Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mA_3sbK7EW0
Mr. President good to see you.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.
HANNITY: What a week this has been.
TRUMP: It’s been a great week. We have accomplished a lot.
HANNITY: Well, that’s what I wanted — first, I got some time to talk with you earlier in the week…
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: … in the Oval Office. And the thing that really stood out to me is you seem to be enjoying yourself and very focused on all the promises you made in the campaign. Is it your intention to keep every promise?
TRUMP: Well, I’m going to keep as many as I can. You know, politics is tough. Sometimes, you make a promise, and for some reason, you can’t because you have opposition on the other side that raises their hand and they make it impossible. But I’m going to keep a lot of them, and I’ve kept a lot of them already. Everyone’s talking about it.
And we’re going to do things that I said we were going to do. And we’re going to take care of a lot of people that were mistreated by government for many, many years. And that’s really how I won the election in the first place, Sean. You know that better than probably anybody.
HANNITY: Let’s talk a little bit about the executive orders on Syria, Iraq, Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen and a 120 ban. That goes to the promise of extreme vetting.
TRUMP: Totally extreme. And beyond just those countries, we’re going to have extreme vetting. We’re going to have extreme vetting for people coming into our country, and if we think there’s a problem, it’s not going to be so easy for people to come in anymore.
You look at what’s gone on. I mean, we could just go one after another. But then you go to other countries and you look at Nice and you like at different places all over Europe and you look at what’s happening with Germany, it’s a mess. The crime is incredible. And we’re just not going to let that happen here.
HANNITY: Would it be gambling if (INAUDIBLE) at some point, when there is a procedure in place, if you can ascertain whether or not somebody’s been radicalized or not, or if radical groups actually trained some of their soldiers to say the right things to get in, but if you can’t positively ascertain they’re safe and find out what’s in their heart, does that mean no go? Does that mean you won’t gamble?
TRUMP: Well, I tell you what. You used the right word, gamble. We don’t want to have gambles. Our country has a lot of problems, well beyond this. And I found out a lot over the last week. I mean, we have serious difficulties. We don’t need another difficulty. Right now, the FBI has over 1,000 investigations going on, 1,000…
HANNITY: In all 50 states.
TRUMP: … in all areas. All over the place. And these are people that we let in. We don’t need this, all right? We don’t need this. Some people have come in with evil intentions, and you know, most haven’t, I guess. But we can’t take chances. You know, the word gamble is an appropriate word. It’s a big gamble. You’re throwing something up.
Look, I love this country. You love this country. We can’t let this continue to happen. We’ve taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them. They can say they vet them. They didn’t vet them. They have no papers. How can you vet somebody when you don’t know anything about them and you have no papers? How do you vet them? You can’t.
On your show, I’ve seen that they have FBI agents, they have all these people that you have as experts. They say it’s impossible to vet them. I don’t have to see that to know that they’re right.
So we have people in this country that will cause problems. We’re not going to have any more. And we’re going to be very tough and very, very vigilant.
HANNITY: You do not need Congress now as it relates to building a wall. And you said in an interview last night that you plan to do this expeditiously.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: That’s about 700 miles of fencing, other measures, as well. Do you think you’ll need more than that? Will you have to go to Congress to get their support for…
TRUMP: I don’t think we’re going to need too much. Look the wall is necessary. That’s not just politics, and yet it is good for the heart of the nation in a certain way because people want protection. And a wall protects. All you have to do is ask Israel. They were having a total disaster coming across, and they had a wall. It’s 99.9 percent stoppage.
A proper wall, not a wall that’s this high like they have now. They have little toy walls. I don’t know why they even wasted their time. If you ever saw where they build the little ramp over the — I don’t even know why they build a ramp. It’s cheaper to knock it over. You build a ramp…
HANNITY: You’re talking about a real wall, impenetrable.
TRUMP: I’m talking about a real wall. I’m talking about a wall that’s got to be, like, serious. And even that, of course, you’ll have people violate it. But we’ll have people waiting for them when they do. We have a great man, General Kelly, who just got approved very quickly by the Senate, recommended highly by General Mattis and others.
And he’s going to be taking very good care of us — Homeland Security. He’s going to be taking very, very good care of us. And you know, when he was named, he didn’t even give an order yet, and all of the sudden, the border started tightening up. You saw that. It was on a lot of different shows, they talked about the borders tightening up just by naming General Kelly.
HANNITY: Let me talk about a big decision you’re going to make next week. You’ve announced on Thursday, you will make your Supreme Court choice…
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: … announcement. Two questions on that. One, will it be from the list that you gave out during the campaign?
TRUMP: The answer’s yes.
HANNITY: Will it be an originalist?
TRUMP: I don’t want to say that. You’re going to see on Thursday.
HANNITY: Have you made your decision?
TRUMP: I have made my decision pretty much in my mind, yes.
