SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: Joining us now live from the White House, President Donald Trump.
Mr. President, thank you for being with us.
First, an obvious question, how are you feeling? How is the first lady feeling? And I want to get into your comments that you would make Regeneron and therapeutics free for the American people.
But first, how are you doing?
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Really good, and the first lady is doing really good.
And I thought Mark was fantastic. And I love your show.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: OK. I’ll take it.
Have you been tested since — your campaign and your doctor, Sean Conley, put out that you will be medically safe and cleared for safe return to public engagements by Saturday, five full days?
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: Have you been tested recently?
TRUMP: Fortunately, the — yes, I just saw the doctors today. They think I’m in great shape. I’m in great shape.
HANNITY: Did you test negative?
TRUMP: I know when I’m in good shape or not.
And I will tell you, I took this Regeneron. It’s phenomenal. And Eli Lilly has something very comparable. It’s phenomenal. And it’s a whole new day. It’s a whole — and if you go back a few months, nobody ever even thought about this stuff.
We came up with it. And I’m going to have it delivered to every hospital where you have sick people with the COVID, or the China virus, as we call it. And we are going to make people better.
It actually made me better. I went in. I could have left a day later. I’m telling you, Sean, it was incredible. So, that’s Regeneron.
But, again, Eli Lilly has something similar. The kind of things we’re coming up with now are incredible, remdesivir, but that’s a little bit different, works much differently, actually. But these things are absolutely incredible.
I think I’m going to try doing a rally on Saturday night, if we can — if we have enough time to put it together. But we want to do a rally in Florida — probably in Florida on Saturday night. Might come back and do one in Pennsylvania in the following night.
And it’s incredible, what’s going on. I feel so good.
HANNITY: Have you had a test since your diagnosis a week ago?
TRUMP: Well, what we’re doing is probably the test will be tomorrow, the actual test, because there’s no reason to test all the time.
But they found very little infection or virus, if any. I don’t know that they found any. I didn’t go into it greatly with the doctors. We have these great doctors at Walter Reed. And you do rely on them. They’re really fantastic talents.
And they came in from Johns Hopkins also and other places.
You know, when you’re president — I never saw so many doctors looking over me. I think I’m the most analyzed human being in the world right now.
HANNITY: Let me…
TRUMP: But we have the head people at, not only Walter Reed, which is incredible, with the job they do, but also Johns Hopkins and others — other hospitals.
And I think they’re — I think they’re amazed at how quickly this went, frankly.
HANNITY: Let me ask you.
The Debate Commission said earlier tonight that their decision is not going to be reversed, even if you get a full healthy go-ahead from all of your doctors and follow the CDC guidelines.
How do they get to unilaterally decide that, without consulting with you or former Vice President Biden’s campaign even?
TRUMP: Well, I didn’t even want to use them.
Last time, I had a big problem. They oscillated my mics when I had the one debate. We had three debates with Hillary. And on, I think, the first debate, they…
HANNITY: Yes.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Excuse me.
On the first debate, they oscillated the mic. And they oscillated it very, very seriously. And they actually apologized to me.
HANNITY: In 2016.
TRUMP: I said, what is this all about? They were Clinton people.
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: And I said, we ought to just do the debates ourselves, Sean. We ought to just — just do it ourselves.
And I pick — I’m the president. So, if we want to have debates, I’d rather just do it ourselves. Pick some good anchor. So, I end up with Chris Wallace, who’s essentially — look, his father did me once or twice, twice, I guess, on “60 Minutes.” He was great, Mike. Chris is not Mike. That, I can tell you. He’s not even close.
But Chris was terrible. He was protecting Biden the whole night. I asked Biden about, why did he get all of that money from the mayor of Russia, from the wife of the mayor of Russia? And Chris wouldn’t let that be answered.
When I said, why did he do the billion dollars, you’re not getting a billion dollars to Ukraine unless you get rid of the prosecutor? Chris wouldn’t let that. He protected him. The guy was choking like a dog. He couldn’t answer the questions, and he was choking like a dog. And Chris kept saying it.
