP: Nobody even thought of the Golan Heights. I gave them the Golan Heights. I did the embassy, ​​in Jerusalem. Jerusalem became the capital. I built the embassy.

Right.

TRUMP: It's a beautiful embassy, ​​and it cost less than anybody thought. You heard about that, too. But there has not been a president who has done what I did in Israel. And the interesting thing is, the Israeli people appreciate it. My approval rating is 98%, the highest.

You know who has a low approval rating in Israel right now?

Trump: Bibi.

Yeah. Do you think it’s time for him to go?

Trump: Well, I had a bad experience with Bibi. It was with Soleimani, because as you probably know, he backed out before the attack. I said, “What’s going on?” Because it was supposed to be a joint operation, and all of a sudden, we were told that Israel was backing out. I was very upset about that. It’s something I’ll never forget. It taught me some truth. I would say, what happened on October 7th should not have happened.

It happened on his watch.

Trump: No, it happened during his term. I think, despite all that happened, it had a profound effect on him. Because people will say, that should not have happened. They had the most advanced equipment. They could have prevented this. A lot of people knew about it, thousands of people knew about it, but Israel didn't, and I think he bears a lot of responsibility for that. And now with the hostages -

Is his time over?

Trump: I happen to think that, in terms of hostages, knowing the enemy, knowing the hostages, I don't think there are many left. You know, they talk about all these hostages that are being taken. I don't believe these people are capable or want to take care of hostages in negotiations. I don't think - I think there will be far fewer hostages than people think, which is a very sad thing.

Do you think you'll be better off working with Benny Gantz in a second term than you were with Netanyahu?

Trump: I think Benny Gantz is great, but I don't want to say that. I haven't talked to him about it. But I know some very good people in Israel who can do a great job.

Do you think -----

Trump: I would say that Netanyahu is rightly criticized for what happened on October 7.

Do you think the outcome of the war between Israel and Hamas should be a two-state solution between Israelis and Palestinians?

Trump: Most people think it will be a two-state solution. I'm not sure a two-state solution is still viable. Everybody's talking about two states, even when I was there. I said, "What do you like here? Do you like a two-state solution?" Now people are back to - it depends on where you are. It changes every day now. If Israel is making progress, they don't want a two-state solution. They want everything. If Israel is not making progress, sometimes they talk about a two-state solution. The two-state solution seems to be the favorite idea, policy, or philosophy.

Do you like it?

TRUMP: It depends on when. There was a time when I thought a two-state solution was possible. Now I think a two-state solution is going to be very, very hard. I think it's going to be much harder to do. I also think there are fewer people who like it. There were a lot of people who liked it four years ago. Today, there are a lot fewer people who like it.

You said --

TRUMP; There are probably no other ideas. You know, some people say this situation is the most difficult to resolve, the most difficult to resolve.

Yes, absolutely.

TRUMP: Because kids are raised to hate Jews to a level that no one could imagine. I have a friend, a very good friend, Sheldon Adelson, who thinks it's impossible to make a deal because the level of hatred is so deep. I think there's a much greater level of hatred on both sides, but the level of hatred for the Jews is very great and has been since kindergarten. He feels that - he's a great dealmaker. He's a very wealthy man. He's wealthy because he can make deals. He loves Israel more than anything. He loves Israel and he wants to protect Israel. He feels that there can't be a deal because of the level of hatred.

Do you feel that way now?

TRUMP: I disagree. But so far, he hasn't been wrong.

You said you were proud to be the first president in generations who didn't get the United States into a war. You talked about that a little bit in your press conference. But if Iran and Israel went to war, would you stand on Israel's side?

TRUMP: I'm very loyal to Israel, more loyal than any other president. I've done more for Israel than any other president. Yes, I would protect Israel.

You said this week that abortion should be a matter for the states to decide, and that you would not sign a federal ban. So, I want to make sure: Will you veto any bill that puts federal restrictions on abortion?

TRUMP: You don't need a federal ban. We just got rid of a federal ban. You know, if you go back to Roe v. Wade, the point of Roe v. Wade was - it wasn't so much about abortion, it was about bringing it back to the states. So the states are going to negotiate deals. Florida is going to be different from Georgia, Georgia is going to be different from everywhere else. But that's where it is now. It's very interesting. But remember, for 53 years, every legal scholar has said from a legal perspective that abortion is a matter for the states. Now, it's starting to move in that direction. People are starting to look at 15 weeks, five weeks, or six weeks, and they're starting to look at time limits. They're suddenly starting to dictate the definition of abortion.

