Trump Full Interview with David Muir | ABC News

mr president i know you're only five days in has it changed you i don't want to change too much i've had a wonderful life and wonderful success i want to make this a great success for the american people and for the people that put me in this position so i don't want to change too much i can be the most presidential person ever other than possibly the great abe lincoln all right but i can be the most presidential person but i may not be able to do the job nearly as well if i do that your predecessor used to talk often about finishing the day to get to his family upstairs the stairwells right over here to have dinner with them and i know that the first lady melania uh has a big job back in new york taking care of bears yes does it make it a lonely place for you at the end of the day no because i end up working longer and that's okay i mean i'm working long hours i mean the country has a lot of problems he says a lot of problems and president trump tonight on the controversial moves he's made already mr president i want to start we're five days in and your campaign promises i know today you plan on signing the order to build the wall correct are you going to direct u.s funds to pay for this wall will american taxpayers pay for the wall ultimately it'll come out of what's happening with mexico we're going to be starting those negotiations relatively soon and we will be in a form reimbursed by mexico which i've always said back yeah absolutely 100 so the american taxpayer will pay for the wallet first all it is is we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from mexico now i could wait a year and i could hold off the wall but i want to build the wall we have to build the wall we have to stop drugs from pouring in we have to stop people from just pouring into our country we have no idea where they're from and i campaigned on the wall and it's very important but that woe will cost us nothing but you talked uh often about mexico paying for the wall and you again say they'll pay us back mexico's president said in recent days that mexico absolutely will not pay adding that it goes against our dignity as a country and our dignity as mexicans he says david i think he has to say that he has to say that but i'm just telling you there will be a payment it will be in a form perhaps a complicated form and you have to understand what i'm doing is good for the united states it's also going to be good for mexico what are you going to say to some of your supporters who might say wait a minute i thought mexico was going to pay for this right at the start well i'd say very simply that they are going to pay for it i never said they're going to pay from the start i said mexico will pay for the wall when does construction begin as soon as we can as soon as we can physically do it we're uh for months i would say in months yeah i would say in months certainly planning is starting immediately i want to ask about undocumented immigrants who are here in this country right now they're protected as so-called dreamers the children who were brought here as you know by their parents should they be worried that they could be deported and is there anything you can say to assure them right now that they'll be allowed to stay they shouldn't be very worried they are here illegally they shouldn't be very worried i do have a big heart we're going to take care of everybody we're going to have a very strong border we're going to have a very solid border where you have great people that are here that have done a good job they should be far less worried we'll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks so mr president will they be allowed to stay i'm going to tell you over the next four weeks i want to ask you about something you said this week right here at the white house you brought in congressional leaders to the white house you spoke at length about the presidential election with them telling them that you lost the popular vote because of millions of illegal votes three to five million illegal votes that would be the biggest electoral fraud in american history where is the evidence of that so let me tell you first of all it was so misrepresented that was supposed to be a confidential meeting and you weren't supposed to go out and talk to the press as soon as you were but the democrats viewed it not as a confidential but you have tweeted about the millionaires let me explain sure when i do it i'm very very famous before and i mean but just say it was supposed to be a confidential meeting they turned it into a not a confidence number two the conversation lasted for about a minute they made it somebody said it was like 25 of the it wasn't was hardly even discussed i said it and i said it strongly because what's going on with voter fraud is horrible that's number one number two i would have won the popular vote if i was campaigning for the popular vote i would have gone to california where i didn't go at all i would have gone to new york where i didn't campaign at all i would have gone to a couple of places that i didn't go to and i would have won that much easier than winning the electoral hall at college but as you know the electoral college is all that matters it doesn't make any difference with that being said if you look at voter registration you look at the dead people that are registered to vote who vote you look at people that are registered in two states you look at all of these different things that are happening with registration you take a look at those registration for you're going to find and we're going to do an investigation on it three to five million illegal well we're going to find out but it could very well be that much you have people that are registered who are dead who are illegals who are in two states you have people registered in two states they're registered in new york and in new jersey they vote twice there are millions of votes in