Trump pulls back the curtain on what Xi is like behind closed doors

[0:00] President, thank you so much for sitting down. Your first interview, we appreciate it. [0:04] Wow. They rolled out the red carpet. I have video of when Barack Hussein Obama came to China. [0:14] There wasn't as much pageantry. From your perspective, that welcome, how did you interpret [0:20] that? Well, we have a relationship, he and I, and we've been working together a long time. [0:25] We've gotten along well. When I first came here, China was really taking advantage of the United [0:30] States. He understands that. And now we do great with China, and we have a very good relationship. [0:37] We have a friendship, really. He's a tremendous leader. He's been here a long time, very powerful, [0:44] very strong. There's no doubt about it. And we just have a good relationship. I did actually see [0:49] other people arrive here that not treated so well, but we were treated very well. [0:54] So that was meaningful for you? [0:56] Well, I mean, if I got out of a plane and nobody was there to greet me, I would say that wouldn't [1:01] be so cool, because it's really respect for our country. Our country is respected. Look, [1:06] we're the hottest country right now anywhere in the world. But he and I know each other well, [1:10] I think beyond maybe that. But we certainly got a very nice greeting, and today was beautiful. [1:15] Mr. President, if there was any meeting that I think I would want to be a part of, [1:19] I would love to have been in that meeting. Rather than me start with a bunch of questions about this [1:25] and that. And I do have a specific question. In your own words, how did this meeting go? Because [1:32] I knew you were there a long time. [1:34] It was a long meeting. It started off interestingly, because they're very organized people. And as you [1:41] know, we have about 30 of the biggest business leaders in the world, biggest everything, you know, [1:47] I mean, you name it, from chips to planes to everything. And they're all here. I didn't invite [1:53] them. They all wanted to come. And they're all here. And I suggested that before we start the [1:58] meeting, I'd like to introduce them to you. And they were surprised because it wasn't, you know, [2:03] it wasn't scheduled. And they looked around. They said, well, and then, you know, we had everybody. I don't [2:10] want to go into names because I'll leave some out. But there were a lot of guys. [2:15] Tim Cook, Elon Musk. A lot of people. Yeah. We had everybody. The head of NVIDIA was there. [2:20] Kenson. We had just everybody. And men and women, all great business, the best. And they said, [2:30] OK. And they each spoke a little bit and introduced themselves. And it's interesting because they do [2:37] business in general. Most of them do business here, but probably like to do more. And I'd like [2:42] to see them do more. That would be good for trade and trade balance. And they were fantastic. I'll [2:47] tell you, they really had a good time. Once they, once the Chinese leadership, because it was, [2:53] it was President Xi and many other leaders, once they got used to the fact that we're a little off [2:57] schedule here and we're talking about a subject that wasn't even thought about. But they were outside. [3:03] I said, I think we can get them in five minutes because they were literally, you know, a few minutes [3:07] away from the room where we were in the Great Hall. We were in the Great Hall. And they came in [3:12] and they did fantastically well. It was really good. I think it was, he actually said, that was [3:17] very good. That was a good idea. But it was very different from what the schedule had. And then we [3:22] went on. Then we talked about a lot of different subjects. And I think it was all good. Let me ask [3:27] you this. You know, you always say that you have a very good relationship with President Xi. And you say [3:35] the same thing about Vladimir Putin. You're America first. You seem to always understand he's going to be [3:42] China first. Yeah, totally. And so. He is. He's China first. He wants to make good deals. But having a good [3:50] relationship is a good thing, not a bad thing. I explain to people, you know, it's great when you have good [3:55] relationships with very powerful countries and powerful economically as well as we have the most. I built in my [4:03] first term, the greatest military in the world. We have the greatest military in the world. We proved [4:09] that with Venezuela. We proved it with Iran. Iran's wiped out militarily. It's just a question of time. [4:15] And, you know, we gave them a break by stopping a little while. We have a blockade. They have no [4:20] boats going in. No boats are even thinking about. We talked about it today. It's very interesting. But [4:25] they're impressed. We have a great military. We have the greatest military we've ever had. But we have [4:30] the greatest military anywhere in the world. I built it in the first term. A little was given away by [4:35] Biden to Afghanistan. And as much as it was, it was a lot. But it's a very little compared