Former President Donald J. Trump joined me this morning:

Audio:

08-26hhs-trump

Transcript:

HH: I’m now pleased to welcome back to the program former President Donald Trump. Mr. President, welcome back. It’s good to talk to you again.

DJT: Good morning.

HH: This is the 22nd time we’ve had an interview on the record. We’ve talked about 8 times off the record. I appreciate it every time, but I especially appreciate it in the middle of this fiasco abroad. I’ve got 50 questions, which would be five times as many as President Biden has answered since this crisis began. What do you make about his availability to the press, Mr. President?

DJT: Well, he can’t be available, because I don’t think he knows what’s happening. And it’s frankly a horrible thing that’s going on. I think it’s the most embarrassing moment for our military and for our country. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve never seen, it just doesn’t make sense. How they’re doing it, what they’re doing, we had it in perfect shape. Just like we had the Southern Border in perfect shape, and then he destroyed it. We had the fewest number of people coming in. Now, we have the most number of people, and drugs and other things coming in. We had that in the best shape in the history of our country. And now, for this long period of this war, this horrible 21-year war, we had it in such good shape to get out, and get out with pride, get out with, really, a moral victory. And for some reason, it doesn’t make sense, he pulled the military out first.

HH: It made no sense.

DJT: And the whole thing went kaput. It’s just crazy.

HH: My first question is a little bit long, Mr. President, but bear with me. Your former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, said on this show last Friday that the agreement you directed him to sign with the Taliban was conditions-based, and your former National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, was my guest on Monday. And he said very emphatically that you would never have stood for any of three things – one, you wouldn’t have presided over a Saigon-style retreat in Afghanistan, two, no Americans would have been left behind. You would have never evacuated the military before American civilians, and number three, you’d never have left billions and billions of dollars of high tech equipment behind. Were Secretary Pompeo and Ambassador O’Brien right about what they told me about you?

DJT: Well, you left out one thing. We would not have stood for any soldiers or any Americans being killed or shot at or hurt in any way. That was in there. And Hugh, for 18 months, not one American soldier was killed. Not one. 18 months. And that was because of the agreement, and because of my talk with Abdul, who is now the boss, as you know, He is now the boss.

HH: Yes.

DJT: I wasn’t sure he was the boss, but now I look at television just like you do, and radio, and I see he’s the boss. That’s the man I was dealing with. And I had a very, very tough conversation with him about what we’re going to do to them if anything happens. But you really have to add to your three points, also add the fact that nobody was to be killed, harmed in any way, and nobody was. It was an amazing thing. We had a very strong agreement. It was conditions-based. Now there were many other parts of the agreement also. And if they violated them, you know that, we went in and bombed the hell out of them, and they never would. They never would have come into Kabul. And they just wouldn’t do it. Now what happened is one day, Biden said take the soldiers out. And it went back to the leaders of the Taliban, to the whole group of them, that the soldiers are leaving. And I would say that they were shocked, okay? I am surmising that they were shocked, because we had that thing so tight. And don’t forget, Hugh, I brought it from 20,000 people down to 2,500 people. But we also had NATO had 5,000 people at our request, and an extra five which nobody talks about.

HH: Prior to the…prior to, no, I want to get to that. NATO had 5,000, we had 2,500 and air power. But prior to the Doha agreement, you had authorized the dropping of the mother of all bombs in Afghanistan, the MOAB, on an Islamic State complex in April of 2017.

DJT: Right.

HH: You hit Syria after Assad used chemical weapons. You got al-Baghdadi. You got Soleimani after the militia he controlled attacked the Americans. Did the Taliban leader, specifically Mullah Abul Baradar, did they fear you doing to them what you had done to these people?

DJT: Well, I don’t want to say they feared me, but everybody else said they did. You know, we got al-Baghdadi of ISIS, and he was trying to rebuild ISIS. And when I took over, ISIS was all over the place, Hugh. It was all over the place. And then I got a certain general who was fantastic. You know, we don’t have all bad generals, okay? We have some real bad ones on television. I call them the television generals are terrible, but we have great generals. And I had a certain general that I liked, and we took out ISIS in a very short period of time, wiped them out. And they were gone 100%. Do you remember I wanted to bring them back when we had 99%, and everybody said no, you didn’t do 100%, you’ve got to get 100%, including the fake news media? And when I took it over, ISIS was all over the place. At 99%, I wanted to get the hell out, and the media said well, you didn’t get 100%. I said you know what? We’re taking another two weeks. We’re going to get 100%. We got 100%, and they were gone. And they respected us, and they respected me. But they respected us, and don’t think that the Taliban wasn’t watching, because ISIS is tougher than the Taliban, and nastier than the Taliban. And ISIS was watching, and then they were, they didn’t exist anymore. And we took out the founder of ISIS, al-Baghdadi, and then of course Soleimani. Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden. The founder of ISIS is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi, than Osama bin Laden. Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center. But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters. And I kept saying for years why aren’t they getting them? For years, I said it. I got them. The press doesn’t talk about it. They don’t talk about it because they don’t want to talk about it. You talk about it a little bit.

