The Trump Tapes, page 33
TRUMP:
Well, if they don’t pay. You know they paid—I got them to pay a billion dollars. And I said, you’ve got to pay much more. So they’re paying a billion dollars. A billion a year. Nobody knows this stuff. Nobody even—oh, you heard that, right?
BW:
Oh, yeah. And I know—
TRUMP:
I said, I’ll visit you in a few months, and we’ll start talking about more money. They offered me $300 million additional. So that would be a billion three. And I said, I’m not accepting it. The agreement expired. I said, I’m not renewing it. I’m putting you on a month-to-month basis.
COMMENTARY: At the end of 2019, Trump threatened to pull U.S. troops from South Korea if they did not agree to pay $5 billion. That would be a 500 percent increase on the roughly $900 million they paid in 2019.
BW:
Yeah, and—
TRUMP:
They’ve gotten away with murder.
BW:
What does Pompeo think? Someone told me he’s worried that we’ll just exit completely, and he’s not delighted with that prospect.
TRUMP:
I don’t—I think he is. I think he wants them to pay for—they’re a wealthy country, and why should we be subsidizing their military?
BW:
I know you’ve always—
TRUMP:
Now we’ve done it for 80 years. It’s ridiculous. It’s ridiculous. Why should we be? You know, Saudi Arabia is paying us billions of dollars now, right? Billions.
COMMENTARY: Trump was exaggerating. Saudi Arabia paid the U.S. approximately $500 million for its troop presence in December 2019.
BW:
Let me ask you this, and this again, for the serious history in the fall—do you ever get down? Do you ever feel, my God, an avalanche of one thousand problems has descended on me?
TRUMP:
This is the good thing, Bob, I’m so busy [laughing] I don’t have time to get down. Okay? It’s crazy. But you know, Saudi Arabia. So you know, they wanted some protection. They didn’t have protection when they got shot at eight months, nine months ago, whatever, a year ago. And they wanted protection. I said, yeah, but—I don’t mind giving you protection, you’ve got to pay.
COMMENTARY: Trump is selling protection without seeming to understand the enormous strategic value in the alliances themselves.
BW:
Okay. Well, if you can get Attorney General Barr to talk to me, look, he knows me going back 30 years ago.
TRUMP:
Okay.
BW:
I’m going to take what he says seriously. And if you can give the liberation flag to O’Brien and Pottinger—
TRUMP:
I thought they were pretty open with you. I told them—
BW:
Yeah, they were, but you know, look, I want to go all the way.
TRUMP:
Because I have nothing to hide.
BW:
Okay—
TRUMP:
I’ll tell you what, Bob, we would’ve been at war with North Korea if it wasn’t for me. You’d be in a war, ending one way or the other, right now. But you would’ve been in a war two and a half, three years ago if it wasn’t for me. That was a war deal. They expected to be in a war. They were ready for a war. And there was tough rhetoric at the beginning. And the rhetoric is what stopped it. But you know, the whole thing with me and him, it was public rhetoric. Very public.
BW:
Yeah. But you want a serious, real history. And so when this comes out, people say, ah, okay, this is what—
TRUMP:
I want a real history that’s the truth.
BW:
Yes, exactly. Same here. And I’m—
TRUMP:
If people had any idea what I do. Now, if you just look at the list—hey, Bob, I’m going to be up to 280 judges very soon. [BW laughs] Nobody’s ever had that. Two hundred and eighty. You know? Nobody’s ever had that. You know what I did? You have the judges, a lot of them are older—
BW:
I know and—
TRUMP:
—and they go on senior leave. And we convinced many of them to go on senior leave. And, more importantly, Obama gave us 142 judges when I came here. This never happened. You never had one. If you were a president, you would never have any federal—they’re like golden nuggets, right?
COMMENTARY: Republicans had controlled the Senate for the last two years of the Obama presidency and Majority Leader McConnell blocked most appointments. The Senate confirmed 234 of Trump’s judges by the end of his term.
BW:
So I think the whole virus business and the relationship with China and your decision-making tree—in earnest, so somebody can look at this and say, ah, that’s authentic. That’s what happened.
TRUMP:
I’d be inclined to give you the call, but I’m going to have to take a look. I will though.
BW:
Great. And let’s do it, and let’s get it right. And I don’t want to be in a position where, well, I can’t quite find out this, or this isn’t—You know, we’ve opened the doors on this, and let’s go through them all the way.
TRUMP:
Nobody’s ever done what I’ve done, Bob. And nobody’s ever done so much. When you look at our list of things that I’ve done, nobody’s ever done that. Like even a little thing like getting massive amounts of money from some of these countries that were freeriding us. You know, they were freeriding us. Take care of yourself, Bob. I’ll talk to you very soon. Okay?
BW:
Okay. Okay, sir. Have a good night. Thank you.
TRUMP:
Say hello to your wife. So long.
BW:
Thank you. Bye.