my opinion now i'm going to get an investigation david you're now president of the united states when you say of course i want the voting process to be legitimate but what i'm asking people when you say in your opinion millions of illegal votes that is something that is extremely fundamental to our functioning democracy a fair and free election you say you're going to launch an investigation into this done what you have presented so far has been debunked it's been called false i can't take a look at the pew report i called the author of the pew report last night and he told me that they found no evidence then why did he write the report he said no evidence of voter fraud then why did he write the report according to pew report then he's then he's groveling again you know i always talk about the reporters at grovel when they want to write something that you want to hear but not necessarily millions of people want to hear or have to hear so you've launched an investigation we're going to launch an investigation to find out and then the next time and and i will say this of those votes cast none of them come to me none of them come to me they would all be for the other side none of them come to me but when you look at the people that are registered dead illegal and two states and some cases maybe three states we have a lot to look into house speaker paul ryan has said i have seen no evidence i have made this very very clear senator lindsey graham saying it's the most inappropriate thing for a president to say without proof he seems obsessed with the idea that he could not have possibly lost the popular vote without cheating and fraud i want to ask you about something bigger here does it matter more now there's nothing bigger there's nothing bigger but it is important because let me just tell you what's important millions of people agree with me when i say that if you would have looked on one of the other networks and all of the people that were calling in they're saying we agree with mr trump we agree they're very smart people let me just ask you you did win you're the president you're sitting across from me right now that's true do you think that your words matter more yes very much do you think that that talking about millions of illegal votes is dangerous to this country no not at all not at all because many people feel the same way that i do and you don't think it undermines your credibility no not at all because they would they didn't come to me believe me those were hillary votes mr president i just have one more question about this and it's it's it's bigger picture you took some heat uh after your visit to the cia in front of that hallowed wall 117 stars of those lost at the cia you talked about other things but you also talked about crowd size at the inauguration about the size of your rallies about covers on time magazine and i just want to ask you when does all of that matter just a little less when do you let it roll off your back now that you're the president so i'm glad you asked so i went to the cia my first stop i have great respect for the people in intelligence and ca and i don't have a lot of respect for in particular one of the leaders but that's okay but i have a lot of respect for the people in the cia that speech was a home run that speech if you look at fox okay i'll mention in your network we'd see what fox said they said it was one of the great speeches they showed the people applauding and screaming and and they were all cia there was nobody somebody was asking sean uh well were they trump people that were we don't have trump people they were cia people that location was given to me mike pence went up before me paid great homage to the wall i then went up paid great homage to the wall i then spoke to the crowd i got a standing ovation you would give the same speech if you went back absolutely people loved it they loved it they gave me a standing ovation for a long period of time they never even sat down most of them during the speech there was love in the room you and other networks covered it very inaccurately i hate to say this to you and you probably won't put it on but turn on fox and see how it was covered and see how people respond to that speech that speech was a good speech and you and a couple of other networks tried to downplay that speech and it was very very unfortunate that you did i am curious about the first full day here at the white house choosing to send the press secretary out into the briefing room summoning reporters to talk about the inaugural crowd size does that send a message to the american people that that's that's more important than some of the very pressing issues part of my whole victory was that the men and women of this country who have been forgotten will never be forgotten again part of that is when they try and demean me unfairly because we had a massive crowd of people we we had a crowd i looked over that sea of people and i said to myself wow and i've seen crowds before big big crowds that was some crowd when i looked at the numbers that happened to come in from all of the various sources we had the biggest audience in the history of inaugural speeches i said the men and women that i was talking to who came out and voted will never be forgotten again therefore i won't allow you or other people like you to demean that crowd and to demean the people that came to washington dc from far away places because they like me but more importantly like what i'm saying mr trump let's talk about many of the things that have happened this week chicago last night you tweeted about the murder rate in chicago saying if chicago doesn't fix the horrible carnage going on i will send in the feds you will send in the feds what do you mean by carnage you know in my speech i got tremendous from certain people the word carnage it is carnage it's horrible carnage this is afghanistan is not like what's happening in chicago people are being shot left and