we do not have a position on whether it should be one bill or two, we are optimistic. host: a narrow majority in the house. is it likely that republicans will need votes for democrats to extend any tax cuts? guest: we would live to have -- love to have a bipartisan bill. the democratic party has made clear that their desires to raise taxes on wealthy and middle class families and big businesses and small businesses. they have any number of problems that are unaffordable for the -- programs that are unaffordable for the american people. it would be nice if they were to come on board. host: akash chougule is our guest. george in philadelphia. democratic caller. caller: why can't they raise the taxes on the rich? and the businesses? guest: so, that is a good question and one that comes up a lot. this conversation about the rich

paying their fair share there are a lot of misconceptions. we never hear a definition of what it is. the top 1% earn about almost 30% of income and they pay more than half of all >> you can watch this online at c-span.org. we leave it to bring you president trump signing a new set of executive orders. pres. trump: no, not right now. reporter: not a negotiating tool? pres. trump: it is pure economic. we have peaked deficits, all three of them. in one case they are sending masses of sentinel and in the other two cases they are making it easy for this poison to in. we have big deficits. it is something we are doing.

we will possibly substantially increase it or not. we will see how what is. it is a lot of money coming to the united states. we have about a $200 billion deficit with canada. they have treated us very unfairly. i say why should we be subsidizing canada? i have so many friends in canada. it is a great place. but -- no, we are not looking for reconcession. with mexico it is the same thing. we have a $250 billion deficit. we have a lot of people coming into the border. now we have largely stopped that , but we stopped that ourselves. you see the numbers they dropped, almost zero. we suffered under the past administration for years with millions of criminals coming into our country, people from jails, they come through mexico

and canada too. a lot of them come from canada and a lot of fentanyl comes, china makes the fentanyl, puts it through different places, mostly mexico, but also a lot through canada. all three have not treated us very well. reporter: can i ask you about your meeting with nvidia? do you think you need to ban more of the chips they are selling to china? pres. trump: he's a great gentleman. had met him. he's the biggest in the world in terms of chips. i can't say what is going to happen. we had a good meeting. eventually we will put tariffs on chips. we will put tariffs on oil and gas fairly soon, i think around the 18th of february, and we are going to put a lot of tariffs on steel. we already have tariffs on steel and saved our industry.

that was relatively small compared to what it will be. we will be putting tariffs on steel and aluminum and ultimately copper. comparable take a bit longer. that will happen pretty quickly. it will be a great boost for our steel industry. it will make a very strong. if it did not put the tariffs on steel, which biden left because there was so much money that they could not do anything about it, we would not have one steel mill in this country if i did not do that. we saved the steel industry. it was an honor to do that. i think the people that love me most in the whole world are the people that make steel. we will be putting some time next month tariffs on steel and aluminum. we will give you an announcement as to what the date is. it will be a tremendous amount of money for our country. these are big numbers. in addition to that -- and you

see the power of the tariff, nobody can compete with us because we have by far the biggest piggy bank. so that will take place very quickly. also we will be doing pharmaceuticals to bring our industry back. we want to bring pharmaceuticals back to the country by putting up a wall, and the wall is a tariff wall. we are the richest country in the world. we were at our richest from 1870 to 1913. that is when we were a tariff country. then they went to an income tax concept. how did that work out? fine, okay, but would have been very much better. we will be doing pharmaceuticals, drugs, medicines, etc., all forms of medic and -- of medicine and pharmaceuticals. we will be doing steel and also chips and things associated with chips. reporter: is there a waiting

plan on talking with the japanese prime minister about next friday when you will meet? pres. trump: he's coming next week. i don't know, he asked for a meeting. i have great respect for japan. prime minister abe was a close friend of mine. what happened to him was so sad. one of the saddest days. they are coming to speak to me and i look forward to it. reporter: on the crash, do you have any concerns about your commentary on things like common sense could interfere with the thorough investigation of the crash? pres. trump: no, i think it will come out the way i said it. i'm so tired of listening to things happened to our country and people say we will do an investigation and three years later they come out with a report nobody looks at. not in all cases can you do that, but in this case you had a helicopter, the black hawk was too high.

