Дивитись: https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/video/may-4-president-donald-trump-238871109815

Текстовий виклад ексклюзивного інтерв’ю з президентом Трампом: 100 днів президентства.

Ведуча: Крістен Велкер, NBC News

Про зовнішню політику — Україна (переклад)

Велкер: Давайте поговоримо про зовнішню політику, сер. Ви щойно підписали угоду з Україною щодо мінералів. Це, здається, сигнал, що США зацікавлені в майбутньому України. Держсекретар сказав мені, що це дуже важливий тиждень. Чи стали ви ближчими до мирної угоди між Україною та Росією?

Трамп: Сподіваюся. Думаю, ми стали ближчими з однією стороною — а з іншою, можливо, ні. Подивимось. Я б не хотів казати, з ким саме ми ближчі. Але ми підписали хорошу угоду для американського народу — нам вдалося отримати рідкоземельні метали. Європейцям повертають гроші, у них там кредит. А ми? Ми — ні. Байден просто дав їм 350 мільярдів доларів. Він навіть не знає, куди поділися ті гроші і що з ними сталося. А ми принаймні, так чи інакше, щось отримаємо навзаєм. Я не почуваюся дурнем.

І ще одне — це війна Байдена. Це війна, якої б ніколи не було, якби я був президентом. Жахлива, жахлива війна. Я бачив супутникові знімки, солдати, сцени — це просто пекло. В середньому щотижня гине п’ять тисяч солдатів. Це не американці. Але це росіяни. Це українці. І якщо я можу врятувати п’ять тисяч життів щотижня — мені це справді до душі. Я хочу це зробити.

Велкер: Скільки часу ви дасте обом сторонам, перш ніж просто підете?

Трамп: Настане момент, коли я скажу: добре, продовжуйте. Продовжуйте творити дурниці.

Велкер: І коли це буде? Ви близькі до цього моменту?

Трамп: Іноді так. А потім стається щось позитивне. Добре?

Велкер: Що для вас є тією самою «червоною лінією»? Коли ви скажете: все, досить, ми йдемо?

Трамп: Ви самі зрозумієте. Настане момент — і я скажу це. І якщо скажу — можливо, щось зробити вже буде неможливо. Бо, щоб ти розуміла, Крістен — там величезна ненависть. Ми говоримо про ненависть між цими двома людьми, між солдатами, між генералами. Вони б’ються вже три роки — люто. Але я думаю, у нас дуже хороші шанси це вирішити.

Велкер: І ще — коротко. Якщо ви підете, це означатиме, що ви заберете військових і розвідку?

Трамп: Я не хочу говорити про це зараз. Занадто рано. Не хочу в це заглиблюватися.

Interview with President Trump – NBC Meet the Press

Host: Kristen Welker

Economy

Welker: I want to start on the economy, sir, which obviously the biggest issue for voters. We got new numbers today, better than expected job numbers.

Trump: Much better.

Welker: At the same time, the economy shrank in the first quarter. You’ve been arguing all week that this is President Biden’s economy. Is this now your economy, sir?

Trump: Well, I think certain aspects of it are. Costs are. I was able to get down the costs. But even that, it takes a while to get them down. But we got them down good. We lost five to six billion dollars a day with Biden. Five to six billion. And I’ve got that down to a great number right now in a record time. You know, we’re talking about 100 days. But just think of what that is. Five billion dollars a day we’re losing on trade. And we were very tough with China, as you know. We put 145 percent tariff on. Nobody’s ever heard of such a thing. And we’ve essentially cut off trade relationships by putting that much of a tariff on. And that’s OK. We’ve gone cold turkey. That means that we’re not losing. You know, we lost a trillion dollars to China. A trillion dollars. That means we’re not losing a trillion dollars when we go cold turkey. Because we’re not doing business with them right now. And they want to make a deal. They want to make a deal very badly. We’ll see how that all turns out. But it’s got to be a fair deal.

Welker: When does it become the Trump economy?

Trump: It partially is right now. And I really mean this. I think the good parts of the Trump economy and the bad parts of the Biden economy. Because he’s done a terrible job. He did a terrible job on everything. From his auto pen, which I’m sure he knew nothing about some of the things he was supposedly signing.

Welker: But sir, you acknowledge when you announced your tariffs, for example, the stock market dropped. It’s been volatile. It has since gone up. Do you take responsibility for that?

Trump: Yeah.

Welker: Do you take responsibility when it drops?