So, now we have another one. I didn’t know this. But the other one is from C-SPAN. And he’s a never-Trumper. And I think somebody said he worked for Biden at one point.
This is — these are the people we get. And that’s OK, because I have had some bad ones over the years, and I have got an unblemished record, I think, in the debating world, according to the polls, if you look at — and you got 15 debates last time, and they say I won them all, against very talented people in some cases.
But I will say this, that it is — it’s a very sad thing. Now you have this Debate Commission is a joke. The commission’s a joke. Take a look at the letter they wrote me four years ago, when they apologized. They were oscillating my mic. They were turning it up and down when I was speaking to Hillary, crooked Hillary, who turns out to be very crooked.
Look at all the stuff we found out on Obama and Biden and her.
So, we will see what happens.
But, no, I’m not interested in doing a virtual. I’m not Joe Biden. I’m not going to do a virtual debate, sit behind a computer screen. And that gives him the answers, because they will be handing him the answers, just like he gets when he asks — I mean, he does news conferences. He does them, and they give him the answer, and they give him the question.
And they give him — what kind of a news conference? He does them all the time. And he was choking like a dog the other night. But Chris Wallace bailed him in. He just bailed him in or bailed or not.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this, because I think this is — you have an opportunity to challenge Joe Biden directly.
His campaign could make the decision to go forward with a debate, get any health check that they want, and follow through, and have two debates. And you could agree upon the rules. You don’t need a Debate Commission to do that.
So, I guess you have the ability to challenge Joe Biden to such a debate. Are you doing that tonight?
TRUMP: Well, I might. I will do it right through your show.
Let’s go, Joe. Let’s have a fair — let’s get a fair anchor, somebody like the great Sean Hannity. We will get Rush.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Oh, yes.
TRUMP: We will get Mark.
HANNITY: That will happen.
TRUMP: We will get Laura.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: We will get Judge Jeanine.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: That’s going to happen.
TRUMP: We will get right — we got a lot of them out there, right? We got a lot.
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: We will get Jesse or Pete. We got a lot of them.
HANNITY: Let me…
TRUMP: Tucker is doing good.
Look…
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: This is a disgrace.
HANNITY: You’re going to me killed on all the FOX talk.
Let me — let me ask you…
TRUMP: This is — no, no, no.
But this is a disgrace, what’s going on.
So, now I find out the guy that’s doing it from C-SPAN is a never-Trumper. But I don’t mind that. Look at the people I have had in the past. And I have always won the debates. I had Martha Raddatz. Her hatred was so incredible, I couldn’t believe it. But I beat Hillary in that debate easily.
So, you know, it’s one…
HANNITY: Let me…
TRUMP: I don’t mind that. It’s not even that.
But I’m not going to sit behind a computer, and have somebody feed him answers, because he has no idea, because he — he won’t be president for three months before the wonderful Kamala takes over, with her — she’s the most liberal person in the Senate.
She’s not a socialist. She’s a step beyond socialism, as you know.
HANNITY: What did you think of the vice — what did you think of last night’s debate, sir?
TRUMP: I thought Mike was great, legitimately. I don’t mean because he’s with me, and he’s my friend, and he’s done a great job as vice president. I thought he was great.
He’s a calm person. We’re really a good combination. A lot of people have said that for a long time. I mean, he’s a calm person. He’s a good person. And he was just — he couldn’t believe some of the things she was saying. And he really didn’t. He couldn’t believe it, what she was saying.
They lie. They lie so much, like fracking. Him and her for a year, whenever the Democrat debates, said, we are against fracking. We will — Biden says, we will never, ever see fracking, and et cetera, et cetera.
As soon as he gets the nomination, he has to center over a little bit. No, we want to go fracking. We will be fracking, and her too, even her. I mean, she’s a super lib.
Then they get beat up by AOC plus three, because they said, you never said that before.
Now, the press gives them a pass. The reason they give them a pass is because they’re fake. The news is fake, the enemy of the people. And the press gives them a pass.
If I ever did that, I would be excoriated.
