Donald Trump on Politics, Leadership, and the Future of the U.S.

I don't know if you know this but some people call you a fascist yeah they do so I figure it's all right to call them

a communist yeah they call me a lot worse than I call them a lot of people listening to this myself included that

doesn't think that Kama is a communist I believe you have to fight fire with fire politics is a dirty game it is a dirty

game that's certainly true how do you win at that game they suffer from massive Trump derangement syndrome TD

yes and I don't know if they it's curable from their standpoint I think uh we would probably have a better world if

everybody in Congress took some mushrooms perhaps first of all medical marijuana has been amazing it's been I

I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing the list of clients

that went to the island has not been made public yeah it's it's very interesting isn't

it the following is a conversation with Donald Trump on this The Lex fredman podcast they getting smaller and smaller

they getting smaller right I mean PE people do respect you more when you have a big camera for some reason no it's

cool and about 20 guys that you pay a fortune to right all right okay you said that you love

winning and you have won a lot in life in uh real estate in business in TV and Poli politics so let me start with a

mindset a psychology question what drives you more the love of winning or the hate of losing maybe equally maybe

both I don't like losing and I do like winning I've never thought of it as to which is more of a driving force you've

been close with a lot of the greats in sport uh you think about Tiger Woods Muhammad Ali you have people like uh

Michael Jordan who I think hate losing more than anybody so what do you learn from those guys well they do have

something different you know the great Champions have something very different like the sports champions and you know

you have champions in other fields but you see it more readily in sports you see it over a weekend or you see it

during a game and you see that certain people stand out and they keep uh they keep standing out but it's there for you

it doesn't take a lifetime to find out that somebody was a winner or a loser and so the sports thing is very

interesting but you know I play golf with different people and uh you have there's a different mindset among

Champions there's really a very different mindset there's a different uh there's a different thought process you

know talent-wise sometimes you can't tell the difference in talent but at the end of a weekend they seem to win and

it's very interesting uh like as an example tiger or Jack Nicholas he was a phenomenal winner and

he does have a different way about him and tiger has a different way about him and Michael Jordan and there's never one

you would think that there'd be one way Arnold Palmer was the nicest guy you'd ever meet and then you have some

Champions that aren't really nice they're just focused on doing their job uh so you have you know there's not one

type of person but the one thing I I would say that everybody seems to have in common is

they're very driven they're driven like Beyond they don't seem to give up easily they don't give up they don't give up

but they do seem to be uh you know they have a passion that's maybe more than people that don't do as well you've said

that politics is a dirty game in the past it is a dirty game that's certainly true uh so if it is a game how do you

win at that game well you win at that game by getting the word out and by you using sense you have to have a feeling

where it's going you also have to have a feeling of what's right you can't necessarily just go what's popular you

have to do what's good for a country if you're talking about countries or but you you have to get the word out and you

have to just continuously like for instance you have a great show you have a great podcast it's very well watched

and I'm sitting here and I do this a lot of people see it and I do other things and a lot of people see that and I go

traditional also you know you have traditional television which is getting a little bit older and maybe less

significant could be less significant I don't know but it's changing a lot the the uh the whole plane of of platform is

changing a lot it's changed a lot in the last 2 three years but from a political standpoint you have to find out what

people are doing what they're watching and you have to get it you have to get on I just see that these platforms are

starting to dominate they're getting very big numbers I did spaces with Elon and they got numbers like nobody's ever

heard before so you know this is you wouldn't do that on like radio you wouldn't do that those numbers no

matter how good a show you wouldn't do those numbers on radio you wouldn't do them on

television you've been successful in business bus you've been successful in politics what do you think is the

difference between uh gaining success between the two the two different disperate worlds yeah and they're

different very different um I have a lot of people that are in business that are successful and they'd like to go over to

politics and then you realize they can't speak they choke you know it's hard to make a

speech in front of that let's say you're talking about a big audience but I get very big audiences and you know for many

people it's virtually impossible to get up and speak for an hour and a half

and have nobody leave you know it's not an easy thing to do and it's an ability but I have many people that are very

very successful in business would love to do what I did and yet they can't pull the trigger

and in many cases I I don't think it would work almost almost for everybody not going to work it's a very it's a

very tough thing to do it's a big transition and now if you talked about people in the business in politics going

into business likewise that wouldn't generally work out so well either it's different talents it's different skills

I have somebody who wants to go into politics so bad but he's got a little problem he's got stage fright now he's a

total killer but if he gets up into a stage in front of people he doesn't do well to put it in mildly actually I mean

he does badly so you have to be able to make hard decisions like you do in business but also be able to Captivate

an audience look if you're a politician you have to be able to speak in front of large crowds there a lot of people can't

do that I've seen it they can't even think about doing it and they don't there are many people

in business right now I could name them but I don't want to embarrass anybody they've been talking about running for

president for 15 years and they're very big in business very well known

actually and but it takes guts to run like for president I can tell you it takes guts to run it's also a very

dangerous profession if you want to know the truth but uh dangerous in a different sense too but it takes a lot

of courage to run for president it's not easy but you have and you know the same people as I do there are a lot of people

that would like to run for president that are very very successful in business

but they don't have the guts to do it and they have to give up a lot one of the great things about people from the

business world is there are often great deal makers and you're a great dealmaker and you've talked about the war in

