Squawk Pod: President Donald J. Trump: America at 250 - 07/03/26 — Audio Only

[0:04] hey squawk pod listeners it's joe kernan at the white house in washington dc for america's 250th [0:11] birthday i'm bringing you an interview with our 45th and 47th president donald j trump [0:17] mr president it's great to see you thank you thank you uh for having me in this incredible [0:23] place and happy nice place happy independence day and happy semi-quincentennial yeah that's true [0:29] if i got that right thank you we 250 years and i just want to start flying at about 40 000 feet [0:36] and just which you've done in pretty nice plane lately uh by the way i saw that um what's so [0:43] amazing about this this country in in your words for the last 250 years it's you always say like [0:49] like never been seen before there's never been a country like this that's ever been seen in the [0:53] history well a lot of people don't understand that right now we are in a golden age you understand [0:59] it very well you cover it very well we have more factories being built today than ever before we [1:03] have more people working today than at any time ever in the history of our country and people making [1:10] more money than they've ever made i'm not talking about rich people i'm talking about people that have [1:16] like normal or normalized jobs more money than they've ever made before 401ks are up at levels that [1:23] they've never seen before up 80 and 90 percent and the stock market's at an all-time high i think it's [1:29] 81 days out of a short you know a year and a half uh 81 days we have 81 records so nobody's ever seen [1:38] anything like that or if if it backs up something's hitting a record well if it backs up here the nasdaq [1:45] or the dow dow another uh all-time high but but you said if it backs up hopefully it won't but well on it [1:50] again because i will not be talking about it i'll be talking about it on this but an unbelievable quarter [1:55] unbelievable first half of the year um your first term we saw i think if depending on what you measure [2:01] it from either 80 percent from election day i think 70 percent from uh from inauguration first term was [2:07] great first term was this it's very it might even be at a faster pace this is better so the first term [2:13] we had the most successful four years including the covet you know when you include that when i handed it [2:19] off it was literally i mean you look at the numbers we had the highest market in history the first term [2:25] was was great financially this is i think blowing it away i think this is going to blow it away so we [2:31] had the jobs number today which is weird because it's thursday but the markets aren't open tomorrow but [2:34] 57 000 jobs were below uh expectations but though and i think there were some revisions but the job market [2:42] has been stronger than people anticipated however you know we had 90 oil at 67 68 today right and 57 [2:49] 57 000 um would you say that gives warsh the new fed chairman who you chose um more flexibility to cut [2:58] because for a while we thought the next move might be a hike now it's the the stars are aligning would [3:05] you say for for him to cut well he's got a board that maybe is a little bit hostile and uh you know [3:11] unfortunately and maybe a board that wants to do the wrong thing so i don't know he's a he's a great guy [3:17] and a great pro and i know where he'd like to be but he has to do what he has to do um i i really think [3:24] that i would love to be able to get back you know in the old days probably maybe before you started [3:29] thinking about these things but if you go back 20 or 25 years when you announced great numbers the stock [3:35] market went up when you announced bad numbers the stock market would go down today it's the opposite [3:42] when you announce good numbers the stock market goes down sometimes really weighted depending on [3:48] how good the the better they are that work because they have this this phobia they have this horrible [3:55] derangement syndrome about inflation and growth can be good for inflation not just bad for inflation and [4:02] it's a shame anytime numbers are announced that are not so good i wish they could flip it the old way [4:08] that when you announce great numbers because otherwise it's almost like they want to kill [4:14] strength they want to kill success you announce good numbers i want to like you have a couple of [4:21] countries india is one doing very well but it's at seven eight percent uh others take a look at japan's [4:27] numbers i mean they're doing very well she's very good she's doing a good job a friend of mine but [4:33] they're allowed to go up we're not allowed to go up if we go up they want to kill it there's no [4:39] reason we should stop at four percent we should be at 12 and 13 percent gdp and i hate what happens [4:47] where in the old days we would be that's how we built the country now you you announce positive [4:53] things and they want to bring it down by raising interest rates and it shouldn't be that way it should [4:59] go back to the way it was you mentioned that warsh might not the chairman has other people on the [5:06] fed obviously and so has lisa cook uh on the fed the supreme court ruled on monday i'm not really [5:11] sure exactly whether it was on the merits or whether it was procedure but i think you said that the [5:16] procedure yeah you're you're going to take the appropriate action when when the time what what [5:21] what could you do to to get rid of get her off how would you do it at this point by winning the case [5:28] they send it back