HANNITY: Let me ask you about the issue that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris refuse to answer. That is about packing the United States Supreme Court, which would be a change, and that hasn’t happened in 150 years.
TRUMP: Yes. Terrible thing.
HANNITY: And Joe Biden literally said today — and I was — I — I honestly thought, last night, Kamala Harris would have a different answer. I thought, when Mike Pence challenged her, that she was going to say, no, that they would not support it.
That is — their non-answer is revealing. Joe Biden went further today and said, you will know my position on court packing the day after the election.
What’s your reaction to that?
TRUMP: I think it was a terrible thing to say. I think it’s so disrespectful to the people.
And he should have said something and say, look, to the best of my knowledge, this is probably what I would do. I think it’s a — I think what he said was so disrespectful to the process and to the people. What he said then was just disgraceful.
But what that means, really, is that they’re going to do it, OK, because, obviously, that means 100 percent that’s what they’re going to do. No, they’re going to end the filibuster. And they’re going to do things that you wouldn’t have thought.
I have been fighting the filibuster with Mitch for a long time, because I said, Mitch, they’re going to do it. If they ever got in, Schumer would do that on day one.
I agree that what they did was right, the — you take a look at what Mitch and some very good Republican senators did, because it’s good for the country. But I said, here’s the problem. If they ever got in, day one, this would be the first move they make, end the filibuster, the nuclear option, as they call it.
And they will do that in — not a week will go by. Probably not a day will go by. But, again, Harry Reid did it. That’s why we have so many judges. I want to thank you very much, Harry Reid, because Harry Reid, he ended the filibuster. And we have — I’m going to have 300 judges by the time I finish, 300. It’s a record, by the — by the end of the first term.
Think of that. It’s a record to the term. By the end of the first term, I will have 300 judges, just about, give or take a few, couple.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: Mr. President…
TRUMP: And it’s all because of — think of it, Sean. It’s all because of Harry Reid…
HANNITY: 2013.
TRUMP: … and a lot of good work by a lot of good Republicans, including Mitch.
HANNITY: Don’t you think — or do you think that the people of this country need to know whether or not Joe Biden, if he were elected president, would pack the courts…
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: … whether or not he would support statehood for places like D.C., whether or not he would support ending the filibuster, whether or not even maybe pursue a constitutional issue amendment to abolish the Electoral College?
To me, these are fundamental questions that he is refusing to answer.
What is your — what is your answer to his non-answer? And the media, I think he’s answered less than 100 questions since this whole campaign has started, which I think makes these two debates that are forthcoming even more important than — than any average presidential election year.
TRUMP: Well, he’s got a lot of non-answers.
I mean, look, look at Second Amendment. You never talk about Second Amendment. He wants to take away your guns 100 percent. He put Beto, who is a — he turned out to be — he was exposed by Ted Cruz and me. I think I helped a lot too. But he was exposed as a clown, as much worse than that, but I want to be nice, because it’s a nice evening show.
But he was exposed as a clown. He wants to take away your guns. He’s going to take away your Second Amendment. Nobody ever — nobody asks him about the Second Amendment anymore. Do you notice that? The Second Amendment is very important. It’s a big thing.
We campaigned on it. I protected this. If I weren’t president, you wouldn’t have a Second Amendment right now. And Biden does that.
Nobody — nobody talks about life anymore, pro-life. Is he pro-life? No, he’s not pro-life. What is he? Why don’t you ask him that question? He doesn’t want to talk about it.
But he endorsed a governor of Virginia who not only executed a baby, late-term abortion, but executed a baby, because said, the baby can be born, and then you can kill the baby. And he’s totally in favor of that. And I can tell you, your pro-life groups are — they’re en masse. They’re en masse.
This is — this is their one shot, because what’s going on is so — is so bad, is so evil. The governor of Virginia said, we will execute the baby after the baby’s born. That’s when — you talk about late-term abortion. This is early-term execution.
And it’s a very, very bad thing. But you don’t ever hear anybody talking about pro-life/pro-choice with Biden. You never — did you ever hear it? I haven’t heard it. Very rarely do you hear it.