Ukraine and that you would be able to find a deal that both Putin and zalinsky would accept what do you think that deal

looks like I think the deal and I wouldn't talk about it too much because I think I can make a deal if if I win as

president-elect I'll have a deal made guaranteed that's a war that shouldn't have happened it's terrible look Biden

is the worst president in the history of our country and she's probably worse than him that's a that's something that

should have never happened but it did happen and now it's a much tougher deal to make than it would have been before

it started millions of people I think the number is going to be a lot higher when you see this all at some Point iron

out I think the numbers are going to be the death numbers are going to be a lot higher than people think when you take a

look at the destruction and the buildings coming down all over the place in Ukraine I think those numbers are

going to be a lot higher they they lie about the numbers they try and keep them low they knock down a building that's

two blocks long these are big buildings and they say uh one person was mildly injured no no a lot of people were

killed and there are people in those buildings and they have no chance once they start coming down there's no chance

so so um that's a war that absolutely has to get done and then you have Israel and then you have a lot of other places

that are talking War the world is is a rough place right now and a lot of it's because of the fact that America has no

leadership and I believe that she'll be probably worse than Biden I watched the interview the other

night I mean it was just a softball interview so you would like to see her do more

interviews challenged more I don't know I I I can't believe the whole thing is happening we had a man in there that

should have never been in there they kept them in a basement they used Co they cheated but they used Co to cheat

and they cheated without Co too but uh you had somebody in there and now we have a woman that is not I mean she

couldn't do an interview this was a really soft interview this is an interview where they given a multiple

choice uh questions multiple guests I call it multiple guests and uh I don't think she did well

I think she did very poorly how do you think you'll doing the debate coming up it's in a few days so I've done a lot of

debating only as a politician I never debated my first debate was the Rosie O'Donnell debate right the famous Rosie

O'Donnell debate the answer uh but I've done well with debates I mean I became president then the second time I got

millions more votes than I got the first time I was told if I got 63 million which is what I got the first time you

you you would win you can't not win and I got millions of more votes on that and uh lost by a whisker but and look what

happened to the world with all of the wars and all of the problems and look what happened with inflation because

inflation's just eating up our country eating it up so it's too bad but um there are a lot of things things that

could happen we have to get those Wars settled we have to get I'll tell you you have to get Ukraine done you that could

end up in a third world war so could the Middle East so could the Middle East so maybe let's talk about what it takes to

negotiate with somebody like Putin or or zalinski do you think Putin would be willing to give up any of the regions

they already captured I don't know uh I can tell you that this all of this would have never happened and it would have

been very easy because you don't have like that question wouldn't be B asked you know that's a tougher question once

that starts happening cuz he has taken over a lot of territory now I guess they're insurgents now too right so you

know it's a little bit interesting uh that that's happening and that it can happen and it's interesting

that Putin has uh allowed that to happen look that's one that should have should have never started we have to get it

stopped Ukraine is being demolished there they're destroying a great culture that's largely destroyed what do you

think works better in those kinds of negotiations leverage of let's say friendship the carrot or the stick

friendship or sort of the threat of using the economic and military power so it depends on who the person is it's you

know it's everyone's different negotiation is interesting because it depends on who the person is and then

you have to guess or know through certain knowledge which is you know more important the carrot or the

stick and with some people it's the stick and with some people it's the carrot I think the the stick probably is

generally more successful and that you know we're talking about war but um the kind of Destruction that we're

witnessing now nobody's ever seen I mean it's it's a terrible thing and and we're witnessing it all over we're witnessing

it in um in all parts of the the world and a lot of things are going to get started look what's going on with China

look at Japan they're starting to rearm now they're starting to rearm because China's getting you know taking over

certain islands and um there's a lot of danger in the war right now in the world there's a lot of and there's a great

possibility of World War III and we better get this thing done fast because five months with people like

her and him he's checked out he just got goes to the beach and thinks he looks good in a bathing suit which he doesn't

he sort of checked out hey look you know you can't blame him that was a coup they took it over they took over the

presidential deal the whole presidential thing was taken over in a coup he had 14 million votes he had no votes not

one and nobody thought it was going to be her nobody wanted it to be her she was a joke until 6 weeks ago when they

said we're going to have to politically they felt they had to pick her and if they didn't pick her they

thought they'd be a problem I don't know if that's right or not I actually don't think it's right but you know they they

thought it was right and now immediately the Press comes to their aid if we can go back to