People want to know, if the bill came before you, would you veto it? That would be really important to a lot of voters.

Trump: But you have to remember this, it's never going to happen, because it's just not going to happen. You're never going to get 60 votes. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will be able to do that for many years to come. Right now, it's basically 50-50. I think we have a chance to get a couple seats, but a couple seats means we get 51 or 52 seats. We have a long way to go. So it's not going to happen because you're not going to get those seats. All right. But having said that, it's up to the states, it's up to the states to make their own decisions.

Do you think --

Trump: You know what? It takes a tremendous amount of pressure off everybody. But we -- it's not well defined. To be honest, Republicans, a lot of Republicans, don't know how to talk about it. This issue has never bothered me.

So, just to be clear: If there were federal restrictions -- federal restrictions on abortion, would you not commit to veto that bill?

TRUMP: I don't have to commit to a veto because it's never going to happen -- number one, it's never going to happen. Number two, this is about states' rights. You don't want to go back to the federal government. This is all about getting rid of the federal government. Eric, this is settled because -- this is settled, and this issue has been greatly simplified over the past week. This was all about getting rid of the federal government. The last thing you want to do is go back to the federal government. The states are working through this. Look at Ohio. Ohio passed something that surprised people a little bit. Kansas, I mean, these are big conservative Trump states, Ohio and Kansas, all of these states, but they passed what they wanted to pass. This is about states' rights.

I understand, sir. Your allies on the Republican Study Committee, which makes up about 80% of the Republican caucus, have included the Conceived Life Act in their 2025 budget proposal. That bill would give the embryo full legal rights. Is that your position as well?

TRUMP: Say it again. What?

The Conceived Life Act, which would give the embryo full legal rights, is included in their 2025 budget proposal. Is that your position?

TRUMP: I would leave it all up to the states. It's going to be different in the states. Some will be for it, some will be against it. It's not the same in Texas as it is in Ohio.

Will you veto that bill?

TRUMP: I don't have to do anything about the veto because we've restored the veto right now in the states.  

Okay.

TRUMP: They're going to make those decisions.  

Do you think women should be able to get the abortion pill, mifepristone?  

TRUMP: Well, I have a view on that, but I'm not going to explain it. I'm not going to say it right now. But I have a very strong view on it. I'll probably release it next week.

Mr. President, this is a big issue because your allies have called for enforcement of the Comstock Act, which banned mailing medication for abortions. The Biden Justice Department did not enforce that. Will your Justice Department enforce it?

TRUMP: I'm going to make a statement on that within the next 14 days.

Will you?

TRUMP: Yes, I have a big statement on that. I'm very firm on that. I think it's a very important issue, actually.

Got it. You think that this issue should be left to the states. You've made that very clear. Would you be comfortable if the states decided to punish women who had abortions after abortions were banned?

TRUMP: You mean weeks?

Yes. Let's say that the ban on abortions was 15 weeks --

TRUMP: Again, that would be -- I don't have to be comfortable or uncomfortable. The states are going to make that decision. The states have to be comfortable or uncomfortable, not me.

Do you think states should monitor women's pregnancies so they know if they've had an abortion after a ban?

TRUMP: I think they probably would. Again, you have to talk to the states. Roe v. Wade was all about giving abortion rights back to the states. It was both a legal decision and it was probably a moral decision in some people's minds. But it was primarily a legal decision. Every legal scholar, Democrat, Republican, and everybody else wanted to give that back to the states. You know, Roe v. Wade has always been considered very bad law. Very bad. It was a very bad issue from a legal perspective. People were surprised that it lasted so long. What I was able to do was to do that by picking some very good people who were, frankly, very brave judges who were ultimately Republicans -- the states will decide if they're satisfied -- and bring lawsuits against women who had abortions after the ban. But are you satisfied with that? TRUMP: The states will say. It doesn't matter if I'm satisfied or not. It doesn't matter at all because the states will make the decision. And by the way, Texas is going to be different than Ohio. Ohio is going to be different than Michigan. I see what's going on.

President Trump, we're in Florida. You're a resident of Florida.

