it but we collect it now. so we're doing very well in our situation with china, on trade. i have a great relationship with the president of china. president xi, but it's got to be a two-way street. for 25 years and longer, it was not. and trillions and trillions of dollars was taken out of the united states for the benefit of china. we just can't have that. we have to make it fair. so we're at $250 billion now at 25% interest, and a lot of money is coming into our coffers, and it's had no impact on our absolutely, by the way, no impact on our economy, which i said it wouldn't. in fact, steel is like the hottest industry there is. if you look at what happened with steel, charging a 25% tariff for the dumpers. they dump massive amounts of steel, want to put the steel companies out of business, and after they're out of business,

they'll charge five times more than you ever thought possible, and we need steel and we need aluminum and those industries are doing well but steel is incredible. u.s. steel is opening up a minimum of eight plants, new corp is opening up new plant, $750 million and a billion-dollar plants. what's happening with the steel industry is very exciting to me. it's being rebuilt overnight. if you look the the miners in coal, lng, japan gave numbers that are incredible. they are doubling the amount they're buying for japan. they're taking the lng and they're doubling it up. i said you have to do me a favor, we don't want the big deficits. you have to buy more. they're buying massive amounts of equipment and military equipment and other count rears

doing the same thing, we have trade imbalances with almost everybody. it's a rare exception that we don't. unfortunately they raised interest rates, i'm not happy about that. because i know it's going to be a question. i am not happy about that. i'd rather pay down debt or do other things, create more jobs. so i'm worried about the fact that they seem to like raising interest rates. we can do other things with the money, but they raised them, and they raised them because they're doing so well. much better than projected, in terms of campaigning, i said we're going to do this and doing much better than anybody ever thought possible, and i will say if others got in, it would have been just the opposite, they were going to put restrictions on. regulations on. they were going to choke the

economy as it was choking but would have been worse and they want to raise your taxes. i don't think they'll have control for a long time. so with that being said, we'll take some questions and, yes, please. john, go ahead. we have plenty of time. reporter: mr. president, thank you very much. of course, looking forward to tomorrow with the hearings for judge kavanaugh before the judiciary committee. in 1991 when joe biden passed along to the bush 41 white house the allegations that anita hill raised against clarence thomas, the bush white house asked the fbi to look into it as part of judge thomas' background investigation. not a criminal investigation but a background investigation. >> right. reporter: when these allegations were raised, why didn't this white house do the same thing, and with all of the allegations that are coming out now about judge kavanaugh, was there an opportunity missed here to have investigators look

into this and get some sort of clarity one way or the other? . >> the fbi told us they've investigated judge kavanaugh six times, five times, many times over the years. they know him very well, but here there was nothing to investigate from at least one standpoint. they didn't know the location. they didn't know the time. they didn't know the year. they didn't know anything. and it's like where do you go? also it's not for the fbi. if you look at what joe biden said. he said they don't do this and he said it very clearly. so i think when you really look at it all, it's not going to change any of the democrats' minds. they're obstructionists. they're actually con artists because they know how quality this man is and destroyed a man's reputation and they want to destroy it even more. i think people are going to see that in the mid terms. what they've done to the family, these children, beautiful children of his and what they've done to his wife,

and they know it's a big fat con job, and they go into a room and i guarantee you they laugh like hell what they pulled off on you and the public. they laugh like hell. so it wouldn't have mattered if the fbi came back with the cleanest score, and you understand that, very well, john. if they would have come back with the most perfect, we found everything and he's perfectly innocent of everything, it wouldn't have made a difference, you wouldn't have gone the one vote. now we will get votes from the democrats if we win. you'll have three, four or five democrats giving us, because they're in states i won by 30 or 40 points and they're going to give us that. reporter: mr. president, there are now three women accusing judge kavanaugh of sexual misconduct, are you saying all

three of those women are liars? is there anything that can be said between now and tomorrow that could cause to you withdraw the nomination? >> i won't get into that game. i only tell you this. this is one of the highest quality people that i've ever met, and everybody that knows him says the same thing. and these are all false, to me. these are false accusations in certain cases and certain cases even the media agrees with that. i can only say that what they've done to this man is incredible. you know, it's very interesting. i pick a lot of judges, i have 145 judgesil be picking by the end of a fairly short period of time because president obama wasn't big on picking judges. when i got there i said how is this possible? i have 145 including court of appeals judges. and they just didn't do it.