China on negotiation how do we have avoid war with China in the 21st century well there are ways now here's the

problem if I tell you how and I'd love to do it but if I if I give you a plan like I have a very exacting plan how to

stop Ukraine and Russia and I have a certain idea maybe not a plan but an idea for China because

we do you know we're going we're in a lot of trouble they'll be in a lot of trouble too but we're in a lot of

trouble uh but I can't give you those plans because if I give you those plans I'm not going to be able to use them

they'll be very unsuccessful you know part of it surprise right right but they won't be able to help us much

so you have a plan of what to say to Putin yeah I know take office no I had a very good relationship with him and I

had a good relationship with zalinski too but I had a very good relationship with Putin tough topic but important you

said lost by a whisker I'm an independent I have a lot of friends who are independent many of

whom like your policies uh like the fact that you're a dealmaker like the fact that

you can end Wars but they are troubled by what happened in the 2020 election and um statements about widespread fraud

and this kind of stuff fake elector scheme what can you say to those uh independent voters to help them decide

who to vote right I think the fraud was on the other side I think the election was a fraud and many people felt it was

that and they wanted answers and when you can't challenge an election you have to be able to

challenge it otherwise it's going to get worse not better and there are lots of ways to solve this problem go to paper

ballots do it the easy way I mean the paper ballots and you uh have voter ID and you have same day voting and you

have proof of citizenship which is very important because we have people voting that are not citizens they just came in

and they're loading up the payrolls they're loading up everything they're putting students in schools they don't

speak a word of English and they're taking the seats of people that are citizens of our country

so uh look we have the worst Border in the history of the world we have coming into our country right now millions and

millions of people at levels that nobody's ever seen I don't believe any country's ever seen it and they would

use Sticks and Stones not to make it happen not to let it happen we don't we don't do anything and we have a person

who was the bordar who now said she wasn't really the bordar but she was she was the bordar but she was in charge of

the border and we have her and she's saying very strongly oh I did such a good job she was horrible horrible the

the harm she's done but we have people coming in from other countries all over the world not just South America and

they're coming in from prisons and jails they're coming in from mental institutions and insane

asylums and they Street criminals right off the street they take them and they're being given to our country drug

dealers human traffickers with destroying our country this is a sin what's been allowed to

take place over the last four years we're destroying our country and we'll see how that all works out but it's not

even believable and now you see you saw in Aurora Colorado a group of very tough Young

Thugs from Venezuela taking over big areas including buildings they're taking over

buildings they have their big rifles but they're taking over buildings we're not going to let this happen we're

not going to let them destroy our country and you know in those countries crime is way down they're taking them

out of their prisons which is good because good for them I do the same thing by the way if I ran one of those

countries any country in the world I would make sure that America has every one of our prisoners every one of our

criminals would be here I can't believe they're going so slowly but some aren't and but they all are doing it and we

can't let that happen they're emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions into the United States of

America we can't let let that happen so a lot of people believe that there was some shady stuff that went on with the

election whether it's uh media bias or big Tech but still the the claim of widespread fraud is the thing that

bothers people well I don't focus on the past I focus on the future I mean I talk about how bad the economy is how bad

inflation is how bad things like um which is important Afghanistan was in my opinion the most embarrassing thing

that's ever happened to our country and because of that I think Putin went in when he said how stupid we were Putin

went in but it it was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country I really believe that but

you know we left we left 13 dead soldiers think of it 13 dead soldiers many soldiers horrifically hurt with

arms and legs and everything else gone um we left hostages behind behind we left Americans behind we left military

equipment the likes of which nobody's ever left behind before billions and billions of dollars of equipment they're

now selling the equipment they're one of the largest arm stealers in the world and um very sad very sad and and you

know we were there for a long time I was going to get out we were getting ready to get out then we got interrupted by

the election but we would have been out with dignity and strength U we were having very little

problem with the Taliban when I was there because they knew it it was going to be tough I dealt with Abdul Abdul was

the leader and we got along fine he understood but you know they were

shooting they were killing a lot of our people before I came down and when I got there I said I spoke to them I said

can't do it don't do it anymore we went 18 months before this happened this hor day happened we went 18 months and

nobody was shot at or killed what do you think that was the carrot or the stick in that case in Afghanistan the stick

definitely theti a threat of military force that was the stick yeah it doesn't have to be but that was the stick well

let me just Linger on the election a little a little bit more for this election it might be a close one what

can we do to avoid the insanity in division of the previous election whether you win or lose well I hope but

it's not a close one I mean you know I don't know how people can vote for somebody that has destroyed our country

the inflation the bad economy but but to me in a way the worst is what they've allowed to happen at our border where

they've allowed millions of people to come in here from places that you don't want to know about and I can't believe

that that's going to be a close election you know we're leading in the polls but and it looks close but I think in the

end it's not going to be a close election what do you think is the right way to

solve the immigration crisis is mass deportation one of the solutions you would think about well you've got to get

the the criminals out of here fast right you know the people from mental institutions you got to get them back

into their mental institution no country can afford this you know it's just too much money you look at what's happening

in New York and Chicago and la and lots of places and you take a look at what's happening there's no country can afford

this we can't afford it and and we've got to get the bad ones out immediately and the rest have to be worked on you

know it's happened before Dwight Eisenhower was sort of a moderate president moderate type person but he

hated when he saw people pouring into the country and they were nothing like now you know I probably got elected in

