Joining today's show are Donald J. Trump, Ken Burns (PBS) on his 'Civil War' doc, and Chiwetel Ejiofor & Craig Zobel on "Z for Zechariah!"
I did the same thing last night as Mika and Joe did. I literally contacted my friends and my mom to tell them that "Trump is on now" and that "he is doing great." They responded asking "what channel" to which I responded back that "I assume them all but MSNBC is showing the entire press conference." I had to repeat saying that "he is doing so well". The response to that was "awesome" and I say that this guy literally "answers everything head on". I say that "he was asked about him being called a whiner because he complains a lot" and what does he do? He say that "yes" "I am complaining". He says that he is "complaining about" this issue, that issue, etc., etc. etc. Someone also asked him about Heidi Klum which he referred to as not being "a ten" any more this week and his responses last night was That :she is nice" as he then picks on another reporter to ask another question. He was no doubt also doubling, tripling and quadrupling down on building the wall down south on the United States borders. He made no bones about calling it the Trump Wall too.
I then said that he should "forget the wall: saying that "it should be talked about figuratively at this point" but then I went onto say that "what he said is what we should want in America." He said that we want people to come over to live in America and that he wants them to "stars" or something but that they must deal with it legally.
BTW, I wonder whom is the media guy that he said he "liked" but in reality, he was just absolutely great with media people last night and I went on to say to everyone that "he is having fun now." He also mentioned James Foley and that he evidently knows his parents. I liked it when when he says that Mitt Romney and that someone else (I cannot remember now) had "choked" and how Jeb (Bush) is "low energy." Honestly, he is correct. His delivery is not the norm for a politician but I don't know what to say about it any more. ...
I also like how he gave his opinion about the war in Iraq and how he said that Iran Nuclear deal sucked which I am not sure if I agree with it yet. I feel controlling them (Iran) is best and it is because Iran is a loose cannon. But, I think it was important for him to reach those that probably assumed he was Pro-Iraq war.
Also BTW, I hate that term anchor baby. It makes me cringe and I am note sure why it does either. I felt that way even well he used again a few times yesterday and this week. I never heard that term before last year or whenever they tried top pass that immigration law. However, it important because he has to cater to the GOP right now and they are against anything president Blackenstein does for America.
I was then told that Fox News is showing Jeb Bush's town hall meeting and when you watch it and him, its is night and day from Trump's press conference and his eventual town meeting he held last night.
I love Katy Tur but anyway, like I said here just now, Trump is going to give another speech and notably, in a town hall which was one big speech but think of it this way, when Reagan's kid whom is the consummate liberal starts praising Trump for ow he handles the press core, you know that Trump did well.
Oh one more thing about yesterday is a Trump contradiction that no one is even bringing up which is how he says how much he respects and loves our 'wounded warriors' but yet he states how McCain is not a winner because he got caught to be placed in captivity for two and a half years. Why and how could he respect and call wounded warriors winners if you will considering they got hit and injured in some way? Why is someone that gets caught at war not a so called winner but someone that gets hit and injured in some way are winners and respected by him? It seems to me that if he considers people that get caught by our war enemy and then in turn get placed into captivity for however much time, that people that get injured because of our war enemy should be placed into that same category. But again, that went over every one's heads and it does every time he uses as that as part of his platform.
On Fox last night, Greta Van Susteren kept on showing Trump's saying "we're waiting on Trump's speech. We'll go live when he's ready". This was minutes after his initial press conference.
Allin all about that first press conference, everyone loved it and him. Honestly, ever since that debate, I became a believer that this is real and not some fame game stunt. He even pulled off the helicopter stunt at the Iowa State Fair this week.
I have friends that hate trump and its mostly because they are scared about him taking us into wars but in reality, there are bigger hawks then him. And, honestly, I am not sure that I would mind bombing the hell out ISIS as he says and even though its easier said than done. The problem is that I assume that we need people on the ground but my argument has always been that that why doesn't a coalition of what is tens of million's but under 100 million troops in the Middle East cannot collectively beat a what? 20K regime or 30K member ISIS army and military?
The main things that resonate with everyone so far are things like when he says how he need no money and therefore when people want to give him money, it means that they would want something from him. Something like that being said is right out of the Liz Warren and Bernie Sanders playbook. I think that what he says about that is true and went on to discuss our (USA) however many trillion dollar debt we have today.
A true strategist looks at all of this as gift horse in the mouth so to speak because take his stances on immigration and because of it, people like Bobby Jindal has stood against things like Birth Right Citizenship when that is exactly why he is even here in the first place.
The fact is that with that particular issue, it is bring everyone over to saying the same thing Trump says which will not fly at all during any general election. No onecan win without the Hispanic vote on a general election level.
The fact is that with that particular issue, it is bring everyone over to saying the same thing Trump says which will not fly at all during any general election. No onecan win without the Hispanic vote on a general election level.
Overall, no one knows how to act right now when it comes to Trump's campaign.
Anyway, Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump dismissed establishment favorite Jeb Bush as unelectable and "low-energy" Wednesday, while the former governor labeled his rival a tax-hiking Democrat in a war of words played out at dueling town halls.
