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Feb. 16, 2017 - Rush Limbaugh Program
37:32
February 16, 2017, Thursday, Hour #2
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Time Text
In very measured tones, the President is firing howitzers at the media and the Washington establishment.
I'll characterize this later.
Let's just jip it now to get in here while we can.
I put it out before the American people, got 306 electoral college votes.
I wasn't supposed to get 22.
They said there's no way to get 222, 230 is impossible.
270, which you need, that was laughable.
We got 306.
Because people came out and voted like they've never seen before.
So that's the way it goes.
I guess it was the biggest electoral college win since Ronald Reagan.
In other words, the media is trying to attack our administration because they know we are following through on pledges that we made, and they're not happy about it for whatever reason.
He's really attacked here before.
But a lot of people are happy about it.
In fact, I'll be in Melbourne, Florida, at 5 o'clock on Saturday.
Really launched it.
And I heard, just heard that the crowds are massive that want to be there.
I turn on the TV, open the newspapers, and I see stories of chaos.
Chaos.
Yet it is the exact opposite.
This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite the fact that I can't get my cabinet approved, and they're outstanding people, like Senator Dan Coates, who's there, one of the most respected men in the Senate.
He can't get approved.
How do you not approve him?
He's been a colleague highly respected, brilliant guy, great guy, everybody knows it.
We're waiting for approval.
So we have a wonderful group of people that's working very hard, uh that's being uh very much misrepresented about, and we can't let that happen.
Uh so if the Democrats who have all you have to do is look at where they are right now.
The only thing they can do is delay, because they've screwed things up royally, believe me.
Let me list to you some of the things that we've done in just a short period of time.
Just got here.
I got here with no cabinet.
Again, each of these actions is a promise I made to the American people.
So we'll go over just some of them, and we have a lot happening next week and in the weeks and the weeks coming.
We've withdrawn from the job-killing disaster, known as Trans Pacific Partnership.
We're going to make trade deals, but we're going to have one-on-one deals, bilateral.
We're going to have one-on-one deals.
We've directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing and called for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure.
And that means plant, equipment, roads, bridges, factories.
People take 10, 15, 20 years to get disapproved for a factory.
They go in for a permit.
It's many, many years.
And then at the end of the process, they spend tens of millions of dollars on nonsense, and at the end of the process, they get rejected.
Now they may be rejected with me, but it's going to be a quick rejection.
Not going to take years.
But mostly it's going to be an acceptance.
We want plants built that we want factories built, and we want the jobs.
We don't want the jobs going to other countries.
We've imposed a hiring freeze on non-essential federal workers.
We've imposed a temporary moratorium on new federal regulations.
We've issued a game-changing new rule that says for each one new regulation, two old regulations must be eliminated.
Makes sense.
Nobody's ever seen regulations like we have.
You go to other countries and you look at industries they have and you say, let me see your regulations.
And they're a fraction, just a tiny fraction of what we have.
And I want regulations because I want safety.
I want all environmental situations to be taken properly care of.
It's very important to me.
But you don't need four or five or six regulations to take care of the same thing.
We've stood up for the men and women of law enforcement, directing federal agencies to ensure they are protected from crimes of violence.
We've directed the creation of a task force for reducing violent crime in America, including the horrendous situation.
Take a look at Chicago and others, taking place right now in our inner cities.
Horrible.
We've ordered the Department of Homeland Security and Justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs.
We're becoming a drug-infested nation.
Drugs are becoming cheaper than candy bars.
And we're not going to let it happen any longer.
We've undertaken the most substantial border security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe.
And are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border.
Met with General now Secretary Kelly yesterday, and we're starting that process.
And the wall is going to be a great wall.
And it's going to be a wall negotiated by me.
The price is going to come down just like it has on everything else I've negotiated for the beautiful, beautiful door.
And we're going to have a we're going to have a wall that works.
We're not going to have a wall like they have now, which is either non-existent or a joke.
We've ordered a crackdown on sanctuary cities that refuse to comply with federal law and that harbor criminal aliens, and we've ordered an end to the policy of catch and release on the border.