right thousands of people over a period over a short period of time this year which has just started is worse than last year which was a catastrophe they're not doing the job now if they want help i would love to help them i will send in what we have to send in maybe they're not going to have to be so politically correct maybe they're being overly politically correct maybe there's something going on but you can't have those killings going on in chicago chicago is like a war zone chicago is worse than some of the people that you report and some of the places that you report about every night so i was in the middle east you mentioned federal assistance there's federal assistance and then there's sending in the feds i'm just curious will you take action on your own i want them to fix the problem you can't have thousands of people being shot in a city in a country that i happen to be president of maybe it's okay if somebody else is president i want them to fix the problem they have a problem that's very easily fixable they're going to have to get tougher and stronger and smarter but they've got to fix the problem i don't want to have thousands of people shot in a city where essentially i'm the president i love chicago i know chicago and chicago is a great city can be a great city it can't be a great city if people are shot walking down the street for a loaf of bread can't be a great city and if they are unable to fix it that's when you well so far they have been unable it's been going on for years and i wasn't president what's going on so all i'm saying is to the mayor who came up to my office recently i say you have to smarten up and you have to toughen up because you can't let that happen that's a war zone this is a warning i want them to straighten out the problem it's a big problem let me ask you about a new report that you are poised to lift a ban on so-called cia black sites uh prisons around the world that have been used in the past is that true well i'll be talking about that in about two hours are you gonna lift the band you're gonna see in about two hours tonight we are still waiting for word from the trump white house on any decision involving those so-called black sites the last president president obama said the u.s does not torture will you say that well i have a general who i have great respect for general mattis who said i was a little surprised who said he's not a believer in torture as you know mr pompeo was just approved affirmed by the senate uh he's a fantastic guy he's going to be the head of the cia and you'll have somebody fabulous as opposed to the character that just got out who didn't was not fabulous at all and he will i think do a great job and he is you know i haven't gone into great detail but i will tell you i have spoken to others in intelligence and they are big believers in as an example waterboarding you did tell us they say it does work it does work mr president personally mr president you told me during one of the debates that you would bring back waterboarding and a hell of a lot worse i would do or what i would do i want to keep our country safe i want to keep our country safe what does that mean they're shooting when they're chopping off the heads of our people and other people when they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a christian in the middle east when isis is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times would i feel strongly about waterboarding as far as i'm concerned we have to fight fire with fire now with that being said i'm going with general mattis i'm going with my secretary because i think pompeo is going to be phenomenal i'm going to go with what they say but i have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence and i asked them the question does it work does torture work and the answer was yes absolutely you're now the president do you want waterboarding i don't want people to chop off the citizens or anybody's heads in the middle east okay because they're christian or muslim or anything else i don't want look you are old enough to have seen a time that was much different you never saw heads chopped off until a few years ago now they chop them off and they put them on camera and they send them all over the world so we have that and we're not allowed to do anything we're not playing on an even field i will say this i will rely on pompeo and mattis and my group and if they don't want to do that's fine if they do want to do then i will work toward that end i want to do everything within the bounds of what you're allowed to do legally but do i feel it works absolutely i feel it works so you'd be okay with it i want to keep no i want to know i will rely on general manners and i'm going to rely on those two people and others and if they don't want to do it it's 100 okay with me do i think it works absolutely we head outside to the colonnade where we discussed what happened shortly after president trump took the oath of office this is the famous walk you've seen so many presidents so many amazing let me ask you right after the oath of office they give you the nuclear codes the biscuit sobering moment when they explain what it represents and the kind of destruction that you're talking about it is a very sobering moment yes it's very very uh very scary in a sense does it keep you up at night no but it's confidence that i'll do the right thing and the right job but it's a very very scary thing every president does get asked though what keeps them awake what's unsettling what has been most unsettling for you now that you're five days in well i think i see a tremendous amount of waste i see a tremendous amount of job opportunities that have been let go for many years and i'm not just talking about president obama i'm talking about for many many years and i was a big big fan of ronald reagan but i was never a big fan on trade with respect to ronald reagan um so i just think we've had years and years of allowing