In Derry, Trump drew a capacity crowd to a high school auditorium of almost 1,000, and filled a few overflow rooms. He started his criticism of Bush in a briefing with reporters and continued in the town hall.
Where does Donald Trump stand on the issues? I do not think are any besides the plan he laid down with regard to immigration.
"I don't see how he's electable," Trump told reporters, later describing Bush as a "low-energy person" who has trouble getting things done.
"Right down the road, we have Jeb," Trump said early in the town hall, drawing boos. Trump mocked Bush for going "down like a rock" in early polls in the state and failing to excite his supporters.
"You know what's happening to Jeb's crowd?" he asked. "They're sleeping."
In nearby Merrimack, Bush, who had once been reluctant to go after his opponents, portrayed the billionaire businessman as a tax hike-promoting Democrat whom voters would eventually tire of. "I think what people are eventually going to vote for is a proven conservative leader that's done it," Bush said in a video of the event released by his campaign.
He went on to criticize Trump for his past contributions to Democrats, as well as his changing positions on tax issues and his previous support for a single-payer health care system.
"He's won over a lot of people. People are very angry about how Washington's not working. He's tapped into that," said Bush. "But when people look at his record, it is not a conservative record."
Trump, who has moved to the top of summer polls, and Bush, who remains the favorite of establishment donors, have been clashing frequently in recent weeks over a number of issues — especially immigration.
Bush's wife was born in Mexico, and he has said that people entering the country illegally do so as an "act of love" for their families.
Trump, who is calling for the mass deportation of people who have entered the country illegally and the building of a giant wall on the border, mocked such rhetoric. Trump also defended the use of the term "anchor babies" and bragged about the wall he plans to build along the Mexican border, saying it would look good as well as keep people out.
Bush on Wednesday criticized Trump's immigration platform, arguing that it's "not a conservative plan" because it would cost tens of billions of dollars to carry out.
Trump told reporters before the town hall meeting that his plan would likely pay for itself in a year because of all the money the government would save.
Trump, who has been criticized for a lack of specific policy plans, skipped an all-day education forum attended by half a dozen of his competitors, including Bush.
Donald Trump Explains All In Time Magazine this month/next month. In an interview with TIME, the leading Republican candidate talks about what's wrong with the Clintons, his opponents' weaknesses and what it takes to be great.
Jeb Bush was asked about your comment on “Meet the Press.” You were asked who your foreign policy advisors are and you said you “watch the shows.” He said it’s not enough to watch television. Do you have a response to that?
Well Jeb is a very low energy person. So he can sit around a table all day long with one general and talk and talk and you know. But I see that general as being grilled by you. And when I say I watch on television, I do, and I watch on TIME Magazine, and I watch in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, I read all of them a lot.
And I get my views from the media. A lot of the views, and frankly other people do. And the views that you will see during those ten or fifteen minute segments or during reading the story are not a lot different than Jeb sitting around with a policy group, if he really has such a thing.
Donald Trump Time Magazine Cover:
It sounds good. I can say that too. You know I was an excellent student at the best school and I could also say, “Oh well, I have a great policy group, and we sit around.” I mean I wonder whether or not Jeb actually has that. But I’m being very honest. And I know when I say something like that, you can be criticized…When I see certain generals sitting at the different shows, I mean I think it’s a great way to learn about what’s going on. When I see the leaders of countries sitting on shows and frankly, you don’t have to go through the whole process. It’s a shortened version.
So I’m somebody that time is very important to me, and it saves time. But also you get really good views. You see some tremendous people.
In one of your books on leadership you actually said as advice to other people who want to be entrepreneurs, having a short attention span can be a benefit.
Well I mean I have an attention span that’s as long as it has to be. But I don’t have to sit around with a group of generals to tell me about Iraq being a failure. Iraq was a total failure.
Several of your rivals say that your experience in business doesn’t translate. Chris Christie said, “This is not negotiating a real estate deal. This is international diplomacy.” What do you say to that?
Well, I have the right temperament. I have the right leadership. I’ve built an incredible company. I went to a great school. I came out I built an incredible company. I wrote the number one selling business book of all time Trump: The Art of the Deal. I had tremendous success in show business–star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. “The Apprentice” was one of the most successful shows. And as you know NBC renewed it, I just said I’m not doing it. They’re not exactly thrilled with me at all. But I’ve had a great career, and I know how to get along with people. I know how to deal with people.
I mean, if I was the governor of New Jersey, the George Washington Bridge would not have been shut. You talk about temperament.
You know people are talking about diplomacy, or tone. You know Bush brings up tone all the time. Tone. We need strong tone. We’re too far behind. We’re behind. We’re not winning. You know if we were winning we could sort of soften it up.
But you look at Putin can’t stand Obama, and Obama can’t stand him, in all fairness. But we don’t get along with anybody anymore. Hillary Clinton was the worst Secretary of State in the history of the country. The world came apart under her reign as Secretary of State.
I want to ask you about the immigration plan you put out over the weekend. You had said in 2012 that Mitt Romney’s “self-deportation” comment was crazy and maniacal.
Well I thought it was stupid. Who’s going to self deport? It wasn’t that it was a bad plan from any other standpoint. But you tell people, oh, self deport. To me that just means what, you’re just going to walk across the border and say okay. They asked me to go. That’s not going to happen.