not based on the merits they send it back on process and procedure [5:32] mm-hmm so we'll start the process and we'll do perfect process and perfect procedure speaking [5:38] of of the supreme court you're allowed to fire except for the fed you're allowed to fire people [5:43] at other federal agencies which for you and in your term would would make a big difference for you but [5:49] my it was by far the biggest slaughter is it called of the scotus it was by far the biggest of all the [5:56] decisions and all of the cases and all of you know what they just announced um so this has been going [6:03] on since 1932 where they took the right away from fdr they took it away which was you know you think of [6:09] fdr that doesn't happen but it did he fought very hard to get it back in fact he wanted to pack the court he [6:14] was willing to pack the court there were his justices and this has been going on since 1932 and [6:22] i want it back and there are those that say this is one of the biggest decisions handed down in [6:28] decades you know that bigger bigger than birthright citizenship bigger than anything what if [6:35] a democratic uh the next time a democrat is elected president and you've the executive branch has all [6:41] this expanded power that you've gotten well then they've got it don't you worry they'll undo some of [6:46] of your policies at that point i can only speak for myself it's necessary worry about what's now [6:51] yeah i mean look it's necessary it's actually an honor to have won that because every president [6:57] since fdr has been trying to get that back and i got it back that's a big deal you know it's another [7:03] checkpoint along the same lines if if the democrats take the house and you know i want you to succeed [7:12] as president i want i want a businessman to run the country and and all along you entered as a [7:17] billionaire businessman uh which was unprecedented i think george washington owned a lot of land [7:22] but no one's ever i think jfk had a trust fund but but no one's ever been as wealthy as you [7:28] and you obviously know how to to run a business and that i think informs the way you run the country [7:33] obviously now many people argue business experience is needed in government and we've seen the stock [7:39] market in the first term in the second term i think i think it's been rewarded to have a businessman in [7:43] there so um i think we shouldn't be surprised that your businesses are doing well but how would you [7:51] counter critics uh that say you're using the presidency to enrich yourself and your family [7:58] well in a lot of ways if you think about it the stock has got up so much the stock market today it's [8:03] up 500 points uh it's up to almost 53 000. you know i watched your show and you had somebody on one of [8:12] your brilliant analysts and they said if i had won the election they said if president trump could get [8:18] the stock market to anywhere near 50 000 that would be an unbelievable achievement and that was over [8:26] four years in other words at the end of his term four years if he could get anywhere near 50 000 that [8:31] would be well it's at 53 000 it's just a couple of points short of 53 000 right now and that's [8:38] essentially after a little bit more than a year but do you do you worry that if they take if the democrats [8:44] were to win the house that there's going to be endless investigations of you and your administration [8:48] well you know i don't do anything having to do with my business my kids run it i put a lot of [8:53] my a lot of money and i have a lot of money and i've always made i've made money you know i'm a business [9:00] person i'm a really good business person i've made money i've made a tremendous amount of money more [9:06] than i would have ever thought i would have made and i let people invest it i don't even speak to i don't [9:11] even know who they are but it's given to big firms like that are on your show all the time [9:17] my son eric handles it i don't talk to him about things such as this i think i'd be allowed to i'm [9:23] not sure even what the status is but i don't well and he gives it into these like semi-blind trusts [9:29] or blind trusts where people invest there was a story today about uh jensen wing who's fantastic [9:38] nvidia and that i have some stock i think it's very small i think it's one of many companies that [9:44] right one of the big wall street firms invest and so they said oh trump has some stock in there [9:50] i don't care about that you know why you know why i don't care because um i have a much bigger [9:57] purpose you know this this is the oval office it's a much bigger purpose than whether or not i make [10:02] money as an example uh the president's the highest paid person in government and you know by some [10:10] standards gets a lot of money i don't i'm the only president they say that's ever given up myself i [10:16] gave up my salary right uh i don't get a salary i gave it up and that's a lot of you know by some [10:23] standards that's a lot of money but making money in the stock market that makes sense so as far as crypto [10:29] goes and i'm just wondering you you didn't divest your business you have your sons running it [10:35] i think vice presidents and presidents aren't subject really to conflict of interest laws but [10:41] there's this this notion that you need to be aware of conflict of interest there was a large sum of [10:47] money made in crypto did you know that your family business was was going to engage in crypto did you [10:53] have anything well i was here before i was there before i was in office but