it was above the 200 limit. should not have been there. there were other mistakes made. i was right on all of it. they will still do an investigation. reporter: are you at all concerned about opining about the army and the conduct of that aircraft when you are commander-in-chief? pres. trump: no, no. this was all caused by bad rules, regulations, and other things by biden. when you look at the way they ran things -- if you look, we hired, i said get talented people in those beautiful towers overlooking runways. you better get them in their fast because we don't have people that are qualified. you knew that because planes were landing very late. they were circling all over the place. we had people that did not know what they were doing.

excuse me, we have to have the best people, the smartest people, the sharpest people as control tower experts. that is what they have to be, experts. they have to be very smart. we did not have our best. if you read the quote yesterday at the news conference and talked about people that were psychologically injured and people that had lots of problems, i would read it again if you would like me to. reporter: aren't you concerned with planes in the air all around the country, people relying on that? are you suggesting there is an ongoing risk? pres. trump: no, i think there is very little risk, but we have to make sure this never happens again. very little risk. the helicopter was out of its zone. should not have been out of its zone. it was at the same height as the airplane. the airplane was coming down on its track was in perfect shape.

something was in its way. you can't let that happen. it won't be happening again. this was because of weak rules in the biden administration. we will not let that kind of thing happen again. i could wait and give a report two years like they always do. sometimes it is obvious. i think i have been proven to be very correct. reporter: [indiscernible] pres. trump: i expect a lot of good things. from all meetings i expect good things. marco rubio will make a tour of various countries in south america. he's going to be meeting in panama, where panama has treated us very badly. they gave him, rather them, fool ishly the thing called the panama canal. most extensive ever built. we lost 38,000 men in that case,

just about all men. 38,000 to the mosquito, to malaria and various problems you get from jungle. -- from jungles. it was a tremendously costly event. we built the panama canal 110 years ago. the most expensive development we ever did. really one of the wonders of the world. we did not give it to china, we gave it to panama. panama has been ripping down all the china language signs. they have been working like mad. about 70% of the signs were up and written in chinese. it's not the deal. we will take it back. they have already offered to do many things. they have totally violated the agreement. we have an agreement. marco rubio is going over there to talk to the gentleman that is

in charge. reporter: do you think it is a good idea for egypt to be taking in palestinians when they reject the idea? pres. trump: egypt will take people, yeah, people from gaza. i think egypt will take them. i heard someone say they would not but i feel confident they will. reporter: will tomorrow's tariffs include canadian crude? pres. trump: i am probably going to reduce the tariff a little bit on that. we will bring it down to 10% on the oil. it is 25% on the canada side. reporter: are these tariffs stacking on top of already existing tariffs? pres. trump: yes, on top of whatever may be existing. reporter: shaking hands with president maduro, is there any

concern that might lend legitimacy to the maduro administration? pres. trump: no, we want to do something with venezuela. i have been a big opponent of venezuela and maduro. they have treated us not so good, but they have treated more importantly the venezuelan people very badly. i got 92% of the vote, the venezuelan vote. we want to see what we can do to get people back in their homelands, safe, free. he's meeting with a lot of different people, but we are for the people of venezuela. we are for the venezuelan americans. if you look at it, around the durham area -- the dural. , they call it -- the dural area, they call it little venezuela. we will see what we can do to straighten out the situation. venezuela has been very unfortunate.

i was surprised when i saw that biden agreed to buy a lot of oil from venezuela, because venezuela was just about finished, the dictator. when that happened, it brought him back to life. biden went out and they buy millions of barrels of oil. i say, what is that about? we will not let that stupid stuff happen. we are not happy with venezuela. we don't like the way they have treated the venezuelans at all. reporter: are there warnings or messages that government websites will be shut down this evening to scrub them of dei content? can you confirm? government websites will be shut down this evening, to scrub them of dei content? can you confirm whether that is accurate? pres. trump: i don't know. it doesn't sound like a bad idea to me. dei would have ruined our country, and now it is dead. so they want to scrub the website, that is ok with me.

