The Trump Tapes, page 10
So it’s a very good relationship. And people are surprised, because we’re sort of opposites. We’ve put in more judges—you know, judges at a record level. Record. We have every record, other than George Washington, who has a higher percentage. He had 100 percent, but he only had 16 judges. Okay? I’m going to be up to 167 judges. And it’ll be 182 before normalization.
BW:
Yes, you mentioned—
TRUMP:
A hundred and eighty-two judges.
BW:
So what does McConnell say to you, President Trump, about what’s going on on the Hill and what the Senate’s going to do?
TRUMP:
So we talk. You know, this is not a legal process, this is a political process. Right?
BW:
I’ve noticed.
TRUMP:
And you’ve seen his statements.
BW:
Yes, right.
TRUMP:
I mean, rather than what he says to me, he says to me the same thing he says to television—
BW:
He calls you? Talks to you?
TRUMP:
I speak to him about it. And I—
BW:
Tell me what he said and what—
TRUMP:
Look, number one, I did nothing wrong. Legitimately.
BW:
I understand your point.
TRUMP:
Nothing wrong. I had a conversation with a guy. You’re going to impeach the president of the United States for having—as I say, because it saves a lot of words—a perfect conversation with a man who’s a new, young president who ran on a whole corruption thing, right?
COMMENTARY: Trump is referring to Ukrainian president Zelensky.
TRUMP:
And then they take the conversation, and you have a corrupt politician named Adam Schiff who made up my statement.
COMMENTARY: Democratic Representative Adam Schiff of California was then the Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.
BW:
I’ve gone through it, sir. So what does McConnell say to you and what do you say to him? What’s the—if I were listening in, what’s the back and forth?
TRUMP:
I believe that Mitch feels that I’ve been treated very unfairly.
BW:
He says so to you?
TRUMP:
I think he says it to television. I think he says it to you, if you talk to him about it.
BW:
I will.
TRUMP:
And as you saw last night, he said there’s not even a zero percent chance that he ever leaves office because of this hoax. So he said it last night on television, so I’m just—you could quote him—
BW:
And that’s what he says to you?
TRUMP:
Well, he doesn’t have to say it to me. And the reason he doesn’t, ’cause I know all the senators. I get along unbelievably with all of those people. Other than Romney. And even Romney I think knows a certain fairness, okay? Romney for different reasons. You know, someday I’ll explain that to you. But I get along very well with them. They’re all friends of mine. I have a great relationship. Other presidents don’t have a great relationship. Nixon, they hated him.
BW:
Oh, I know.
TRUMP:
Because he was arrogant and, you know, very difficult. You know that story much better than me. The last one I’m going to talk to about that is you. But they walked up, they couldn’t have been happier. With me it’s just the opposite. Every one of them’s a friend of mine, practically. You know? Same thing with the congressmen. Look, nobody’s ever seen congressmen, Republicans, fighting like they fought yesterday. But they’ve been fighting that way for three months. You know, some have become major stars because of it. But you look at them against the Democrats, it was like the New England Patriots playing your high school football team.
BW:
Okay. Here’s my hypothesis.
TRUMP:
My point is about Mitch. I think Mitch thinks I’m being very unfairly treated.
BW:
And you talk to him regularly?
TRUMP:
I do. I get along with him great.
BW:
Okay. I think it’s the most important relationship—
TRUMP:
You know what Mitch’s biggest thing is in the whole world? His judges.
COMMENTARY: McConnell’s public comments about Trump did not always convey the level of disdain he shared privately with his Republican colleagues in the Senate.
For instance, in 2017, the State Department had strongly denied that Secretary Rex Tillerson had called Trump a “moron.”
“Do you know why Tillerson was able to say he didn’t call the president a ‘moron’?” McConnell asked his colleagues in the Senate cloakroom. “Because he called him a ‘fucking moron.’ ”
I returned to the topic of North Korea. I wanted to know what Trump had written to Kim.
BW:
Can I get your letters to Kim?
TRUMP:
I’ll let you read the letters. Just treat them respectfully.
BW:
Okay. Here’s my policy assumption in doing this book. Your predecessors, George W. Bush, Obama, didn’t figure out how to deal with Kim.
TRUMP:
They couldn’t—they called him all the time.
BW:
And you came in—and this I need an answer to—you threw him the ultimate curveball. Other words, I’ll meet with you. I’ll treat you with respect.
TRUMP:
But before I did that, Bob—there was never tougher rhetoric in the history of our country.
BW:
I know. For the first year. You know, just blasting away at each other.
TRUMP:
Blasting. Okay. Without that, it wouldn’t have ever happened.
[Trump starts thumping the desk]
BW:
Okay. So how did you develop, and with whom—
TRUMP:
So we met each other—
BW:
—or is this Donald Trump by himself saying, we have to change the game? I will dare to go praise him, he’s my friend, let’s meet. I’ll come to your house. Because that’s what happened. How did you get there?