So how does the deportation happen under …
Well what we’re going to do–we have a plan, and I think it’s a really good plan. And by the way, it’s been very well received and some of the candidates, my opponents I guess you could call them, but some of the candidates have said that’s really what you want. I worked with a number of people on it including [Alabama] Senator [Jeff] Sessions, highly respected, and not known as a radical person at all. But we’re going to have to – look, it’s very simple. We either have a country or we don’t.
The first thing I need is a wall, and I will build a wall. And you know that Hillary Clinton and almost everybody ten years ago wanted a wall built. Everybody wanted a wall built. But they couldn’t do it because they don’t know anything about building. They’re throwing out numbers to build a wall. I’ll build a far better wall, far higher, and just a much better–that’s what I do. I mean the thing I do best is build. Which is not bad to have as a president because our infrastructure in this country is also crumbling. But we’ll build a great wall. It will be a very effective wall. And it will be done quickly and Mexico will pay for it.
But the next step, if I understand your plan correctly, is that even the hardworking good people who are here without papers —
They’re illegally here. They will leave, and they’ll come back on an expedited basis if they…And they will leave.
You’re talking about 10% of California’s workforce, maybe 13% …
Don’t forget in the meantime we have a real unemployment rate that’s probably 21%. It’s not 6. I’s not 5.2 and 5.5. Our real unemployment rate–in fact, I saw a chart the other day, our real unemployment–because you have ninety million people that aren’t working. Ninety-three million to be exact.
If you start adding it up, our real unemployment rate is 42%. We have a lot of room. We have a lot of people who want to work. But the good people I want them to come back. And I also want people of great talent to come to this country, to Silicon Valley for engineers. If you go to Harvard and you graduate number one in your class, and you’re from China, they send you home, you can’t get back into the country.
So you end up working for companies in China and fighting us. And they’re competitors of us. They’re trained in our schools. I want people like that to come into this country. And if they want, I want that path to citizenship for these people. So they go to our best schools, they’re fabulous students, they do well, they’re going to be great and we throw them out of the country. It’s ridiculous.
So again, just talking about the hardworking peaceful undocumented immigrants here.
Illegal immigrants, we’re taking about the illegal. Do you know the word illegal? They go out …
But do you forcibly remove them? I mean if they choose not to go, if they say, “No, I’m not going to go.”
It’ll all work out. It’s called management. Politicians can’t manage. All they can do is talk. It’s called management. And we’ll do an expedited system. Because I agree with you, there are some very, very good people here who they are here illegally.
But they are illegal. We have to strengthen our border. We have to have people come in legally. And we will work out an expedited system where the really good people can come back legally.
If you became president, what needs to change about about Super PACs and campaign financing? It’s a system that you’ve said is basically corrupt.
Well I think this whole thing with PACs is nonsense. Because Jeb Bush puts his friend in charge of has PAC, and they don’t talk….And he’s going to work hard, as is Hillary Clinton. They all have their friends running the PACs. Now you’re not supposed to talk, you’re not supposed to – they go out and play golf, they get together, but they don’t talk. Who believes that? So I want transparency. I don’t mind the money coming in. Let it be transparent. Let them talk, but let there be total transparency.
Are you willing to sign the “No New Taxes” pledge of Grover Norquist?
Well I’m thinking about it but I have a problem because I may want to switch taxes around. I want to save the middle class. And I have hedge fund guys that are making a lot of money that aren’t paying anything, okay. And I don’t know how his pledge relates to that.
But I know a lot of bad people in this country that are making a hell of a lot of money and not paying taxes. And the tax law is totally screwed up. The complexity of it, the size of it. I mean I spent millions of dollars every year on lawyers and accountants just to do a tax return. And I want to put H&R Block out of business. I want to make it very simple. And we can leave the tax code the way it is and simplify it, or you could go to a form of a flat tax. You could go to a fair tax. There’s a lot of things you could do.
Probably the simplest is simplify the existing. Because we have other projects. We have to beat China. We have to beat Japan. We have to beat Mexico. We have to beat everybody that beating us, which is 100% of the countries that we do business with. We have a lot of other things to work on.
As president would you propose changes that increased the net amount of taxes?
No, because there’s so much waste in Washington.
You’ve written more on leadership than any of the other candidates. George W. Bush or Bill Clinton, who is a better leader?
I wasn’t a huge fan of Bush, as you know…I thought he was lost. I thought he was not a great president…He certainly wasn’t a good president. He got us into Iraq which by itself was a disaster. He also caused toward the end of his thing a financial problem by allowing exploding mortgages and other things that I predicted. I said you’re going to have a huge bubble here. We have another one coming up by the way. I predicted that. You have exploding mortgages. I understood. I made a lot of money because I went in and bought a lot of stuff at the low price after it exploded. But he really gave us Obama. Clinton had a lot of problems with the Monicas of the world and had he not had those problems he would have had a pretty good presidency. Not a great one but a pretty solid presidency. But that was a disaster and a tremendous distraction.
Are there any of the current candidates who you would not consider as a vice presidential candidate?
Well I don’t want to say because – I will tell you when it’s all over, win, lose or draw, I’ll tell you who I respect, who I don’t respect. I think the thing that I most – that I’m very complimented by is that Rick Perry was doing really well, and then he decided he had to do better and he went after me and he went right down the tubes.