HH: I do. What did you communicate to Baradar, Mullah Baradar, Abdul Baradar who you talked to when you spoke to him? What did you tell him?

DJT: So I set up a conversation with him, and people said oh, you shouldn’t be talking. Well, I set up a conversation with Kim Jong Un of North Korea. We didn’t have a nuclear war. Had I not, then Obama would have been right. We would have had a nuclear war. President Obama said to me we’re going to have a nuclear war with North Korea. I said have you ever spoken to him. He said no. And I said don’t you think that might be a good idea. But anyway, I know he wanted to speak to him, but he never got to speak to him, and I think the other side didn’t want to talk to Obama. So what happened is I spoke to the head of the, the known head, because it’s…

HH: Yeah, Baradar, right? Baradar.

DJT: Yeah, but I spoke to, and sort of the known head, but nobody was sure, but now I’m sure, and I was sure then when I was speaking to him. And I knew as soon as I spoke to him. And even the introduction, I say hello, and he screamed something very tough. And I then started with him. I said listen, before we start the longtime conversation and conversations that we’re going to have, I have to say one thing, and I’ll never have to say it again to you. And here’s what I say. If you do anything bad to the United States of America, if you do anything bad to any of our civilians, to any American citizen, or if you do anything out of the normal, you know, they’ve been fighting for a 1,000 years, but out of the normal, because you’ve had your wars, and if you do anything out of the normal, but anything bad to America or any American citizens, I will hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit in world history. You will be hit harder than any country and any person has ever been hit in world history. And we will start with the exact location and the exact town, and it’s right here. And I believe I repeated the name of his town. That will be the first place that we start. And I won’t be able to speak to you anymore after that, and isn’t that a very sad thing? But that is the story. And then he asked me one question, and I’d rather not repeat that question, because it’s a very scary question. But he asked me one question, and I gave him the answer yes. And then after it was all done, I said okay, now I’ve said what I’m going to say. Let’s have a conversation. And I said we’re going to be leaving after 21 years. And when we leave, you’re going to leave us alone, and we’re going to leave with great dignity and great honor. And we are going to take care of this situation. We’re going to take our time. We had a date of May 1st, but they missed a couple of conditions. We had some very strong conditions, Hugh. But they missed a couple of conditions. I wanted to be out by May 1st. I had spoken to him quite a bit before May 1st, but we had a condition of May 1st. But they missed conditions, and so therefore, I bombed and we hit them very hard. And then we said we will agree to those conditions. I said no, you’ve already agreed to them. Don’t play games. We had them so good. They weren’t in Kabul. You take a look at when they started taking over Afghanistan. It’s when I left. When I left, that’s when it started, they started going wild, because they were dealing with another president. And I never realized, and of course I realized the importance and power of the presidency, but I never realized how important the office of the president is until this happened, because when I watched what happened over the last week and a half with some horrible, stupid decisions that were made, number one being allowing our military to leave before the civilians and before we get all of our equipment back, $83 billion dollars. And not, nobody can even comprehend that much equipment. Thousands of vehicles, thousands, you saw the list of vehicles.

HH: Yes.

DJT: He could have the used, he could have the greatest car sale and truck sale in the history of the world. And these are all armor-plated, these are millions and millions of dollars each, each, for each vehicle. It cost millions of dollars, and that’s where we were. And we were getting ready to leave, and then the election was rigged. And shockingly, I lost. Even though I got 12 million more votes than I got the first time, even though I ran a better campaign than I ran the first time, the election was lost. The ballots were rigged. They used COVID in order to cheat, because they cheat fantastically. If they could fight wars like they cheat an election, we would have had that war one in one day. But…

HH: Mr. President, I want to stay on what happened in March of this year. In March of this year, the Taliban attacked Forward Operating Base Chapman, according to publicly available reports, which is a highly-sophisticated and secure American installation…

DJT: Yes. Absolutely.

HH: …and injured seven Americans. Would you have considered the Doha agreement breached at that moment?

