The Trump Tapes, page 15
BW:
Yes. I know. I know.
TRUMP:
—he was going to recuse himself prior to—
BW:
You’ve made that clear.
TRUMP:
—going in. And it would’ve been a whole different thing. But he didn’t. He took the job, but then he recused himself the following day, and Rod Rosenstein was the deputy.
BW:
But here—President Trump—
TRUMP:
I learned—I knew they had nothing because there was nothing. But I didn’t know—
BW:
But as you know, they can find things, they can dig things up.
TRUMP:
Sure.
BW:
And this went on for two years.
TRUMP:
Two years, and they had nothing. Well, I’ll tell you—
BW:
And the question is, when did you feel relief? And did you get some information—
TRUMP:
I never felt relief.
BW:
Why?
TRUMP:
I never felt relief. Because that was the way it was being played. They were dirty cops.
BW:
So what Rosenstein said to Mueller was, let me know if you find anything that shows coordination or conspiracy. It never came.
TRUMP:
Yeah.
BW:
And he knew this earlier this year, before the report came out. He said he bulletproofed you for 2020, which is—
TRUMP:
Big statement.
BW:
—pretty important bulletproofing.
TRUMP:
That’s a big statement. Now, that’s a big statement.
BW:
Did you know that?
TRUMP:
I didn’t know that. No, I never heard that.
BW:
Have you talked to him since?
TRUMP:
I have not.
BW:
After the—
TRUMP:
I have not. But I left him in charge, as opposed to removing him. And I let them run it. And let me tell you something, I did something that some would do and some wouldn’t do. But I did something that was—I think it was probably wise in the end. I didn’t have to. I could’ve gone right in there and taken over. I let them do whatever they wanted to do. And because I didn’t want to have fingerprints, I didn’t want to have—I had an absolute right to get involved if I want to.
BW:
Oh, you could’ve fired—
TRUMP:
I could’ve fired—
BW:
Listen, within Mueller’s operation, all these lawyers, the people you didn’t like, it was kind of like a closed, balanced aquarium. And every time you tweeted or said something, they said, we’re finished. And they felt if they—
TRUMP:
What does that mean, we’re finished?
BW:
That you’ll fire them all. Fire the whole team. They—
TRUMP:
I think if I would’ve fired them, there would’ve been bedlam in the country.
BW:
I think you’re probably right.
TRUMP:
I think I would—oh—I think if I would’ve—
BW:
And you asked people to try to get rid of him.
TRUMP:
If I would’ve fired Mueller, if I would’ve fired the group of, as I call them, 13 angry Democrats—which turned out to be 18 angry Democrats. If I were to fire them, I think there would’ve been bedlam in this country. Even though I knew that I did absolutely—I had nothing to do with Russia.
BW:
And they thought, within Mueller’s team, that if they subpoenaed you, they’d be fired for sure. And so they wouldn’t do it.
TRUMP:
Yeah. They were wrong.
BW:
That’s one of the reasons—
TRUMP:
I would not have fired them.
BW:
You would not have fired them?
TRUMP:
No.
COMMENTARY: In fact, Trump did try to have Mueller fired. Former White House Counsel Don McGahn testified before Congress that in 2017, Trump asked him to tell Rod Rosenstein to remove Mueller. When McGahn refused, Trump backed down.
TRUMP:
I would’ve fought it out, but I wouldn’t have fired them.
BW:
So John Dowd, your early attorney—
TRUMP:
Good man.
BW:
—was right to tell you, don’t sit for an interview with Mueller. That it’s a perjury trap.
TRUMP:
So John Dowd is a good attorney. An old-timer, old-school.
BW:
Yes, very.
TRUMP:
John Dowd is a man who was so committed to this, and he was so upset because he thought within the first few weeks this case should’ve been ended. And he would tell me, oh, this case is ending very shortly. They have nothing. And at the end, it took—it was like a year and a half. It went on forever. He almost had a nervous breakdown. He was so committed. He thought it was the most unfair prosecution—when you talk about malicious prosecution. He said it was the most unfair thing he’s ever seen.
COMMENTARY: Dowd was the lawyer I quoted at the end of my book Fear, published the year before this interview. Almost certainly Trump had not read my book. Dowd said he had seen Trump’s tragic flaw. What Dowd concluded but would not say to the president’s face was: “You’re a fucking liar.”
BW:
Rosenstein was your friend, it turns out. When he took over the investigation—
TRUMP:
Who told you that?
BW:
—he thought—
TRUMP:
But who told you that?
BW:
President Trump, I’ve talked to everyone, and I’ve got—
TRUMP:
Okay. I’m glad to hear that. But—
BW:
He initially said, hey look, this investigation is about the Russians, not about Trump.
TRUMP:
Yeah.