2016 because of the border and I told people what was happening and they understood it and I

won the election and I won the election I think because of the Border our border is 25 times worse right now than it was

in 2016 I had it fixed to I had it the last week of my the famous chart that I put

up was exactly that you know the chart when I looked to the right I said there's the chart being uh that was not

a pleasant experience but the chart that I put up said and that was done by border patrol that was the lowest number

that we've ever had come into our country in recorded his and we have to get it back to that again

we will let me ask you about project 2025 so you've publicly said that you don't have any direct connection to

nothing I know nothing about it and they know that too Democrats know that and I purposely haven't read it because I want

to say to you I don't I have no idea what it's all about it's easier than saying I read it and you know all of the

things no I purposely haven't read it and I've heard about it I've heard about things that are in there that I don't

like and there are some things in there that everybody would like but there are things that uh I don't like at all and I

think it's uh unfortunate that they put it out but it doesn't mean anything because it has nothing to do with me

project 25 has it has absolutely nothing to do with me you posted recently about

marijuana and uh that you you're okay with it being legalized but it has to be done safely can you explain your policy

there well I just put out a paper and first of all medical marijuana has been amazing it's been I I've had friends and

I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing the medical

marijuana and we put out a statement that we can live with the marijuana it's got to be a certain age got to be a

certain age to buy it h it's got to be done in a very concerted lawful way and the way they're doing in Florida

I think is going to be actually good it's going to be very good but it's got to be done in a good way it's got to be

done in a clean way you go into some of these places like in New York it's all it smells all marijuana you can't the

way you've got to have a system with his control and I think the way they've done it in Florida is very good do you know

anything about psychedelics so I'm I'm not a drug guy but I recently did iasa yeah U and uh there's a lot of

people that speak to sort of the health benefits and the spiritual benefits of these different

psychedelics I think uh we would probably have a better world if everybody in Congress took some

mushrooms perhaps um now I know you don't you stay away from all of that stuff um I I also

veterans use it for dealing with PTSD and all that kind of stuff so it's it's great and it's interesting that you're

thinking about being more accepting of some of these drugs which don't just have a recreational purpose but a a

medical purpose treatment purpose so we put out a statement today we're going to put out another one probably next week

be more specific although I think it's pretty specific and we'll uh we'll see how that all goes that's a referendum

coming up in some states but it's coming up and we'll see how it does I will say it's been very hard to beat

it you take a look at the numbers it's been very hard to be it so I think it'll generally pass but you want to do it in

the safe way speaking of marijuana let me ask you about my good friend Joe Rogan so you had a bit of tension with

him so when he said nice things about RFK Jr I think you've uh you've said some not so nice things about Joe and I

think that was a bit fair and as a fan of Joe I would love to see you do his podcast because he is legit the greatest

conversationalist in the world so what's what's the story behind that tension well I don't think there was any tension

and uh I've always liked him but I don't know him I mean I only see him when I

walk into the arena with Dana and I shake his hand I see him there and I I think he's good at what he does

but I don't know about doing his podcast I mean I guess I do it but I haven't been asked and I'm not asking them you

know I'm not asking anybody it sounds like a challenging negotiation situation no it's it's not it's not really a

negotiation and he's sort of a liberal guy I guess you know from what I understand but he likes Kennedy this was

before I found this out before Kennedy came in with us he's going to be great he's doing bobb's going to be great but

I like like that he likes Kennedy I do too you know he's a different kind of a guy but he's got some great things going

and uh I think he's going to be Beyond politics I think he could be quite influential in taking care of some

situations that you probably would agree should be taken care of the Joe Rogan post as an example I would love to get

your psychology uh about behind the tweets and the post on

Truth uh are you sometimes being intentionally provocative or are you just speaking

mind and are there times where you regret some of the truths you've posted yeah I do I mean but not that often

honestly you know I do a lot of reposting the ones you get in trouble with are the reposts because you find

down deep they're into some group that uh you're not supposed to be reposting you don't even know if those groups are

good bad or indifferent but the reposts are the ones that really get you in trouble when you do

your own words it's sort of easier but the reposts go very quickly and if you're going to check every single

little symbol and uh I don't know it's worked out pretty well for me I tell you it's

uh truth is very powerful truth and it's my platform and it's been very powerful very very powerful goes everywhere I

call it my typewriter you know that's actually my typewriter what are you doing usually when you're composing a

truth like are you chilling back on a couch couches beds okay a lot of different things I mean like late at

night and just I'd like to do some later you know I'm not a huge sleeper but whenever I do them you know past like

3:00 they criticize you the next day Trump was up truth thing okay Trump was truth thing at 3:00 in the morning and

there should be no problem with that and then when you think about time zones how do they know that you you're like you

know in a time zone like an Eastern zone so but but every time I do it after like 2 or 3:00 it's like why is he doing that

but it's gotten um I mean you know the truth has become a very successful uh

platform and I like doing it and it goes everywhere as soon as I do it it goes everywhere the country seems more

divided than ever yeah what can you do to help alleviate some of that division well you can get rid of these two people

they're terrible they're terrible you don't want to have them running this country they're not Equip to run a Joe

just Joe is a disaster okay and Kamala I think she'll end up

being worse than him we'll see I think A lot's now you know the convention's over with and I I see I'm leading in just

about all the polls now they had their little honeymoon period as they call it and we'll see how that all goes who

knows for my personal opinion I think you you are your best when you're talking about a positive vision of the

future versus criticizing the other side yeah I think you have to criticize though I think I think they're