DJT: Oh, it would, we would have hit them so hard. It would have been breached, and they would have come back, and they would have said please, please, please. We had a couple of conditions breached, much less than what you just mentioned. That was a big hit. When I saw that and heard about that, I said well, that’s strange. It was strange, because they would have never done that if it was me.

HH: Now you brought home…

DJT: Don’t forget, having taken out, Hugh, having taken out Soleimani was the biggest of the world. I was with the head of Pakistan, who is a great guy, Khan. And we met, and he is a very respected figure and a very great athlete, actually. He is like the Mickey Mantle of cricket. I don’t know if you know that.

HH: Right, right.

DJT: But a very respected, dignified, handsome man. And I was with him, and I got along with him very well. He said when I heard that you took out Soleimani, I closed my offices and I went home for a week. It was the biggest thing to happen in the Middle East in 100 years. He said you have no idea. When you took out Soleimani, that was the biggest thing to happen in the Middle East, Mr. President, in 100 years. Now…

HH: I don’t doubt it. I don’t doubt it. You brought…

DJT: So they had fear, they had fear of him. I think even, if you want to know the truth, I think Iran might have been happy, too. They just don’t say it. They feared him.

HH: Oh, interesting. You brought home…

DJT: They feared him more than any other person, or more than any other country.

HH: And he was capable. You brought home 55 hostages or…

DJT: Well, he was getting ready to hit us. It’s worse than capable.

HH: Oh, yes.

DJT: He was getting ready to hit us very, very hard. And we had information, and I had information. And he was going to those meetings, and he wasn’t going to them with schoolchildren, okay? The man in the van with him who made the mistake of saying hey, I’ll pick you up at the plane, we’ll drive. They drove through the valley of hell. They, no, they were looking to do very, very bad, that was going to be a very, very big hit. But I’ll never forget the head of Pakistan, highly respected and very elegant person, said this was a day that is the most important day. We couldn’t believe it. It took him weeks to believe it. That’s what he told me. Others have told me the same thing.

HH: I agree. Now I want to go back to the hostages…

DJT: I took him out.

HH: …though, Mr. President. You…

DJT: And by the way, al-Baghdadi, the founder of ISIS who was reconstituting ISIS, he’s the man with the flag, with the fan behind him so much where you see for years, and I say, I’d say to my people, you’ve to get the guy with the fan. It’s very easy. He used to make speeches. You remember they’d show the same location with the fan right behind his head.

HH: Yes.

DJT: I said you’ve got to get, he was the founder of ISIS, and he was rebuilding ISIS after I defeated ISIS, and we got him. And nobody even talks about that. You will.

HH: Let’s talk about the people you brought him, Mr. President. Danny Burch from Yemen, Xiyue Wang from Iran, Pastor Brunson from Turkey, you brought home 55 hostages or wrongful detainees. How difficult will it be to get Americans out of Afghanistan? And right now, we don’t know how many are going to be held hostage there, but I think it’s going to be bad. How hard is it to get hostages out?

DJT: So let me just mention one thing, and Robert O’Brien was my, that’s how he came to my attention. Robert did a really great job. He was my hostage negotiator. We made him an ambassador. He was ambassador of hostage negotiations. You ever hear of that one before?

HH: Yes, yes.

DJT: And he was very good at it. And we were 58-0. And here’s the other thing. I never paid money. We didn’t pay money, because once you pay money, you have to pay a lot of money. We didn’t pay $1.8 billion dollars like Obama did where he sent that money to Iran. We paid $1.8 billion in cash, and to get hostages. And he didn’t even get all of them. We got…

HH: So what is going to happen in Afghanistan? I think we’re going to have hostages there, don’t you?

DJT: Okay, so let me just tell you. We did great. We were 58-0, and we got everybody. Sadly, I was there too late, because if I were president at the time, we got Otto out of North Korea. But unfortunately, he was in such horrible shape, he died soon afterwards. But we got him out along with four other hostages out of North Korea. That’s the toughest one of all, North Korea, the toughest one of all. But I had a relationship, a great one, I still do, with Kim Jong Un, very smart gentleman, very, very smart. We’re dealing with people that are at the top of their game – President Xi, Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un of North Korea. And we’re dealing with people that are at their top, the top of their game, including France, and including Germany, and including other countries. And we have a man that doesn’t know what the hell is happening, other than they’re good at cheating at elections. That’s all they do well. They cheat at elections.

HH: But what are they going to do about these hostages? Do you think we’re going to have hostages in Afghanistan?