I don’t think he would know how to discuss it. But, very importantly, the Second Amendment, though, they just don’t discuss the Second Amendment. He’s going to take your guns away. So, everybody with a gun, you can’t vote for him, because you’re not going to have your gun.
At the same time, they wanted to defund the police. So, you’re not going to have police protection, and you — by the way, you can’t have a gun. So, when one of these maniacs breaks into your house at night because there are no cops around, you don’t have a gun to protect yourself. That’s a great combination. And the suburbs are going to fall.
You know, a lot of people talk about the women of the suburbs, right, women of the suburbs. They do or don’t like Trump. I don’t know. But what I have done is incredible for the suburbs. The suburbs are over, as you know. The suburbs will become more unsafe than the cities, run by the Democrats.
And so, I think I should do very well with suburban women, because I’m the one that’s protecting them, both in terms of law and order and in terms of zoning. They want to build low-income housing right next to your house, as you destroy — as the American dream is destroyed, destroyed.
HANNITY: Mr. President…
TRUMP: But they don’t talk to Biden about this. They don’t talk to him about law and order.
I said to him the other night, mention the words law and order. He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t do it. I said, no, mention the word law and order. Go ahead. He wouldn’t do it.
And then, of course, Chris Wallace came in to protect him.
HANNITY: Let me ask you this, Mr. President, if I may.
I played at the beginning of the show — we don’t have a lot of time left. I won’t — I won’t play it again. Joe Biden twice in the debate that he had with you said he will eliminate the Trump tax cuts.
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: Now he’s — he’s saying only on people $400,000 or more, but that’s — I will let you explain it. He says he’s not against fracking, but I have him saying he will eliminate fracking twice.
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: And we played that tape.
TRUMP: Very famous.
HANNITY: He has repeatedly said, and Kamala Harris last night falsely have claimed that you do have yet to once condemn white supremacy. Yet I showed multiple instances when you have done just that.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: The neo-Nazis, David Duke, white supremacy, white nationalism, disavowing David Duke. And yet they continue to spread that falsehood.
Your reaction, because they don’t seem to get called out by the media on the fact that what they are saying is false?
TRUMP: And I condemned the people on the left, like Antifa, that are burning down your cities all summer long, OK, and without any control whatsoever.
They’re all Biden people, meaning — not Biden. Biden’s not smart enough to know what the hell it even is. But they’re of that philosophy.
And I condemn them very strongly, very, very strongly. It’s not just the right. It’s the right. It’s the left.
But the left has been the problem for a long time. Antifa is a big, big problem.
And I see Whitmer today. She’s complaining, but it was our Justice Department that arrested the people that she was complaining about. It was my Justice Department that arrested them.
But, instead, she goes and does her little political act. And she keeps her state closed, although we just won the big case, as you know, to open up Michigan, because what she’s doing is a horrible thing to the people. The churches are closed. The schools are closed, and the whole state is closed.
And people are being hurt very badly by it, in the form of drinking and suicides and depression. It’s a very sad thing.
But, no, Joe Biden wants to raise taxes, and, very sadly, if you take a look. He wants to raise taxes, but he says he’s going to end our tax cut. Well, people are getting actually much more. Mike handled it great. He said $2,000. It was actually much more than $2,000 in child tax credits, which is $1,000 a child.
But he wants to take all that away. So, therefore, if you do nothing else, you’re raising taxes by the largest percentage in the history of our country. If you — if he terminated my tax cuts, which is one of the reasons that our economy has done so great, even now in this pandemic, which hopefully, we’re rounding the turn.
And we have incredible cures and a lot of therapeutics, and the vaccines are going to be coming very soon. But I will tell you, what I took is incredible. To me, I viewed it as a cure. It’s incredible. And we’re going to get it to everybody, free of charge.
It’s going to hospitals. It’s starting very soon. The military is going to be delivering it. But he’s looking to do big, big tax cuts – big, big tax increases, like at a level that’s never been seen. Nobody’s ever gotten the cuts that I got.