Trump: Ultimately, I take responsibility for everything. But I’ve only just been here for a little more than three months. But the stock market, look at what’s happened in the last short period of time. It didn’t have nine or 10 days in a row or 11 days where it’s gone up. And the tariffs have just started kicking in. And we’re doing really well psychologically. I mean, the fake news was giving me such press on the tariffs. The tariffs are going to make us rich. We’re going to be a very rich country.

Welker: So let’s talk about the tariffs. And I want to ask you about something you said this week. Got a lot of attention. You were at your cabinet meeting. You said, quote, I’m going to quote what you said. “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls. And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.” Are you saying that your tariffs will cause some prices to go up?

Trump: No, I think the tariffs are going to be great for us because it’s going to make us rich.

Welker: But you said some dolls are going to cost more. Isn’t that an acknowledgment that some prices will go up?

Trump: I don’t think a beautiful baby girl that’s 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls, because what we were doing with China was just unbelievable. We had a trade deficit of hundreds of billions of dollars with China.

Welker: When you say they could have three dolls instead of 30 dolls, are you saying Americans could see empty store shelves?

Trump: No, I’m no, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying they don’t need to have 30 dolls. They can have three. They don’t need to have 250 pencils. They can have five.

Welker: But you’re basically saying there could be some supply shortages because of the tariffs.

Trump: I’m basically saying we don’t have to waste money on a trade deficit with China for things we don’t need, for junk that we don’t need.

Welker: Well, prices are already going up on some popular items, tires, strollers.

Trump: This is such a dishonest interview already. Prices are down on groceries. Prices are down for oil. Prices are down for all energy. Prices are down at tremendous numbers for gasoline. And let me tell you, when you have the big thing, what he did, he spent like a stupid person, which he was, but he spent like a very stupid person. And that was bad for inflation. But what really killed us with inflation was the price of energy. It went up to $3.90, even $4. And in California, $5 and $6, right? OK, I have it down to $1.98 in many states right now. When you go that much lower on energy, which is ahead of my prediction because I really thought I could get it down into the $2.50s, we have it down at $1.98 in numerous places. But when you say costs are going up, even mortgage rates are going down.

Welker: Well, let me give you some examples. I mean, these are actual examples. So you’re saying the prices that are going down, some prices are going up. Tires, strollers, some clothing in the wake of your tariffs.

Trump: That’s peanuts compared to energy. Energy is 60 percent of the cost.

Welker: But, sir, you campaigned on a promise to bring prices down on day one.

Trump: Well, I don’t know. When you say strollers are going up, what kind of a thing? I’m saying that gasoline is going down. Gasoline is thousands of times more important than a stroller someplace.

Welker: But what do you say to Americans who say they voted for you because they want and they need relief right now?

Trump: And they’re getting it. Right now?

Welker: What about those?

Trump: Even mortgage rates. Mortgage rates are going down despite the fact that we have a stubborn Fed.

Welker: But you said dolls, even dolls could cost a couple bucks more.

Trump: Maybe they might. But you don’t need to have, as I said, $35. You can have two, three, four and save a lot of money. We don’t need to feed the beast.

Welker: I guess you’re talking about this transition cost. How long should people expect that transition to last, Mr. President?

Trump: I can’t tell you that. I can tell you that we’re making a lot of money. We’re doing great. Again, we’re losing more than five billion dollars a day. Five billion dollars a day. You don’t talk about that. And right now, we’re going to be at a point very soon where we’re making money every day. Look, we were losing hundreds of billions of dollars with China. Now we’re essentially not doing business with China. Therefore, we’re saving hundreds of billions of dollars. Very simple.

China

Welker: You take me to my next question, which is about China. They’ve been making a number of public statements. Very positive statements the last 24 hours. Well, and most recently, they said before talks could happen, the U.S. would need to remove unilateral tariffs. Would you consider dropping the tariffs to get China to the negotiating table?

Trump: No. First of all, you’re giving me a statement that was said a week ago. You’re not giving the statement that was said today.

Welker: I have May 2nd Chinese commerce ministry.

Trump: Do you know what they said today?

Welker: “The U.S. wants to negotiate. It should show sincerity by preparing to take actions in correcting its mistakes and canceling the unilateral tariffs.”

Trump: They made, first of all, they made numerous statements. Yes, they’ve made numerous statements. You know how many people speak for China?

Welker: Yes, they’ve made numerous statements.