DJT: Okay, now let’s get to that. So we could have thousands of hostages. I don’t think they know what they’re doing. Yesterday, they said 500. So the 35,000 all of sudden is 500, and yet most of the people taken on the plane, most of those people, as you know, are Afghans, right? So how are we down to 500? Nobody knows what the number of hostages is. I don’t think the United States has a clue. I think there are thousands of people that are hostage. It’s a much more difficult position than even the, like Brunson, Pastor Brunson, I knew the head of Turkey. I had a great relationship with him, as you know, great relationship.

HH: Erdogan, yeah.

DJT: I got him out. I said you’ve got to do it. He said no, no, no, we have laws. I said no, you’re the law. No, no, no, we have laws, and then eventually, I got him out, because he was the law, okay? It was very simple. But this is a more difficult situation. You have so many, you have a big, big element of religion. Anytime you enter religion, when it becomes a religion, religious fervor, it sometimes tends to be more difficult. I found that, because I’ve gotten a lot of people back. And you have new elements being added. Now, you have ISIS-K, ISIS-K, whatever ISIS-K is, because we wiped out ISIS. So now they have a new branch. It’s called ISIS-K. They’re very, very bad. They’re very bad, and you have the Taliban. So I can’t tell you. I have one concept that I would do that I think would be foolproof, but the hostages are in grave danger, and so are a lot of Afghans that came to our aid.

HH: Would you have ever allowed our troops to leave, or the NATO troops to leave, or the air power contractors to be pulled out with civilians and allies and Afghan interpreters in the country still?

DJT: No, it’s not conceivable. I don’t know if you saw my speech. We had 68,000 people in Alabama on Saturday night. And I told the story that I was with a group, and there was a five-year old son of somebody, a five-year old boy, and I talked to him about it quickly. And I said so would you leave the soldiers, or would you pull them out? He said oh, I’d leave the soldiers. A five-year old child would leave the soldiers. Anybody would leave the soldiers. When I heard they were taking out the soldiers, and I guarantee you when Abdul, and I’ve, you know, look, I spoke to him tough, but I had a very good relationship with him, very good. Nobody could negotiate with him like me. I had a very, very good relationship with him. And I found him to be reasonable. He did some minor violations, but he ultimately didn’t violate it at all. Look, all of this takeover of all of Afghanistan, not just Kabul, all of the relationships, all of this that I had, everything, and with more than just him, it all took place, all of the taking over of Afghanistan when you see the red on the page, it got bigger and bigger, that took place after I left. And it went rapidly. Hugh, it went so rapidly.

HH: Would you have closed Bagram, Mr., would you have closed Bagram?

DJT: No, I would not have closed Bagram. So I was going to bomb, so in order, I would have gotten all Americans out. I would have gotten all of the people that helped us out that were in danger, if they were good people. Some were not good people. Sadly, and just to interject, we have some very, very bad terrorists coming out, and getting into the planes. And they’re smart, and they’re tough, and they can get into the planes much easier than a normal person, because there’s no vetting. There’s no, they’re not vetting anybody. They have no idea. They have nothing to vet with. I would have taken the Americans out. I would have taken other deserving people out. That would have been number one. Number two, I would have, and I already, you know, I instructed them to do this. We were doing it. I was going it in a very orderly fashion, and we weren’t losing anything. And this was all over Afghanistan, not just in Kabul. So I would have taken the people out. I then would have taken all military equipment. And I said to them, I want every single nail, screw, and bolt. I then would have, with the exception of Bagram, which I would have kept, I would have bombed all of the bases, because I don’t want to give those bases to Russia, China, or even the Taliban. I would have bombed every base. I would have evacuated them. I would have taken out every single, and I used this expression with our woke generals, I said I want every single screw to be taken out. And I had Milley tell me, sir, it’s cheaper to leave the equipment than to take it out. I said you mean leave millions and millions of dollars of Army tanks, and you say it’s cheaper? I say then you’d better go back to business school, because you’re not a very good…Milley told me, sir, it’s cheaper to leave it. And you know what? That’s exactly what they did. It’s not cheaper to leave it. It’s the dumbest statement, one of the dumbest statements I’ve ever had. You have people, Hugh, we have people that do that. They transport, just like I used the military to transport the vaccine so that people could get the vaccine, I used the military for taking stuff out. And we were starting, but military, I will say, Milley said to me on two occasions, sir. Now it’s a lot easier to leave it, because you can just leave it. But I thought it was absolutely crazy. I also knew it was going to collapse, because you know, and I told you once a long time ago, Ghani was a thief. Ghani had great power in the United States Senate. He had senators and congressmen that were his friend. His whole life was the U.S. Senate. And that gave him power. But he was basically and inherently a thief who had no control over the country other than he was powerful within the United States Senate in particular, which is terrible, by the way. And he used that power.