Trump: Yes.  

How are you going to vote in the state's abortion referendum this November that would overturn DeSantis' six-week ban?

Trump: Well, I said I thought six weeks was too harsh.

You did.

Trump: I did say that before.

Yes.

TRUMP: I think when I made that statement it was quite controversial, but it's become less and less controversial as time has gone on. I think Ron was very hurt when he did that because people - even conservative women in Florida thought -

Well, this referendum is going to change all that. Will you vote for it in November?

TRUMP: Well, there are other things that go into it. I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to vote for. I'm just going to tell you that the state makes the decision.

Yes, sir. Violent crime is down all across the country. It's down 6 percent -

TRUMP: I don't believe it.

You don't believe it?

TRUMP: Yeah, it's fake data.

You think so?

TRUMP: Well, it was released last night. The FBI gave a false number.

I didn't see it, but the FBI said it was down 13% in 2023. [Editor's note: That statistic refers specifically to homicides.

TRUMP: I don't believe it. It's a lie. It's fake news.

Sir, these numbers are collected by state and local police departments across the country. Most of them support you. Could it be that they are wrong?

TRUMP: Yes. Last night. Well, maybe, maybe not. The FBI fiddled with the data, and so did others. Crime can't be down last year. It can't be, because there are immigrant crimes. Do they include immigrant crimes? Or do they think that's a different form of crime?

So these local police departments are wrong?

TRUMP: I don't think it's coming from the local police departments. What I'm seeing is that the FBI is putting up false numbers.

Okay. So, if elected, will you instruct your attorney general to prosecute the state officials who prosecuted you, like Alvin Bragg and Fannie Willis?

TRUMP: Well, we'll look at a lot of things like they did. It's horrible what they did. No, I don't want to do it. I'm not happy watching Clinton. I think it's a horrible thing. But unfortunately, what they did was just lift the lid, and they - what they did to me was incredible. It was unfounded.

You said Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted. Will you instruct your attorney general to prosecute him?

TRUMP: When did I say Alvin Bragg should be prosecuted?

It was at a rally.

TRUMP: I don't remember saying that.

I can tune it out.

TRUMP: No.

So, just to be clear: You will not be directing the Attorney General to prosecute Alvin Bragg?

TRUMP: We will have a great reward through our success. We will get our country on the path to success again. Our reward will come through the success of our country.

Will you fire a United States Attorney who does not prosecute someone that you ordered him to prosecute? Him or her?

TRUMP: Honestly, it depends on the circumstances.

So you might?

TRUMP: It depends on the circumstances. Yes.

Well, sir, you said that you would appoint a real special prosecutor to investigate Biden and his family-

TRUMP: That depends on what the Supreme Court decides. Presidents should have immunity, including Biden. If they rule that he doesn't have immunity, then Biden could be indicted for 20 different acts because he created them. You have to look not only at his criminal conduct of accepting a lot of money and being the Manchurian Candidate. Look at what happened in Afghanistan. Look at what happened around the world. Look at what he allowed Russia to do in Ukraine. That would never happen to me, and it hasn't happened. And I know Putin very well.

President Trump, isn't it their custom in banana republics for political opponents to attack each other?

TRUMP: That's what it is now. Yes.

Well-

TRUMP: No, no, no, no. Eric, here it is. I have to -- in fact, we're doing this today because Monday is a little difficult, because Monday I have to go to the criminal court.

Exactly.

TRUMP: About a non-criminal case. It's not even a criminal case. Like I said, if you go to Andy McCarthy, or Jonathan Turley, two real experts, or go to all the legal scholars who've written books, they'll say, it's not even a criminal case. I have a judge who is more conflicted than any judge that anybody's ever seen. He's a Trump-hating jerk. You look at what's going on there. You just asked me, you know, you just asked me a question, and they do this to me!

Well, sir, just to be clear --

TRUMP: Wait, I haven't had a chance to do that to them yet. I'm leaning toward not doing that. I don't want to do that to them. But a lot of that is up to the Supreme Court. We're going to the Supreme Court in two weeks. They're going to make a ruling on presidential immunity. If they say the president has no immunity, then I believe Biden will be prosecuted for all crimes, because he has committed many. If they say the president has immunity, which I happen to think the president must have, otherwise it is just a ceremonial position