i can't tell you. probably certain people handle it certain ways. i will tell you who is happy about it, the military, the real generals are happy about it. doug is very happy about it. he's got a big group of people that will be working for him starting right now. he had a lot of dei -- e verybody did, but he is not a fan. it was hurting our country badly. costing a lot of money too. hundreds of millions of dollars for nonsense. we have our country back now. our country is back. it is a nice thing to say. i've never seen such love. i've never seen anything like it. people are coming up, sir, thank you for bringing our country back, we were losing our country. i think we are stronger now than we have been in many decades. reporter: on your call with

vladimir putin? pres. trump: well, we will be speaking. . we want to end that war. that war is a horrible war. millions of young people are being killed, mostly on the lines now, mostly soldiers. the cities have been largely destroyed, many of them. they are like demolition sites. the soldiers are just shooting at each other. it is a very flat land. the only place that a bullet stops is when it hits a person. and they are hitting a lot of people, a lot of soldiers, on both sides. i think russia would say close to 800,000. ukraine, 600,000 or 700,000. it is a senseless situation. it has got to stop. whatever i can do to stop it.

and we are having discussions, yes. reporter: [indiscernible] pres. trump: already talking, yes. reporter: you have already spoken to vladimir putin. pres. trump: i don't want to say that but we are having serious discussions. i just don't want to say. we are having serious discussions about that war, trying to get it ended. reporter: with russia? pres. trump: yes. reporter: at the fbi and the primitive justice there are a number of high level being -- and the department of justice there are a number of high-level people being asked to resign. pres. trump: we have some very bad people over there. it was weaponized at a level no one has ever seen before. they came after a lot of people, like me. no, i was not involved in it. i will have to see what is exactly going on after this is finished. if they fired some people, that is a good thing, because they were very corrupt people.

and they hurt out country very badly with the weaponization. they used the justice department to go after their political opponent, which in itself is illegal. obviously it didn't work. reporter: [indiscernible] pres. trump: what does that mean? reporter: [indiscernible] pres. trump: you are asking me a question. am i going to impose tariffs on the european union? you want the truthful answer, or shall i give you a political answer? absolutely. the european union has treated us so terribly. reporter: you promised americans to try to reduce cost. so much of the products we tariffed, the outgoing country is not paying the tariff, the buyers in the united states pay that. that is passed on to consumers.

pres. trump: right, sometimes. reporter: how would you expect to have prices come down if you have such a broad plan for tariffs? what do you say to the voters who want you to reduce everyday costs? pres. trump: i got elected for a lot of reasons. number one was the border. number two was inflation. i had almost no inflation and yet i charged hundreds of millions of tariffs to countries. i had almost no inflation and took in $600 billion of money from other countries. tariffs don't cause inflation, they caused success. they cause big success. there could be some temporary short-term disruption and people will understand that. i had that when i negotiated good deals for the farmers. unfortunately those deals have been led astray by biden and his people because they did not enforce the deals.

we have a deal with china that was phenomenal for the farmers but no one was there to enforce it. it is another thing we will be bringing. they committed to buying $50 billion worth of farm product, and they did it when i was president. as soon as i left they stopped doing it because there was no one to enforce it. the tariffs will make us very rich and very strong. we will treat other countries very fairly. but if you think about it, other countries charge us tariffs. we don't charge them tariffs. it is about time that changes. reporter: are you concerned about the market reaction around tariffs? pres. trump: no. the word tariff is a misunderstood word. you heard me say it kiddingly. it is one of the most beautiful words in the dictionary. really is. we have been taken advantage of because. others charged us.

the european union charges us 20% plus of that tax. costs us an absolute fortune. we are treated so badly. they don't take our cars, they don't take our firm products. they don't take almost anything. we have a tremendous deficit with the european union, so we will be doing something substantial. we will bring the level up to where it should be. then you go to nato. it is largely the same group of countries, until i came along we were paying almost 100% of nato, only to get bad trade deals. now it has been evened out. it was evened out pretty good. i did a good job. they paid $440 billion if you lookat the secretary-general's report -- if you look at the