you know why? they got tired. they got complacent. something happened. i have 145 judges. everybody wants to be a federal judge. not just a supreme court judge. i'm talking about court of appeals. i'm talking about district court. i don't think they're going to want to so much. i'll be calling people and we'll have people calling people that do this, and people are going to be scared because we could say it about you. 35 years ago, and you might not know what's going on. what is going on? why did they wait so long? why did senator fine stein wait until the hearings are over and make this case? why didn't she bring it right at the beginning when you ask about, as an example, the fbi. why didn't they bring it at the beginning, during the hearing. you would have had all the time in the world for the fbi. the fbi did investigate this time, as they have five or six

other times, and they did a very thorough investigation, but this is a big con job, and i would love to be in the room with the democrats, close the door, you guys are waiting, and schumer and his buddies are all in there laughing how they fooled you all. let's just stop them, a big fat con. go ahead. reporter: if i could follow up. have you daughters. can you understand why a victim of sexual assault would not report it at the time? don't you understand? >> by the way, i only say this. 36 years. no charge, no nothing. reporter: it happens often. >> people are going to have to make a decision. 36 years, there's no charge. all of a sudden, the hearings are over, and the rumors start coming out and then you have this other con artist avenatti coming out with another beauty today.

i only say that you have to look at the facts. the senators very capable people. they're very good people. i know many of them, they're friends of mine. these are very talented, very good people, and they're going to vote. they're going to have believe to what they believe. when i look at what's happened to the reputation of a great gentleman, a great intellect. a brilliant man, somebody that has a chance to be one of our great supreme court justices in history intellectually, i think it's a shame. yes, please. reporter: mr. president, my name is tomas from radio and tv, at the speech at the u.n., you spoke about how venezuela's problem was because of cuba and the castros and how they brought socialism and communism to venezuela and now nicaragua as well. mr. president, are you going to be more proactive now against cuba as well? >> i'm being very proactive

against cuba. i don't like what's happening against cuba. president obama gave them a pass, and i didn't like it. neither do cuban people, based in miami and based in our country that came from cuba and suffered in cuba. i don't like what he did. i've ended much of it, most of it. i don't like what's happening in cuba, and i certainly don't like what's happening in venezuela. yes, go ahead. reporter: to finish really fast, you said always you had a call to action to ask the leaders around the world to also end socialism. would you like to be recognized -- >> i wouldn't say that socialism has been working really well around the world. you can take a look at venezuela as your number one, the one that's most obvious, but take a look around the world. socialism is not exactly riding high. please. go ahead. reporter: thank you very much. if you don't mind, after i'm

finished, if we or halle or vivian or female colleagues could go after me, this would be great. to follow up on the allegations oo. >> what does he mean by that? reporter: it would be great -- >> what does it mean? reporter: it would be great if a female reporter would ask you a question about the issue. >> i wouldn't mind that at all, no. wouldn't make any difference to me. go ahead. reporter: i could follow up on john and john's question, why is it, mr. president, you always seem to side with the accused and not the accuser. you have three women all making allegations, all asking that their stories be heard, and if you look at the case of roy moore, if you look at the case of one of your staffers, you seem to, time and again, side with the accused and not the accuser. is that because of the many allegations that you've had made against you over the years? >> first of all, i wasn't happy

with roy moore. let's get that straight. but roy moore. reporter: you stood by him. >> he was a republican candidate, and rather have had a republican candidate win. i was very happy with luther strange. he was a terrific man from alabama, but luther strange had a lot of things going against him. as far as women, whether it's a man or a woman, it can happen the other way, allegations can get on other way also, you understand that. and whether it was a man or a woman, 30 years ago, 36 years ago, in fact, they don't even know how many years ago because nobody knows what the time is. that's a long time. and i could pick, as an example, hopefully i won't have to do it as a replacement because hopefully this is going to go very well on thursday, monday, saturday or sunday or whenever they vote, but i could pick a woman, and she could have charges made from many

years ago also. and i would look at the character -- >> reporter: reluctant to come forward, you raised doubts of the accusers. >> i don't think people are reluctant to come forward. they're going to have a chance to speak. they have a major -- excuse me, excuse me. they have a major chance to speak, and it will be tomorrow, i assume. we've delayed this, meaning the republican senators, not me. the republican senators have delayed this for weeks now. they're giving the women a major chance to speak. now it's possible i'll hear that and i'll say hey, i'm changing my mind, that is possible. we want to give them a chance to speak. reporter: giving all three to have a chance? >> well, whoever is given a chance. we've delayed it a long time. but they're going to have a big shot at speaking and making their case. i could be persuaded also,

okay? yes, please. go ahead. go ahead. i'd like to go -- yes, go ahead, please. reporter: thank you, mr. president. a couple of questions for you to follow up on some answers they didn't quite hear from you. first of all, do you think these women, all three of them are liars, yes or no? >> have they been what? reporter: are they liars? >> i can't tell you. i have to read, watch, i just heard about one a little while ago. i can tell you her lawyer is a low life. i don't know what happened today because i've been very busy with japan, china, south korea and seven other countries and chaired the security council. so i don't know about today's person that came forward. i do know about the lawyer, and you don't get much worse, bad reputation to take a look at his past. so as far as the other women are concerned, i'm going to see what happens tomorrow. i'm going to be watching. believe it or not.

