The following is an edited transcript of an interview between Daily Wire Editor Emeritus Ben Shapiro and former President Donald Trump on The Ben Shapiro Show.
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BEN SHAPIRO: President Donald Trump, Mr. President, it’s an honor to have you on the line. Thanks so much for joining the show, really appreciate it.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, very good, Ben. How are you doing?
SHAPIRO: Thank God, doing well. I want to start by asking you, Mr. President, what you’re hearing on the ground from North Carolina. You’ve really been criticizing the Biden-Harris administration for their response to the fallout from Hurricane Helene. You’ve obviously been on the ground in places like Georgia. What are you hearing on the ground in North Carolina?
TRUMP: Well, I was in North Carolina and I got a pretty good dose because they asked me if I could help them with Elon Musk, who’s a friend of mine and endorsed me. And I said, “Yeah, I think I can. What do you need?” And they said, ”We need the Starlink,” which is a big deal, because they had no communication whatsoever. They said that there was just no FEMA. You virtually don’t see anybody from FEMA. You’re seeing a lot of private people going around and helping, but they can’t help like FEMA could, if they did it right. And they’re very upset with what’s happening with the federal government, as you probably have also heard. It’s pretty sad, actually.
SHAPIRO: Mr. President, Kamala Harris has now been putting pressure on Ron DeSantis for some reason. She seems to want to both suggest that she’s in charge of hurricane response and also not in charge of hurricane response. So Hurricane Milton is obviously bearing down on Florida, your home state, and it’s slated to be catastrophic. But Kamala has been busy ripping Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida. She said yesterday that he was supposedly ignoring her phone calls. He’s saying he didn’t. She doesn’t head up FEMA anyway, why do you think she’s playing politics with this hurricane?
TRUMP: I think Ron’s doing a good job. I see him all over television. He’s all over the place. I left Florida last night and it was starting to get nasty already, this is going to be a big one. They’re in trouble with Helene in North Carolina, Georgia, and a lot of other places. And now you look at this one coming in and the woman doesn’t know what she’s doing. I got to watch her last night on “60 Minutes” and she answers questions like a child. This is not a president. She’s answering questions in the most basic way and getting killed over it. Every time she does an interview she sounds like a child. She sounds like a person with a very low I.Q.
SHAPIRO: Now Mr. President, you were the person in charge. When you’re the person in charge, you take the responsibility. She has been steadfastly avoiding all responsibility throughout all of this and basically throwing it off to President Biden who is not there, right? He’s been missing in action for months. It’s the reason they pulled him out of the race because you were destroying him in the race. They pulled him out because he wasn’t mentally competent. He’s still not mentally competent. But Kamala Harris has not invoked the 25th Amendment. Does she have a responsibility to invoke the 25th Amendment and oust him from office and actually take responsibility for the administration at this point?
TRUMP: Actually, now that you’re mentioning it, I think they should do a double 25th Amendment — just get ’em both out. Who’s third in line? Because it’s just terrible.
SHAPIRO: That is the Speaker, Mike Johnson.
TRUMP: The worst administration, right? No, this has got to be the worst administration ever. They both don’t know what the hell they’re doing. And by the way, she is really blaming it on him. I have some friends, obviously, over there —you’re in the White House and you have a lot of friends on both sides. But, he is so angry at her, and she’s trying to distance herself, she doesn’t want anything to do with him. It was a coup to start off with. Okay, so she’s not exactly thrilled with that. But I actually think he’d be doing as well as her. Let’s see what happens. We have to see how it rounds out. She had her honeymoon period, now she’s supposed to be doing things you’re supposed to be doing — and she’s not. She’s just doing a terrible job and she’s doing a terrible job in the storms, these hurricanes that are coming in and they are big ones. Just totally missing in action and always doing the wrong interview at the wrong time. You have to speak to people like Ben Shapiro, not the people that she’s speaking to. She’s speaking to these people about teddy bears. It’s just so bad. It’s so sad for our country.
SHAPIRO: Mr. President, this is slated to be the closest presidential race in modern American history. Every single swing state, about seven swing states right now, all polling within margin of error. Obviously, it’s all gonna come down to turnout at this point. You’re a turnout machine, you get your base out. How confident are you in your campaign’s get out the vote efforts? Because we’re hearing a lot of information on the ground — some sort of good, some not as good — about the ability to get votes out. Because Democrats are professionals at ballot harvesting and doing everything else that they can to get those ballots in, however they have to do it.