[Recording ends]
INTERVIEW 15: George Floyd
Phone call
June 3, 2020
TRUMP:
These are arsonists, they’re thugs, they’re anarchists and they’re bad people. They’re bad people. Very bad people.
COMMENTARY: On May 25th, a Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin was caught on camera with his knee pressed into the neck of George Floyd for nine minutes and 29 seconds, torturing and killing Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man.
A massive wave of protests erupted in more than 140 cities across the country on a scale not seen in America since the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. “Black Lives Matter” extended its reach as a rallying cry against racism and police brutality.
On Sunday, May 31st, in Washington DC, a fire was set in the basement nursery of the historic St. John’s Episcopal Church, a thousand feet from the White House. Following the fire, the church had been boarded up. A city curfew set by DC mayor Muriel Bowser was scheduled to begin the next day, June 1st, at 7 p.m.
Trump, in a phone call with the governors stressed the need to use force against demonstrators. He wanted an energetic crackdown:
TRUMP:
You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time, they’re going to run over you, you’re going to look like a bunch of jerks.
Trump returned my call on the morning of June 3rd.
BW:
Sir.
TRUMP:
How’s the book?
BW:
Haha, boy—
TRUMP:
How are you doing, am I keeping you busy enough?
BW:
You give me new chapters.
TRUMP:
Yeah. It’s law and order, Bob, law and order. We’re right where I want.
BW:
Do you have a few moments to—
TRUMP:
Law and order, Bob. So, anyway. And among other things, by the way. The other thing is your economy is going to start going up very soon. The numbers were much better today. You know, the unemployment numbers were shockingly better—five million better than they thought. States are opening up and they’re opening up strong. You look at Florida, you look at Georgia, you look at many of the states that are opening. They’re strong. And if I can get this thing going up prior to the election, you will watch—it’s happening and it’s gonna happen. And the virus, we’re doing very well on vaccines. We’re doing very well on therapeutics. We’re doing very well on cures. And we’re going to get ready to send in the military, slash, National Guard to some of these poor bastards that don’t know what they’re doing, some of these poor radical lefts. Of course, you’re a poor radical left to an extent, I guess.
COMMENTARY: I think in his mind this is at least partially how he thought of me.
[BW laughs]
TRUMP:
We’re going to send in the troops because they don’t know. I did it in Minnesota and I put out his problem. And he’s been very thankful. He wanted no troops, and I said we’re sending them. Because Minnesota was a disaster, Minneapolis.
BW:
Can you tell me, just real quickly for the history, I’m turning on my recorder, Mr. President, and that is—
TRUMP:
Bob, I’m going to get off the phone real fast. I got about 20 guys. And I’ll talk to you later, I don’t mind. How are you doing with my guys, though, are they helping you at all?
BW:
Good, good. We’re doing okay. I want to get the, you know, what happened, step-by-step, in reaction to the George Floyd tape. Did you see it?
TRUMP:
Yeah, I saw it. It was terrible. I thought it was a terrible thing. I’ve said it—
BW:
I know you have.
TRUMP:
During my speech. My rocket speech on Saturday.
BW:
Yes.
TRUMP:
Which you probably saw.
BW:
Yeah. Of course.
TRUMP:
I said it during my China speech on Friday. And I said it the day before yesterday.
BW:
Did you see it and, you know, watch the whole thing, or just parts of it?
TRUMP:
I got to watch—oh yeah, sure I got to watch it. Everybody did. All you need is a television, it was on.
BW:
Where were you and who was with you and—
TRUMP:
Well, I watched it numerous times. I mean, mostly I was in the White House, upstairs, because I don’t get to watch much television during the day. I mean, upstairs. And I watched it. It’s been on, it’s been on a lot. No, it’s a terrible thing and strong feeling toward it. I don’t like it at all. I’m very unhappy about it. And action has been taken and it will be taken, and it will be dealt with. And I think the riots are—I put it out in Minneapolis [says Min-ee-an-apolis]. That was the worst one of all. They were ripping down the city. They’re all liberal Democrats, every one of them is a liberal Democrat. Hard to believe, right?
BW:
And the question is, how did you decide, okay, I’m going to give that law-and-order speech?
TRUMP:
It was very easy for me to decide. Because I looked and there was no law and order. And the radical left Dems and the Democrat—they’re all Democrat mayor or governors. I mean, every one of them. Every one of them. Every one where there’s weakness is that. So that was an easy speech for me to write. Usually I write them and/or substantially adjust them.
BW:
Did somebody help you?
TRUMP:
Yeah, I get, I get people. They come up with ideas. But the ideas are mine, Bob. The ideas are mine.
BW:
And then—
TRUMP:
Want to know something? Everything is mine. You know, everything. Every part of it.
BW:
And then the decision to go across the street? You know, that’s getting lots of attention.
COMMENTARY: It was one of the most photographed and videotaped parades of the Trump presidency and almost everyone at the White House that evening appeared to trail the President on his walk across to St John’s Church.