nasty they came up with a story that I look down and I call soldiers that died in World War I

suckers and losers okay now number one who would say that number two who would say to military people nobody it was a

madeup story it was just a madeup story and they like to repeat it over again they know it was made up I have 26 W

witnesses that nothing was said they don't want to hear about that like she lied on McDonald's she

said that uh that she worked at McDonald's it's not a big lie but it's a big lie it's so you know I mean they

just went and they checked and unless she can show something they don't talk about the presses are going to follow up

with it but I I'll keep hammering it but she never worked at McDonald's it was just a you know sort of a cool thing to

say hey I worked at McDonald's you know um but one of the worst was two days ago I went to Arlington at the request of

people that lost their children there'll always be children to those people you understand that that's not politically

incorrect thing to say the mother comes up I lost my child but you know the child is a

soldier and Lost the Child because of Biden and because of Cala as just as though they had the gun in their hand

because it was so badly handled it should have been done at bogram which is the Big Air Base it shouldn't have been

done at a small little airport right in the middle of town where people stormed it uh it was a true

disaster and and they asked me if I'd come and celebrate with them 3 years three years they've died three years

ago and I said I'm going to try I got to know them because I brought them here actually one night they they almost all

came here and they said I wonder if Trump will actually come and see us I heard

they were here I came said so him and we stayed for like four hours listening to music up on a deck right upstairs

beautiful and they were great people so they called me over the last couple of weeks and they said we're going to have

a reunion our threeyear reunion would you be able to come it was very hard for me to do it logistically but I said I'll

get it done and I got there and we had a beautiful time I didn't run away I didn't you know I didn't just walk in

shake hands and walk out like people do and I wasn't looking at my watch like Joe Biden

does and it was amazing so I did it for them I didn't do for me I don't need the publicity I mean I get more publicity

probably than anybody you would know that better than me but I think maybe more than anybody maybe more than

anybody that's ever lived I don't know but I don't think anyone could have anymore every time you turn on

television there's like nine different stories all on different topics and the world about as an example you interview

a lot of people good people successful people let's see how you do with this interview versus them okay I mean I can

tell you right now you're going to get the highest numbers you've ever had by sometimes a factor of 10 but but

um when a Gold Star Family asks me to come in and spend

time with them and then they said sir we did a ceremony and then we went down to the graves which was quite a distance

away they said sir would you come to the grave and then they said when we were there it's very sad

actually because these people shouldn't have died they shouldn't have died they died because of Biden and because of

Kamala they died because just like if they pulled the trigger okay now I don't know if that's controversial to say but

I don't think it is Afghanistan was the most incompetently run operation I think I've ever seen military or otherwise

they were incompetent but the families asked me if I'd go I did

go then the family said could we have a picture at the tombstone of my son and we did son or daughter there was a

daughter too and I took numerous pictures with the families I don't know of anybody else that was in the pictures

but there were mostly families I guess that was it and then I left I spent a lot of time with them then I left and I

get home that night and I get a call that the Biden Administration with Cala is accusing me of using Arlington for

publicity I was in us just the opposite just the opposite and and actually did you see it just came out the families

actually put out a very strong statement defending me they said we asked him to be there well politicians and the media

can play those games and you're right your name gets a lot of views you're probably legit the most famous person in

the world but on the previous thing in the spirit of unity you used to be a

Democrat setting the politicians aside what do you respect most about people who lean left who are Democrats

themselves or of that persuasion progressives liberals and so on well I look I respect the fact that

everybody's in there and you know to a certain extent life is what you do while you're waiting

to die so you might as well do a good job I think in terms of what's Happening Now I think you know we we have a chance

to save the country this country is going down and I called it with Venezuela I called it with a lot of

different countries and this country is going down if we don't win this election the election coming up on November 5th

is the most important election this country has ever had because if we don't win it I don't know that there'll be

another election and it's going to be communist country or

CL there's a lot of people listening to this myself included that doesn't think that Kama is a

communist uh well she's a Marxist her her father's a Marxist and she's advoca a little unusual you know she's

advocating for some policies that are towards the direction of um Democratic socialism let's say but there's a lot of

people that kind of know the way government works and they say well none of those policies are going to actually

come to reality it's just being used during the campaign to you know uh groceries are too expensive we need them

cheaper so let's let's talk about price controls and that's never going to come to reality it could come to reality look

I mean she came out with price control it's been tried like 121 different times at different places over the years and

it's never worked once it it leads to Communism it leads to socialism it leads to having no food on the shelves and it

leads to it's a tremendous inflation it's just it's a bad idea whenever we use terms like communism for

her and I don't know if you know this but some people call you a fascist yeah they do so I figure it's all right to

call them a communist yeah they call me a lot worse than I call them they do indeed uh It's just sometimes it's

interesting though they'll call me something that's terrible and then I'll hit them back and they'll say isn't it

terrible what Trump said I said well wait a minute they just called me so I believe you have to fight fire with fire