i'm going to see what's said. it's possible that they will be convincing. now with all of that being said, judge brett kavanaugh has been, for many years, one of the most respected people in washington. he's been on, i guess you'd call it the second highest court, and every single person knows him. lot of people know him well, and those people don't know what's going on. i have to be convinced. reporter: sounds like there is a situation, a scenario under which you would withdraw brett kavanaugh's nomination. is that correct? >> if i thought he was guilty of something like this. reporter: you will wait until tomorrow to make up your mind. >> i want to watch and see, i hope i can watch. i'm meeting with a lot of countries but certainly some form be able to watch, and i will rely on very fair and talented republican senators, who -- look, if we brought

george washington here, and we said we have george washington, the democrats would vote against him, just so you understand. and he may have had a bad past. who knows? he may have had some -- i think accusations made. didn't he have a couple things in his past? george washington would be voted against, 100% by schumer and the con artists. 100%. 100%, so it doesn't matter from their standpoint. when john asked about the fbi, if the fbi did the most thorough investigation in the history of the fbi and found him to be 100% perfect, he would lose every single vote. now, if the republicans win tomorrow, i think you're going to get votes from the democrats, you know why? because we all know why, it's called politics, then you will probably get votes. reporter: one more question. she said i'd like to ask three questions, should i let her ask another question? go ahead. reporter: follow up on a

question a colleague asked about the benefit of the doubt have you given to people like roy moore, to roger ailes, to bill o'reilly, brett kavanaugh. they are all men. why is that? >> it's not a benefit of the doubt. haley, i've known them for a long time. a lot of these people. a lot of people, and some i've been disappointed with, i have been disappointed with. others, you know, there are charges that are pretty weak, but i've known people for a long time. i never saw them do anything wrong. i never saw them do anything wrong. and there are some i probably agree. i can tell you there's some i've been watching for a long time, and in a couple of cases they weren't republicans, and a lot of cases they were not, they were exactly the opposite but i've been watching them for a long time, and i knew for a long time these were not good people and they were never brought up. okay. yes, ma'am. go ahead. thank you very much, by the

way. thank you. reporter: thank you very much, mr. president. when the allegations first surfaced, you initially said how important it was for dr. ford to testify and that you wanted to hear from her. >> i do. i wish it could have gone quicker. reporter: but you also said if what she said were as bad as she claims, surely her or her parents would have reported it. >> there is a truth. there is a chance her parents could have reported it 36 years ago. reporter: so my question is -- >> doesn't mean they had to report it because in some instances people keep it quiet, it's a very tough situation for a woman. no question about it. and in some cases they do report it. frankly had they reported it, it would have been pretty amazing, wouldn't it? but i guess they didn't, and that's okay. i'm not saying they had to report it because it's a very personal thing, it's a very big problem. there's no question about it. reporter: do you want to hear her story? >> i'd like to hear her story.

reporter: or have you made up your mind? >> they would have begin her time last week. this is the united states senate. this is the most important position that a president can give out. i think we can say by far. i've heard it's the most important decision a president can make. i disagree with that. war and peace. i always say war and peace, and after that, supreme court justice, right? i look forward to hearing from her. we could have heard from her last week. we could have heard from her for a long time. it will be interesting to hear what she has to say, okay? reporter: let me follow up on jim's question, on jim's question that i don't think we got an answer to. >> which question? reporter: how are your personal experiences -- >> i've been accused, false accusations. excuse me, i've been accused, and i was accused by, i believe it was four women, you can

check with sean hannity, you can check with fox, they covered it strongly -- excuse me. i was accused by four or five women who got paid a lot of money to make up stories about me. we caught them, and the mainstream media refused to put it on television. they refused even write about it. there were four women and maybe more, i think the number is four or five, but one had a mortgage paid off her house, $52,000. another one had other things happen. and the one that reported it, i believe was offered $750,000 to say bad things about me, and she's the one that reported it. this woman is incredible. she reported it instead of taking the money. so i've had numerous accusations about me. reporter: right. >> they made false statements about me. knowing they were false. i never met them. i never met these people.

and what did they do? what did they do? they took money in order to say bad things. i've had stories written in the "new york times," front page, four big pictures, i said wow, that's a big thing. what's that? these were women that were quoted saying bad things about me. not the worst things about me but bad things, and i said gee, that's too bad, i knew them a long time ago, 15, 20 years ago, that's too bad, surprised at them and see them on television, nothing do with me. the next day or day later. they were incensed. they said donald trump is a nice guy. we never said this. the "new york times" did false reporting. they're fake news. and you know what? the "new york times" would not report that their story was fake. these women said great things, not only did they not say the bad stuff, they said great

things about me. front page. and those women, incredible women. they went on television, and they didn't want to, and i didn't ask them, and they said the "new york times" made it up. they gave false quotes. and they went on a lot of shows, they were incensed and couldn't believe it. that's why people know that a lot of the news is fake, and a lot of the people sitting here are fake, but 20% of them are wonderful. okay? reporter: if i could actually ask my question, mr. trump, you didn't let me ask my question. you've been asking a question for ten minutes, please sit down. how did those impact your opinions on the allegations? >> it does impact my opinion, you know why? i've had a lot of false charges made against me. i'm a very famous person, unfortunately. i've been a famous person for a long time. but i've had a lot of false charges made against me. really false charges. i've known friends that had false charges.