HH: Well, you know, General McMaster and Secretary Esper are blaming you for the Doha agreement.

DJT: Okay.

HH: They’re saying that you empowered them. What do you make of these criticisms from General McMaster, who was your second national security advisor, and Secretary Esper?

DJT: Yeah, these are two guys. You know, often times, you’ll hire people, and they’ll turn out to be bad. No matter how good you are, I had great people in my administration, and if I ever do it again, we’ll have those people and a lot of even better ones. But I had great people in my administration, but those two were stiffs. McMaster was not a smart guy. All he liked doing is talking to the press, and I rarely listened to him, and then ultimately fired him. And Yesper, I called him Yesper, because all he did is say yes. Yesper was like a little boy. All he did was say yes. No matter what you asked him, he was a lightweight, and honestly should not have been in that position. We were rushed, because there was a difficulty with a good man who was in there prior to him. He had some family difficulty. And I gave Yesper a try, and put him in there for a short period of time. He didn’t have what it takes. The men didn’t respond, the men and women, the people within the military, did not respect him. And McMaster, all he did was like to write things and write books and complain, and he wasn’t a smart person. Just so you understand, they’re complaining about the agreement that I just talked about with you, which had strong conditions. And when the reason, as an example, I wanted to be out as soon as possible, but we had to get out strong with all our equipment and no death. The reason nobody was killed in the last 18 months was because of what we did. Beyond the agreement was, because of the relationship I developed with the leaders, and in particular with Abdul. So these were two lightweights.

HH: With Abdul…Over the weekend…

DJT: Let me just say I put them in the same category, and I put Bolton there, too. Bolton was one of the dumbest human beings I’ve ever dealt with. But he had a tough reputation, so he was good for me to bring him into a room. The other side nation would see him, and they’d say oh, my God, Trump is going to go to war with us, because Bolton was a nut job. And so he was, that was Bolton. The other two guys were different, but they were weak men.

HH: Let me go back to President Biden. Over the weekend, you…

DJT: And they weren’t worth the salt that you put in their head.

HH: I got that. Over the weekend, you called for President Biden to resign, but that would make Kamala Harris the president. Do you believe she would be doing a better job than Biden?

DJT: I think that she’s terrible. I think that she, I was surprised when he picked her, because she was done, she had done very poor in the debates, and she had done very poor in the polling. She was heading in the wrong direction, but he picked her. Look, everything this guy does is sort of strange. And I just looked a recent poll where she’s down even lower than him, which is pretty hard, because he’s down very low. I also looked at polls where I’m winning by many points, but I was when we had the election. I don’t know. We have people in office that did not win the election, okay? They didn’t win the election. And the numbers have come out. 15 million ballots, the other night, think of it, 15 million ballots were found the other night that weren’t used. They were found by a highly-respected group, highly-respected group, a group that you have more respect than almost anybody for, 15 million ballots. 8 million ballots were ascribed to by a military person that does this professionally just a week ago. The press doesn’t even talk about it. You know…

HH: Mr. President, it’s much more important to talk about Afghanistan than these claims. I have not seen one claim that I agree with, but let’s talk about Afghanistan.

DJT: Well, the claims, I mean, they’re, well, you know why? Because the press doesn’t write about it, Hugh. They won’t write about it.

HH: Okay, I have not seen one that I agree with, but I…

DJT: You could have certified numbers, which we will have. But you could have certified numbers, and the press doesn’t write about it, because we have a very corrupt media.

HH: But I want to back to Afghanistan, especially, now I want to talk about European allies. They’re furious with President Biden. Betrayal is the world they have used.

DJT: Without exception.

HH: You were supposed to be the wrecker of alliances, and he the rebuilder. What happened to President Biden’s America is back and the NATO allies?

DJT: Yeah, see, I didn’t wreck alliances. I stopped alliances from taking advantage of our country. I got $430 billion dollars more for NATO from those same people that you’re talking about, because we were paying for NATO, and they were paying very little. They were delinquent on their payments. You know that. I got $430 billion, not million, billion dollars more. Think of that. Started off with $130 billion, and $430 billion. So they’re not going to love me, but you know what? They did. We had great relationships, very personal relationships. This could have never happened, and they are furious. They think this was the dumbest decision. They have no respect for our president. They think this was the dumbest decision, the single dumbest thing that they’ve ever seen. By the way, the only good thing about it? It makes the worst job ever done in the history of the Southern border look better, okay, because this was dumber than the job they’re doing on the Southern border, where millions of people are coming in unchecked with 21% having COVID, no masks, no shots, no nothing. This makes the horror show done at the Southern border look good by comparison. This was the single, Hugh…

HH: Let me turn to Andrea Mitchell, no fan of yours…

DJT: This was the single dumbest, this was the single dumbest decision ever made.