TRUMP: Well, they’re the greatest cheaters and they do cheat. We got hit with, now two hurricanes. We were leading in Florida by a lot and I suspect that it will stay that way. We have a big lead in Florida. In North Carolina, we were leading solidly, I’ve won it twice and it looked like we were going to win it reasonably easily. Today, it’s a little bit of a purplish state, I think, because you have a governor, you have a senator, you have different things that are making it purple. But I had no problem with it, I’ve always done well. Nobody can really predict what effect these storms are having. People are dying. They’re dying, and that’s more important than anything we’re talking about, actually. But, representation is very important and representation for the country is so important. We’re going so wrong. And people are dying on a national level from all different things, including the border. I can say we have a great team, we have great people. They don’t cheat. And, the other side does. You know, I was mentioning to a group yesterday, when they’re getting ready for a campaign, they start working on cheating. Remember, they spied on my campaign long before I was even assured to be in. I mean, and it’s all perfectly documented, but they spied on my campaign. It was one of the first times I heard about their ways. So we should win. And the other thing is, for whatever reason — I don’t know, good, bad, or indifferent — poll numbers haven’t been very accurate with me, and they tend to be low, like with Hillary. I was given a 3% chance, and then won quite easily. When you look at other poll numbers, I’ve tended to poll very low, and I’m leading in every poll and I’m leading all of the swing states. There are those that say, “How can anybody take this?” The incompetence of what they’re doing with the hurricanes, and we have another one coming. I think Ron’s going to do a very good job and maybe save them, but they’re not going to do anything. They’re just incompetent. She is grossly incompetent. You know, Biden was incompetent, she is equally incompetent and in a certain way, she’s more incompetent. So, I think that when you see the numbers, you may very well, Ben, see much higher numbers. A lot of people say it could be, because they go out and they see signs, they see Trump signs every single, every single house, — all over the place. And they’re saying it just doesn’t feel like it’s that close of an election. Now, I don’t know, you always have to assume you’re losing by one point, because that’s probably the best way to run. I just run right till the end. You know, I’ve worked about 28 days in a row. I have about 29 days left, whatever it may be, and I’m not taking any days off. I would feel guilty if I took a day off, okay? I would feel very — you would also, I know your work habits are right up there and you would too. But I do tend to poll much differently than the end result. If you remember the first one, where I was actually polled 17 points down in Wisconsin and I won it. You remember that? That was an ABC/Washington Post poll, two real sleaze bag organizations. They had me down two days before the election, 17 points, and I had just left 35,000 people at a rally going crazy in Wisconsin. And then, I won. And I said to a pollster, John McLaughlin actually, “How come they could do that? Why don’t they make it three or four points? At least they save credibility.” and he said, “No, three or four points, people vote. When you’re 17 points down. People say, you know what? I like Trump a lot, but we’re not going to vote.” I said, ”It’s that way?” And I never forgot it. I was 17 points down and I ended up winning Wisconsin two days later. A lot of what you see is false. It’s really, really terrible. The whole system is just a terrible system actually.
SHAPIRO: So, Mr. President, yesterday I had the honor of introducing you to the family of an American citizen currently being held hostage by Hamas in the Gaza Strip. That citizen’s name is Edan Alexander. I wanted to thank you for that. The family was very grateful to you, obviously, for taking the time to meet with them. And it was really a meaningful experience. I wonder if you wanted to say something about that family’s situation and the other families like them.
TRUMP: I thought, from a religious standpoint, it was so beautiful. I had not been that aware. As you know, I’m not Jewish, but I grew up in a Jewish neighborhood, to put it mildly. With my father being a Brooklyn builder I knew lots of Jewish people, almost exclusively if you want to know the truth. But I thought it was beautiful. He explained the whole thing and how it worked, and it was actually very beautiful, ceremonial. I got to meet the family and they were great. The young brother is very close to his brother, who’s hopefully somewhere right now — they really don’t know. It must be almost harder when they just don’t know, they’re not sure whether or not he’s alive or not alive. They think he is, but you know being alive over there now is rough stuff. Before it was rough, but now it’s probably even rougher. Whatever I can do, and you know this, whatever I can do I’ll do for them. Let’s see what happens. Maybe I’ll be able to help them and hopefully it’s resolved long before that. But I can see the family’s just going through hell. It is very, very sad to see. But they’re getting great backup from some very good people over there that you and I got to meet.
WATCH: Ben Shapiro’s full interview with former president Donald Trump
SHAPIRO: Mr. President, I wanted to ask you about your foreign policy. So, obviously, you’re the first president in my lifetime who didn’t launch any major wars, wasn’t engaged in any major wars around the world during your entire term. But, the legacy media have, of course, suggested that you’re a tool of the Russians. Kamala said yesterday that Vladimir Putin would have taken Kiev if you were president. And then some people, even on our side, seem to suggest that you’re some sort of total isolationist and want to slash the military. You and Senator Vance have said that your foreign policy is peace through strength. Can you describe what your second term foreign policy will look like?