BW:
And that was his focus. And it turned out—
TRUMP:
People have said that. But what happened is, I’m not sure that Comey—Comey was a bad person, is a bad person. You know, he tries to pretend like he’s a pious, wonderful—he’s a bad guy. And I’m not sure that Comey had that in mind at all. I think he had the opposite. I think he had a lot of bad thought in mind. I think he’s a sick man. I think Comey’s sick. There’s some mental problem that he’s got. And I think some of the people that worked for him are very sick.
TRUMP:
One thing.
BW:
I just want to make sure—
TRUMP:
The IG was good.
BW:
Yes.
TRUMP:
But he never quite gets there. Because he was an Obama appointment. Now, in one way—
BW:
No, it’s because he didn’t want to ascribe motives to the behavior. It was unacceptable.
TRUMP:
Okay, ready? When you have Page and Strzok saying we’re going to take him down, saying if she loses we have an insurance policy—To me, the greatest of all was that. That’s the most important email of any of them, and we have some beauties. See, they made a terrible mistake. They put their lovers’ notes on the public server, on the FBI server.
BW:
Yes, I know. When this was all over, did you talk to Rosenstein at all?
TRUMP:
I haven’t spoken to him. I want to stay away from everything until it’s all over. By the way, this is very different from me. I had a choice. I could’ve gone the exact opposite. I could’ve fired everybody. Could’ve done whatever I wanted. I guess they say that the president of the United States is the chief law enforcement officer. You understand?
BW:
Some people do, yes.
TRUMP:
Okay, chief law enforcement officer. I didn’t want to put the country into a position where—I just think if I did it the other way, it would’ve been 10 times worse than anything that’s happened thus far.
BW:
One of the interesting things about Nixon, after he resigned, he gave these interviews to David Frost.
TRUMP:
Right.
BW:
And one of the things he said, it’s quite eloquent, he said, I gave them a sword, to take me down.
TRUMP:
Yeah.
BW:
And a lot of people in my business, as you know, thought the Mueller investigation was the sword.
TRUMP:
Was going to end—yeah.
BW:
Was going to—
TRUMP:
And it ended in a whimper. It was pretty amazing. It ended—you know what I said? It ended in dust.
BW:
Amazing, and that’s why—
TRUMP:
It all ended in dust. Look, the big thing on the Mueller, the words—two simple words: no collusion. Because see, it’s all about collusion.
BW:
No coordination, no conspiracy.
TRUMP:
That was the key. Now, phase two, well, there was no collusion. And then all of a sudden we started getting all these great text messages and finding out all about the conspiracy and all the bad things that happened. So you realized it was an illegal investigation. It was a totally illegal investigation. And therefore—and then Bill Barr made a determination, so you had no obstruction, you had no collusion. But the big word was really no collusion. Because the big thing was, was he at all colluding with Russia? And the answer was no. They were two very big words. And then Bill Barr, he ruled on the no obstruction. There was no obstruction. There was no obstruction. But the collusion was the thing that people—a lot of people said, well, wait a minute, it’s an illegal thing, and you’re talking about obstruction.
BW:
So the bulletproofing, I’m telling you, this is the first you’ve heard of?
TRUMP:
Yeah, I have not heard that. I have not heard that. I felt it, because I knew I never had anything to do with Russia. Now Putin did call me yesterday. Do you know that?
BW:
No, no. He did?
TRUMP:
Oh. So we found—we helped them. Terrorists were assembling to blow up a big portion of Saint Petersburg. And we found out about it. And I said, notify them. They notified them. And Putin’s people went in and got them, probably 24 hours before they were going to do it. It was going to be a major terrorist attack in Saint Petersburg, Russia, which is a beautiful place. I was there a long time ago.
BW:
Yeah.
TRUMP:
And they were going to blow up a big, big important section of Saint Petersburg. And I got a call yesterday morning from President Putin, who I get along with very well. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing, by the way.
BW:
I know. [laughing] I understand.
TRUMP:
Anyway, he called me to thank me that they were able to capture these terrorists—they were terrorists—prior to this event taking place. I thought it was very, very good, very good. That’s the way we should work. When are you putting the book out?
BW:
I don’t know. When I get done. And, you know, there’s just lots of work—
TRUMP:
Since I saw you last, I have approved $738 billion for Space Force, for the Wall—
BW:
I saw that. Yes. Now, I want to go back to the Syrian situation.
TRUMP:
By the way, excuse me, 70 years ago, we got the Air Force.
BW:
Now we have Space Force.
TRUMP:
Now we’ve got Space Force, Joint Chiefs of Staff. I created a branch, the sixth branch, of the United States military. That’s a big story. That’s a big thing. And by the way, very important, because that’s where it’s going. It’s all going up to space. Hard to believe. When you look at the great, sophisticated military equipment now, you will see that it’s all controlled by space. Very important. So we have Space Force.