Senator Lindsey Graham was doing fine. Nobody got more publicity than this guy. He had zero. He’s the only one that had zero. That means not one person in the whole country – he had zero. Like [former New York Gov. George] Pataki had zero but slightly more than that, right. He actually had a zero down today on the CNN.
And these were the two guys that hit me very hard. And it was such a compliment to think – and now by the way Rand Paul’s going down the tubes. Because all of a sudden he came out of nowhere and he hit me, and now he’s … Now I hit back very hard. I think I hit back maybe sometimes harder than they hit me.
But I came out with a very strong statement abut Rand Paul. First of all I think he’s totally taking advantage of the people in Kentucky. Because one of these afterthought, if I don’t win here I’ll go back to you. It doesn’t work that way. Somebody should primary him out. Because he can be beaten, believe me.
So he’s done very poorly. And since he attacked me, he’s gone down. And I’m greatly honored by that, you know. I get attacked but somebody and they go down. I thought that a guy like Perry, he was getting so much publicity, he went to Washington, he red a speech, he did a whole big thing, it was all over the television. He went down. So that’s a great honor.
What happened with “The Apprentice”?
[NBC/Comcast Executives] came up to see me. And even after twelve years and fourteen seasons it was one of their most successful shows. It was a great success. And they tried to talk me into it and I just wouldn’t do it. And I just wouldn’t do it.
So I didn’t know this was going to happen, and they’re impressed too. They probably didn’t know this was going to happen either.
Do you still retain an interest in the show?
Yeah I do. A big interest. So it’s a very good question. When I say I’m not doing another season, that’s a lot of money. And even if you’re a rich person, that’s a lot of money to give up… They would have paid me whatever I wanted. So when I did this…I turned down a deal last week in China, because I’d have to go there. One of the biggest companies wanted me to do a deal in China. Guaranteed tens of millions of dollars. Turned it down because I can’t go to China… I’ve told my kids, this is going so wild. Let’s see what happens.
You know I’ve had great success. Even in golf I’ve won many golf club championships. I don’t know if you guys play golf. But to win a club championship is hard, literally hard. And you have to beat scratch players…You got a lot of good players. I’ve won many club championships. So my life has been about winning. My life has not been about losing. So I get a kick out of watching these guys who were not even successful people saying, “Oh, he’s just having fun.”
It’s not having fun. Actually I could have more fun. I own here’s a picture, I own Turnberry in Scotland that just hosted the Women’s British Open. I wouldn’t mind being at Turnberry. I may never see it again.
Are you surprised by your position?
So I’m a little surprised that it’s gone with this speed. I don’t expect to lose ever. But the speed is pretty rapid. You know. And unlike other people, I’ve stayed in the position.
Why run for president this time? You’ve decided against it in the past.
So it was really important that I do it, for myself…I mean I really considered it strongly last time. Before that I thought about it. But I never even had any staff. My secretary was my staff. But the time I looked at it was less time. But I was very busy, I was doing tremendous developments which are now completed and very successful. Because we’re all over the world. And I had a signed contract with “The Apprentice.” I would have had to break it. The other reason I wanted to do this for myself. I didn’t want to look back in ten years and say I could have done that or I could have done that. My family would look at me and say, “Ugh, stop.” I had to do it for myself.
How has this changed your life?
So I am enjoying it. And I think people see that…I’m watching my opponents. Certainly Hillary is not enjoying it, okay. She’s going through something that for me, for me is Watergate. Her only hope is that because the prosecutors are Democrats she doesn’t get prosecuted. That’s the only hope she’s got. Because what she did is wrong and what she did far worse than General Petraeus.…And I saw her joke yesterday, it wasn’t a joke … but it was sort of like you’re laughing at people’s faces when they say – and they automatically – you know by saying they were automatically deleted, right, you know she made that statement yesterday, by saying that you’re almost saying that you deleted them on purpose….It was supposed to be a joke. It wasn’t funny, but there was a lot into that if you think about it.
A lot of your supporters are not wealthy. They can never imagine themselves in your shoes.
And they like me.
You’re not the average American in a way, you’ve never been – but you connect with them. How do you explain that?
Actually, the funny thing is, I do worse with the wealthy people. Okay, it’s funny in my opinion. Now, they’ll all support me if I want them to, but I don’t want them. If they want to send something, I don’t care….I have a dot com. I had a woman send me $7 the other day. Another guy sent me $12. There was a long beautiful letter. I love that, because it’s like they’re investing. That’s called a great thing. They’re investing…They’re doing that because they’re investing in the campaign and that I really do like. But somehow I related to exactly what you’re saying, to the middle class, to the working person, and people don’t understand.
You come in on a Boeing 757, then you get on a helicopter, and you go over to the fair, and you give the kids the rides, which the kids loved. But you land in this incredible Sikorsky, and people like it. I’ve always felt that when Jimmy Carter would walk out of—off Air Force One carrying his own suits and bags, I always said, that’s not what the country wants… He would walk off Air Force One carrying his suit and his bag. He’s the President of the United States, and he didn’t want anybody to carry his stuff, because he thought, “Why should they? I can carry it myself.” I always felt that’s not what they want. They don’t want that. They want someone who’s going to beat China, beat Japan.