Included in the group walking with him was Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mark Milley.
Esper and Milley were disturbed. They had been called to the White House for a meeting but realized Trump was using them for his political spectacle.
“We’ve been duped,” Esper said to Milley as they walked to the church. “We’re being used.”
Milley agreed and turning to his personal security chief, said, “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
Boarded up and charred, the church and the sprawling scene outside brought the racial unrest convulsing the country to Trump’s front door.
Trump stood for about two minutes, holding a Bible uncomfortably and waving it around.
TRUMP:
Yeah, both good and bad. But it’s—
BW:
With the Bible—
TRUMP:
Well, read Hemingway’s article today. She—it’s total bullshit. They didn’t use tear gas. Number one, I didn’t know if there was anybody—I just said, I think I’ll go across the street.
COMMENTARY: Park Police and DC Metro police later confirmed that tear gas and pepper balls were used on protesters in Lafayette Park.
TRUMP:
Well, these nice, wonderful people tried to burn down the church the day before. You know, they were all saying, these were nice people. Well, they weren’t nice people. They were rough people. And the day before, they tried to burn down the church. And so now the Republicans are all on my side. By the way, I had a big night last night. We won all of—every race that I endorsed. And I’m 64 and 0 this congressional cycle, 64 and 0 on endorsements. Both wins, and wins in primaries. And many of them were losing before I endorsed.
COMMENTARY: That’s a big win and I’m sure it gave him a big boost.
BW:
And so the idea of standing there with the Bible, that’s quite a photo.
TRUMP:
It’s my idea. And a lot of people loved it.
BW:
Yes. A lot of people did. And I’m sure a lot of people don’t.
TRUMP:
Perhaps.
BW:
Why did you decide to use the Bible as a symbol?
TRUMP:
Because I thought it was terrible that they tried to rip down a church that was built simultaneously with the White House, whose first parishioner was James Madison, who was also the first person in the White House, number six.
COMMENTARY: James Madison was the fourth President of the United States. John Adams, the second president of the United States, was the first to live in the White House.
TRUMP:
And I thought it was a terrible thing, and a terrible symbol that they could do such a thing. And made a strong statement, and people loved it. Other than the radical left, people loved it. And by the way, they ought to appreciate it, but they tried to knock it as much as possible. And Mollie Hemingway actually wrote a great piece on it. I hope you read it.
BW:
Okay, I will look at it. Did you actually go—
TRUMP:
You got to look at. On my Twitter, you’ll actually see it on the tweet. Anyway.
BW:
Did you go down in the bunker, as they said? In the PEOC?
COMMENTARY: News reports said the president had been rushed to the White House Presidential Emergency Operations Center or “PEOC” the previous evening.
TRUMP:
I had a choice. And it was really more of an inspection than anything else. He said, because they wanted me to inspect it. It was a very minor event, and I just went down to inspect it. It was, first of all, it was during the day, where there was no problem during the day at all. You know, when people get rambunctious, it happens during the night. This was during the day, long before there was any darkness. And they said, would you like to inspect it now? Would you like to go down? I said, oh, I’ll go down. And then they write a fake piece in The New York Times, like I’m sitting in a bunker. That was during the day and it was the inspection, the second time I’ve ever seen it.
BW:
And were you there a long time, or just looking around?
TRUMP:
Uh, fifteen minutes. Just looking around. Looking around, came right up—it was during the day!
COMMENTARY: Attorney General Bill Barr later concluded that he thought Trump was embarrassed to be led down to the bunker and wanted to project strength with his walk across to St. John’s Church. Barr would later say on Fox News that it was not an inspection.
BARR:
Things were so bad that the Secret Service recommended the president go down to the bunker. We can’t have that in our country.
BW:
It’s not exactly a cozy place, is it?
TRUMP:
No, it’s just—you know, it was really, you’re supposed to go and inspect it. And I did. And I did it. They said this would be a good time. I said, why? They said, well, we got people outside, but there’s no problem. It was, I think four o’clock, five o’clock in the afternoon. It was during the day. Trust me, it was beautiful.
BW:
Who suggested that you inspect it?
TRUMP:
Huh? One of the Secret Service guys said, you don’t have to do it now—I didn’t have to go down—it was, I went down as an inspection. And they said I went down. And the reason I went down as an inspection was, it was appropriate to do because I had to go down and inspect it anyway. And I got—and they made it sound like I was in there. Not that there’d be anything wrong—plenty of people have been. Not a big deal. Not a big deal. And down there’s not a big deal. But I was only there for 15, 20 minutes. And it was more walking around, looking at things.
BW:
I see. And you didn’t go again.
TRUMP:
No, I didn’t go again. I went one time, very quickly. It was an inspection, and they made it sound like it was—again, Bob, it was during the day.
BW:
Sure, I know. Listen, that’s why I’m asking.
TRUMP:
There were very few people during the day. There were almost no protesters.