TRUMP:
So we had very, very tough, volatile rhetoric. I called him Little Rocket Man.
BW:
Almost a war. Almost a war, as we talked about.
TRUMP:
There were those that said, please don’t go there. Please, please, please. You know.
BW:
Yeah.
TRUMP:
But you had no choice. It was a very bad situation, actually. You know? He said I’ve got a button on my desk. And I said, I have a bigger button, and my button works. You know. Yours doesn’t. That was one of the kinder things.
BW:
Why did you take the—
TRUMP:
You do say that nobody’s ever received letters like that from the family?
BW:
Well, of course. Yeah.
TRUMP:
He doesn’t write letters. [thumping table]
BW:
But you changed the direction of—if you will—history, by saying let’s meet this guy. Let’s treat him with respect. Let’s embrace him. Let’s go to the DMZ as you did.
TRUMP:
He didn’t respect Obama. Didn’t like him, didn’t respect him. Thought he was an asshole. Okay. Bush was too stupid to know what was happening. Bush has no clue. Okay? That’s why we ended up in the Middle East and we spent $8 trillion there. When I did this, I said, what do we have to lose? You know, my famous expression with African American. What do we have to lose?
BW:
And what comes through—
TRUMP:
You know? I haven’t taken sanctions off.
BW:
—if he realizes how important it was to him. He keeps telling—Your Excellency, Your Excellency, this is going to go down in history. This is going to be—
TRUMP:
And you’ve seen what he called Obama. What he called others. He didn’t call them Your Excellency.
BW:
I understand that. And you see there’s a pivot in the strategy, or the approach, and I’m trying to figure out where it came from.
TRUMP:
So—
BW:
Is this you alone?
TRUMP:
No.
BW:
Is this Lindsey Graham?
TRUMP:
So, okay, it’s very complicated. No.
BW:
Is this McMaster?
TRUMP:
It’s very complicated.
BW:
Who? Great.
TRUMP:
This is me, but it’s very complicated. Because I always ask the one question, why are we defending South Korea? See, I have that, you know. Why are we doing this? And I said to South Korea—I told you about the $500 million, right?
BW:
Yes.
TRUMP:
They’re paying $500 million more. It took me one day. I said, we’re defending you, and we’re losing a fortune. And you’re paying the same thing for 30 years, which is nothing. You pay almost nothing. You’ve got to pay. And they’ve agreed to $500 million. Now I’m asking for billions more. But I say—you know, it’s a rich country. I say, so we’re defending you, we’re allowing you to exist. Why are we doing that? Why do we care? We’re 8,500 miles away. Why do we care? Why do we have our 32,000 soldiers over there, willing to fight for you? And you’re not paying us? Why?
BW:
Moon is saying to you, ah, but we’re under siege because we’ve got North Korea. Right?
TRUMP:
Moon is saying because you’ve always done it. They have the same—Abe has the same—I ask all these countries, why are we doing this? I ask Abe. He’s a friend of mine. I say, why are we defending Japan? You’re a rich country. Why are we defending you and you’re paying us a tiny fraction of the cost?
COMMENTARY: Moon was the president of South Korea. Abe was the Japanese Prime Minister.
BW:
And the establishment of course hates that. The—
TRUMP:
The establishment hates that question, which shows you how stupid the establishment is. Okay?
BW:
So how do you pivot—
TRUMP:
And by the way, Bob, they’re willing to pay.
BW:
But the outreach—
TRUMP:
You know how bad the Japan deal is? If Japan gets attacked, we have to protect them. If we get attacked, Japan doesn’t have to protect us.
BW:
I understand. Well, they—
TRUMP:
So I said, Shinzo, we have to change that.
BW:
So tell me in your own words, your first meeting in Singapore with Kim.
TRUMP:
Okay.
BW:
What happened?
COMMENTARY: The first meeting between Trump and Kim Jong Un was held on June 12th, 2018, at a summit in Singapore.
TRUMP:
So what happened, if you know the big thing, the big breakthrough was South Korea had the Olympics.
BW:
Yes, we talked about that.
TRUMP:
There was unbelievable hostility. They weren’t selling tickets. All of a sudden, Kim lets through his people—through me, through Switzerland, etc., etc., let’s meet. They would love to help with the Olympics. I said, what’s that all about? This is right in the middle of horrendous dialogue. So anyway, that was the beginning. And then a delegation came over from South Korea and said that Chairman Kim would like to meet with you. I said, great, let’s meet. Now, you know Obama—
BW:
What did your advisers think?
TRUMP:
Just so you know, Obama and Bush were dying to meet. He didn’t want to—this is a man, you talk about an inch all your life, this is a man—when I had the pictures that I showed you, walking on the border, nobody else—I mean, I set that meeting up in five minutes through social media. I said, hey, I’m going to South Korea. Do you want to meet? Because you can’t, you know, talk to him—
BW:
So what happened at Singapore? Are there notes? Is there—
TRUMP:
We had a great relationship.