No more release.
No matter who you are, release.
We've begun a nationwide effort to remove criminal aliens, gang members, drug dealers, and others who pose a threat to public safety.
We are saving American lives every single day.
Court system has not made it easy for us.
And are even created a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, of which there are many.
We've taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country.
Though parts of our necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by a judges, in my opinion, incorrect and unsafe ruling.
Our administration is working night and day to keep you safe, including reporters safe, and is vigorously defending this lawful order.
I will not back down from defending our country.
I got elected on defense of our country.
And I keep my campaign promises.
And our citizens will be very happy when they see the result they already are, I can tell you that.
Extreme vetting will be put in place and it already is in place in many places.
In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number.
I've heard 80 percent, I find that hard to believe.
That's just a number I heard, that they're overturned 80 percent of the time.
I think that circuit is that circuit is in chaos, and that circuit is frankly in turmoil.
But we are appealing that and we are going further.
We're issuing a new executive action next week that will comprehensively protect our country.
So we'll be going along the one path and hopefully winning that.
At the same time, we will be issuing a new and very comprehensive order to protect our people, and that'll be done sometime next week, toward the beginning or middle at the latest part.
We've also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone pipeline and Dakota access pipelines, thousands and thousands of jobs, and put new by American measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines.
In other words, they build a pipeline in this country, and we use the powers of government to make That pipeline happen.
We want them to use American steel.
And they're willing to do that.
But nobody ever asked before I came along.
Even this order was drawn, and they didn't say that.
And I'm reading the order.
I'm saying, why aren't we using American steel?
And they said, that's a good idea.
We put it in.
Sheets.
To drain the swamp of corruption in Washington, D.C. Here we go.
I've started by imposing a five-year lobbying ban on White House officials and a lifetime ban on lobbying for a foreign government.
We've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare.
Obamacare is a disaster, folks.
It's a disaster.
No, you can say, oh, Obamacare.
I mean, they uh they fill up our rallies with people that you wonder how they get there, but they're not the Republican people that our representatives are representing.
So we've begun preparing to repeal and replace Obamacare and are deep in the midst of negotiations on a very historic tax reform to bring our jobs back, to bring our jobs back to this country, big league.
It's already happening, but big league.
I've also worked to install a cabinet over the delays and obstruction of Senate Democrats.
You've seen what they've done over the last long number of years.
That will be one of the great cabinets ever assembled in American history.
You look at Rex Tillerson, is out there negotiating right now.
General Mattis, I mentioned before, General Kelly.
We have great, great people.
Mick is with us now.
We have great people.
Among their responsibilities will be ending the bleeding of jobs from our country and negotiating fair trade deals for our citizen.
Now look, fair trade.
Not free, fair.
If a country is taking advantage of us, we're not going to let that happen anymore.
Every country takes advantage of us, almost.
I may be able to find a couple that don't.
But for the most part, that would be a very tough job for me to do.
Jobs have already started to surge since my election, Ford announced it will abandon its plans to build a new factory in Mexico and will instead invest $700 million in Michigan, creating many, many jobs.
Fiat Chrysler announced it will invest one billion dollars in Ohio and Michigan, creating 2,000 new American jobs.
They were with me a week ago, you know, you were here.
General Motors likewise committed to invest billions of dollars in its American manufacturing operation, keeping many jobs here that were going to leave.
And if I didn't get elected, believe me, they would have left.
And these jobs and these things that I'm announcing would never have come here.
Intel just announced that it will move ahead with a new plant in Arizona that probably was never going to move ahead with.
And that will result in at least 10,000 American jobs.
Walmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives.
There will be many, many more, many more.
These are a few that we're naming.
Other countries have been taking advantage of us for decades, decades and decades and decades, folks.
And we're not going to let that happen anymore.
Not going to let it happen.
And one more thing.
I have kept my promise to the American people by nominating a justice of the United States Supreme Court, Judge Neil Gorsuch, who is from my list of 20 and who will be a true defender of our laws and our Constitution.