Trump: I can give you a statement for any occasion. Yes, yes. But they said today they want to talk. Look, China, and I don’t like this. I’m not happy about this. China is getting killed right now. They’re getting absolutely destroyed. Their factories are closing. Their unemployment is going through the roof. I’m not looking to do that to China. Now, at the same time, I’m not looking to have China make hundreds of billions of dollars and build more ships and more army tanks and more airplanes.

Welker: So you’re not, just to be very clear, you’re not dropping the tariffs against China to get them to the negotiating table. Those tariffs are staying on.

Trump: Why would I do that?

Welker: Would you lower them?

Trump: At some point, I’m going to lower them, because otherwise you could never do business with them. And they want to do business very much. Look, their economy is really doing badly. Their economy is collapsing.

Welker: So small businesses say they are being hurt by the Chinese tariffs, and some could be forced to shut down.

Trump: And many businesses are being helped. Are you considering tariff relief for small businesses? Why do you always mention that, you know, you pick up a couple of little businesses? What about the car business? They’re going to make a fortune because of the tariffs. Do you know that the union, the head of the union, who is no fan of mine, Fain, Sean Fain, I guess his name is, right? He didn’t endorse me. The teamsters did. A lot of people did. A lot of unions did. But he didn’t. He couldn’t stand me. Now he’s saying, wow, what’s Trump’s done for the automobile? I can’t believe it. I assume he’s going to probably now say the next thing he can say is, I endorsed this guy. He’s the greatest I’ve ever seen. He can’t believe it’s happened. We’ve been waiting 40 years for somebody to do what Trump is doing. So why don’t you mention the big car industry instead of mentioning somebody that’s doing strollers?

Welker: Well, I’m just asking you about small businesses. Are there any discussions about giving any relief to small businesses?

Trump: They’re not going to need it. OK. They’re going to make so much money.

Welker: Are these tariffs?

Trump: If you build your product here. Remember, there are no tariffs if you build your product here. It’s very easy. It’s very simple.

Welker: Are these tariffs permanent, Mr. President?

Trump: Depends on what you’re talking about. One of the things that is going to bring and has brought. So I think we probably have close to $9 trillion of investments coming into this country. If you look at other presidents, there’s never been anything like that. This is over a period of two months. You got to give me a little break on the one month because we’re three months. But, you know, let’s say we had to get started. We had a lot of fake news at the beginning. So we had to beat that down. But so let’s say in two months. So in just a short period of time, a matter of a couple of months, we have the largest number ever in history invested in the United States and committed. We have between guaranteed spoken for and people that are going to make a decision and announce it pretty soon, close to $9 trillion. We’ve never had anything close. Now, that’s Apple building $500 billion worth of plants. They always built their plants in China. Now they’re building their plants over here. That’s the biggest computer company, the biggest chip company in the world. You know, the chip company from Taiwan, which is the biggest in the world, is committed for $500 billion. Another one’s committed for $300 billion. We have companies. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Let me tell you the other thing. Very importantly, automobile companies, plant after plant after plant, Toyota, Honda, Ford, General Motors, Stellantis. I mean, nobody’s ever seen anything like it. And I don’t like this, but it happens to be they’re stopping work in Mexico and they’re stopping work in Canada and they’re all moving here.

Welker: This is important, though. You’re not taking the possibility that these tariffs could be permanent off the table.

Trump: Some of them. I wouldn’t do that because if somebody thought they were going to come off the table, why would they build in the United States?

Border and Deportations

Welker: Let’s talk about the border. Let’s talk about deportations. Border crossings are at their lowest level ever recorded. Is the border good? Is the border now secure?

Trump: Yeah, it’s really secure. It’s absolutely good. When you say that, doesn’t that just sound good? After being abused for years by an incompetent president that allowed people to pour through an open border, criminals from all over the world, murderers and insane people from mental institutions and insane asylums. Isn’t it a beautiful thing when you say it’s the most secure it’s ever been in the history of our country? Isn’t that a nice statement?

Welker: Well, I’m curious to know what it means. You declared a national emergency on the southern border. The order is still in place.

Trump: By the way, it means exactly what you said. It means we have the most secure border we’ve ever had.

Welker: And I guess the question becomes, when will you know that the emergency is over? Are you planning to lift it at some point? Is it necessary? Because obviously the military is involved. Will you lift that that emergency?

Trump: Well, the biggest emergency is the courts aren’t allowing us to take really. We’re going to talk about that. But talk to me first about the emergency.