to [4:40] what we have. We have a country that is respected. Our country two years ago, if Biden came here, [4:51] I don't even think he would get a meeting with President Xi. I don't think they'd even meet with [4:56] him. I don't know if he'd be able to focus long enough in the meeting. You know what? He wouldn't come [5:00] here. But assuming he came, I don't know that he'd even have a meeting. It's amazing. Actually, [5:04] a lot of people, I noticed, even with the business leaders, they're the biggest businessmen [5:09] in the world. And women, a couple of women. And most of them, almost all of them, but most of them [5:14] never met President Xi. This was the first time they've met him. So they found it exciting. They [5:19] all performed very well. They all spoke. And I said, that's a little different position for them [5:25] because they're hot stuff back in our country. But here they are. They're standing in front of [5:30] this, you know, massive country, the leadership. But they've really performed well, I thought. [5:36] You have in the past described President Xi to me as very tough, all business. [5:44] Yeah. [5:45] You're not describing the type of business that he normally used to do. Do you think that [5:50] your relationship has evolved to the point where, oh, he can go along with your spontaneity? [5:56] I think he's a warm person, actually. But he's all business. There's no games. There's no [6:02] talking about how nice the weather is. Oh, let's look at the stars. Let's look at the sun. [6:07] No, he's all business. And I like that. I mean, that's a good thing. No games. I say it about him. [6:16] And I can say it about some, not as complimentary, frankly, for the most part. But I say about him [6:23] that if you went to Hollywood and you looked for a leader of China to play a role in a movie. [6:30] Central casting. [6:31] Central casting. You couldn't find a guy like him. Even his physical features, you know, he's tall, [6:39] very tall. And especially for this country, because they tend to be a little bit shorter. [6:45] You look at the military. I mean, the military today was incredible. That military marching [6:50] was incredible. But no, if you went to Hollywood, you wouldn't find a, you're not going to find a [6:54] guy to play the role who's good. And he's, you know, I mean, I'll get criticized. They always [6:58] criticize me when I say good things about certain leaders, but, and this one. But he's a leader for [7:09] China. He's, he's led almost 1.5 billion people for a long time. And he's respected. It's sort of [7:18] interesting when the fake news said, he said, they'll say, President Trump said that President [7:25] Xi was a brilliant leader. That's a terrible thing. What am I going to do? You know, but it's, [7:30] you know, you saw the response. You saw the, and here's the thing. Those business people are here [7:37] to make deals and to bring back jobs. They're bringing back massive numbers. You know, China's [7:42] going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars with those people that were in that room today. [7:48] That's why they came. That's why they came. It was really an honor. We had every major, [7:53] just about every major business leader in there. Yeah. I mean, the list was impressive. [7:58] So maybe to give people some insight into how you act in these situations, you're representing [8:06] our country, you're the president of our country. And we, we get to watch you on a regular basis, [8:11] something that the media did not get a lot of access to when Joe Biden was president. [8:15] But we watch you. He never did it. Well, I don't know. And when he did do it, [8:20] it was a disaster. Okay. So almost a hundred percent of the time, it was a disaster. Pretty much. [8:26] It was a terrible thing for our country. You can't be represented like that. Our country was left [8:32] at. Two years ago, our country was left at. We felt like a stupid country. We were, [8:38] we were scorned. We were mocked. We were taken advantage of and trade and every other way. [8:45] I mean, look at what happened with Afghanistan. We left all that, you know, billions of dollars [8:50] of equipment behind. Could have taken it. It was just unbelievable. There's no reason to do that. [8:57] It's just all of a sudden and leave it. No, we were, we were a country with the highest [9:04] inflation in history. You know, when they talk about high prices, I inherited the high prices. [9:07] I'm getting them down. I've got them down incredibly. In fact, if I didn't make the [9:11] little excursion to the country of Iran, I had to do it. We just hit the highest stock market ever, [9:18] which by the way, now we're the highest. We're now higher than we were before the war started. [9:23] And oil went up very little compared to what most people, even including me, I thought it would go [9:29] up more. But that was okay for a short period of time because we, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear [9:35] weapon. They're crazy. I'm going to get to that. You can't let them have a nuclear weapon. They [9:39] would use it. There'd be