the way i view crypto is [11:00] a little differently we have to be at the top otherwise china is going to take it over like for [11:05] instance ai we're leading substantially in ai over china and everybody else i mean we're leading when i [11:12] was with president xi three weeks ago he greeted me man these first words we literally went wow you've [11:19] really done a great job you've really because this country was dead we had a dead country now we have [11:23] the hottest country in the world and the way i look at ai or the way i look at crypto is if we're [11:30] not going to do it china is going to get it most likely china somebody else japan is somebody else [11:35] and i want to it's a big industry crypto if you call it an industry but it's a big deal [11:41] and crypto is a big deal you you look at it and the way it's grown over the years [11:46] you're believers you don't have believers you know whatever it is but it's a big deal and [11:53] anything we do i want to be number one in and we're number one in crypto and we're also number [11:58] one in ai in the disclosure this week the amount of money that that you and the family made in crypto [12:03] it was an outsized number i was just asking did you or you know about the crypto venture so so that [12:10] was just something by the way i could know about it i didn't right i mean there's nothing illegal [12:16] there's nothing wrong with it i could know there's a specific i remember our title 18 section 208 [12:22] from congress you the vice president and you do not have it you would have to recruit recuse yourself [12:28] i didn't even know that you would have to recuse yourself on every decision that could be running [12:33] the country that could have anything to do with you so it just isn't feasible to do it well i feel [12:37] badly in a way for my kids because every time my kids do if they invest in a stock or if they go and [12:43] do a bill anything they do because the presidency is so powerful so big everything if they buy a [12:50] cupcake company well the energy to make the cupcakes is you know sort of like how's my energy policy so [13:00] therefore you have a kind of like almost anything they do if they want to buy a truck if they want to [13:06] buy you know if they buy an energy efficient truck they have inside information uh so uh it's it's [13:14] pretty tough in that sense i tell my kids stay away from as much as you can stay away from but they also [13:21] have a life you know they we were doing business long before i ever thought of you knew me a long time [13:26] before i thought of even running you knew me before i even thought about running for press i did i knew you [13:31] before we did a lot of melania i think yeah that's right but i i did you know i've made a lot of money [13:37] over the years and i think one of the reasons that i got elected was they have a business person and if [13:42] you look at what's happening we're we're beating everybody we're beating china we're beating every [13:49] single country with the envy of the world and um ai whether it's good or bad we have it let's talk [13:57] about that and we are leading by so much we're you know i'm letting all of these big plants everyone [14:03] said well we don't have the energy to compete i came up and this was something i'm proud of i did [14:07] it myself i said i came up with this idea i let each plant build their own electricity they become a [14:13] utility but these massive plants that are being built they can't go off an old grid so we wouldn't [14:18] have anybody we literally wouldn't have anything we need double the energy double the electricity that [14:24] we have right now to do that just that one uh ai industry so i let the plants as they build these [14:33] billions and billions of dollars of plants i let them build their own electric generating [14:42] plants and they build them on top they build them on the side they build them separately [14:47] and we have nothing but electricity if you really look we have more than anybody if i didn't come up with [14:52] that concept we wouldn't have we would we would not be in first place we would even be we'd be in [14:58] last place we wouldn't have any we don't have enough from the old grid what about taking some sort [15:02] of proud of that is it reportedly sam altman is discussing giving the government a five percent [15:07] stake in open ai is that is that possible and it is that true and would other ai companies do similar [15:15] things or would you do something with intel right that a lot of people don't know about or talk about but it [15:21] was ice you know they had problems with things and they got hurt badly because no president ever [15:27] charged tariffs and taiwan literally took a hundred percent of the business almost mostly taiwan but [15:34] south korea a little bit but mostly taiwan and i said boy if i was president that would have never [15:39] happened taiwan would never be in the position they're in now of course you know they're a little [15:45] bit of a tenuous position and i have them all moving back they're all moving back into this country we have [15:51] we're going to have 40 to 50 to 60 percent of the chips i think by the time we're pretty close to [15:56] the time i leave office they're building chip factories in arizona in particular the biggest [16:03] company in the world is building they're leaving taiwan meaning to build this they're building their [16:09] biggest plant and i think we're going to have a big percentage of chips right now you know we had [16:13] virtually nothing we didn't make chips anymore and intel came in they had