I got the biggest tax cuts ever given, as you know, Sean, better than probably most. But he’s going to end those tax cuts and reverse them. And now people are going to pay $2,000, plus child tax credits, all that. It’s going to be a disaster for our country. It’s going to — it’s going to put our country into a depression.
And your 401(k)s are going to go down the tubes. And your jobs are going to go away. And you’re going to have a depression, the likes of which our country has never seen before, and that possibly includes 1929.
HANNITY: Mr. President, there has been articles out — and I would assume that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris not giving their position on court packing would be a national ad. I assume them both on record saying they would ban fracking — fracking would be an ad that would run in a lot of cycles in Ohio and Pennsylvania.
TRUMP: And Texas.
HANNITY: Their Web site that endorses the Green New Deal, and Joe Biden saying he would spend trillions of dollars on it and pledging that.
What would the New Green Deal look like, in your view, if implemented, as promised by both Joe Biden and, as a co-sponsor, with Kamala Harris in the U.S. Senate?
TRUMP: Well, it’s a deal that was conceived of by not smart people, AOC plus three and others. I don’t even think they had any experience in the environment.
But this was a deal conceived of. And the real price is $100 trillion. That’s more money than this country could make in 100 years, if things went well, OK? I mean, they literally want to take buildings down and rebuild them with tiny little windows, OK, little windows, so you can’t see out, you can’t see the light.
And the whole thing is so crazy. It’s such a crazy thing.
And take a look. And Biden agreed to this with crazy Bernie, because, you know, they have the manifesto. They have agreed to most of these things. And it’s going to cost more money. Our country will be a ninth world country, not a third world country, a ninth world country.
We won’t have energies. Look at what’s happening with the rolling blackouts in California. Look at where California is going to have to ration water. You know why? Because they send millions of gallons of water out to sea, out to the Pacific, because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish that aren’t doing very well without water, to be honest with you.
But it’s a very sad thing that’s happening. It’s no common sense. Even the fires in California, I — I talk about, you need — I was with Governor Newsom. I get along with him very well. We disagree on a lot of things, but I get along with him.
Number one, you should let water come down from the north and accept it, instead of throwing it out to the Pacific. But you also have to have forest management. We send them so much money. I don’t have to, but I want to help California.
But they have the biggest forest fires because they don’t manage their land. They don’t have separators. They have trees that have been laying on the ground that are stone-cold, dead dry, like a matchstick. And you throw a cigarette butt on it. Between the leaves and the trees, everything catches on fire, and you lose 200,000 acres in a short period of time.
They got to manage their forests.
HANNITY: Mr…
TRUMP: And if they manage their forests, you’re not — you’re going to not see the forest fires.
HANNITY: Mr. President, the Heritage Foundation identified nearly 1,000 convictions on voting fraud. There have been — you have expressed many times your concern about some of the changing laws and rules and have spoken negatively about these changes.
But, with that said, a lot of states have now begun early voting. Some will be starting in a week or two. Are you — will you encourage your supporters to get out and vote early?
TRUMP: Well, I want them to vote, but I will say this. Absentee is OK, because absentee ballots — excuse me — absentee ballots are fine, because absentee ballots, you request, you ask for a ballot, and you request, and that’s it.
Absentee ballots are absolutely fine. You request them. You fill them in, you send them back in. But these unsolicited ballots, universal, unsolicited ballots, Sean, is a — it’s going to be a disaster the likes of which we have never seen. We will never have seen an election like what’s going to take place.
Thousands of ballots all over the country are being reported, some thrown in garbage cans with my name on them, some thrown in trays in a river. What’s going on is absolutely crazy.
We have people watching. We have U.S. attorneys watching. We have sheriffs watching. We have U.S. Marshals watching.
HANNITY: With that said, then, is…
TRUMP: So, with all of that, you’re talking about millions of ballots are being sent out.
HANNITY: With that said, would…
TRUMP: And they’re being…
HANNITY: If there’s in-person early voting…
TRUMP: It’s a fraud. It’s going to be a big and tremendous fraud.
Excuse me?