HH: It’s a bad situation in both places.

DJT: And you know it.

HH: On Sunday, on Sunday, Meet the Press, Andrea Mitchell said of President Biden’s advisors, they tried to talk him out of it, meaning that his closest advisors tried to talk the president out of bugging out. What does it tell you that he won’t listen to his closest advisors?

DJT: Well, I believe that, because they’re not stupid people, and they know this is the stupidest decision ever made. You just could end this conversation on this subject, because it’s so crazy that we’ve been talking about it. Who in his right mind would take all of the soldiers out, and that includes NATO, because NATO fled also, okay? They had to. But who in their right mind, we had it sealed up. The relationship I had with the Taliban was a great one from the standpoint of dialogue and toughness, and toughness. And again, talking to them, I had some idiots on television saying why is he talking to the Taliban? Who else am I going to talk to? Who else? We were going to have an army that was going to flee. I knew that. That’s why I say you’ve got to take their equipment, too, because they were fleeing along with Ghani. They were all gone. And that happened when we announced we were leaving. But nobody else could make this decision. This decision was made by a mind that is shot. Now I believe that other people tried to talk him out of it. I’m in many ways surprised that they went along with it. I really am. I’m surprised that they went along with it.

HH: Now how do we unite the Republican Party, Mr. President, to prevent the disaster that continue to come upon the nation? How do we get the GOP together to oppose the border, the Afghan withdrawal, get them united?

DJT: Well, I think we have great support on the border. I think I have great support on this issue. We have some people in the Republican Party, it’s the biggest deficit that we have, because we have some people like Romney, little Ben Sasse, your senator, as an example, from, you have John Kennedy, who is great. But his companion in Louisiana…

HH: Senator Cassidy.

DJT: …is a disaster. You take a look at him where he uses me in every one of his ads. I love President Trump. It’s all President Trump, and then he’s hostile. He just, he just, what he did to the people of Louisiana is he defrauded them. But you have guys like that, and you have guys that just will not get it, not a large group. I think all of those people, the 19 people that signed that agreement, some of whom are very good people, I must say, so I won’t get into names. But many of those 19 people, they are, they didn’t know what the hell they were doing. That gave, now that gave…

HH: Now let me, though, let me point out that on this show, Leader McConnell said you would never have allowed this to happen in Afghanistan. On this show, we’ve had every Republican say you would never have allowed this to happen.

DJT: I’m surprised McConnell would have said that.

HH: Oh, he did.

DJT: I got McConnell elected.

HH: He said it on this show.

DJT: At his request, he was going to lose his election. I got him elected.

HH: But how do we bring everyone together?

DJT: And then he went nasty. I’m surprised he would have said it.

HH: Yeah. He did.

DJT: But I would never, I would never have allowed it to happen. We had it all buttoned up. We were all set. We were starting to bring people home, and we take out time. There was no rush. We’ve been there for 21 years. You take your time. We would have left, and when we were gone, they wouldn’t have any weapons. They wouldn’t have a nail. They wouldn’t have a screw. They wouldn’t have had any weapons.

HH: Should we stay now? Should we stay now until we get everyone out, Mr. President?

DJT: Well, I don’t want to say. I’ll tell you what, because a lot of people are asking me. I have a plan. I think it’s a very good plan. But let me tell you, Hugh, it’s a much tougher situation than we had three months ago.

HH: Oh, yes.

DJT: It’s a much tougher situation.

HH: Oh, yes.