a problem i said [16:20] i can solve your problem but i want 10 of the company they said what i said i want 10 of the [16:26] company and he agreed to me and the stock has gone through so i think we made 60 or 70 billion dollars [16:32] in eight months do i give credit for that no somebody said that's not very american i said no i think it [16:38] is very american actually and i've done that with other deals where they had a loan anyway from the chips [16:43] act and then now it's better to have equity than a loan you would think for well they worked out well [16:48] from our standpoint that's what i mean we really had no investment we had on zero investment we [16:52] made about i guess 70 billion dollars in a period of eight or nine months but that's a great thing [16:59] what's happened is intel has gone through the roof you know it's one of the hottest companies and [17:03] they've done a great job is is is chinese ai is it catching up and and you need are there some new [17:09] restrictions you're you're thinking about that that would make sense on technology well you need some [17:14] guardrails but you want to do as little as possible you want to be good we have when we think there's [17:20] a bad player out there there's a little danger we stop the player quickly and effectively we had a [17:27] recent case where we did that um but you have to be look you have to be in the game ai is bigger than [17:34] the internet i've never seen anything you know the internet was a big deal i think this is much bigger [17:40] than the internet and i'm basing it on numbers i'm basing i i've never seen anything look i went [17:44] through the internet thing and i watched and i saw it grow very effectively but this could be bigger [17:51] if we're not competing and if we're going to compete because i really think whoever's number one is going [17:56] to really win the race and right now we're substantially number one yep the uh i'm going to try and do as much [18:03] as we can you go ahead i hope that's okay if he needs if he if he needs a little more time just [18:09] relax i'm not kamala you know they give her they give him four minutes and then start screaming at [18:16] him that housing bill don't be nervous okay i'm only in the oval office with uh no i'm not um he's been [18:23] my friend for a long time and he's a good man too in um in a few days it's going to become law one way [18:30] or the other the housing bill right you're going to sign it will it become law where do you stand on [18:34] that is that i know you called it i don't think you were necessarily anti-housing bill you called [18:39] it a yawn because you you think what's really important is save them yeah so i think the save [18:45] america act is the most important thing that we have that we'll have before us and maybe for many [18:52] years back and many years forward it's uh voter identification with a photo so you look at somebody [19:00] uh that's looks like that guy voter id it's proof of citizenship and it's no mail-in ballots except [19:08] for the military we're very generous on this if you're sick if you're just not feeling well you can [19:14] get exceptions uh if there's a disability there's some problem or if you go on vacation but you can't [19:22] send in millions and millions and millions of ballots where you swamp the place and it's so corrupt [19:29] we're the only country in the world that does it so it's those three things i also had no men [19:36] in women's sports but we won that yesterday in the supreme court and i also had no transgender [19:42] mutualization of children and frankly will win that too so i took them out you let so i have the three [19:48] things you let it go to housing you let the well you would veto it would you so nobody knows more [19:54] about housing than i do i made billions and billions of dollars with housing and i know exactly what [19:59] they've done they made maybe zoning easier but maybe they made it tougher without knowing it was very [20:05] complex stuff but the housing bill is fine uh there's a lot of democrat points in there that i don't even [20:16] think are good but it's fine but i've made the case i'd rather not sign anything until we sign the save [20:25] america act you think through reconciliation or because save a buster or because if you do save [20:31] america you're not going to have cheating but practically how do we get there on save america what [20:35] would you like uh majority leader to do well i would like them to get it passed what i'd really like [20:42] is for them to filibuster kill the filibuster terminate the filibuster when they terminate the [20:47] filibuster then they'll immediately prove approve to save america and a hundred other things you could [20:54] sit down all day long and just vote and you'd have it and the sad part is we probably have five or six [21:00] senators that won't vote for it republican senators and all of the democrats so their policy is no good [21:08] the democrats i call them the democrats because their policies are so bad but uh but the one thing [21:14] they unfortunately they stick together they don't have well we'll see and mitch mcconnell we'll see what [21:20] now mitch mcconnell the democratic party's got their own issues right now we'll talk about that a little [21:24] different kind of issue when they vote on something those are like the board look at the supreme court [21:28] justices the three supreme court justices every vote if it's for or against it's a hundred percent [21:36] i don't think they had any dissension whereas our people yeah no it's almost you know i've said it [21:44] republicans