Welker: Talk to me first about this. The border now is not the emergency.

Trump: The border is is it’s all part of the same thing, though. The big emergency right now is that we have thousands of people that we want to take out and we have some judges that want everybody to go to some of them.

Welker: Are you appointed, sir, including three on the Supreme Court change?

Trump: I mean, it’s it’s unbelievable. It’s unbelievable how that happens. But they do change just to button this up, though.

Welker: Are you planning to lift that emergency order anytime soon now that the border?

Trump: So we have an emergency. We have a massive emergency overall. It’s an overall emergency on immigration. And the if the courts don’t allow us to take people out, if we had to have a court case, every single think of it, every single person, we have millions of people that have millions of court cases, figure two weeks of court case. It would be 300 years.

Welker: So let’s talk about this, because obviously you’ve had a back and forth with the Supreme Court in a nine to zero decision. The Supreme Court directed your administration to facilitate the return. You’ve talked about this in the past of Kilmara Brigo Garcia from a prison in El Salvador whose deportation your administration called an administrative error. You said in a recent interview you could bring him back, but you won’t. Are you defying the Supreme Court?

Trump: No, I’m relying on the attorney general of the United States, Pam Bondi, who’s very capable, doing a great job because I’m not involved in the legality or the illegality. I have lawyers to do that. And that’s why I have a great DOJ. We have a great one. We had a very corrupt one before. Now we have a great one. And they’re not viewing the decision the way you said it. They don’t view it that way at all. They think it’s a totally different decision.

Welker: Well, you say you have the power to bring him back, though. Your attorney general says, quote, that’s up to El Salvador. Just to put a fine point on this. Do you have the power to bring Brigo Garcia back as the Supreme Court?

Trump: Well, I have the power to ask for him to come back if I’m instructed by the attorney general that it’s legal to do so. But the decision as to whether or not he should come back will be the head of El Salvador. He’s a very capable man.

Welker: Well, you know, and your attorney general has said the issues with that word facilitate. Will you seek clarification from the Supreme Court? Do you need to go back to the Supreme Court?

Trump: We may do that. I was asking about that. We may do that.

Welker: Your secretary of state says everyone who’s here, citizens and non-citizens, deserve due process. Do you agree, Mr. President?

Trump: I don’t know. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know.

Welker: Well, the Fifth Amendment says-

Trump: I don’t know. It seems it might say that, but if you’re talking about that, then we’d have to have a million or two million or three million trials. We have thousands of people that are some murderers and some drug dealers and some of the worst people on Earth, some of the worst, most dangerous people on Earth. And I was elected to get them the hell out of here. And the courts are holding me from doing it.

Welker: But even given those numbers that you’re talking about, don’t you need to uphold the Constitution of the United States, Mr. President?

Trump: I don’t know. I have to respond by saying, again, I have brilliant lawyers that work for me, and they are going to obviously follow what the Supreme Court said. What you said is not what I heard the Supreme Court said. They have a different interpretation.

Foreign Policy – Ukraine

Welker: Let’s talk about foreign policy, sir. You just signed a minerals deal with Ukraine. It’s a sign, it seems, that the United States is invested in Ukraine’s future. The Secretary of State told me this is a very critical week. Are you any closer to reaching a peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia?

Trump: I hope so. I do believe we’re closer with one party and maybe not as close with the other, but we’ll have to see. I’d like to not say which one we’re closer to, but we did do a deal for the American people that was good. We were able to get rare earth. You know, the Europeans are getting paid back. They have a loan. We didn’t, Biden just gave him $350 billion. He has no idea where the money is, what happened. And at least we’ll in one form or another get our, I don’t feel so foolish. And remember this, this is Biden’s war. This was a war that was never going to happen if I were president. This is a horrible, horrible war. And I get to see shots of soldiers through, you know, satellite that are so just so terrible. 5,000 soldiers are being, look, 5,000 soldiers a week on average are dying. They’re not American soldiers, but I want to solve the problem. They’re Russian soldiers and the Ukrainian soldiers. And if I can save 5,000 souls, I just love doing it.

Welker: How long do you give both countries before you’re going to walk away?

Trump: Well, there’ll be a time when I will say, okay, keep going, keep being stupid.

Welker: When does that come? Are you close to it?

Trump: Sometimes I get close to it and then positive things happen. Okay.

Welker: What’s the red line for you? At what point do you say, that’s it? We’re walking away?