people want fame. they want money, they want whatever. so when i see it, i view it differently than somebody sitting home watching television, where they say judge kavanaugh this or. that it's happened to me many times. i've had many false charges. i had a woman sitting in an airplane and i attacked her while people are coming onto the plane and i have a number one best-seller out? there are many of them. when i say does it affect me in terms of my thinking with respect to judge kavanaugh, absolutely, because i've had it many times, and if the news would have reported these four people, i couldn't believe it. when i heard this they caught these four people, i said wow, that's a big story, and it was for fox. okay. reporter: thank you, mr. president. earlier today and just now, you made a significant allegation against the chinese government. >> i did. reporter: meddled in or are

meddling in. >> that's what i hear, that's what i hear. reporter: what evidence do you have of that, sir? >> we have evidence, we have evidence. it will come out. i can't tell you now, it didn't come out of nowhere. that i can tell you. they've actually admitted they're going after farmers. i think most of you can cover that i -- i like that you're shaking your head yes, going to ask you the next question because of that, probably the killer of all questions. reporter: why aren't you coming forward with the evidence, sir? >> china is paying 25% on that. paying billions and billions. this has never happened to china. and i like china, and i like president xi a lot. i think he's a friend of mine, may not be a friend of mine known, i think he probably respects. from what i hear, if you look at mr. pillsbury, the leading authority of china. he was on a good show, i won't

mention the name the show, and said china has total respect for donald trump and for donald trump's very, very large brain. he said donald trump, they don't know what to do. never happened. one thing they are trying to do is trying to convince people to go against donald trump, because a normal regular political person that has no concept what the hell he's doing would let china continue to take $500 billion a year out of our country and rebuild their country. they were building 29 massive bridges like the george washington national bridge. they're building things that we don't build anymore, but starting to build them again, and our economy is hotter than it's ever been. i don't know if you saw the confidence levels this morning that just came out. fantastic, and in all fairness to the fed raising rates, they're raising rates because we've never done like we're

doing now. and one the things is that is nice about the rates. when president obama had the worst comeback since the great depression, remember, he was playing with zero interest money. funny money. that's easy. i'm playing with fairly expensive money. so when he does that, the people that benefit are people that actually, in their whole life, they would save, 10, 15, 20% in the bank. those people got killed because they put money in the bank, they were going to live off the interest and there was no interest. now those people are starting to get interest, and those are the people, frankly, that deserve to -- they did a great job. people that did it right. people that did the best job got hurt the most. in one sense i like, it but basically i'm a low interest rate person, i hate to tell you. yes, ma'am. go ahead. reporter: mr. president, have you another meeting tomorrow

with rod rosenstein. >> yes. reporter: are you planning to fire rod rosenstein? >> i'm talking to him. we've had a good talk. he said he never said it, doesn't believe it. he said he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice and we'll see. he's a member of the trump administration in that sense, the justice department. i would certainly prefer not doing that. there was no collusion, no obstruction, unless you call obstruction the fact they fight back. i fight back, i really do fight back. if you call that obstruction, that's fine. but there's no obstruction, there's no collusion. i'm going to meet with him tomorrow. i may call rod tonight or tomorrow and ask for a little bit of a delay to the meeting, because i don't want to do anything that gets in the way of this very important supreme court pick. so i don't want it competing and hurting the decision one way or the other decision.

again, i want to hear what she has to say. but i may delay that. i'm going to see. i don't want to do anything that's going to conflict with that. but my preference would be to keep him, and to let him finish up. you know i call it a witch-hunt, and it is a witch-hunt. if you with strzok and his lover, lisa page and all the things that have gone on in the fbi, if you look at mccabe, taking $700,000 from a hillary clinton pac essentially run by terry mcauliffe who is their best friend in the world and he gives them hundreds of thousands of dollars and he is in charge of her campaign and his wife is getting all of this money to run, she lost, to run. i mean, what's going on? if you look at the horrible statements like, way to go, page, great story you put into a newspaper, essentially now we'll go and investigate that group.

it's terrible. we have caught people doing things that are terrible. i would much prefer keeping rod rosenstein, much prefer. many people say i have the right to absolutely fire him had. he said he did not say it. he said he does not believe that. and nobody in this room believes it. by the way i deal with the people in it room. i was with mike pompeo before. we were dealing at a very high level with japan. and i was saying things nobody in the room even understood, i said them a long time ago, and i was right. he said that is not the 25th amendment that i'm looking at. i think i can say that from mike. >> so you don't anyone in your administration has ever discussed the, using the 25th amendment against you? >> i don't think so. enemies, sure. >> anybody in the administration or your cabinet. >> they use anything they can. they're not in love with me. they're not going to beat me in the election, they know that.