want to show everybody how they're not controlled how they're so honorable whereas the [21:50] democrat justices and judges by the way and judges they get up barack hussein obama appointed me and [21:57] i'm voting for him republicans don't do that and i'm amazed i'm not saying it has to be a loyalty test [22:05] but it's uh much different the three justices vote as a block i think i can remember one time but very [22:14] very seldom do they not vote as a bloc whereas our people and we have six but they move around a [22:23] little bit and they surprise for instance uh birthright citizenship i should have won that that wasn't [22:31] meant for billionaire billionaires from china bringing a child over and becoming an american citizen and far [22:39] worse than that much worse than that it was a terrible i'll tell you the worst vote was tariffs [22:44] uh i'm doing the same tariffs but i have now it's much tougher july stopped eight wars because of [22:51] tariffs india pakistan i mean i i did so many i stopped eight wars everybody acknowledges it [22:59] and five of the eight were stopped because of tariffs i said if you keep fighting i'm going to put [23:05] a 200 tariff on your country said it the same thing to the other i did it with india and with pakistan [23:12] 11 planes were shot down they were going to war and the nuclear nations strong nuclear relations and [23:18] the prime minister of pakistan said president trump saved at least 30 million lives by stopping this war [23:27] you know what has been a really good indicator of what what's happening in in the war in iran or whatever [23:33] the conflict is oil and and regardless of what we hear from whomever has this stage in iran [23:40] but that you pointed out we don't know who's talking at any given time there's different [23:44] fractions killed one group and then another killed the second level but 67 68 dollar oil we're down to [23:51] lower than we were before it shows you that that probably even though we have these skirmishes on [23:57] both sides and i don't know whether that continues i don't know whether you can tell me whether that [24:00] continues have you been close to to doing more than just a uh a reciprocal move on them well i think i've [24:09] done much more than reciprocal because you want diplomacy at this look i built the military my [24:15] first term right i'm using it in my second time when i went in otherwise we wouldn't have and that's [24:20] after biden gave so much away in afghanistan he just said leave it we left brand new military vehicles [24:27] we left tanks we left we left airplanes these people are crazy they don't know what they're doing [24:34] and there was no reason to do it getting out of afghanistan was fine but they should have kept [24:39] bagram the air force base they could have kept it very easily we would have gotten out with dignity [24:45] and strength that we shouldn't have been there in the first place or we could have won i would have [24:50] won it i would have won it or gotten out but i would have won it but they just teetered around you [24:57] know it's interesting so we're in the war and it's really the denuclearization of iran this is not [25:04] a war per se this is the denuking of iran you can't let them have a nuclear weapon and i'm doing it for [25:12] three and a half four months right look at venezuela that was a one day war and we've gotten our money [25:18] back many many times over for the cost of the war but in a certain way i'm doing just as well with iran [25:25] it's a much bigger more complex situation our relationship by the way with venezuela is great [25:31] they're doing better than they've ever done with oil the big companies are moving in and we're getting [25:37] a good chunk of it too as we should but with iran if they jerk you around what if they jerk us around [25:44] again with either the straight or with with the you know they know the midterms or something because [25:49] they've had their own way for 47 years like if you're a spoiled child and you've had your way for [25:56] many years with your parents and all of a sudden they come down hard on you it takes you a little [26:00] while to get used to it they've had their way for 47 years they pushed everywhere they were known as the [26:06] bully of the middle east they pushed the countries around and they pushed the united states around [26:12] because we had presidents that weren't willing to do look barack obama paid them to try and keep them [26:17] in line gave them a 1.7 billion in cash you remember that because you reported that they put it on a [26:24] beautiful 757 boeing they took all the seats out and they stuffed it with green cash from virginia [26:32] maryland and d.c the banks had no money left they literally took every and they delivered it to iran [26:39] and they took out satchels and sacks of of money in addition to that they paid tens of billions of [26:46] dollars and you know they got they got a lot of nuclear research and a lot of weapons and a lot [26:53] of missiles and an enemy they actually went on the other side and how a jewish person can vote for a [27:00] democrat is beyond me well let's because i've been i've been the best president in the history of israel [27:07] and they acknowledge and by the way in israel i think i was at 99 or something but but joe you can't let [27:16] iran whether it's israel the middle east or not you can't let iran have a nuclear weapon and when you [27:23] say maybe i'm a little bit nice no other presidents even thought of doing what i did so in my first [27:32] little while there i ripped in their military but they have