I believe they're very evil people these are evil people you know we have an enemy from the outside and we have an

enemy from within and in my opinion the enemy from within are radical left lunatics and I think you have to fight

back whenever there's a lot of fighting fire with fire it's too easy to forget that there's a middle of America

that is uh that's moderate and kind of sees the good in both sides and just likes one

side more than the other in terms of policies like I said there's a lot of people that like your policies that like

your skill in being able to negotiate and end Wars and they don't see the the impending destruction of America you

know we had no Wars when I was President that's a big thing not since 78 years has that happened but we had no Wars

when I was President we defeated Isis but they were that was a war that was started that we weren't anywh when near

defeating but think of it I had no Wars and Victor Orban the prime minister of Hungary said the world has to have Trump

back because everybody was afraid of trump now that's what he said so I'm not using that term but I think they

respected me but he said China was afraid Russia was afraid everybody was afraid and I I don't care what word they

use probably that's even a better word if you want to know the truth but let's use the word respect they had respect

for me they had respect for the country I mean I ended the nordstream 2 pipeline the Russian Pipeline nobody

else could have done that I ended it who was done then Biden comes in and he gave it he approved it so we're defending

Germany and these other countries for peanuts compared to what it's worth and they're paying the person we're

defending them against billions and billions of dollars for energy I said how does that work and

we had it out with them and it worked out good and they paid bill they paid hundreds of billions of dollars or you

wouldn't even have a NATO right now you wouldn't have NATO if it wasn't for me as the leader of the United States you

were the most powerful man in the world as you mentioned not only the most famous but the most powerful and if you

become leader again you will have unprecedented power just on your own personal psychology what does that power

do to you does it is there any threat of it corrupting how you see the world no I don't think said look i' I've been there

for four years uh I could have done a big number on Hillary Clinton I thought it looked terrible to take the

president's wife and put her in prison she's so lucky I didn't do anything she's so lucky Hillary is a

lucky woman because I had a lot of people pushing me to they wanted to they wanted to see

something but I had I I could have done something very bad I thought it looked so bad think of it you have the

president of the United States and you also had secretary of state right she was but you're going to put the

president's wife in prison and yet when I got out they're you know they have all these hoaxes they're all hoaxes but they

have all these dishonest hoaxes just like they did in the past with Russia Russia Russia that was a HX uh the 51

different uh you know agencies or agents that was a hoax the whole thing was a hoax the whole there was so many hoaxes

and scams and but I didn't want to put her in jail and I didn't and I explained it

to people you know they say lock her up lock her up it doesn't we won I said we don't want to put her in

jail we want to bring the country together I want to bring the country together you don't bring the country

together by putting her in jail but then when I got out you know they went to work on me it's it's amazing and uh they

suffer from massive Trump derangement syndrome TDS and I don't know if they it's

curable from their standpoint a lot of people are very interested in footage of UFOs the the Pentagon has released a

few uh videos and there's been anecdotal reports from fighter pilots so a lot of people want to know will you help push

the Pentagon to release more footage which a lot of people claim is available oh yeah sure I'll do that I would do

that I'd love to do that I have to do that but they also pushing me on Kennedy and I did release a lot but I had people

come to me and beg me not to do it but I'll be doing that very early on uh yeah no but I would do that

there's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing some of the documents on Epstein why the

hesitation I don't think I I mean I'm not involved I never went to his Island um

fortunately but a lot of people did why do you think so many smart powerful people allowed him to get so

close um he was a good salesman he was you know was a haen hearty type of

guy he had some nice assets that he'd throw around like Islands but a lot of big people went to that Island

but fortunately I was not one of them it's just very strange for a lot of people that uh the list of clients that

went to the island has not been made public yeah it's it's very interesting isn't it probably will be by the way

probably so if you able to you'll be yeah certainly take a look at it now Kennedy's interesting because it's so

many years ago you know they do that for danger too because you know endangers certain

people etc etc so Kennedy uh is very different from the Epstein thing but yeah I'd be inclined

to do the Epstein I'd have no problem with it that's great to hear what gives you strength when you're getting

attacked you're one of the most attacked people in the world I think you you can't you can't care that much I know

people that care so much about everything like what people are saying you can't care too much because you end

up joking one of the tragic things about about life is that it ends how often do

you think about your death are you afraid of it I have a friend who's very very successful and he's in his 80s mid

mid 80s and he asked me that exact same question I said I turned it around I

said well what about you he said I think about it every minute of every day and then a week later he called me to tell

me something and he starts off the conversation by going take ticktock ticktock this is a dark this is a dark

person you know in a sense but uh it is what it is I mean you know if you're religious you have I think a better

feeling toward it you know you're supposed to go to heaven ideally not hell but you're supposed to go to heaven

if you're good I think our country is missing a lot of religion I think it really was a much better place with

religion it it was some it was almost a guide you know to a certain said who was a guide you want to be good to people

without religion there's no real there are no guard rails I'd love to see us get back to religion more religion in

this country well Mr President thank you for putting yourself out there and thank you for talking today look I I love the

country I want to see the country be great and we have a real chance of doing it but it's our last chance and I

appreciate it very much thank you thank you thanks for listening to this conversation with Donald Trump to

support this podcast please check out our sponsors in the description and now as I've started doing here at the end of

some episodes let me make a few comments and answer a few questions if you would like to submit questions including in