BW:
Yeah. I want to take readers to that moment.
TRUMP:
By the way, it was the most cameras. You know it was the most cameras? I’ve seen more cameras—
BW:
I want to find out—
TRUMP:
I think I’ve seen more cameras than any human being in history. Okay? You understand? I go to the helicopter, there’s like hundreds of them.
BW:
[laughs] Because they know you might give an interview and make news.
TRUMP:
Well, whatever. I always… It’s free. I get it for free. It costs me nothing. It’s called earned media. And you do earn it. [laughter]
BW:
You figured that out? You figured that out.
TRUMP:
They say I spent 25 percent what Hillary did, but I got $6 billion worth of earned media.
BW:
I believe that.
TRUMP:
And earned, you do earn it.
BW:
So how’d—Tell me as best you can recall what happened in Singapore, and what was going through your mind. Hey, I’m meeting this guy. Hey, he’s—
TRUMP:
The Singapore event was a monster. They had a thing set up for the media the likes of which you have never seen. Okay?
BW:
I understand.
TRUMP:
And this is all of Asia. All of the United—I’ve never seen a thing like it. Thousands. Thousands.
BW:
I accept that.
TRUMP:
Do we have any pictures of that? If you could see—
AIDE:
I’m sure we can probably get them, sir.
BW:
You—but I want to see what you thought of this man.
TRUMP:
Okay. Are you ready?
BW:
I mean, he’s not exactly Clark Gable.
TRUMP:
No, but he’s very smart.
BW:
We’ve talked about that.
TRUMP:
He’s very smart. Remember what you said? You said, bing, bing, and not smart. I said, no. Bing, bing, and brilliant.
BW:
Right.
TRUMP:
When you take over a country at 25—
BW:
Can I tell you this just for your own…
TRUMP:
Yes, go ahead.
BW:
People have said that, and then I’ve gone back to people and I’ve said, well, wait a minute. Really? Is he not smart? And people who were involved in all this kind of say, well, maybe he is smart.
TRUMP:
Uh, no. He’s far beyond smart. You know, he’s very smart. Okay?
BW:
So what’d you think when you saw him and started talking to him? And what happened?
TRUMP:
Okay, so we met—okay. So now we’re there, and everyone’s going crazy. Everything else. Finally we get to meet. We shook hands. You saw that?
BW:
Yes, of course.
TRUMP:
We shook hands. We turned to these cameras. I looked out and even I said, holy shit.
BW:
Okay.
TRUMP:
It was a wall of more than I think I’ve ever seen. More than the Academy Awards has ever had—
BW:
So what happened?
TRUMP:
Okay, so we shook—that was the first time we ever met. Then we left and we went and had a very long meeting. And we liked each other.
BW:
What did he say that caused you to like him?
TRUMP:
—like we’re smart people, but you have people that no matter what you do, you’re not going to like and they’re not going to like you. I have those people. You know, no matter—we’re smart. Like, we’re totally the smartest, right? We got along great.
BW:
What’d he say that caused this gravitational pull?
TRUMP:
We talked about his country. And I talked about the tremendous potential that his country had. I talked about the fact that I don’t want to remove him. I want him to lead the country to greatness. That it could be one of the great economic powers of the world. It’s locationally situated between China, Russia, and South Korea.
BW:
Understand.
TRUMP:
Think of it. You have on the border—
BW:
And so in one of those wonderful letters after the Singapore summit, he wrote to you, he knows that you’re going to deliver on your promise.
TRUMP:
Yeah.
BW:
What was your promise to him?
TRUMP:
Economic—tremendous economic—not paid for by the United States. Paid for by South Korea, Japan, and other countries in Asia. I said, why should the United States be paying for this? You understand, right?
BW:
Paying for defense, or an economic revival?
TRUMP:
No, economic development. Economic development. I said, you have—you know, I did sign an agreement. Do you have a copy of the agreement that I signed?
BW:
Yes. Yes, sir.
TRUMP:
You know the first line of that says, you will denuclearize.
BW:
Yes, I know.
TRUMP:
People forget that. I came back, and the fake news said, we didn’t get anything. We got a lot. He signed an agreement.
BW:
Well, in the letters he says yes, and then he’s kind of back-tracking. He says, let’s do it step by step.
TRUMP:
He has a hard time with the word denuclearization. He signed an agreement. He promised me. But he has a real hard time. He backs up. It’s really like, you know, somebody that’s in love with a house and they just can’t sell it. Okay? You know what I mean.
BW:
Yes. Exactly.
TRUMP:
And so we had a really good meeting. We really got along. It was a great chemistry.
BW:
Right. Okay.