TRUMP: Yes. Number one, he wouldn’t have taken Kiev because he wouldn’t have had a war. And you would have had the country just the way it is. I watched her interview and it was a terrible interview. Just a terrible, terrible interview that this person can be leading — she’s a very low intelligence person — and that she could be leading this country? It’s just ridiculous. She’s never going to lead the country. Now, other people around her, they’re very bad people. They’re not of our persuasion. They’re fascists and Marxists and lots of other things. I can say communists because a lot of people don’t understand a Marxist. Her father’s a Marxist. And this is what it is. Our policy is very simple: Peace through strength. We had no wars, and I’m not an isolationist, I helped a lot of countries. I kept countries out of war. We had two smaller countries, they were fighting, and they’ve been fighting for a thousand years, and they go back and forth. They were going to fight again, and kill tens of thousands of people, and I said, “Look, you do that, there’s gonna be no trade, there’s gonna be tariffs put on your head, and there’ll be no trade.” And that was for both of them.” And two days later, they call me to say that they’ve made peace. I do these things. Nobody ever even heard of it. But I had no wars. Think of it, I’m talking about in the world — the world was at peace. I did the Abraham Accords, which should have been filled in. I would have had every one of the slots filled in. Biden got none. We had the four countries: four very good ones and four tough ones. And the rest was just a fill in job. It would’ve taken place, we would’ve had total peace. And I made the statement, ’cause as you know, Iran was broke — we had no terrorism, we had no attacks, we had no Hamas problems, no Hezbollah problems. We had nothing, because Iran didn’t have the money to give to them. Because I put sanctions on and I dealt directly. To China, I said, ”If you want to buy oil from Iran, that’s fine. You can go do it. But if you do that, you’re not doing any business with the U.S. You can take your stuff out of here and we’re going to put sanctions on anything that gets through. We’re going to put tariffs and everything else, every form of tax. And other taxes on anything you do.” They took a total pass. They were by far the biggest customer, plus other countries. Iran had no money. Iran was ready to make a deal when that horrible, disgusting election took place. Biden should have made a deal. They could have made a deal. Iran was in a position. Instead, he gave them billions and billions of dollars. He took off the sanctions that I had. He took off everything. China started buying more oil than they ever bought before. And today, Iran has $300 billion. They had a number of kidnappings, because that’s what they were, and he paid $6 billion — $6 billion. So, he paid $11 billion for electricity for Iraq that went to Iran. They have so much money now. The man is a fool. He’s a stupid fool. And you know what I was asking for? Ben, one very simple thing: I don’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. Very simple. Everything else, you know, I want them to have a great life, I want them to be rich but I just didn’t want them to have a nuclear weapon. I would have been able to do that very easily. When Kamala and these people say about Kiev — and people call it Kiev [keyev] and they call it Kiev [keeve], I’ve always called it Kiev [keyev]. And it depends on what part of the world you come from is what I finally figured out. But when she mentions that, she’s wrong for a different reason. Russia and Putin never would have attacked Ukraine, ever, when I was there. I talked about it and it was the apple of his eye. I got along with him very well, which is a good thing, not a bad thing. And a lot of people think that’s a bad thing. No, no, that’s a great thing. He never would have attacked under any circumstances. Number one, the oil prices were much lower when I was president, so he didn’t have the money to attack. At $40 a barrel, he couldn’t attack. At $80, $90 and $100 a barrel, he made a lot of money. So, you know that, but it’s not even that reason. That was a real reason. But it’s not that reason. The reason he wouldn’t have attacked was because of me. There is zero chance that he would have attacked Ukraine today had the right thing happened in the election, and it did not. If the right thing happened, Ukraine today would be fully intact, the cities wouldn’t be bombed, and you would have had two million or three million more people living right now, a very nice life. It is so sad to see. And then, I have to listen to these people say, ”Oh, Trump, Trump’s soft on Russia.” I’m the one that exposed the Russian pipeline, Nord Stream 2,and I terminated it. It was dead. The biggest deal they’ve ever done, I terminated it. Europe to Germany and all over Europe, the biggest deal they’ve ever done, I terminated it. And by that, I was rough with the nations. I said, “Anybody buys oil, you’re not going to have U.S. protection.” They terminated the deal. It was dead. It was done. And then this very dumb person gets into office, an extraordinarily dumb person, with her, and what’s the first thing he did? Kills the keystone pipeline and approves the Russian pipeline.