audio and video form go to Lex freeman.com or get in touch with me for whatever

other reason at Lex freeman.com contact I usually do this in a t-shirt but I figured uh for this episode I'll

uh keep my suit and tie on so first this might be a good moment to uh look back a bit I've been doing this podcast for

over six years and I first and foremost have to say thank you I'm truly grateful for the

support and the love I've gotten along the way it's been I would say the most unlikely journey and on most days I

barely feel like I know what I'm doing but I wanted to uh talk a bit about how I approach these conversations now each

conversation is its own unique puzzle so I can't speak generally to how I approach these but here it may be useful

to describe how I approach conversations with world leaders of which I hope to have many more and do a better job every

time I read a lot of history and I admire the historian perspective as an example I admire William Shire the

author of many books on Hitler including the rise and fall of the Third Reich he was there and lived through it and

covered it OB L to the degree that one could academic historians by the way criticize him for being a poor historian

because he editorialized a little too much I think those same folks criticized Dan Carlin and his Hardcore History

Podcast I respect their criticism but I fundamentally disagree so in these conversations with world leaders I try

to put on my historian hat I think in the realm of Truth and public discourse there's a spectrum between the ephemeral

and the Eternal the outrage mob and clickbait journalists are often focused on the ephemeral the current thing the

uh current viral Stormer of mockery and derision but when the battle of the day is done most of it will be

forgotten a few true ideas will remain and those the historian hopes to capture now this is uh much easier said than

done it's not just about having the right ideals and the Integrity to stick by

them it's not even just about having the actual skill of talking which uh I still think I suck at

but let's say it's a work in progress you also have to make the scheduling work and set up the entirety of the

environment in a way that is conducive to such a conversation this is hard really hard with political and Business

Leaders they are usually super busy and in some cases is super nervous because well they've been screwed over so many

times with clickbait gotcha journalism so to convince them and their team to talk for 2 three four 5 hours is hard

and I do think a good conversation requires that kind of duration and I've been thinking a lot about why I don't

think it's just about needing the actual time of 3 hours to cover all the content I think the longer form with a

hypothetical skilled conversationalist relaxes things and allows people to go on tangents and to Banter about the

details because I think it's in the details that the beautiful complexity of the person is brought to

light anyway I look forward to talking to more world leaders and doing a better job every time as I said I would love to

do interviews with KLA Harris and some other political figures on the left and right including Tim Walls ALC Bernie

Barack Obama Bill and Hillary and on the right JD van VC George W and so on and on the topic of politics let

me say as an immigrant I love this country the United States of America I do believe it is the greatest nation on

Earth and I'm grateful for the people on the left and the right who step into the arena of politics to fight for this

country that I do believe they all love as well I have reached out to KLA Harris but not many of the others are probably

should do a better job with that but I've been doing most of this myself all the Reach Out scheduling research preps

recording and so on and on top of that I very much have been suffering from impostor syndrome with a voice in my

head constantly pointing out when I'm doing a shitty job plus a few folks graciously remind me on

the internet the uh the very same sentiment of this aforementioned voice all of this while I have the option of

just hiding away at MIT programming robots and doing some cool AI research with a few grass students or maybe

joining an AI company or maybe starting my own all these options make me truly happy but like I said on most days I

barely know what I'm doing so who knows what the future holds most importantly I'm forever grateful for all of you for

your patience and your support throughout this roller coaster of the life I've been on I love you

all okay now let me go on to some of the questions that people had I was asked by a few people to comment on Pavo durov

arrest and on X being banned in Brazil let me first briefly comment on the uh durov arrest so basic facts Pavo durov

is CEO of telegram which is a messenger app that has end end encryption mode it's not on by default and uh most

people don't use the entend encryption but some do Pavo was arrested in France on a long list of charges related to

quot quote criminal activity carried out on the telegram platform and for quote unquote providing unlicensed cryptology

Services I think telegram is indeed used for criminal activity by a small minority of its users for example by

terrorist groups to communicate and I think we all agree that terrorism is bad but here's the problem as the old saying

goes one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and there are many cases in which the World unilaterally

agrees who the terrorists are but there are other cases when uh governments especially authoritarian inclin

governments tend to propagandize and just call whoever is in the opposition whoever opposes them terrorists there is

some room for nuance here but to me at this time it seems to obviously be a power grab by government wanting to have

backdoor access into every platform so they can have censorship power against the opposition I think generally

government should stay out of censoring or even pressuring social media platforms and I think arresting a CEO of

a tech company for the things said on the platform he built is just nuts it has a chilling effect on him on

people working at Telegram and on people working at every social media company and also people thinking of launching a

new social media company same is the case of X being banned in Brazil it's I think a power grab by Alexandre demaras

a Supreme Court Justice in Brazil he ordered X to block certain accounts that are spreading quote unquote

misinformation Elon and X denied the request then demaras threatened to arrest ex representatives in Brazil and

in response to that ex pulled the representatives out of Brazil obviously to protect them and now X having no

representatives in Brazil apparently violates the law based on this demaras banned and X in Brazil once again it's

an authoritarian figure seeking censorship power over the channels of communication I understand that this is

complicated because there are evil people in the world and part of the role of government is to protect us from