DJT: When he pulled the military out, and here’s the conversation. I’m going to tell you what happened without knowledge, but with knowledge of the people. Somebody went up to Abdul, who’s the leader of the Taliban, and he is the leader. He’s smart, and he’s strong, and I had a very good relationship after I made my first initial statement to him. Somebody went up to him and said Leader, they are moving the military out of Afghanistan. Not just Kabul, all of Afghanistan. And he said to them, you’re crazy. Don’t be stupid, and don’t bother me. No, no, no. They are leaving. We see the planes are leaving, and they are leaving all of their billions of dollars’ worth of Army tanks and vehicles and planes and jets, and Apache helicopters for $100 million dollars apiece. We are leaving. They are leaving them all behind. He said this cannot be happening. I think you’re crazy. And if you’re crazy, you’re not going to be living long. No, no, Leader, they are leaving. Then what they did is they sent a group of people into Kabul. And they were not met with any force whatsoever. And they saw the Americans were leaving. And the word got back to Abdul, and he said this is the greatest day of my life. This is the greatest day of my life. I am going to be a hero. I am going to go down in history as having defeated the Americans without even firing a bullet. This is the greatest day in my life.

HH: I’m sure, I’ve got four more questions for you, Mr. President. I know you’re pressed for time. First of all, will you get a COVID booster when it’s been six months since you were ill?

DJT: I don’t know, yet. I don’t know. You know, I believe, I’m, I was responsible for getting that done in nine months, with the whole thing with the vaccine.

HH: Yes.

DJT: So you know, but I don’t know about the booster. I know that Pfizer has…

HH: I’m going to get it.

DJT: Good.

HH: I think the science is great. I’m going to get it. I think you should get it.

DJT: Okay, good. Yeah, I would have nothing against getting it. I’d like to look at it a little bit more. But first of all, we have September to make the decision. You know, et cetera, et cetera, we have a little while. I do think that Pfizer, I will say this, the FDA is bureaucratically run, would have taken five years to get it approved, would have never even had it if it weren’t for me. And I learned things. The FDA is virtually controlled by Pfizer. Pfizer has control, not Johnson and Johnson, not Moderna, but Pfizer has control over the FDA. It’s not a good thing.

HH: Second question, have you heard anything from John Durham? Has he asked to interview you? Do you know what’s going on with John Durham?

DJT: Every time I speak, I say where’s Durham. That should have never been allowed to be put into the Biden administration. They spied on my campaign, and they didn’t pay. We caught them, and yet they used prosecutors on Republicans all over the country. They’re using them so illegally. They’re using the IRS. They’re back to their old games, okay? By the way, that’s that they’re good at. That’s what they’re good at, is crooked politics.

HH: But you haven’t heard from Durham? Durham has not talked to you?

DJT: I have, I’ve never heard from Durham, never once. I never heard from him.

HH: All right. If you don’t run in 2024, has anyone impressed you? Is there anyone you would support if you don’t run?

DJT: Yeah, a number of people have impressed me.

HH: Like who?

DJT: A number, I don’t want to say right now. This isn’t the right time to say. I just picked somebody to run against a person named Liz Cheney, who’s off her rocker. And I’ll be announcing that sometime today.

HH: You know, Mr. President, I like Liz a lot, so let’s not talk about her. I like her and her…let’s not talk about her.

DJT: That’s okay. But she went crazy. She’s off her rocker.

HH: You used to be interviewed by people like David Portnoy and Clay Travis. I am curious when the Republicans do their debates for 2024, should they use people like Portnoy and Travis and me and people who aren’t part of the regular gang that gets to do these debates?

DJT: Yeah, you’d be great. You were always great. And you know, you came back. You went on NBC for a while, and I think it probably influenced you. But ultimately, they couldn’t take your answers, because you were a little bit out there, meaning you were saying the right thing. No, you’d be great. And Clay would be great. Portnoy would be great. You shouldn’t use a Chris Wallace. He’s terrible. He was terrible. He had no control of the debate.

HH: Well, shouldn’t we get rid of the Presidential Debate Commission? It’s a terrible thing.

DJT: Yeah, I would say yes. I would say yes. They’re totally biased. When I, you know, four years ago, I complained. I said you put all Clinton people up here. And you know, obviously it worked out very well for me. I think these debates were very good, but I will tell you this. Chris Wallace was so biased, it was disgraceful. And all he would do is complain that Biden wouldn’t go on his show. So I figured, hey, he can’t stand Biden, because Biden wouldn’t do his show. Biden was afraid to do his show. So Biden wouldn’t do his show. So why would they pick, why would they allow Chris Wallace to do it? And yet his true colors came out. Look, Chris Wallace, his father was a good friend of mine. His father did me on 60 Minutes. It was actually a very good job. I was very happy with it. But Mike Wallace was a legend. Chris Wallace wants to try and be like his father, but he doesn’t have the talent. Chris Wallace should not be doing debates. He was horrible. He wouldn’t let me ask the question, is why did the mayor of Russia’s wife, the mayor of Moscow, why did the mayor of Moscow’s wife give him, Hunter, $3.5 million dollars? Why didn’t China, how come China was able to give him a billion and a half? How come Ukraine gave him all that money? Chris Wallace said that’s not pertinent to this debate. No, let me just tell you, Chris Wallace did a terrible job, and he shouldn’t be doing any more debates.