the people i'm looking at are total lightweights. i dream of running against those people. maybe that he will come up with somebody that is not. they will not beat me. i'm against what they want to do. i'm in favor of law enforcement. i'm in favor of safety and security and low taxes. i want low taxes. i want borders. we're getting another 1.6 billion in borders. i want borders. we've spent 3.2, we're getting another 1.6. eventually we'll get the whole thing and we'll complete the wall. they don't want that. they don't want that. they don't want the things that i have. now, i must say, i know many of the democrats. they will say things and then wink at me. and again it is the same old story. they will say things, they don't mean it. it is politics. the reason they don't want me is because they want to run the show. they want it. it is power, whatever you want to call it. but, what they have done here is

a disgrace. a total disgrace. and what they do, i know, it is sort of interesting. in one case they say, he is a fascist, he is taking over the government. he is the most powerful president ever, he is horrible human being, he will take over the entire government, we can't stop it. that didn't work. the next week he said, he is incompetent. wait a minute, i'm taking over the world. and in the other case he is incompetent. they tried that for a week. that didn't work. look, these are very dishonest people of the these are con artists and the press knows it but the press doesn't write it. wow, that is a lot of hands. that is a lot, steve, go ahead. he is very high quality person, this man but he probably hit me with a bad one. go ahead, if i have it to me. give it to me, steve. reuters. >> getting letters from chairman kim. why do you need a second summit with the north korean leader so

soon? >> because he would like it? >> what would it be for? >> i received two letters from chairman kim. at some point i will give these letters. they're incredible letters. they are letters that are magnificent in the sense of, his feeling for wanting to get this done. i really believe he wants to get it done. may may be wrong. i heard somebody on certain network, i won't mention which one, why has president trump given so much to north korea. i said wait a minute. i asked sarah huckabee, please call these person, i gave them nothing, other than i met. what did i give them? i didn't do what obama did, give them $1.8 billion in cash to get back four hostages. i got back our hostages. i never made them anything. i professor paid testimony 10 cents. he wants to make a deal. i want to make a deal. we have different relationship, different than the last type at united nations. that was a little bit rough.

don't forget that time, they said trump is saying these horrible things, he will get us into a war. you're going to have a war if i wasn't elected you would be in a war and president obama essentially said the same thing. he was ready to go to war. you would have had a war you would have lost millions, not thousands, millions of people. seoul has 30 million people, 40 miles and 30 miles from this very dangerous border. if i wasn't elected you would have had a war. president obama thought you had to go to war. you know how close he was to pressing trigger for war? millions of people, with me, nobody is talking about that. nobody is talking about that. we have a very good relationship. he likes me, i like him. we get along. he wrote me two of the most beautiful letters. when i showed one of the letters, just one, to prime minister abe, he said this is actually a ground-breaking letter. it is an incredible -- it is a

historic letter. and it's a historic letter. it is a beautiful, a beautiful piece of art and i think we'll make a deal. will we make a deal, steve, i don't really know. but i think meantime, i said it, i don't want to bore you, no rockets, no missiles, no nuclear tests. you know for over a year you haven't seen. before i got here everybody in this room thought you were going to war. and then what happened was funny. they said he was terrible. he was so rough with chairman kim, kim jong-un. he was so rough. it's terrible. will cause -- well i had a great meeting with president putin. and on that one they said, he was too soft with president putin. had a great meeting with president putin. lasted for two hours. we discussed everything, ukraine, syria, israel and israel's protection. we had a great meeting. they wanted me to end up in a

boxing match. you know what? if i was killer tough with president putin, they would have said he was too tough. you can't win with these people. you keep going. meantime we're doing well. go ahead. >> wait a second. >> how long sudden it take north korea to denuclearization? we've seen estimates one year, two year -- >> i don't want to get into the time game. i told mike pompeo. don't get into the time game. we stopped then, they're taking down plants, taking down a lot of different testing areas. they will take down more. you will hear about that very soon. i don't want to go ahead of myself. you will be hearing about it soon. they have no interest right now testing nuclear. we had a case just about, when i was coming into office, you will remember it, where there was a massive, they thought it was an earthquake. a mountain moved over an inch 1/2, we're talking about mountains. north korea is very mountainous, beautiful land, beautiful. this mountain it actually shifted, it shifted.

somebody thought it was an earthquake. then somebody found out no, it was nuclear testing. shifting, talking about serious stuff, serious size. when i came in and certainly before i came in, and even at the beginning of mine, because what i was having rhetorical contest earlier i guess you could call it with chairman kim which we both smile at now, we laugh at but everybody thought that was a horrible thing. we have had many presidents unable to do figure, anything at all with north korea. we now have a good relationship. we have a good relationship. and most importantly, all of the things that you have been hearing about the horror stories, in my opinion they're gone. now could they start up again? yes. i'm a deal guy. could they start? yeah. could be we don't work it out. i think, i have it right here, i think that what we've done behind the scenes which nobody

really knows about, i don't blame you for not knowing about, personal letters, private letters, but saying they want to get it done. we know much more than the media for a change, much more. but if you saw what's going on behind the scenes i think you would be very impressed. we were a country going to war. i really believed that president obama would admit he said it is by far his biggest problem. when i sat with him prior to going to office, going into office he said to me that's by far the biggest problem. and he said to me that he was very close to going no war. and millions of people, you know, they say thousands of people, not thousands, millions of people would have been killed and that could have left right next to china -- that could have been a world war very easily. right now we're in a great position. i don't want to play the time game. i told mike pompeo, don't let