Trump: Well, you’ll know. I mean, there’ll be a time when I may say that. And if I do, there may be something I can’t, maybe it’s not possible to do. There’s tremendous hatred. Just so you understand, Kristen, we’re talking tremendous hatred between these two men and between, you know, some of the soldiers, frankly, between the generals, they’ve been fighting hard for three years. I think we have a very good chance of doing it.

Welker: Very quickly. If you do walk away, would that mean that you would pull military and intelligence?

Trump: I don’t want to say that now. It’s too early to say that. I don’t want to get into that.

Canada

Welker: Let’s move on to Canada. You have long talked about making Canada the 51st state. There’s obviously a new prime minister of Canada, Mark Carney, who you spoke to after his victory. He says that you didn’t talk to him in that call about making Canada a 51st state.

Trump: No, he called me. He was very nice and I congratulated him. He had a victory. It’s a very close victory. It’s a, you know, there’s no majority or anything. So that’s going to make things a little bit difficult, I think, for him to run. But he nevertheless had a victory and he’s a very nice man, I think.

Welker: Do you plan to talk to him about making Canada a 51st state?

Trump: He wants to come and see me. He’s going to come this week or next week.

Welker: So will you talk to him about making Canada a 51st state annex in Canada?

Trump: I’ll always talk about that. You know why? We subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. We don’t need their cars. In fact, we don’t want their cars. We don’t need their energy. We don’t even want their energy. We have more than they do. We don’t want their lumber. We have great lumber. All I have to do is free it up from the environmental lunatics. We don’t need anything that they have. We’re giving them. I asked Mr. Trudeau, who I call Governor Trudeau, I said, you know, not Prime Minister, Governor. I said, Governor Trudeau, could I ask you one question? Why are we giving you $200 billion? Why are we subsidizing Canada? If Canada was a state, it wouldn’t cost us. It would be great. It would be such a great, it would be a cherished state. And if you look at our map, if you look at geography, I’m a real estate guy at heart. When I look down at that, without that artificial line that was drawn with a ruler many years ago, it was just an artificial line goes straight across. You don’t even realize what a beautiful country it would be. It would be great. But I don’t think the American public wants me to pay $200 billion a year to subsidize Canada. Again, remember this. We don’t need their cars. We don’t need their lumber. We don’t need their energy. We don’t need anything. We do very little business with Canada. They do all of their business practically with us. They need us. We don’t need that.

Welker: You and I talked and I asked you if you would rule out military force to take Greenland. And you said, no, you don’t rule out anything. Would you rule out military force to take Canada?

Trump: Well, I think we’re not going to ever get to that point. It could happen. Something could happen with Greenland. I’ll be honest. We international security. I think it’s highly unlikely. I don’t see it with Canada. I just don’t see it. I have to be honest with you.

Welker: Okay. But you don’t rule it out for Greenland.

Trump: And by the way, Canada, they spend less money on military than practically any nation in the world. They pay NATO less than any nation. They, they think we’re subsidized. They think we are going to protect them. And really we are. But the truth is they don’t carry their full share and it’s unfair to the United States and our taxpayers.

Welker: But you are not ruling out military force to take Greenland.

Trump: I don’t rule it out. I don’t say I’m going to do it, but I don’t rule out anything. No, not there. We need that. We need Greenland very badly. Greenland is a very small amount of people which we’ll take care of and we’ll cherish them and all of that. But we need that for international security.

Future Plans

Welker: The Trump organization is selling hats that say Trump 2028. Are you seriously considering a third term, Mr. President, even though it’s prohibited by the constitution or is this about staying politically viable?

Trump: I will say this. So many people want me to do it. I have never had requests so strong as that, but it’s something that to the best of my knowledge, you’re not allowed to do. I don’t know if that’s constitutional that they’re not allowing you to do it or anything else, but there are many people selling the 2028 hat. But this is not something I’m looking to do. I’m looking to have four great years and turn it over to somebody, ideally a great Republican, a great Republican to carry it forward. But I think we’re going to have four years and I think four years is plenty of time to do something really spectacular.

Welker: The constitution does prohibit it. Have you some of your allies are pretty serious about this, though, Mr. President? I’ve spoken to them. They say they are coming up with potential ways. Obviously, the biggest won’t be a constitutional amendment.

Trump: That’s because they like the job I’m doing. And it’s a compliment.

Welker: Has anyone in an official capacity presented you with, sir, here are some ideas by which you could actually get a constitutional amendment capacity of being a big supporter of many people have said different things, but I’m not looking at that.