no navy they have no air force they have [27:38] no radar their leaders are all dead and they elect not let they raise new leaders they're all dead [27:48] also we're in the third set of leaders and we actually get along with them i think they're [27:54] much more rational by the way i think that's regime change but i'm not looking for regime change i'm [27:58] looking for something very simple they cannot have a nuclear weapon or if you want to see market [28:04] disruption so think of it the oil today is at 68 the market's up to almost 53 000 the s p they said the [28:13] s p would never hit 7 000 never i did that in 10 months they said i would never hit it during my [28:22] term they said i'd never hit 50 000 during return we spoke and nobody else you have a job neither would [28:28] end and they said nobody else would either they said if i could get to 45 pragmatic end i said that [28:33] to you when you asked me if this is a pragmatic end you're not going to be in a forever war [28:37] uh sure and that's true there are other concerns but joe joe we're in vietnam for 19 years but we're [28:46] in afghanistan for like 10 years we were in the korean war forever we were in i don't even mention [28:53] world war one or world war two that biggies but you know what stuff like this could have led to it [28:57] but we were many many years in every war i've been there for four months and what have i done i've [29:04] defeated them militarily they're totally defeated militarily they have some missiles left we could [29:10] wipe them out too and i hit them three times last week very hard because they sent a drone into a [29:17] ship i hit them then they did something else and i hit them i hit them three nights in a row the week [29:21] before i hit them two nights in a row very hard and we're negotiating and we'll see whether or not [29:28] i think they've agreed to just about everything we need no do you uh i'm gonna switch gears completely and [29:34] we have assets left over there if necessary you're you're willing to to do what's necessary we have [29:39] all the assets no they're just waiting you're not you're not anticipating another full i did a blockade [29:45] that was essentially not a blockade it was a wall of steel we have the great navy the greatest navy [29:50] in the world these guys are unbelievable not one ship got through to iran they have 300 inflation [29:59] they're making no money so we're going to take some of the money and we're going to buy them they need [30:05] food they need corn and wheat and soybeans and we're going to have exclusively our american farmers [30:14] provide that assuming we get to the position where we should get to i think we're going to get there [30:20] they have their strength is gone their bravado is gone although they keep up pretty good friends [30:26] the one thing they do have is fakeness the new york times said the other day that iran is in better [30:34] position now than it was four months ago i said wait a minute their military is gone their inflation is [30:40] up to 300 percent from five percent their leaders are gone their second row of leaders are gone some of [30:50] their third row of leaders are gone their generals are mostly wiped out but they said that they are in [30:58] better shape today than they were four months ago before we attacked now we were very strong and you [31:06] know look i always said i don't want to be a president with a depression on his on his resume i don't want [31:16] to be herbert hoover of almost all presidents and some have been bad some have been good very few have been [31:24] great but i never want to be herbert hoover because herbert hoover was the president that probably took [31:34] us into the great the great depression the greatest depression led the whole world there he raised interest [31:42] rates and he raised taxes simultaneously i guess he was trying to do something but that didn't work out [31:48] too well by the way you know what took us 30 years to get out of it fdr didn't get us out of it there's [31:53] a picture right there fdr nice picture it took us years to get out of it i don't ever want to be in [32:01] a depression i don't want to be a president that uh oversees the great worldwide depression that was [32:08] herbert hoover and it was a terrible thing and he made a mistake now if i want to be the tough guy and [32:16] close up the straight for the next years where 21 or whatever it might be 20 21 of the oil never comes [32:24] out and you can't get oil anymore you know what a lot of people don't know one of the reasons it only [32:30] went up maybe went up to like 115 dollars if you remember i've seen guests on your show where they go [32:36] oil will be 350 a barrel and there'll be a depression because at 350 there's a depression it's [32:43] automatic it goes with it i said well we got to do something we did something nobody knew every night we [32:50] were taking ships out through the south which is the furthest point from where they have their little [32:58] weapons and they were going along the coast with no lights for a month and a half a lot of ships came [33:06] out we had one night where we took 22 ships out that's a lot of oil those are big ships some of them [33:12] are really big ships and in a way they had courage going out but our navy took them out we escorted them [33:17] out and nobody knew the lights were off everything was off everything was silent we blew up iran's [33:24] radar they had no radar they still don't we blew it up again the other night they had a nice new radar [33:29] center they were all set to go and we blew it up last week they have