I was in Los Angeles, I saw boats coming in with cars from Japan, the largest ships I’ve ever seen, loaded to the gills, cars just pouring off, made in Japan. How does that help us, and we give them a fraction—a tiny fraction—and they don’t even want it. Those days are gone. Those days will be gone. But we have to make ourselves wealthy again in order to save our country. We can’t continuously lose money.
How do you view the state of the American banking system?
We’re having a huge problem, again. You know you look at the junk. You know all the junk that’s floating all over the place. You look at some of this Internet stuff that’s floating all over. We’re in a bubble again, okay. It’s not – and I’ll tell you the problem with the banks, if you’re really rich, like with me, if I want to borrow money I can buy all the money I want. But if there’s a young Donald Trump that needs some money to do a couple of really good deals can’t get it because the regulators are making it absolutely impossible for the banks to loan money.
Do you want to repeal Dodd Frank and similar financial regulation reforms passed by President Obama?
Well Dodd Frank is probably not a very good thing. There are aspects of it you could leave. But generally speaking Dodd Frank stifles business. It just totally stifles business.
I’ll tell you another subject that I’m going to start talking about because nobody talks about it. Corporate inversion, where companies are going over to other places. You know it used to be they moved from New York to Florida, they moved from New Jersey to…Pfizer is talking about moving to Ireland. Or someplace else. We’re talking about Pfizer. Do you know how big that is? It would wipe out New Jersey. I mean that is a massive Merck.
They have $2.5 trillion sitting out of the country that they can’t get back because they don’t want to pay the tax. Nor would I. Everybody agrees that shouldn’t happen. We should let them back in. Everybody. Even if you paid nothing it would be a good deal. Because they’ll take that money then and use it for other things.
But they’ll pay something. Ten percent, they’ll pay something. Every Republican, every Democrat for years they have all agreed … They all agree. So now what’s happening is companies are moving out to get their money. And they’re moving out because they’ll pay lower taxes. That’s a huge problem.
You don’t have any Cayman accounts?
No I don’t. I could have.
Have you ever, because you’d benefit a lot I’m sure.
I could have and I said – I’ve been thinking about doing this – that really hurt Romney in my book, when he set up these stupid accounts. In the end, when you do the Cayman accounts you don’t gain that much.
The way you criticize the political process seems like the underlying theme of this campaign is that the people who are running stuff now are all phonies. That pretending it’s something they can’t actually do.
They can’t do it.
And they use pollsters to tell you what they think, that they’re just not real. And then you’re presenting yourself as the more authentic person. That’s the underlying —
I’m a person who’s had great success in getting things done. They do use pollsters. I’m much richer than all of them put together. I don’t want to pay a pollster. They pay these pollsters a hundred thousand dollars a month for doing what?
And then these guys come in and they want to be tough. Like Romney, but the time he got to the last debate he couldn’t even talk. He was afraid to say anything.
In 2014, you had Republicans saying we’re going to take back Congress, we need it. And they raised five hundred million dollars to do it. The first thing we’re going to do is repeal Obamacare. And they haven’t done it.
They joked. They couldn’t do it.
So do you think that they’re not honest?
They got elected on the basis. So they got in, something happened.
Are they the real phonies though?
Look, I was just as disappointed in the Republicans as I am the Democrats. I mean at least the Democrats you know where they’re coming from. The Republicans – and many of them got elected on the basis of we’re going to get rid of Obamacare.
It’s almost like when they get to Washington, I will not let this happen to me. They’re so enamored with the magnificence that they sort of say, “Oh, we can’t do this. We can’t do that.” They become different. Does that make sense
It’s just so false and so phony and they can’t move. It’s moribund. They become weak and ineffective except at one thing: get themselves reelected…I have friends who are in Congress and they run every two years. And good guys, I’ve known then for a long time. As soon as that cycle is up, you know they win their election, then they take one day off and then the next day they start fundraising.
All they do it fundraise. They don’t really govern. They just fundraise. Their whole life is raising money. And I say what percentage of the time you’re raising money as opposed to legislating? …I mean they’re constantly – it’s that time of year, you come in. I mean that’s all they do is raise money.
So you say that they’re puppets. You understand the game.
They’re puppets. I’m the only non-puppet in the group.
What was the best example of something you got from a politician?
Well I wasn’t an asker. I would just give just in case. I would always be treated well. But I’ll say this. If the Speaker of the House, somebody they come up to see you and they’d like to know if you’d make a contribution. It’s not a lot of money.
Let’s say you say no. “No, I’m sorry, I can’t. I have great respect for you, I like you a lot. I will not make a contribution.” “Oh, thank you Mr. Trump, thank you.” Now let’s say three years go by and I call, I need something from the Speaker of the House or I need something from somebody.
We’re talking really human nature, okay. It’s fairly hard. It’s the rare politician that can do what’s right in the face of massive contributions. And who can blame them. You could say you’re disloyal. You can do whatever you want to say. But let’s say you say no and then you call three years later. Nothing quid pro quo, none of that stuff. 100%.