them do that to you. i haven't given anything. and all of sudden we got back a few weeks ago, we were back like 2 1/2 months from the summit, which was a great success, and people are screaming, what's taking so long? oh, i get it, you have to understand the media. i've been dealing with the media all my life too much, too much. they're screaming and our guys, not mike, but our guys were being well we are working as fast, i said i got all the time in the world. i don't have to rush it. there is no, you know cessation of sanctions. we got the sanctions on. i didn't take any sanctions off. i did see a reporter last night, i a guy i liked personally a lot, and he asked a question to president moon of south korea, he said why did the president give so much? i didn't give anything. i gave nothing. what have i given, other than some time, yes. i flew to singapore. we had a meeting.

now, giving would be if i took the sanctions off. i didn't want to do, if you asked general mattis for a year-and-a-half, i said, why don't we stop these ridiculous, in my opinion, military games. i call them the military games. if i told you how much those gapes cost, and frankly i told south korea, you should be paying for these games. we pay for them. we fly the planes short distance away. where is that? guam. how long of a trip is that. seven hours. great. we're flying massive bombers in. i wanted to stop them for a long time. i consider that an asset. for the taxpayer we're saving a fortune. if we need them we can start them up immediately. if we need them i will start them before the generals start them. the reporter said that, what have we done? i haven't given anything. really on to the cusp, i think

we're going to do something very important. we're not playing the time game, if it takes two years, three years, or five months, doesn't matter. there is no nuclear testing and no testing of rockets. yes, ma'am, go ahead. go ahead, please. this is the one that was nodding with every nice thing i said. so watch this question. >> habit of mine. >> with who? >> hannah from sky news. >> good, sky news. congratulations on the purchase. [laughter]. >> nothing to do with me. >> i hope you benefited. go ahead. reporter: are you at all concerned at the message being sent to the women who are watching this, when you use language like, con job in relation -- >> i have used much worse language in my life than con job. that is probably the nicest phrase i ever used. con job. it's a con job. you know confidence. it's a confidence job, it is a

con job by the democrats. they know it. port what about the message being sent -- >> like the russia investigation. they were trying to convince people i had something to do with russia. there is no collusion. think of it, i'm in wisconsin, michigan, gee we're not doing well. i won both those states. i'm not doing well, let me call the russians to help. does anybody really believe that? it's a con job? i watched these guys, little adam schiff, all the guys. stuart: take a call from russian, turned out to be a faker. why is he taking a call from a russian. senator warner took a call from a russian. he was comedian or something. but we have pictures of president trump. oh, where can i get them. if we ever did that it would be a big deal. it's a con job. and it is not a bad term. it is not a bad term at all.

i'll tell you one thing i can say, i have had a lot of people talking about this to me with respect to what's happening because it's a horrible precedent. i'm going to have to get other judges and other supreme court judges possibly. i could have a lot of supreme court judges, more than two. and when i called up brett kavanaugh, spoke to him and his family, and told them that i chose them, they were so happy and so honored, it was as though, i mean the biggest thing that ever happened. i understand that. u.s. supreme court. i don't want to be in a position where people say, no thanks, no thanks. i don't want -- you know. i spoke to somebody 38 years ago and, it may not be good. we have a country to run. we want the best talent in the world. but i'll tell you this, the people that have complained to

me about it the most, about what's happening are women. women are very angry. you know i got 52% with women. everyone said this couldn't happen. 52%. women are so angry and i frankly think that, i think they like what the republicans are doing but i think they would have liked to have seen it go a lot faster. but give them their day in court. let her have her day in court. let somebody else have a day in court. but the ones that i find, i mean i have men that don't like it. but i have women that are incensed at what's going on. i have always said women are smarter than men. i've said that a lot. and i mean it. but women, women are incensed at what is going on. yes, go ahead. go ahead. go ahead in the back. who are you, where are you from? yeah, you.

[laughter]. he looked like he is shocked. this is going to be not good. guy looks totally like stunned. have you ever been picked before for a question? >> yes, sir. not from the president of the united states. >> go ahead. reporter: i'm from gadam inetwork. i ask you -- >> you said where from where? reporter: from the northern iraq. i'm a kurd. >> good. great people. reporter: thank you, sir. >> great people. reporter, are you a kurd. they're great people. they are good fighters. reporter: you always support your allies. kurds after the defeat of isis are under a lot of pressure in syria and rack by many adversaries. >> that's true. reporter: what will you do to elevate the position to support them after they helped the united states defeat isis?