those evil people but as Benjamin Franklin said those who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little

temporary safety deserve neither Liberty nor safety so it's a trade-off but I think in many places in the world

many governments have leaned too far away at this time from Liberty okay next up I got a question on AI which I

emotionally connected with I'll condense it as follows hello Lex I a programmer and I

have a deep fear of slipping into irrelevance because I am worried that AI will soon exceed my programming

skills let me first say that I relate to your fear it's scary to have a thing that gives you a career and gives you

meaning to be taken away for me programming is a passion and if not for this podcast it would probably at least

in part be my profession so I get an uncomfortable feeling every time Claude the llm I use for coding at this time

just writes a lot of excellent approximately correct code I think you can make a good case that it

already exceeds the skill of many programmers at least in the same way that uh the collective intelligence of

stack Overflow exceeds the skill of many programmers many individual programmers but in many ways it still does

not uh but I think eventually more and more the task the profession of programming will be one of writing

natural language prompts I think the right thing to do and uh what I'm at least doing is to ride the w of the ever

improving code generating llms and keep transforming myself into to a big picture designer versus low-l

tinkerer what I'm doing and uh what I recommend you do is continually switch to whatever state-ofthe-art tool is for

generating code so for me currently I recently switched from vs code to cursor and before that it was emac to vs code

switch so cursor is this editor that's based on vs code that uh leans heavily on llms and integrates the code

generation really nicely into the editing process so it makes it super easy to uh continually use the llms so

what I would advise and what I'm trying to do myself is to learn how to use it and to master its code generation

capabilities I personally try to now allocate a significant amount of time to designing with natural language first

versus writing code from scratch so using my understanding of programming to edit

the code that's generated by the llm versus sort of writing it from scratch and then using the llm to generate small

parts of the code I see it as a skill that I should develop in parallel to my programming skill I think this applies

to many other careers too don't compete with AI for your job learn to use the AI to do that job better but yes it is

scary on some deep sort of human level the threat of being replaced uh but at least I think we'll be okay all right

next up I got a very nice audio message and question from a gentleman who is 27 and feeling a lot of anxiety about the

future just recently he graduated with a bachelor's degree and he's thinking about going to grad school for

biomedical engineering but there is a lot of anxiety he mentioned anxiety many times in the message it took him an

extra while to get his degree so he mentioned he would be 32 by the time he's done with his PhD so it's a big

investment but he said in his heart he feels like he's a scientist I think that's the most important part of his

message of your message by the way I'll figure out how to best include audio and video messages in future episodes now on

to the question so thank you for telling me your story and for submitting the question my own life story is similar to

yours I went to Drexel University for my bachelor's Master's and Doctor degrees and I took a while just as you're doing

I did a a lot of non-standard things that uh weren't any good for some hypothetical career I'm supposed to have

I trained and competed in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu for my entire 20s got a uh black belt from it I wrote a lot

including a lot of really crappy poetry I read a large amount of non-technical books history philosophy and literature

I took courses on literature and philosophy that weren't at all required for my computer science and electrical

engineering degree like a course on uh James Joyce I play guitar in bars around town I took a lot

of technical classes many for example on theoretical computer science that uh were way more than were needed for the

degree I did a lot of research and I coded up a bunch of projects that didn't directly contribute to my

dissertation it was pure curiosity and the joy of exploring so like you I took uh the long way home as they say and I

regret none of it throughout that people around me and even people who love me Wanted U me to hurry up and to focus

especially because I had very little money and so I had a sense like time was running out for me to uh take the needed

steps towards a reasonable career and just like you I was filled with anxiety and I still am filled with anxiety to

this day but I I think the right thing to to do is not to run away from the anxiety but to lean into it and uh

Channel it into pursuing with everything you got the things you're passionate about as you said very importantly in

your heart you know you're a scientist so that's it you know exactly what to do pursue the desire to be a scientist with

everything you got get to a good grad school find a good adviser and uh do epic with them and it may turn out

in the end that your life will have unexpected chapters but as long as you're chasing dreams and goals with

absolute unwavering dedication good stuff will come of it and also try your best to be a good

person this might be a good place to read The Words If by Roger Kipling that I often return to when I feel lost and

I'm looking for guidance on how to be a better man if you can keep your head when all

about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you if you can trust yourself when all men doubt you but make allowance for

their doubting too if you can wait and not be tired by waiting or being lied about don't deal in lies or being hated

don't give way to hating and yet don't look too good nor talk too wise if you can dream and not make dreams your

master if you can think and not make thoughts your aim if you can meet with Triumph and disaster and treat those two

imposters just the same if you can bear to hear the the truth you've spoken Twisted by naves to make a trap for

fools or watch the things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build them up with worn out tools if you can make

one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch and toss and lose and start again at your beginnings

and never breathe a word about your loss if you can force your heart and nerve and send you to serve your turn

long after they're gone and so hold on when there's nothing in you except the will which says to them hold on if you

can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with Kings nor lose the common touch if neither foes no loving

friends can hurt you if all men count with you but none too much if you can fill the unforgiving

minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run yours is the Earth and everything that's in it and which is more you'll be

a man my son thank you for listening and see you next time