CrystalRaindrops — 11 months ago(April 29, 2025 05:18 AM)

https://time.com/7280114/donald-trump-2025-interview-transcript/
Excerpts:
TIME: We’d love to come back to immigration but maybe start with the economy. Obviously an issue you campaigned on as well. You promised that you would immediately bring down prices and usher in a golden age of America. The prices of gas and eggs have gone down, but the cost of other things remain—
Trump: The prices of groceries have gone down. The only price that hasn't gone down is the price of energy. The cost of energy, I'm sorry, well, energy has gone down, excuse me. Let me change that—is the interest rates. And interest rates have essentially stayed the same. But almost every other thing, I mean, you take a look at what's going on, and this is, we're taking in billions of dollars of tariffs, by the way. And just to go back to the past, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs from China, and then when COVID came, I couldn't institute the full program, but I took in hundreds of billions, and we had no inflation.
lol, "I inherited eggs."
TIME: 401ks are down. The Atlanta Fed says our economy is contracting -2.2% during quarter one.
Trump: Well, they may have said that, but so far, they've been, I mean, I've been right. If you look at all of the years that I've been doing this, I've been right on things. You're gonna—you're gonna have the wealthiest country we've ever had, and you're gonna have an explosion upward in the not-too-distant future. You know, I've been here now for three months, and I inherited eggs, I inherited groceries, I inherited energy. It was all going through the roof. And we had the highest inflation we've ever had as a country, or very close to it. And I believe it was the highest ever. Somebody said it's the highest in only 48 years. That's a lot, too, but I believe we had the highest inflation we've ever had. I've been here now for three months. And three months, we are taking in billions and billions of dollars from other countries that we never took in before. And that's just the start.
TIME: Will you call President Xi if he doesn’t call you?
Trump: No.
TIME: You won’t?
Trump: Nope.
TIME: Has he called you yet?
Trump: Yep.
TIME: When did he call you?
Trump: He's called. And I don't think that's a sign of weakness on his behalf.
TIME: But you would think it’s a sign of weakness if you called him?
Trump: I don’t–I just look—
TIME: Well, what did he say?
Trump: If people want to–well, we all want to make deals. But I am this giant store. It's a giant, beautiful store, and everybody wants to go shopping there. And on behalf of the American people, I own the store, and I set prices, and I'll say, if you want to shop here, this is what you have to pay.
TIME: You were harshly critical of what you called the weaponization of the Justice System under Biden. You recently signed memos—
Trump: Well, sure, but you wouldn’t be—if this were Biden, well, first of all, he wouldn't do an interview because he was grossly incompetent.
TIME: We spoke to him last year, Mr. President.
Trump: Huh?
TIME: We spoke to him a year ago.
Trump: How did he do?
TIME: You can read the interview yourself.
Trump: Not too good. I did read the interview. He didn't do well. He didn't do well at all. He didn't do well at anything. And he cut that interview off to being a matter of minutes, and you weren't asking him questions like you're asking me.
TIME: You recently said you were “not joking” about seeking a third term and that there were methods to do it. What methods?
Trump: I'd rather not discuss that now, but as you know, there are some loopholes that have been discussed that are well known. But I don't believe in loopholes. I don't believe in using loopholes.
TIME: You wouldn’t run as vice president to J.D. Vance?
Trump: I don’t know anything about, what, look, all I can say is this, I am being inundated with requests. I'm doing a good job. Great physical exam, and unlike every other president, I took the cognitive test and I aced it 100% and I bet you guys couldn't get 100% on that exam. It's a tough exam. You know, when you get into the mid questions, it gets to be pretty tricky and pretty tough, and the last questions are very tough, and I aced it. And I guarantee, I'd give you, I'd make a big, beautiful bet that you guys couldn't ace it. But anyway. But look, it's good to have you, it’s a very nasty interview. They don’t ask any of the good things.