Trump: You have built a political movement that has transformed the Republican Party. It’s transformed the country, quite frankly, political movement in history. Mega when you make America great again, when you look to the future, Mr. President, do you think the mega movement can survive without you as its leader?

Trump: Yes, I do.

Welker: What gives you?

Trump: I think it’s so strong and I think we have tremendous people. I think we have a tremendous group of people. We talked about a number of them. You look at Marco, you look at J.D. Vance, who’s fantastic. You look at I could name 10, 15, 20 people right now just sitting here. No, I think we have a tremendous party. And you know what I can’t name? I can’t name one Democrat. I mean, I look at the Democrats. They’re in total disarray. They have a new person named Crockett. I watched her speak the other day. She’s definitely a low IQ person. And they said she’s the future of the party. I said, you have to be kidding. I don’t know what they’re going to do. And I really believe in a two party system because it’s good to be challenged. It’s really good to have a two party. You know, it’s good. Being challenged is OK. It keeps you sharp. I don’t know what they’re going to do. They have nobody. Bernie’s 87 years old or something. And, you know, Biden is the worst thing that ever happened to old people because he was grossly incompetent. And I think maybe for artificial reasons, you know, he had operations and things. So maybe that’s an artificial. But I know people that are unbelievably sharp and they’re older than 87. But I watch Bernie Sanders. He’s a nutjob, but he’s still sharp. He’s sharp as he’s the same guy he was. He hasn’t gone down. But Biden is really he’s the worst thing to happen to old people.

Welker: I know that you are only 100 days in. But as we sit here today, who do you see as your successor, Mr. President?

Trump: Well, it’s far too early to say that. But, you know, I do have a vice president. And typically it would be. And J.D.’s doing a fantastic job. He would be at the top of the list. Could very well be. I don’t want to get involved in that. I think he’s a fantastic, brilliant guy. Marco is great. There’s a lot of them that are great. I also see tremendous unity. But certainly you would say that somebody is the VP if that person is outstanding, I guess that person would have an advantage. But I think the other people would all stay in unbelievably high positions. But, you know, it could be that he’d be challenged by somebody. We have a lot of good people in this party.

White House Plans

Trump: We are going to make and build a ballroom which they’ve wanted for probably 100 years at the White House, and it’ll be a world-class beautiful ballroom.

Welker: A ballroom that could cost millions of dollars. He says he will pay for it himself. You will fund it.

Trump: I’m not going to ask the government for money. I’ll fund it and I’m sure we’ll have some donations to it, but it’s not an inexpensive thing. It’ll cost a lot of money.

Welker: The president also told me that next month he’s planning a military parade celebrating the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army that also falls on his 79th birthday.

Trump: We’re going to have a big, beautiful parade.

Welker: A military parade?

Trump: Yeah, sure. We’re going to celebrate our military. We have the greatest military in the world. People, peanuts compared to the value of doing it. We have the greatest missiles in the world. We have the greatest submarines in the world. We have the greatest army tanks in the world. We have the greatest weapons in the world, and we’re going to celebrate it.

TikTok

Welker: As supporters snapped photos, we spoke about the future of TikTok. The president telling me he’s willing to extend the deadline for the Chinese-owned app that was banned in the U.S. Would you extend that deadline if there’s still no deal? You already, for one extent, you would.

Trump: I would.

Welker: So you’re going to, you want to see a deal.

Trump: I’d like to see it done. I have a little sweet spot in my heart because, as you know, I won young people by 36 points. That’s a lot. No Republican ever won young people and I won it by 36 points, and I focused on TikTok. So perhaps I shouldn’t say this, but I have a little warm spot in my heart for TikTok. TikTok is, it’s very interesting, but it’ll be protected.

Medicaid Cuts

Welker: Finally, as we toured the club, I pressed the president on his tax cut package making its way through Congress. What happens if it comes to your desk, has the tax cuts, but also cuts to Medicaid? Would you veto that?

Trump: We’re not doing that.

Welker: Would you veto that?

Trump: I would if they were cutting it, but they’re not cutting it. They’re looking at fraud, waste and abuse. And nobody minds that if illegal immigrants are in the mix, if people that aren’t supposed to be there, people that are non-citizens are in the mix. Nobody minds that. Waste, fraud and abuse. But we’re not cutting Medicaid. We’re not cutting Medicare and we’re not cutting Social Security.