our jobs to be dissipated in this country and there's no reason for it so the economy keeps you up more than terrorism and and homeland security i view it all the same way very important yep terrorism is to me number one because we have to keep people safe most importantly we have to keep people safe but the economy is certainly i mean we have to bring the jobs back i talk the forgotten men and women they're not forgotten anymore because they came out and voted a lot of people you folks didn't know they existed in a true sense everyone's saying where did they all come from was pretty amazing wasn't it mr president i want to ask you about refugees you're about to sign a sweeping executive action to suspend immigration to this country right who are we talking about is this the muslim ban we're talking about no it's not the muslim ban but it's countries that have tremendous terror and it's countries that people are going to come in and cause us tremendous problems our country has enough problems without allowing people to come in who in many cases or in some cases are looking to do tremendous destruction when you look at what's happening they have a whole list you'll be very thrilled you're looking at people that come in in many cases in some cases with evil intentions i don't want that they're isis they're coming under false pretense i don't want that i'm going to be the president of a safe country we have enough problems now i'll absolutely do safe zones in syria for the people i think that europe has made a tremendous mistake by allowing these millions of people to go into germany and various other countries and all you have to do is take a look it's it's a disaster what's happening over there i don't want that to happen here now with that being said president obama and hillary clinton havel and kerry have allowed tens of thousands of people into our country the fbi is now investigating more people than ever before having to do with terror and it's from the group of people that came in so look look our country has a lot of problems believe me i know what the problems are even better than you do they're deep problems they're serious problems we don't need more let me ask you about some of the countries that won't be on the list afghanistan pakistan saudi arabia you're going to see you're going to see we're going to have extreme vetting in all cases and i mean extreme and we're not letting people in if we think there's even a little chance of some problem because are you we are excluding certain countries but for other countries we're going to have extreme vetting it's going to be very hard to come in right now it's very easy to come in it's going to be very very hard i don't want terror in this country you look at what happened in san bernardino you look at what happened all over you look at what happened in the world trade center okay i mean take that as an example are you an older concern are you at all concerned it's going to cause more anger among muslims around the world there's plenty of anger right now how can you have more you don't think it'll exacerbate the problem david i mean i know you're a sophisticated guy the world is a mess the world is as angry as it gets well you think this is going to cause a little more anger the world is an angry place all of this has happened we went into iraq we shouldn't have gone into iraq we shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out the world is a total mess the world is a mess david you brought up iraq and something you said that could affect american troops in recent days you said we should have kept the oil but okay maybe we'll have another chance what do you mean by that well we should have kept the oil while we got out and you know it's very interesting had we taken the oil you wouldn't have isis because they fueled themselves with the oil that's where they got the money so you believe we can go in and take the oil we should have taken the oil you wouldn't have isis if we took the oil you've heard the critics who say that would break all international law taking the oil but i want to get to the words can you say that right can you believe that who are the critics that say that fools i don't call them critics i call them fools let me talk about you we should have kept excuse me we should have taken the oil and if we took the oil you wouldn't have isis and we would have had wealth we have spent right now six trillion dollars in the middle east and our country is falling apart what got my attention mr president was when you said maybe we'll have another chance well don't let it get your attention too much because we'll see what happens i mean we're going to see what happens you know i told you when i told everybody else that wants to talk when it comes to the military i don't want to discuss things i want to let i want to let the action take place before the talk takes place i watched in mosul when a number of months ago generals and politicians would get up and say we're going into mosul in four months then they'd say we're going in in three months two months one month we're going in next week okay and i kept saying to myself gee why do they have to keep talking about going in all right so now they go in and it is tough because they've given the enemy all this time to prepare i don't want to do a lot of talking on the military i want to talk after it's finished not before it starts you

Channel: ABC News

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Keywords: Trump, Donald Trump, President Trump, Trump live, trump full interview abc news, president trump first interview, president trump interview abc, trump interview abc, trump david muir interview, trump abc news interview, Donald trump abc interview Donald trump press conference, trump press conference, trump world is a mess, donald trump david muir interview

Id: SkHa2-c_8Pk

Length: 23min 15sec (1395 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 26 2017