Hillary’s thing with the speeches is interesting because to me that’s just as interesting as the emails. Because you look at the speeches and you look at the people who are paying all of that money for those speeches and then approvals of … going to be granted are granted. To me that’s as big a deal. People have forgotten about that.
What do you think of David Koch?
Yes, he’s a member of my club. Well you saw my Tweets on David where all these guys … they’re tying to get money and influence … He’s a member of my club… Big guy. So is his brother, a big guy. And I think they’re well meaning people too by the way. I think they’re actually very well meaning people. But when I see all these guys running over to go get money – okay so when David calls and needs something do you think they’re going to say no? Possible. It’s just something that’s pretty far out. It’s pretty much impossible.
You’ve said that you can’t tear up an Iran deal on Day One.
I’m a deal maker, when a person makes a deal … But I’ve taken on some really bad deals and made the other side suffer.
Do your rivals who say they’d tear up the deal understand how the world works?
They don’t…It’s a terrible deal. But I would enforce that deal like they never saw … I’d demand to go – and the twenty-four day thing is ridiculous. And the fact that we didn’t get the prisoners back is ridiculous.
There are so many things wrong with it….I’m a dealmaker…There are things in the deal that I’m sure Kerry doesn’t even know about that I will find. And if they make a mistake they’ve got big problems.
What do your daughters give you a hard time about?
I’ve been very lucky, they’re both smart and both went to the Wharton School. Tiffany goes to Penn and Ivanka went to the Wharton School, both very good students. Tiffany’s got all A’s, Ivanka the same, very good students.
Ivanka was interesting because I’m very strong on women’s health issues. And I couldn’t believe what Bush said last week about he wouldn’t fund, essentially wouldn’t fund women’s health issues. And I hit him hard. And she came back and she said I’m so glad you did that Dad, because people don’t know how you respect women, they don’t know how you get it, and you have to get that word out.
There still seems to be a ceiling in the polls that there’s a big chunk of the country who know you very well and don’t want to see you in the Oval Office. How can you deal with that?
Well they’ve been saying the ceiling from the time I started in six. When I first got in it was six. Well that’s the ceiling and he’ll stay around there …There was one poll that said thirty-two.
People are surprised, it’s the Tea Party but it’s also straight across the board. It’s men, it’s women, it’s a lot of Democrats. In fact … said you were better with the Democrats…The states where they know me best there’s a huge positive. In fact I had the biggest swing of anybody that they’ve seen. You know what I mean, right?
So I think that’s just a question of time. And I think that I will be the one to beat Hillary.
You’d told people that Bill Clinton told you a third party ticket is possible.
Well he’d love that. I love a third party too. I think Bernie Sanders should run on the Green Party. I think that Bernie Sanders should run. I would love to see Bernie Sanders…Now look, I’m running as a Republican. I’m running as a Republican … And honestly they’ve been treating me fairly. I don’t want nice or anything I just want fair. They’ve been very fair.
Both parties approval ratings are falling even as yours have gone up. What’s the problem?
Because I don’t think the people running for office are real. Because Jeb Bush and others will come out against women’s health issues because – and then he’ll say he misspoke. You’ll see that. He misspoke. Five hours late he comes in with the opposite…I really think they have to throw a lot of their consultants away and just be themselves. I think it’s one of the things that’s helped me. You know, I’m a smart person. I don’t have somebody telling me what I should say.
And I don’t want to go against myself either when I believe in something. Because that’s false. I saw it today with … you saw it big league with [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker today. When he made a statement based on my immigration plan and then his consultants said you’ve got to change that. But I think they would do better if they were themselves.
Do you think there’s any chance watching what has happened with you, that here will be a wave of authenticity?
I think that’s what they need. There’s so little authenticity in many of the people that I’m watching. And that includes the other side. Hillary. I mean it certainly includes Hillary…
What’s the most significant learning experience in your life?
Look, I do say this. Just in watching – I give speeches on success for friends and for charities. I put the money into charity. And they pay me a lot. I will say this, over my lifetime I’ve seen a lot of very smart people who were quitters. They never made it. And I’ve seen people that weren’t as smart who never ever, ever gave up. And those were the people that made it. And I’ve seen it to this day. I’ve seen people that graduated … in school who were super geniuses. And they never made it. And I’ve seen people that were not as smart as them and they’re the biggest people out there. And the ones that are the biggest people are the people that never gave up. It’s something I’ve just observed over the years.
So I take it you’re not giving up.
No, I don’t give up.
John Heilman had an interview yesterday with a Hilary Clinton spokesperson, and Hillary Clinton is fighting back on classified emails.
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign is stepping up its response to complaints that she stored classified material on a home-brewed email server. The core of the current controversy, the campaign asserted Wednesday, stems not from Clinton’s handling of emails but the dysfunctional system used by agencies to designate and safeguard classified documents.
The new effort, which aides described as an educational campaign, came as a top Clinton strategist acknowledged that the Clinton team intends to respond more proactively to criticisms that Clinton put national security secrets at risk by relying on a private server.
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POLITICO has reported that some Democratic operatives are increasingly worried about the impact of the email flap on Clinton’s quest for the Democratic nomination and believe her campaign has responded too passively.