>> we helped them a lot. we're very friendly with them. we fought them side by side. we have defeated isis essentially a short while ago in the middle east and we did it with a lot of help from the kurds. they are, great fighters. some people are great fighters. some people aren't. the kurds are great fighters and great, great people. we're discussing that situation exactly right now. reporter: what will you do to support them? >> i'm telling you we're going to be discussing that situation. we have already started discussing that situation but we have had tremendous support from the kurds in defeating isis. reporter: about syria, sir -- >> yes, go. uh-oh. you don't need it. reporter: mr. president, susan li from fox business. did you reject a one-on-one meeting with canadian prime minister, justin trudeau? reporter: why? >> his tariffs are too high. he doesn't want to move. i told him forget about it. we're thinking about taxing cars coming in from canada, that is the mother load, the big you

know. we're unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of canada. we don't like their representative very much. they have taken advantage -- i love canada by the way. i have so many friends. i have everybody, some friends but that has nothing to do with this. i'm representing the united states. mexico was totally, i mean they were great. by the way, new president has been great. the deal is done. now it has to go through congress a lot of things have to happen. we've done -- bob lighthizer is here someplace. where is bob? bob lighthizer has done a great job of negotiating as they have. but the deal is done. with congress, but canada has treated us very badly. they have treated our farmers in wisconsin and new york state, and a lot of other states very badly. dairy products, 300%. 300%. how do you sell a dairy product at 300%? the answer is you don't. what it is is a bear yes.

it is basically saying we don't have barriers. it is 300% you don't send it in because you can't compete. canada has a long way to go. i must be honest with you we don't think we're getting along with their negotiators. their negotiators are taking advantage of our country for a wrong time. they had people that didn't know what they were doing. over the last five or six years, if you average it out we had $800 billion a year in trade losses. it is ridiculous. it is not going to happen. reporter: sir, mr. president, nafta, what does that mean for nafta? will you be pulling out of nafta? >> i don't like nafta. i never liked it. it has been bad for the united states. it has been great for canada. great for mexico. reporter: will you pull out -- >> i will not use the name nafta. i refuse to use it. i have seen thousands of and plants and factories close. i seen millions of jobs lost to auto companies move.

mexico has 25% of our auto business under nafta. under our deal hate to tell you it won't happen. we will keep companies. i told mexicans, we have to keep companies. they're getting a lot also. they're getting a lot of good things. mexico made a very good deal. but with canada it is very tough. what we're doing, if we made a deal with canada, which is, you know, a good chance still but i'm not making anything near what they want to do -- reporter: are you going to notify congress we're pulling out of nafta? >> we'll call it the usmc, the united states marine corps which i love. general kelly likes it even more. where is general kelly. he likes at that. usmc, would be u.s. mexico canada. but it will be probably or possibly be just usm. it will be united states and mexico. reporter: yes or no -- >> canada will come along f canada doesn't make a deal with us, we'll make a much better deal. we'll tax cars that come in. we'll put billions and billions of dollars into our treasury and

frankly we'll be very happy because it is actually more money than you can make under any circumstance with making a deal. [shouting questions] good job. you do a very good job. really. yes, please, mr. kurd. reporter: [inaudible]. >> go ahead. reporter: thank you very much for your time, mr. president. two quickly questions. what will be the u.s. relationships with the kurds? >> thought i just answered that? reporter: against isis. >> we do get along great with the kurd. we're trying to help them a lot. don't forget that is their territory. i want to help them. what is next? they fought with us, they died with us. they died, we lost tens of thousands of kurd died fighting isis. they died for us and with us and for themselves. they died for themselves. but they're great people. and we have not for get -- we don't forget.

i don't forget what happens. some day later but i can tell you i don't forget. these are great people. okay, yes, ma'am, please. reporter: mr. president about iran, one question? what is your clear plan to stop iranian influence in iraq, in syria, and especially in -- >> i think you have seen that. i must tell you. i dent mind that question. reporter: thank you. >> no greater change other than china, unfortunately their markets dropped would you say 30% in the last four monthss right? i think i watched you recently i said that. i think it is wrong i think it is 32 but it's a lot. there is no other than maybe that but even at that, because china is a very special place. and iran is a very special place. but i think there has been no country that's changed so much as iran.

in the last six months, since i took off the horrible, horrible, iran nuclear deal as they called it, one of the dumbest deals ever made, as an example, why didn't they take care of yemen in the deal? why didn't they take care of syria in the deal? you know what kerry said the reason? it was too complicated. we gave $150 billion. 1.8 billion in cash. this whole room would be filled up with 100-dollar bills. you would need probably five rooms like this. we gave 1.8 billion in cash. why didn't we take care of yemen? why didn't we take care of syria and other -- he said because it was too complicated. well you just gave all your cards. gave them $150 billion. now yemen is a mess but it is getting better. syria is a mess. and i was responsible and i hope it stays that way, when i put out on social media a few weeks

ago about idlib province. i said don't do it. i'll tell you it happened where i was at a meeting with a lot of supporters and a woman stood up and she said, there is a province in syria with three million people. right now the iranians, the russians and the syrians are surrounding their province and they're going to kill my sister and they're going to kill millions of people in order to get rid of 25,000 or 35,000 terrorists or enemies of theirs but i think we can call them terrorists. and i said that is not going to happen. i didn't hear of idlib province. and i came back to new york. and i picked up the failing "new york times." i hate to admit it was "the new york times," but it was the failing "new york times" and i opened it up not on the front page, there was a very big story, wow, that is the same story that a woman told me i foundhard to believe, why would