Highly respected, should get the votes from the Democrats.
You may not see that, but he'll get there one way or the other.
But he should get there the old-fashioned way.
And he should get those votes.
This last month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country.
Again, I say it.
There has never been a presidency that's done so much in such a short period of time.
And we haven't even started the big work yet.
That starts early next week.
Some very big things are going to be announced next week.
So we're just getting started.
We will be giving a speech, as I said, in Melbourne, Florida.
At 5 p.m., I hope to see you there.
And with that, I just say God bless America and let's take some uh questions.
Mara, Mara, go ahead.
You were cut off pretty violently at our last uh news conference.
Mike Flynn is a fine person.
And I asked for his resignation.
He respectfully gave it.
He is a man who uh there was a certain amount of information given to Vice President Pence, who's with us today.
And I was not happy with the way that information was given.
Uh he didn't have to do that because what he did wasn't wrong, what he did in terms of the information he saw.
What was wrong was the way that other people, including yourselves in this room, were given that information.
Because that was classified information that was given illegally.
That's the real problem.
And you know, you can talk all you want about Russia, which was all a you know fake news fabricated deal to try and make up for the loss of the Democrats and the plus press plays right into it.
Right.
In fact, I saw a couple of the people that were supposedly involved with all of this, but they know nothing about it.
They weren't in Russia, they never made a phone call to Russia, they never received a phone call.
It's all fake news.
It's all fake news.
The nice thing is I see it starting to turn, where people are now looking at the illegal, well, I think it's very important.
The illegal uh giving out classified information.
It was and and let me just tell you, it was given out like so much.
I'll give you an example.
I called, as you know, Mexico.
It was a very confidential classified call.
Right.
Listen to the very important thing.
I spoke to the President of Mexico, had a good call.
All of a sudden it's out for the world to see.
It's supposed to be secret.
Well, they lied about it.
It's supposed to be either confidential or classified in that case.
Same thing with Australia.
They lied about it.
All of a sudden, people are finding out exactly what took place.
The same thing happened with respect to General Flynn.
Everybody saw this.
And I'm saying, the first thing I thought of when I heard about is how does the press get this information that's classified?
How do they do it?
You know why?
Because it's an illegal process, and the press should be ashamed of themselves.
But more importantly, the people that gave out the information to the press should be ashamed of themselves.
Really ashamed.
Yes, go ahead.
Because when I looked at the information, I said, I don't think he did anything wrong.
If anything, he did something right.
He was coming into office, he looked at the information, he said, huh, that's fine.
That's what they're supposed to do.
They're supposed to be and he he didn't just call Russia.
He called and and spoke to both Wells.
Okay, folks, we're gonna have to take a bump out here for our commercial break and respecting that for our local affiliates as well, but we'll come back and rejoin this and I I can't wait to characterize this for you.
Uh what you might have missed in the first five or six minutes of it.
Sit tight, we're coming right back.
While we were away, President Obama continued to call out the media, the failing New York Times, the fake Wall Street Journal, and really laid in to the Obama administration holdovers as the problem with our national intelligence.
Let's rejoin it.
I'll be honest.
Because I sort of enjoy this back and forth, and I guess I have all my life, but I've never seen more dishonest media than frankly the political media.
I thought the financial media was much better, much more honest.
But I will say that I never get phone calls from the media.
How do they write a story like that in the Wall Street Journal without asking me?
Or how do they write a story in the New York Times, put it on front page?
That was like the story they wrote about the women and me, front page, big massive story, and it was nasty.
And then they called, they said, we never said that.
We like Mr. Trump.
They called up my office.
We like Mr. Trump.
We never said that.
And it was totally, they totally misrepresented those very wonderful women, I have to tell you, totally misrepresented.
I said, give us a retraction.
They never gave us a retraction, and frankly, I then went on to other things.
Okay.
Go ahead.
Mr. President.
You said, I am just wondering.
You said today that you had the biggest electoral margin since Obama's day, it was 304 or 306 electoral votes.
After President Obama, about 365.
No, I don't think you have the public interest.