HANNITY: Would you prefer — would you prefer that your — your supporters, if that’s the system, and that’s what the law is, would you prefer that they get out early also, so that there’s not a big deficit heading into Election Day?
TRUMP: Yes, well, my supporters are going to be mostly people that vote. They go to the vote, you know, the old-fashioned way. It’s like, go to the voting booth and vote.
We — first of all, we should have voter I.D. all over the country. We don’t. You know, when you buy something, you have voter I.D.
To get into the Democrat National Convention, you had to have voter I.D.
HANNITY: That’s true.
TRUMP: You had to have voter I.D., OK?
HANNITY: I had to have it four years ago.
TRUMP: But to get into vote — right.
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: But to get into vote, you don’t need voter I.D. many places. Many places, you do. Indiana has a great system. I mean, you have many places where you do have it.
But we should have voter I.D., universal voter I.D. When you go to vote, they should see who you are, make sure that it’s not fraudulent.
But this will be one of the greatest fraudulent, most fraudulent elections ever because of this whole thing with the ballots. They’re sending out millions and millions and millions of ballots.
Where are they sending them? Who’s sending them? Where are they going? Where are they coming back from? How many are fraudulent? Are they being thrown away? Are they being sold? Are they being harvested?
It’s a terrible thing, Sean. Despite that, I think we’re going to have a tremendous victory. I saw some polls just now, some real polls, not the fake news polls, where they put out fake numbers like at CNN and ABC, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, NBC.
It’s the same stuff as I had. It’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. It used to be much worse, believe it or not, hard to believe, when you think of it.
But I’m looking at polls that are doing great. We’re doing great in Ohio. We’re doing great in Iowa. We’re doing great in many, many places, many places.
HANNITY: Let me…
TRUMP: Then you come home, you turn on the television, you say, gee, I’m four down. I can’t believe it.
But it’s — they’re fake polls.
HANNITY: Last question.
And I only have about a minute for you to answer. And that is the — we now discover that the CIA had briefed then President Obama…
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: … on a plan that Hillary Clinton concocted to distract from her e-mail server scandal…
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: … and concoct this Russia hoax.
We also learned that she paid — we already knew she paid for the dirty Russian misinformation dossier, and that the source for Steele’s dossier was a known Russian operative for over 10 years. And they still went forward with it.
In the 40 seconds we have left, your reaction to this new news.
TRUMP: We caught them spying on our campaign.
This is treason. We caught them trying to take down a duly elected administration/president. And we have all the evidence now. Now we have to see what the law enforcement going to do with it. But we caught them spying.
As sure as you’re sitting there — I assume you’re sitting.
HANNITY: I’m sitting, yes.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: But, as sure as you’re sitting there, we caught them spying on our campaign. You know that almost better than anybody.
HANNITY: You were right.
TRUMP: And it’s something. When you see The New York Times, Washington Post get Pulitzer Prizes, they got everything wrong, right? They got everything wrong.
We caught them spying on our campaign. We caught them trying to take down a duly elected president. And then they talk about, we want a peaceful transition to power.
HANNITY: Mr…
TRUMP: Peaceful tran…
HANNITY: Well, we know what Hillary Clinton said.
TRUMP: Mike Pence’s best answer was that answer last night.
Peaceful transition?
HANNITY: Mr. President, we…
TRUMP: Look what they did. They spent three-and-a-half years trying to terminate a presidency.
HANNITY: Mr. President, we wish you and the first lady and every American that contracted COVID a very speedy recovery.
Very, very positive news on Regeneron, and Eli Whitney (sic), and the therapeutics. And Operation Warp Speed seems to be moving along nicely. And we pray that that gets finished quickly.
TRUMP: Doing really well.
HANNITY: All right, sir, thank you.
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
HANNITY: Twenty-six days.
TRUMP: Thank you, Sean.
Trump Interview With Hannity: Health, Biden, Pence-Harris, Debates, Court Packing & More | Video
President joins Sean Hannity to discuss his health, the latest on the presidential debates and more. Transcript, via FOX News below.