“I think, if you’ve seen over the last couple of weeks, we have changed our strategy, in that we are trying to do more education through phone calls like this, through television appearances, through emails that we send directly to our supporters,” Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri said Wednesday during a 35-minute phone call with journalists. “We do think people have concerns and questions, and it’s really confusing and we want to answer them.”
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton shakes hands while touring the Carpenters International Training Center Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2015, in Las Vegas. The training center was one of several places Clinton visited in the Las Vegas area on Tuesday. (AP Photo/John Locher)
During a testy exchange with reporters in Las Vegas on Tuesday, the former secretary of state portrayed herself as caught in crossfire between her former agency and intelligence agencies fighting over what should and shouldn’t be classified.
“What you’re seeing now is a disagreement between agencies saying, ‘You know what? They should have.’ And the other is saying, ‘No, they shouldn’t.’ That has nothing to do with me,” Clinton said.
Clinton also said the dispute was unrelated to her decision to use a private email server, since government rules also forbid sending classified information on unclassified government systems.
“If it had been a government account, and I said, ‘Release it,’ we’d be having the same arguments,” she said.
Clinton has turned over her server, along with thumb drive copies retained by her private attorney, to the Department of Justice for examination and safekeeping.
In the past 24 hours, Clinton’s aides and allies have increasingly trained their fire on seemingly-baffling aspects of government’s national security classification system. And on Wednesday, the Clinton camp got a new piece of ammunition for its argument: a heavily redacted transcript the State Department just released of a conversation former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had with CIA Director William Colby in 1974 about the imminent Turkish invasion of Cyprus.
In the transcript made public by the National Security Archive, the State Department deleted all substantive portions of the conversation, asserting that they were classified national security secrets and contained sensitive details about the CIA’s personnel and structure.
However, researchers at the nonprofit document archive thought the transcript looked familiar and soon realized why: Eight years ago, the State Department issued an official history volume that published it in full, as unclassified. In fact, the unredacted copy was sitting on the agency’s website even as officials sent out to the group the largely expurgated version.
”The fact that someone in the intelligence community apparently sought to redact a 40-plus-year-old document, despite it being in the public sphere already in completely unredacted form, drives at exactly the point we are making about how entire agencies within the government can have competing views on what is sensitive and what is not,” Clinton presidential campaign spokesman Brian Fallon told POLITICO. “This is a window into the phenomenon of overclassification that is currently bottling up the review of former Secretary Clinton’s emails.”
Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton
During the conference call, Palmieri and Fallon called attention to a Fox News report identifying two of the emails the intelligence community flagged as containing classified information: an April 2011 message Clinton aide Huma Abedin forwarded to her about possible evacuation of U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens from Libya and a September 2012 message forwarded by State’s Director of Policy Planning Jake Sullivan about arrests in Libya possibly linked to the attacks on U.S. facilities there — violence that left Stevens and three other Americans dead.
“The emails at issue were written by career foreign service officers,” Fallon said, noting that neither message was marked classified at the time. The 2011 email is actually marked “SBU” — meaning “sensitive but unclassified.”
“When you look at these emails. … We think it vindicates our point,” he said.
Fallon emphasized that Clinton’s top aides had simply forwarded the messages to her.
He said it would be odd for her or her aides to substitute their judgment for those who compiled the information in the first place. Clinton “was, at worst, the passive recipient of unwitting information that subsequently became deemed as classified,” he said. “When it comes to classified information, the standards are not at all black and white. … We think this matter is mostly just shining a spotlight on the culture of classification in certain corners of the government.”
National Security Archive Executive Director Tom Blanton said Wednesday that the withholding of information already formally published by the government — as occurred with the transcript sent to his group — underscores the unpredictable nature of the classified information process.
“This is the very definition of arbitrary and capricious,” Blanton said in an interview. “That’s the deep problem with the classification system, everybody who leaves the system looks back and says, ‘Wow, more than half, maybe three-quarters, of what I saw marked classified didn’t deserve to be but people on the inside are busy using their enforcement authority to keep people in line.”
The State Department has classified about 60 of Clinton’s emails prior to release under the Freedom of Information Act. Intelligence agencies have said at least four more should be classified, two of them at the ‘TOP SECRET” level. However, State officials have said they dispute that claim and have submitted the issue for review by the director of National Intelligence.
A State Department spokesman had no comment Wednesday on why the agency withheld portions of the Kissinger transcript it released eight years ago. However, notations on the redacted document indicate it was classified in 2004 at the CIA’s request. It’s unclear if State reviewed the document classification again or consulted the Foreign Relations of the United States volume published in 2007 before recently releasing the whited-out copy.
Republicans, meanwhile, kept up their drumbeat of criticism.
“All Hillary Clinton’s emails show is just how reckless her secret server really was,” Republican National Committee spokesman Michael Short said. “At the end of the day, Hillary Clinton broke multiple regulations and put top secret information at risk all because she wanted to get around government transparency laws. Her campaign’s latest attempt at misdirection and finger-pointing doesn’t change that.”
Blanton said the confusion about the Kissinger transcript shows that State should stand its ground in the current dispute over Clinton’s emails.
“This document shows what the intelligence community reviewers would like to do with Hillary Clinton’s emails,” he said. “This is why the State Department should not give in to pressure to retroactively classify information that circulated on an unclassified system. … It’s a double standard. What the intelligence community wants to call classified, they get away with calling it classified.”