SHAPIRO: Mr. President, it’s no secret the legacy media hide stories that hurt Kamala Harris. In 2020, obviously the end of the election, they hid the Hunter Biden laptop story. In the past week alone, we learned from multiple witness accounts that Doug Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, allegedly assaulted his ex-girlfriend. If that story had been about anyone even tangentially connected to your campaign, it would have been front page news every single day. Instead, it’s been buried. How do you fight a legacy media that is once again rigging the informational environment of the election?
TRUMP: Well, for some reason I got to watch “MSDNC,” which I never watched because I don’t know what happened. He was being interviewed on “MSDNC,” which is one of the worst — really a terrible, terrible group of people. And It was like a love fest — never asked him about that, never asked him about the other one, you know, he had numerous, numerous problems, never asked him about anything, saying he’s like a symbol for all men all over the world. It’s the craziest interview I’ve ever seen. If that were me, it would be the greatest story in the last five years. They make up stories about me. The New York Times is one of the most dishonest of all. I watch this New York Times and it’s a classic. Wait until you see what I’m going to do with them, you’re going to have so much fun in three, four, or five days. This is the most dishonest newspaper. They are disgusting. But the radical Left, the way they protect. Now, you could say, “Wow, that’s pretty good the way they do it.” But it’s so dishonest. We don’t have a free press — we have a very, very corrupt press, hence the name “fake news.” The problem with fake news is it’s not strong enough. I get great credit for a wonderful name at the time, but it’s worse than fake. it’s corrupt. The press is corrupt. It’s really bad in this country. It’s really bad. The hard thing to understand, if you’re driving a taxi or you’re a lawyer or accountant or anything, you don’t know — they write a story and you would assume it’s true. You don’t realize. When you’re a newsmaker like I am and you give them the story exactly as it is and they write the story and they make it exactly the opposite of what you’ve made it, you say you’re fake news, but it is worse. It really is the name fake news. I was very proud of it, but now it just isn’t strong enough. It is just so corrupt. And I call it “corrupt news.” We’re at a level now where it’s absolutely corrupt. It’s wrong. It’s just so bad. And you don’t understand why. Why wouldn’t they want to have a strong border? Why wouldn’t they want to have good elections? Why wouldn’t they want to have good schooling? So many different things. The military is bad. We have generals that do such a bad job, they never get fired. They should have been fired for what they did in Afghanistan. Everybody should have been fired. That was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country, for a period of time. And outside of the little moment, they don’t even talk about it. It was one of the worst moments. And by the way, had it not been for that, you may not have seen Putin go in. That was the final blow, when he saw how incompetent we were with Millie and these guys — because he’s grossly incompetent. 13 people died, many people injured, American hostages over there, and we gave them billions and billions of dollars worth of military equipment. Unthinkable. I rebuilt the military. I had no wars. I defeated ISIS. Remember, I started no wars. I stopped wars — Iraq, Syria. I got out of stuff. We would have been embroiled in that place forever. I got out and no casualty. It was an amazing period of time. We had no wars, Ben. We had nothing, except I inherited ISIS and I knocked them out quickly within approximately four weeks, they said it was going to take four to five years. I knocked them out in four weeks. The fact is our military — if you have the right leader — is very powerful. It’s very good. And we’ve got great people in our military. But think of it. I had no wars. Remember when Hillary Clinton during the debate said, “He will cause wars. Look at him. He will cause, he sounds like the kind of a guy…” Well, the truth is I was the kind of a guy that stopped wars. I had no wars. And just to finish, Viktor Orbán — a tough guy, smart guy, as you know he runs Hungry — he made the statement that if Trump comes back, everything will be settled. And I don’t want to say why, because he did say why, but I don’t want to sound braggadocios, but he said, “Trump was a very tough guy and nobody messed around with him.” And that included China and Russia, he said, “If he were here we would have no wars and right now the Middle East.” It is blowing up, Ukraine and Russia is getting worse and worse every day. You know Ben, I’ve sort of hear you say it a little bit too, but we’re closer to World War III right now than we ever were. We have never been so close to World War III as we are right now.
SHAPIRO: Mr. President, I really appreciate the time. I can tell you, I know a lot of the foreign leaders over there who pretend publicly that they don’t want you to win, and then behind closed doors they admit that things were way better when you were president of the United States. Obviously, I’m a supporter of the campaign. We’re hoping and praying that you’ll be president again very soon. The world requires it. Mr. President, really appreciate the time.
TRUMP: Thank you very much, Ben. Talk to you soon.
SHAPIRO: Terrific. Thank you, sir.