Yeah.
4261 as president.
Why should America?
I was given that information.
I don't know.
I was just given.
We had a very, very big margin.
I guess my question is why should I talk to you on the information they were making when you're providing the question?
Well, no, no, I was given that information.
I was given I've actually I've seen that information around.
But it was a very substantial victory.
Do you agree with that?
Okay, thank you.
That's good answer.
Yes.
Can you tell us in determining that uh Lieutenant General Flynn did uh there was no wrongdoing in your mind, what evidence was weighed?
Did you ask for transformation?
All right, folks, I'm sorry we have to bump out here again.
Um but the president began all this by saying he's decided he's just gonna go straight to the American people because the media is being so dishonest and misrepresenting.
This is exactly what I was hoping he would do, by the way, but we'll be back and join it in just a second.
Now don't worry, I'm gonna fill you in on whatever you missed.
We now rejoin the press conference.
Jonathan Carl of ABC News is now yapping at the heels.
I mean, the leaks are real.
You know what they said, you saw it, and the leaks are absolutely real.
The f the news is fake because so much of the news is fake.
So one thing that I felt it was very important to do, and I hope we can correct it, because there's nobody I have more respect for, well, maybe a little bit, but than reporters than good reporters.
It's very important to me, and especially in this position.
It's very important.
I don't mind bad stories.
I I can handle a bad story better than anybody.
As long as it's true.
And you know, over course of time I'll make mistakes and you'll write badly, and I'm okay with that.
But I'm not okay when it is fake.
I mean, I watch CNN, it's so much anger and hatred and just the hatred.
I don't watch it anymore because it's very good.
He said no.
It's okay, Jim.
It's okay, Jim.
You'll have your chance.
But I watch others too.
You're not the only one, so don't feel badly.
But I think it should be straight.
I think it should be, I think it would be frankly more interesting.
I know how good everybody's ratings are right now, but I think that'd actually be I think they'd actually be better.
People, I mean, you have a lower approval rate than Congress.
I think that's right.
I don't know, Peter, is that one right?
Because you know, I think they have lower I heard lower than Congress.
But honestly, the public would appreciate it.
I'd appreciate it.
Again, I don't mind bad stories when it's true.
But we have an administration where the Democrats are making it very difficult.
I think we're setting a record or close to a record in the time of approval of a cabinet.
I mean, the numbers are crazy.
When I'm looking, some of them had approved immediately.
I'm going forever.
And I still have a lot of people that we're waiting for.
And that's all they're doing is delaying.
And you look at Schumer and the mess that he's got over there, and they have nothing going.
The only thing they can do is delay.
And you know, I think they'd be better served by you know, approving and making sure that they're happy and everybody's good.
And sometimes, I mean, I know President Obama lost three or four, and you lose them on the way, and that's okay.
That's fine.
But I think it would I think they would be much better served, John, if they just went through the process quickly.
This is pure delay tactics.
And they say it, and everybody understands it.
Yeah, go ahead, Jim.
Well, I had nothing to do with it.
I I have nothing to do with Russia.
I told you.
I have no deals there.
I have no anything.
Now, when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they're not giving it.
They are not asking him a single thing he spoke of in the first half hour.
Hillary cheating on the debates, which by the way, nobody mentions.
Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates.
Can you imagine?
Seriously.
Can you imagine if I received the questions?
It would be the electric chair.
Okay?
He should be put in the election.
You would even call for the reinstitution of the death penalty, okay?
Maybe not you, John.
Yes.
We'll do you next, Jim.
I'll do you next.
Did you direct Mike Flynn to discuss sanctions with the Russian ambassador?
No, I didn't.
No, I didn't think inauguration.
No, I didn't.
Excuse me.
No, I fired him because of what he said to Mike Pence.
Very simple.
Mike was doing his job.
He was calling countries and his counterparts.
So it certainly would have been okay with me if he did it.
I would have directed him to do it if I thought he wasn't doing it.
I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him because that's his job.
And it came out that way.
And in all fairness, I watched Dr. Charles Crowthammer the other night say he was doing his job.