HH: Okay, two more questions, Mr. President. If you had not addressed the January 6th rally on the Mall, do you think the invasion of the Capitol would have happened anyway?

DJT: Well, you know, that wasn’t my doings, the whole thing. And one thing that isn’t said, it was the largest crowd, we’re not talking going to the Mall. That was a small, tiny percentage of people…

HH: You mean going to the Congress.

DJT: …that was the largest group of people that I’ve even spoken before. I’ve never seen that many people. I think if they gave you an honest count, you would hear a number that would shock. They don’t want to do that, and they do have, they do have helicopter shots. And they should. That was…

HH: But if you had not, if you have not gone there, would it have happened?

DJT: And that was the protest. I know you don’t like talking about this, and it’s a mistake for you for a lot of reasons, but that was a protest against the election. That’s why they were there. I believe that the anger about the election was so great, it would have happened anyway. Yeah, probably.

HH: All right. Now I want to ask you just a couple of fun questions, because it’s such a dark week. Last time you were on the show, you told me that Belichick would make a great general. Do you think he and Kraft are going to win the Super Bowl again?

DJT: Well, I think he’s a terrific football coach. Win the Super Bowl again? I think that Tom Brady was, you know, was a force. Let’s face it. Will he win it? I happen to think that his draft pick is very good. He’s a terrific coach. Bob Kraft…

HH: Oh, you’re a Brady, not Belichick guy.

DJT: Bob Kraft is…well, I don’t know, I’m getting…

HH: You think it was Brady, not Belichick.

DJT: I’m getting a question like one in 28, and here’s the problem with me. If I said yes and they don’t win, they’ll say headlines, Trump made a mistake.

HH: Yeah, but you’re picking Brady over Belichick.

DJT: So I don’t know, you know, it’s one in 28, a player gets, what do I what?

HH: You’re saying Brady won the Super Bowls, not Belichick. You’re signing up with the Brady team.

DJT: No, no, they both did. But Belichick, when he watched Brady win the Super Bowl last time, that was something that probably didn’t drive Bill’s stock up, because Brady won it again without Bill. So you know, that was a crazy big deal.

HH: All right. Last question, Mr. President. Let’s go back to Afghanistan.

DJT: But look, I think they’re going to have a very good team. I happen to think their young quarterback is going to be very good.

HH: Okay, last question. We cannot leave Americans and green card holders behind in Afghanistan. The American military has never left an American behind in a war zone. What is your advice to President Biden about leaving Americans behind?

DJT: Never leave an American behind. Never leave a soldier behind. I mean, there’s some basics of our country. Number one is never leave our people behind – soldiers, Americans. And they’re leaving, I believe, thousands, thousands. This is before you get to loyal Afghans, which is a very big subject in itself. That’s a very, you know, no country has ever won or lost a war and then taken a big part of the population and brought them into our country. That’s never happened before, in all fairness. But with that being said, we had some very loyal people, some very good people who were highly paid, by the way. They were paid. It’s not like they did it for free, but they were interpreters, and they were other things. But I would say you have to go very strongly on it. Never leave an American behind. Never leave a soldier behind. You can’t do it. Can’t do it.

HH: If it takes more troops, should we send in more troops? If we have to take Kabul, should we retake Kabul and reopen Bagram?

DJT: Well, I want to say it, because I have a plan that would be, I think, a great plan. But I will say this. Anything we do right now is made a thousand times tougher because the worst decision, and that was taking our soldiers out, that was never in any of our plans. My plan was even maybe boosting them for a short period of time just to make sure. But we had no problem. We weren’t getting shot at. We had no problem with the Taliban. We had a great, they understood me. They knew whether Soleimani, al-Baghdadi or beating ISIS, or holding back North Korea, getting along with everyone but in a strong way, getting NATO $430 billion dollars, they knew they were dealing with a different kind of a person. They never ever would have tried this. And if they did, they would have been bombed to hell, and they would have stopped. And we did that a couple of times. They violated certain conditions. But one of the conditions is never kill an American. They never killed, think of it, 18 months, they never killed an American.

HH: Mr. President, I’ve taken a lot of your time. Please keep coming back. I appreciate your talking to me.

DJT: Thank you. Great show.

HH: Be well. Thank you.

DJT: Thank you.

End of interview.