AP Exclusive: UN to let Iran inspect alleged nuke work site.
Iran will be allowed to use its own inspectors to investigate a site it has been accused of using to develop nuclear arms, operating under a secret agreement with the U.N. agency that normally carries out such work, according to a document seen by The Associated Press.
The revelation on Wednesday newly riled Republican lawmakers in the U.S. who have been severely critical of a broader agreement to limit Iran's future nuclear programs, signed by the Obama administration, Iran and five world powers in July. Those critics have complained that the wider deal is unwisely built on trust of the Iranians, while the administration has insisted it depends on reliable inspections.
A skeptical House Speaker John Boehner said, "President Obama boasts his deal includes 'unprecedented verification.' He claims it's not built on trust. But the administration's briefings on these side deals have been totally insufficient - and it still isn't clear whether anyone at the White House has seen the final documents."
Said House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce: "International inspections should be done by international inspectors. Period."
But House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi shrugged off the revelation, saying, "I truly believe in this agreement."
The newly disclosed side agreement, for an investigation of the Parchin nuclear site by the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency, is linked to persistent allegations that Iran has worked on atomic weapons. That investigation is part of the overarching nuclear-limits deal.
Evidence of the inspections concession is sure to increase pressure from U.S. congressional opponents before a Senate vote of disapproval on the overall agreement in early September. If the resolution passes and President Barack Obama vetoes it, opponents would need a two-thirds majority to override it. Even Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Republican, has suggested opponents will likely lose a veto fight, though that was before Wednesday's disclosure.
John Cornyn of Texas, the second-ranking Republican senator, said, "Trusting Iran to inspect its own nuclear site and report to the U.N. in an open and transparent way is remarkably naive and incredibly reckless. This revelation only reinforces the deep-seated concerns the American people have about the agreement."
The Parchin agreement was worked out between the IAEA and Iran. The United States and the five other world powers were not party to it but were briefed by the IAEA and endorsed it as part of the larger package.
On Wednesday, White House National Security Council spokesman Ned Price said the Obama administration was "confident in the agency's technical plans for investigating the possible military dimensions of Iran's former program. ... The IAEA has separately developed the most robust inspection regime ever peacefully negotiated."
All IAEA member countries must give the agency some insight into their nuclear programs. Some are required to do no more than give a yearly accounting of the nuclear material they possess. But nations— like Iran — suspected of possible proliferation are under greater scrutiny that can include stringent inspections.
The agreement in question diverges from normal procedures by allowing Tehran to employ its own experts and equipment in the search for evidence of activities it has consistently denied — trying to develop nuclear weapons.
Olli Heinonen, who was in charge of the Iran probe as deputy IAEA director general from 2005 to 2010, said he could think of no similar concession with any other country.
The White House has repeatedly denied claims of a secret side deal favorable to Tehran. IAEA chief Yukiya Amano told Republican senators last week that he was obligated to keep the document confidential.
Iran has refused access to Parchin for years and has denied any interest in — or work on — nuclear weapons. Based on U.S., Israeli and other intelligence and its own research, the IAEA suspects that the Islamic Republic may have experimented with high-explosive detonators for nuclear arms.
The IAEA has cited evidence, based on satellite images, of possible attempts to sanitize the site since the alleged work stopped more than a decade ago.
The document seen by the AP is a draft that one official familiar with its contents said doesn't differ substantially from the final version. He demanded anonymity because he wasn't authorized to discuss the issue in public.
The document is labeled "separate arrangement II," indicating there is another confidential agreement between Iran and the IAEA governing the agency's probe of the nuclear weapons allegations.
Iran is to provide agency experts with photos and videos of locations the IAEA says are linked to the alleged weapons work, "taking into account military concerns."
That wording suggests that — beyond being barred from physically visiting the site — the agency won't get photo or video information from areas Iran says are off-limits because they have military significance.
While the document says the IAEA "will ensure the technical authenticity" of Iran's inspection, it does not say how.
The draft is unsigned but the proposed signatory for Iran is listed as Ali Hoseini Tash, deputy secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for Strategic Affairs. That reflects the significance Tehran attaches to the agreement.
Iranian diplomats in Vienna were unavailable for comment, Wednesday while IAEA spokesman Serge Gas said the agency had no immediate comment.
The main focus of the July 14 deal between Iran and six world powers is curbing Iran's present nuclear program that could be used to make weapons. But a subsidiary element obligates Tehran to cooperate with the IAEA in its probe of the past allegations.
The investigation has been essentially deadlocked for years, with Tehran asserting the allegations are based on false intelligence from the U.S., Israel and other adversaries. But Iran and the U.N. agency agreed last month to wrap up the investigation by December, when the IAEA plans to issue a final assessment.
That assessment is unlikely to be unequivocal. Still, it is expected to be approved by the IAEA's board, which includes the United States and the other nations that negotiated the July 14 agreement. They do not want to upend their broader deal, and will see the December report as closing the books on the issue.
The Donald (Trump) is on the phone know being interviewed by John Meacham, John Heilman, Mika and Joe.
Regardless of it all being about Trump these days, please stay in touch!