And I agreed with him.
And since then I've watched many other people say that.
No, I didn't direct him, but I would have directed him if he didn't do it.
Okay?
Jim?
Thank you very much.
And just for the record, we don't hate you.
I don't hate you.
Okay.
So pass that along.
Ask Jeff Zucker how he got his job, okay?
If I may follow up on some of the questions that have taken place so far here, sir.
Well not too much.
We do have other people.
You do have other people, and your ratings aren't as good as some of the other people that awaited.
Okay.
Go ahead, Jim.
If I may ask, sir, uh you said earlier that uh that WikiLeaks was uh revealing information uh about the Hillary Clinton campaign uh during the election cycle.
You welcomed that at one time.
I was okay with it.
You said you said you loved WikiLeaks at another campaign press conference, you you called on the Russians to uh find the missing 30,000 emails.
I'm wondering, sir, if you Well, she was actually missing 33, and then that got extended with a whole pile of the year.
No, no, but I did say 30, but it was actually higher than that.
If I may ask you, sir, it it sounds as though you do not have uh much credibility here when it comes to leaking, if that is something that you encourage during the campaign.
Fair question, ready?
If I may ask you that in the middle of the year, no, no, but uh let me do one at a time.
Do you mind?
Yes, sir.
All right.
So in one case you're talking about highly classified information.
In the other case, you're talking about John Podesta saying bad things about the boss.
I will say this.
If John Podesta said that about me and he was working for me, I would have fired him so fast your head would have spun.
He said terrible things about her.
But it wasn't classified information.
But in one case you're talking about classified.
Regardless, if you look at the RC, we had a very strong, at my suggestion, and I give Ryan's great credit for this.
At my suggestion, because I know something about this world, I said, I want a very strong defensive mechanism.
I don't want to be hacked.
And we did that.
And you have seen that they tried to hack us and they failed.
The DNC did not do that.
And if they did it, they could not have been hacked.
But they were hacked and terrible things came in.
And you know, the only thing that I do think is unfair is some of the things were so they were when I heard some of those things, I picked up the papers the next morning and said, Oh, this is going to be front page.
It wasn't even in the papers.
Again, if I had that happen to me, it would be the biggest story in the history of publishing or the head of newspapers.
I would never seen this before.
The headlines, I have never seen this.
I mean, think of it.
They gave her the questions to a debate, and she and she should have reported herself.
Why didn't Hillary Clinton announce that I'm sorry, but I have been given the questions to a debate or a town hall, and I feel that it's inappropriate, and I want to turn in CNN for not doing a good job.
If I may follow up on that, just something that Jonathan Carl was asking you about.
You said that the leaks are real, but the news is fake.
I guess I don't understand.
Uh it seems that there's a disconnect there.
If the information coming from those leaks Is real, then how can the stories be?
No, the reporting is fake.
Jim, you know what it is?
Here's the thing.
The public isn't, you know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch.
They don't know if it's true or false.
Because they're not involved.
I'm involved.
I've been involved with this stuff all my life.
But I'm involved.
So I know when you're telling the truth or when you're not.
I just see many, many untruthful things.
And I'll tell you what else I see.
I see tone.
You know the word tone.
The tone is such hatred.
Yes.
I'm really not a bad person, by the way.
No, but the tone is such I do get good ratings, you have to admit that.
The tone is such hatred.
I watched this morning a couple of the network.
And I have to say, Fox and Friends in the Morning, they're very honorable people.
They're very not because they're good, because they hit me also when I do something wrong.
But they have the most honest morning show.
That's all I can say.
It's the most honest.
But the tone, Jim, if you look the hatred, the I mean, sometimes sometimes somebody gets well, you look at your show that goes on at 10 o'clock in the evening.
You just take a look at that show.
That is a constant hit.
The panel is almost always exclusive anti-Trump.
The good news is he doesn't have good ratings.
But the panel is almost exclusive anti-Trump.
And the hatred and venom coming from his mouth.
The hatred coming from other people on your network.
Now, I will say this.