BW:
Everyone—
TRUMP:
Would you say that’s a pretty good achievement? That’s just one of many. One of many, my Bob.
BW:
And so you’re going to be—
TRUMP:
Should’ve done the book—30, 25 years ago, he came to my office.
COMMENTARY: Again, Carl Bernstein and I had gone to interview Trump in 1987. We didn’t end up doing a story or a book, but Trump always recalls the meeting.
BW:
What’s so interesting here is, how does this all end?
TRUMP:
What all end?
BW:
The situation next year with the reelection. Everything’s about reelection, don’t you think?
TRUMP:
I think the impeachment hoax is playing very badly for the Democrats. And I see it two ways. In the history of politics, there’s never been fundraising like I’m doing. Hundreds of millions of dollars of cash is pouring into the campaign. And much of it is because of the impeachment hoax. That’s number one. Number two, my poll numbers are through the roof.
TRUMP:
Since I last saw you, we killed al-Baghdadi. Since I last saw you, we killed the second, who was going to be the first. And we have the third on the—shhh—you know.
BW:
I saw that. Okay. The question about the Syrian situation is, I’ve found, and my assistant, that you have what they call kind of a shadow system on the phone of calling people where the intel people don’t know and it pisses them off. Is that correct?
TRUMP:
I don’t know if it pisses them off.
BW:
Okay, but you do have a shadow—
TRUMP:
But I get better intel the way I do it than I can ever get from other people.
BW:
And with Erdogan in Turkey, seven calls my assistant has found that you had with him before you finally announced you were pulling out,—
TRUMP:
No.
BW:
—which led to the Mattis resignation.
TRUMP:
Now, let me tell you, it had very—that did not. Mattis left because he knew I didn’t want him. He was one of the world’s most overrated generals. And his name was not Mad Dog. I gave him that name. His name was Chaos, okay, and Chaos I didn’t like. I said, you know what—
BW:
Did you work the system—
TRUMP:
And Mattis turned out to be—he was a nice guy, Mattis. I thought he was a nice guy. I actually got along with him okay. But he didn’t do what I wanted him to do.
BW:
But did you work out with Erdogan—I just, I’m trying to see about this shadow communications system you have.
TRUMP:
Let me just tell you.
BW:
Okay.
TRUMP:
Where I talk to him more than any other time was—and I think it worked out great, and I think—do you ever see—You know, I use the analogy, and it’s probably a little strange, sometimes you have two kids in a playground. They hate each other. Sometimes you let them fight for a minute, and then you break them up. That’s what I did. They fought for a few days, and it was vicious. And then I told them, you don’t stop, because I’ve created an economic wonder. The United States has far—
BW:
And did you tell Erdogan—
TRUMP:
You know what we’re up? We’re up many trillions of dollars. China’s down many trillions of dollars.
BW:
Understand. I just want to get this one detail nailed down, President Trump.
TRUMP:
Go ahead. Go ahead.
BW:
Did you tell Erdogan, look, it’s all yours, we’re done, and then four days later you tweeted it and announced it?
TRUMP:
No. No. Well, you saw the letter I wrote. Didn’t you see the very strong—
BW:
Yes sir. [laughs] Very—
TRUMP:
No, I didn’t say that.
BW:
“Don’t be a fool.”
TRUMP:
I said, don’t do it, but we’re leaving. But I don’t think you should do it.
BW:
Yeah. But you do have a shadow communication system, that’s correct?
TRUMP:
He decided—well no, I get along with world leaders. Excuse me, NATO. I just—you know I just raised $530 billion.
BW:
Yes, sir. I know.
TRUMP:
Which nobody in the newspapers write about.
BW:
But you do have a shadow communication system.
TRUMP:
I get along with people. I talk to people. Yeah, I mean, I do.
COMMENTARY: This was an important acknowledgement that there might be transcripts, reliable accounts or even audio recordings of his phone calls. But various investigations initially did not uncover anything conclusive.
BW:
The intel people and a lot of people in the government don’t like it.
TRUMP:
I don’t know if they like it. I just want them to do their jobs.
BW:
I know they don’t like it, because they told me. [laughs]
TRUMP:
Okay. I want them to do their jobs. If you think I’m happy with intel after what I went through with Comey, who’s a—stupid guy, a very stupid guy. But when I have Brennan, I have Clapper, I have Comey.
COMMENTARY: Trump is referring to former CIA director John Brennan, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, and Director of the FBI James Comey, who all served under Obama.
TRUMP:
I have this scum that I have to deal with. That the remnants of it—and there are many other people I could name, but I won’t bother naming them right now—and then I’m supposed to say how wonderful our intelligence is? I don’t think so. That’s not going to happen.