to start all over again for a [33:36] third time if you talk joe that kept i think other things but you know did we ever get above 115 never [33:44] went up as think of it originally it was 115 came down quickly no but they thought it was going to [33:49] go to 300 if you have 300 then i become herbert hoover i don't want to be herbert hoover did have [33:56] you spoken to elon since he became a a trillionaire and i haven't i know i wrote him a note i said [34:01] congratulations very good i have a very good relationship with elon elon and i had a little [34:06] dispute because he backed me 100 he liked me he still likes me but i did a little thing called the [34:12] electric mandate we're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have [34:17] an electric car where your beautiful son standing over there is mandated to have an electric car if [34:21] he wants gas generated or gasoline generated or a hybrid and i made so many speeches and elon was [34:30] there for many of them and i'd always say we will not have the electric mandate but when i actually did [34:35] it uh elon was not thrilled about that and i can understand it but he's doing good yeah he's moved on [34:44] do you think if you talk to him about donating spacex to something you might want to talk about [34:49] and or donating spacex stock to trump accounts well i think that he will do that micron which is a great [34:55] company that has to did it uh michael tell is fantastic guy he did 6 million 250. are you ringing [35:04] the bell next week or something and i'm ringing the bell right here i think they're gonna have a bell [35:08] and it's new york stock exchange and nasdaq i said what do you mean they don't do both [35:11] you're invited to the nasdaq if you want to well they they well that's interesting that's very [35:16] interesting no they're doing it together it's the first time i can do that no but you know what [35:20] they're doing there i was surprised they're doing it together the new york stock exchange i think jeff [35:25] is coming in and the head of nasdaq is coming in and we're doing it together see it can happen [35:32] that that's we're doing it see this spot right here the bell is going to be right there that brings you [35:37] just back to 250 and and and how you think you can set us up for for the next 50 years and and one [35:44] of the things i think is uh i you know secretary doesn't talked about the the trump doctrine there [35:50] were there were five things and i think we got to have national capacity here for anything we need [35:55] we need to have we need to be able to get it here reciprocity we've can't be you know it can't be [36:01] flowing one way to the rest of the world um we got to write the rules for for the new technology [36:07] which is what that's ai um dollars got to stay strong we need financial leadership but maybe most [36:14] importantly it's all got to flow up and down to to every american needs to participate in in the [36:21] prosperity here trump accounts i think it's a a big leap towards i mean it's a novel way we haven't even [36:27] considered it in the past might be the most power instead of just transfer payments it's a beautiful [36:32] thing yeah it's a child has no money and when that baby becomes a man or a woman they can have hundreds [36:43] of thousands of dollars maybe more but they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars because we're [36:49] seeding it and guys like michael dell and susan his wife is they were so so strong for it but think of [36:58] it he's putting up 6 billion 250 million that's tremendous amount okay how rich you are that's a [37:04] lot of money and he wants to do it again and others are so again i just spoke literally just spoke [37:11] yesterday to micron hot company great guy what a great guy and he said we're putting up 250 million [37:20] into the trump accounts so many companies are doing that and i mean kids that won't have any money when [37:27] they turn 18 or 21 have a chance of being sort of rich it's an amazing thing and it's been very [37:36] successful do you have a favorite president or do you think there's a a period that that was so [37:43] formative that if we've lost our way in in any respects we think at this we've had some very bad [37:48] presidents the president has got tremendous power in this country even before the decision that i got [37:54] slaughter they go with the slaughter decision which is an interesting name but that's a very powerful [38:00] decision but it gave a lot more power to the president but it has been a strong presidency not [38:06] just me it's been a strong presidency it's considered a strong office you know other presidents are not [38:13] considered a strong office even if you're president you can't do as much but now with this additional [38:19] i mean it's it's very special um we are respected again as a country maybe like never before a year [38:27] and a half ago we were left at they're not laughing anymore they respect us the king of [38:31] saudi arabia told me and i said this numerous times he said it but many people said he said president [38:38] a year and a half ago america was dead they thought it was dead and right now you have the hottest [38:46] country anywhere in the world and we do well let's hope for another 250 uh like that thank you very [38:53] much we're on a good start thank you thank you very much for all your time thank you great job happy [38:57] semi-quincentennial happy something right thank you you're welcome thank you thank you for listening [39:14] from all of us at squawk box and at squawk pod have a great fourth of july