I watch it, I see it, I'm amazed by it.
And I just think you'd be a lot better off.
I honestly do.
The public gets it, you know.
Look, when I go to rallies, they turn around, they start screaming at CNN.
They want to throw their placards at CNN.
You know.
I I think you would do much better by being honest.
Different.
But you just take a look.
Take a look at some of your shows in the morning and the evening.
If a guest comes out and says something positive about me, it's it's brutal.
Now they'll take this news conference.
I'm actually having a very good time, okay?
But they'll take this news conference.
Don't forget, that's the way I won.
Remember, I used to give you a news conference every time I made a speech, which was like every day.
Okay?
No, that's how I won.
I won with news conference and probably speeches.
I certainly didn't win by people listening to you people, that's for sure.
But I'm having a good time.
Tomorrow they will say, Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.
I'm not ranting and raving.
I'm just telling you, you know, you're dishonest people.
But, but.
They've unleashed a tiger here is what they've done.
I'm having a good time doing it.
But tomorrow the headlines are going to be Donald Trump rants and...
I'm not ranting on it.
Should I let him have a little bit more?
What do you think, Peter?
Peter, should I have a let him have a little bit more.
Sit down.
Sit down.
Just because of the just because of the attack of fake news and and uh attacking our network, I I just want to ask you, sir.
I'm changing it from fake news, though.
Doesn't that undermine very fake news?
I know, but aren't you?
Go ahead.
Uh real news, Mr. President.
Real news.
And you're not related to our new uh I am not related, sir.
No.
I do like the sound of Secretary Acosta, I must.
You know, I looked at that name.
I said, wait a minute.
Is there any relation there, Alex?
I'm sure you check that out.
No, I checked it.
I said they said no, sir.
I said, do me a favor, go back and check the family tree.
Uh but I aren't you aren't you concerned, sir, that you are undermining the people's faith and the First Amendment, freedom of the press, the press in this country, when you call stories you don't like fake news, why not just say it's a story I don't like?
I do that.
Here's the thing.
I understand what you're talking about.
You're doing that yourself, Acosta.
He's not.
See, I know when I should get good and when I should get bad.
And sometimes I'll say, wow, that's going to be a great story, and I'll get killed.
I know what's good and bad.
I'd be a pretty good reporter, not as good as you.
But I know what's good.
I know what's bad.
And when they change it and make it really bad, something that should be positive.
Sometimes something that should be very positive, they'll make okay.
They'll even make it negative.
So I understand it.
So because I'm there.
I know what was said, I know who sang it.
I'm there.
So it's very important to me.
Look, I want to see an honest press.
When I started off today by saying that it's so important to the public to get an honest press.
The press the public doesn't believe you people anymore.
Now maybe I had something to do with that, I don't know.
But they don't believe you.
If you were straight and and really told it like it is, as Howard Cosell used to say, right?
Of course he had some questions also.
But if you were straight, I would be your biggest booster.
I would be your biggest fan in the world, including bad stories about me.
But if you go as an example, your CNN, I mean it's story after story after story is bad.
I won.
I won.
And the other thing, chaos.
There's zero chaos.
We are running this is a fine-tuned machine.
And Rines happens to be doing a good job, but half of his job is putting out lies by the press.
You know, I said to him yesterday they, you know, this whole Russia scam that you guys are building so that you don't talk about the real subject, which is illegal leaks.
But I watched him yesterday working so hard to try and get that story proper.
And I'm saying here's my chief of staff, a really good guy, did a phenomenal job at RNC.
I mean, he won the election, right?
Ron the presidency.
We got some senators, we got some all over the country, you take a look.
He's done a great job.
And I said to myself, you know, and I said to somebody that was in there, I said, you take a look at Ryan's.
He's working so hard, just putting out fires that are fake fires.
I mean, they're fake.
They're not true.
Fake fires.
And isn't that a shame?
Folks, we have uh reached a point where another timeout here that we have to take.
And fear not whatever you've missed, and you've caught the the man thrust of all this.
But we'll be reviewing this and taking your phone calls about it when it's over.