anyone do that with three million people? it was being surrounded and literally the next day they were dropping bombs all over the place and perhaps kill millions of people in order to get 35,000 terrorists. and i put out on social media and elsewhere, i gave mike pompeo, john bolton, everybody these orders, don't let it happen. i said, don't let it happen. that doesn't mean they can't be selective, they can't be, you know go in and they have got to do what they have got to do with terrorists, i assume they're terrorists but don't kill millions of people. and it stopped. you saw that. nobody will give me credit. but that's okay. that's okay. because the people know. i have had more syrians thank me for that. that was four weeks ago i put that out. i said they're surrounding a city of three million people. they're going to start bombing the city.

don't let it happen. and i meant it too. i meant it. an millions of people have been saved and i gave today great credit to iran, i don't know if you heard that, i gave great credit to iran, to russia, and to syria for not doing it. now i hope it is going to be surgical, meaning go in and do -- it is lengthy and everything else. and they possibly have to do it. but i think millions of people would have been killed. and that would have been a shame and hopefully, and i have to tell you, turkey has been a big help had. turkey has been great. turkey helped us very much with that whole situation. yes? yes? reporter: thank you, mr. president. >> good, thank you very much. reporter: toughing back on iran of course this week you put out a action for other countryies to combine with america and put

pressure on iran. after meeting with world leaders this week, did you make any progress towards a potential new deal? no doesn't matter what world leaders think on iran. iran will come back to mow make a good deal, i think, maybe not. deal, you never know. but they're suffering greatly. they are having riots in every city. far greater than they were during the green period with president obama, far greater. when president obama stuck up for government and not the people. he probably would have had much different iran had he not done that. i'm sticking up for the people. i'm with the people of iran but here's a the thing, they have rampant inflation. their money is worthless. everything is going wrong. they have riots in the street. you can't buy bread. you can't do anything. it's a disaster. at some point i think they will want to come back, say, hey, are we going to do something? very simple, i just don't want them to have nuclear weapons.

that is all. is that too much to ask? i don't want them to have nuclear weapons. i want them to have a great an economy. i want them to sell so much oil, i'm not happy with opec. i told them i'm not happy with opec. we take care of all these people, we defend testimony, it wouldn't be there for two weeks if it wasn't for me and united states and much stronger armed force, because our arm ad fors are depleted. we had old equipment hey, you know better than anybody, 700 billion and 716 billion. we have most incredible new jets. we need it. not that i want to spend it. it is all jobs, all made in the united states but iran has to come back and they have to talk. and, i'm not doing this from strength or weakness. i'm just thinking at some point i think they have to come back. if you look what is going on, companies are leaving left and right. mercedes-benz just left. they're all leaving.

they don't want to be in iran. they have a choice. do they want to be with iran or do they want to be with us? we have, we picked up $10 trillion since my election. we were being caught by china. now it is going the other way. people can't believe it. people have never seen the situation with china. everything is always saying china is so great, china is so great. you don't hear that so much anymore. i love china, i think they're great. you don't hear that so much anymore. you know who is great now? we're great should we continue for a little while? it doesn't matter to me. a couple more? i don't care. "new york times." the failing "new york times." assistan -- stand up. go ahead. the "times" is failing, not you.

>> you were pointing at me. president trump: the "times," i think they will endorse me. abc, and fox, abc, cbs, nbc, the "times," they are all going to endorse me because if they don't they will go out of business. >> i work for pbs news. president trump: i know that. >> yesterday you were talking about your accomplishments at the united nations. and a lot of the leaders laughed. president trump: that's fake news and it was covered that way. i said since our election our economy has become the hottest in the world. tax reductions, regulations, confidence levels the highest levels soon to be historic. you look at black unemployment,

asian unemployment, women, 65 years, the unemployment numbers are among the best we have ever had ever. the numbers of new companies pouring into our country that nobody thought was possible. i said this, and i was in front of a group of highly professional people. people who aren't big into clapping, applauding, smiling, i heard a little rustle. our country is now stronger than ever before. i heard a little rustle. and i said it's true. i heard smiles. they weren't laughing at me. they were laughing with me. that was not laughing at me. so the fake news said people laughed at president trump. they didn't laugh at me. people had a good time with me. we were doing it together. we had a good time.

they respect what i have done. the united states is respected again. the united states was not respected. everybody was taking advantage of us from jobs and taking our companies and not paying the price. i told many of them, you are a very rich country. we protect you. without our protection you would have real problems. i said you should reimburse us for this protection. why are we protecting you. you want to know what they said? after about two minutes of talking. they agreed with me. you can ask this group of very talented people. they agreed with me. but one of them said, mr. president, nobody ever asked us for more. nobody -- nob