no Israel. There'd be no Middle East. There'd be no Europe. And they'd come [9:46] at us too because you know why? They're crazy. I'm going to get back to Iran. Let me go to the media [9:52] and Donald Trump and then the person and give people insight into the guy that sits in the room [9:58] across from the leader of China, 1.5 billion people. We watch you almost daily with the media [10:06] and I think you enjoy it. You bring them in, they have gaggles, you keep them there for a long [10:11] period of time, probably. Is that that I enjoy it? You don't enjoy it? No. You seem like you do. [10:16] Well, every question's a kill. You know, they're always going for the kill. Every question, [10:20] you see these people with a hatred. I said, you have such hatred when you ask the question. Why? [10:24] Because they have a strong border? Because they have a good military? Why do you have such hatred? [10:28] The whole thing is crazy. It's not that I enjoy it. It's that I can get the word out because I [10:34] don't get the word out. I mean, look, Fox is great and, you know, we have some that are good. But [10:39] overall, if you read the New York Times, you actually think we're losing or not doing well [10:45] in Iran. They have no Navy. They have no Air Force. It's all, it's gone. It's just a question of [10:52] time. If we want, we stopped. Could have gone for another few weeks, it would have been over. [10:59] I did that at the request of a lot of leaders that are friendly with them. It's not going to [11:04] matter for them. They're finished. Now they can make a deal or they get annihilated. I don't want [11:12] to do that. But we have the greatest military. And, you know, when you do news conferences, [11:20] you're getting the word out that you're not going to read in the New York Times. I mean, [11:24] I read these things. I see some of your other networks, the way they cover it, they will take [11:28] a massive military victory and make it like we should have done it faster. The one thing they [11:35] couldn't complain about was Venezuela because it was over in one day. So we're comparing it to... [11:40] So here's my question. You know, as an example, Vietnam lasted for 19 years, right? [11:44] It did. [11:44] I think Iraq was 10 years. Thousands and thousands of people killed. There are many, [11:50] many thousands in Vietnam. And we have, sadly, we've lost in two wars, we've lost 13 people. [11:57] 13. That's 13 people too many. But we've lost 13 as opposed to 75,000, as opposed to 50,000, [12:05] as opposed to numbers that are staggering. Think of it. We're 19 years in Vietnam. [12:10] We're... Every war. We're four years, eight years, nine years. Iraq was 10 years. We're on all these [12:19] wars. I've never, like, a couple of months. And the Navy's gone. They have 159 ships. [12:27] Every single one of them is now happily floating or not floating on the bottom of the sea. No, [12:33] everywhere. They have no air force. They had a nice air force. They don't anymore. They have no [12:38] air force. They have no anti-aircraft. Now, they probably have. I mean, we know everything [12:45] they've done. They've built it up a little bit. We'll take it out in one day. It'll all be gone. [12:49] I hope they're watching because all of their anti-stuff, anything they put up, we know exactly [12:54] what they put up. You know, they had a little respite. And so they're trying to get a few things [12:58] together. They have taken some missiles from underground. We know exactly what they're doing. [13:03] It'll all be gone in one day. Everything they've done for the last four weeks will be gone in one day. [13:08] But when you read some of these horrible papers, if you watch CNN, as an example, [13:15] or that other one, they used to go to MSDNC. Now it's MSNOW. And they got rid of it because it [13:22] was such an embarrassment. It gets no ratings. CNN has just been destroyed. [13:27] You were pretty funny the other day. You were in the Oval Office and you go, [13:31] you know, I think whatever I want to do, I'm going to say the opposite. Then I'll get what I want. [13:36] It took me a while. You know, it took me a while. But by the way, there's probably some... [13:39] No, no. I'm going to announce what I don't want. I'll be able to get it. They'll immediately, [13:43] like, I'll say, we will not build a wall. We will not under... Because I built over a thousand [13:50] miles of wall. People don't even talk about it. We have the safest southern border in the history [13:54] of our country. We have the safest border in the world other than North Korea. I tell you, [13:59] North Korea is a pretty safe border. They've got five fences that are fully electrocuted. [14:03] You were at that border. I saw it. There's never been anyone... [14:06] It was one person that got through, but he ended up dying about 10 feet as he got through. [14:12] All right. Thanks for watching. Check out my new podcast, Hanging Out With Me, [14:16] Sean Hannity. The big interviews, the debates you won't get anywhere else. [14:20] Like and subscribe for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.