We'll be right back.
While we were gone, Donald Trump just excoriated Hillary Clinton for giving away 20 percent of the uranium supply and telling the press they never reported, the excoriated her for that stupid plastic red button to reset relations with Russia.
We'll now rejoin the presser as he's continuing to take these people to school.
So we'll be submitting health care sometime in early March, mid-March, and after that we're gonna come up and we're doing very well on tax reform.
Yes.
Mr. President, you mentioned Russia.
Let's talk about some serious issues that have come up in the last week that you have had to deal with as President of the United States.
You mentioned the vessel, the spy vessel off the coast of the United States.
Not good.
There was a ballistic missile test that many interpreted as a violation of agreement between the two countries.
And a Russian plane buzzed a U.S. destroyer.
Not good.
I listened to you excuse me.
Excuse me.
When did it happen?
It happened when, if you were Putin right now, you would say, hey, we're back to the old games with the United States.
There's no way Trump can ever do a deal with us.
Because the public You have to understand.
If I was just brutal on Russia right now, just brutal, people would say, you would say, oh, isn't that wonderful?
But I know you well enough.
Then you would say, ah, he was too tough, he shouldn't have done that.
Look, all of those things.
All of those things that you mentioned are very recent.
Because probably Putin assumes that he's not going to be able to make a deal with me because it's politically not popular for me to make a deal.
So Hillary Clinton tries to reset, it failed.
They all tried, but I'm different than those people.
Go ahead.
How are you interpreting those moves?
And what do you intend to do about them?
I'm not sure what I'm saying.
I have, and I I'm so beautifully represented, I'm so honored that the Senate approved him.
Uh he's going to be fantastic.
Yes, uh, I think that I believe.
Is Putin testing you, do you believe, sir?
No, I don't think so.
I think Putin probably assumes that he can't make a deal with me anymore because politically it would be unpopular for a politician to make a deal.
I can't believe I'm saying I'm a politician, but I guess that's what I am now.
Because look, it would be much easier for me to be tough on Russia, but then we're not going to make a deal.
Now, I don't know that we're going to make a deal.
I don't know.
We might, we might not.
But it would be much easier for me to be so tough, the tougher I am on Russia the better.
But you know what?
I want to do the right thing for the American people.
And to be honest, secondarily, I want to do the right thing for the world.
If Russia and the United States actually got together and got along, and don't forget, we're a very powerful nuclear country, and so are they.
There's no upside.
We're a very powerful nuclear country, and so are they.
I have been briefed, and I can tell you one thing about a briefing that we're allowed to say because anybody that ever read the most basic book can say it.
Nuclear Holocaust would be like no other.
They're a very powerful nuclear country, and so are we.
If we have a good relationship with Russia, believe me, that's a good thing, not a bad thing.
So when you say they're not good, do you mean that they are just not good?
No, I when I I read off the three things that have recently happened.
Each one of them you said they're not happening.
But do they damage the relationship with the Russia?
They all happened recently.
No, I'm not sure.
This country's ability to work with Russia?
They all happened recently, and I understand what they're doing because they're doing the same thing.
Now, again, maybe I'm not going to be able to do a deal with Russia, but at least I will have tried.
And if I don't, does anybody really think that Hillary Clinton would be tougher on Russia than Donald Trump?
Does anybody in this room really believe that?
Okay?
But I tell you one thing.
She tried to make a deal.
She had the reset.
She gave all that valuable uranium away.
She did other things.
You know, they say I'm close to Russia.
Hillary Clinton gave away 20% of the uranium in the United States.
She's close to Russia.
Can we I gave you know what I gave to Russia?
You know what I gave?
I'll tell you.
Can't wait to characterize this for you, folks.
They have to take another obscene profit break here, but we'll be back.
Don't go anywhere here.
Just what the doctor ordered.
This is Donald Trump going over the head of the media, right to the American people, advancing his domestic agenda.
And being totally transparent, these people, I don't think they don't know.
They're not they don't know how to get on the same stage that he's on.
American people are gonna eat this up when they see it.
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