secretary-general's report. i went over and say you have to pay. very simple. very unfair with ukraine. we are in for $300 billion plus and they are in for $100 billion. they need it more than we do. we have an ocean in between, they don't. they will have to step it up a little bit. reporter: with efforts to reduce the federal workforce, whether it is offering the buyout package or other efforts -- there are many different ways the agencies protect the public. pres. trump: everybody is replaceable. we will get good people to replace them if it turns out to be more than we thought. we would love to have them

leave. we want them to go into the private sector. it is our dream to have almost everybody working in the private sector, not and the public sector. very few people came to work. it started more or less with covid, but even before. they did not come back. biden let them get away with murder. we had a federal workforce, like 4% coming into the office that does not work. you have to be unified in a group in the office. it was crazy. you don't know what they are doing. at some point we may ask them to certify that they did not have two jobs, meaning where they really getting a check from us and also working a second and third job? you don't want that on government time. many will say that they did, which is not legal. it is a problem.

we want to clean it out. people have been trying to reduce federal government for 40 years, 45 years, and they have not been able to do it. this is a way of doing it nicely. sort of a buyout too. i think we are treating people very good. people don't come to the office, and they won't have a job starting on that special date. nobody knows how that will turn out. everybody might show up to the office and may be a large number won't. if they don't show up, we become pushed a serious goal. we are trying to reduce government. reporter: does mr. musk or anyone associated with doge have any direct access to the government systems to how money is dispersed? pres. trump: no, nothing. this has nothing to do with this federal cutting. this is very separate. this is, if you don't show up, you don't get paid.

doge, great progress has been made. if we find waste, we will do something, but the people will be affected. it will only be more effective and better. as our country gets richer mother people on social security and medicaid will be more secure. if biden had gotten elected, social security was going to fail. the country was going to fail. therefore the social security and all of the other things that you may get would not be able to be paid. our country is getting very strong. more progress has been made in the last two or three weeks that has been made in the last four years. not only has more progress been made, we went way backward as a

country and so many different ways, from woke to all of the other things that took place. you look at afghanistan, how embarrassing that was. afghanistan really started the problem with russia and ukraine. when putin saw incompetently that was handled. i was going to get out, but i was going to keep bagram. i was going to keep one of the biggest airbases in the world. other than bagram i was going to get out. i was not keeping bagram for afghanistan. i was keeping it for china because it is one hour away from where china makes its nuclear weapons. we have a lot of great things happening in our country. i am really thrilled about doug and his friend chris right, who is a legend in the oil business. they keep telling me he's like a legend. he is a legend too in a lot of businesses. we have an amazing group of

people working with us. the man behind me became a tremendous success. was not a wealthy man. he ended up a wealthy man. that is a great talent. he's willing to sacrifice so much to put it to work for our country. watch the job he does on the interior, but in particular on making our country very wealthy by utilizing it properly. at the same time environmentally he is very much an environmentalist. he will do it painstakingly good. you watch what happens. working with the department of energy, his compatriot, his friend and considered the most talented man in the oil business is the head of the department of energy. it really is a partnership. watch what that does for our country. it will be a fantastic thing to see. thank you very much, everybody.

[chatter] >> thanks, guys. >> this afternoon, theational transportation safety board gave an update on the iestigation into wednesday's midair collision between a military helicopter and passenger jet outside of reagan airport in washington dc. we will have that update live on c-span. you can watch on the c-span now video app or online at c-span.org. ♪ american history tv, saturdays on c-span2. exploring the people and events that tell the american story. this weekend at 3:00 p.m. eastern, we will bring you the military commissioning ceremony for harriet tubman, given posthumously by the maryland national guard. at 5:30 p.m. eastern, michael tackett looks back on the legacy of senator mitch mcconnell, w ho

stepped down as republican lead at the end of the 118th ngress. and at 7:00 p.m eastern, american history tv begins a new series looking at the first 100 days of past presidential terms. this week we focus on the early months of president washington's first term in 1789, including the establishment of the office of the president, the formation of a cabinet, and first judicial appointments. at 8:00 p.m. eastern, college of william and mary lecturer amy stallings discusses the history of the 1607 jamestown settlemen in virginia and efforts to preserve and remember the first permanent english settlement in the americas. exploring the american story, watch american history tv saturdays on c-span2 and find a full schedule on your program guide or watch online at c-sp.o/history.

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