HANNITY: Next question…
TRUMP: Now, that is subject to change at the last moment. But I think this will be a great choice.
HANNITY: Chuck Schumer, others threatening — we’ve never had a Supreme Court Justice filibustered, but there’s a chance that might happen. If that happens…
TRUMP: Hey, whatever happens, happens.
HANNITY: Would you want Mitch McConnell to use the nuclear option…
TRUMP: Yes, I would.
HANNITY: You would?
TRUMP: I would…
HANNITY: Have you talked to him about it?
TRUMP: … because look, we have obstructionists. These are people that don’t want to — I almost think they have — what they did to Jeff Sessions, who’s a great man and a wonderful man, and then they delayed it another week because they have a one-week delay option — that’s not fair to a man. Other people are delayed. Look at Pompeo for CIA. This is a great choice. Everybody agrees. And they delayed him a number of days also, even though he was fully approved and voted on by — you know, I mean, very, very great choice. Why are they doing that?
HANNITY: There are people…
TRUMP: They’re obstructionists. I’ll tell you what. They’re obstructionists. I go to a meeting with them that’s supposed to be a very quiet meeting, nobody talking outside of the meeting. They leave the meeting and they have a news conference about what I said. They’re talking to the cameras about exactly what I said at the meeting, which is fine because I say things that I don’t mind going out because I assume they’re going to do that. But the deal was we wouldn’t talk to the press. And they go out and they talk to the press.
HANNITY: You mean they’re leaking in Washington? That’s a shock.
TRUMP: No, no. But I mean, they talk to the press, like, 15 feet away from the door!
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: It’s not like they called up when they got home.
HANNITY: Right.
TRUMP: So look, these are obstructionists, and that’s fine.
HANNITY: Let me ask you — I don’t remember you saying this in the campaign, and I was on the road with you quite a bit. We did a lot of the town halls together. But you’re now talking about a 10 percent reduction in spending — in other words, eliminating baseline budgeting — a 20 percent reduction in the government workforce.
How important is a balanced budget to you? And were you surprised Republicans before you got here raised the debt ceiling $9.7 trillion?
TRUMP: So a balanced budget is fine. But sometimes, you have to fuel the well (ph) in order to really get the economy going. And we have to take care of our military. Our military is more important to me than a balanced budget because we’ll get there with a balanced budget.
But we have a military that’s really depleted. And I’m negotiating the price of airplanes, can you believe this? But I understand airplanes. I’ve bought a lot of airplanes.
HANNITY: I heard you got the price down quite a bit already.
TRUMP: I cut off hundreds of millions of dollars off one particular plane, hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period of time. It wasn’t like I spent, like, weeks, hours, less than hours, and many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. And the plane’s going to be better.
HANNITY: But you do want that 10 percent short of the military?
TRUMP: I want a balanced budget eventually. But I want to have a strong military. To me, that’s much more important than anything.
HANNITY: One of the worst ways, it seems, to spend money is going through the Washington bureaucracy. Every Congressman has their pet project. There’s been talk about infrastructure, anywhere the Democrats want a trillion dollars…
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: I think you’ve talked about $137 billion to start. Is that something you want to pay as you go? Is that something you’d rather…
TRUMP: Look, our country’s in bad shape. We’ve spent $6 trillion in the Middle East, $6 trillion, Sean!
HANNITY: Right.
TRUMP: OK? How the hell do we do this? It’s crazy. And by the way, just so you understand, the Middle East — I don’t want to be — like, you know, they said the speech can be dark on occasion. Well, we spent $6 trillion.
When I was interviewed last night by David Muir, he said, Aren’t you going to make them angry? I said, Angry? How can they be more angry than they are right now? Who are we going to make angry? I thought it was a sort of strange question. But aren’t you going to make them angry? I said, They’re all angry now. The whole world is angry right now. There’s such problems in the world and such anger.
But we spent all of this money in the Middle East and other places. In the meantime, we have to rebuild our country. We have to rebuild our infrastructure. Some Republicans are fine with it. Some Republicans don’t like it. Actually, probably, the Democrats like that more than the Republicans because that’s always been one of the things.
But Sean, our roads, our bridges, our highways, our schools — our country is in bad shape!
HANNITY: Yes. By the way, I hear your helicopter out there in the background.
TRUMP: It’s all right.
HANNITY: You took great pride in meeting with Carrier, saving jobs, meeting with Ford, savings jobs. You’ve met with union people…
TRUMP: General Motors…
(CROSSTALK)
HANNITY: $7 billion by the way.
TRUMP: Yes, we have a lot of — a lot of plants are going to be built in Michigan and Ohio and North Carolina and Pennsylvania. And I’ve only been here for four days. But they understand. They understand that if they build a plant outside of the United States, fire all their employees, when that product, whether it’s a car or an air-conditioner or a washing machine, when that comes through the border, it’s going to be heavily taxed. That’s the way it is.
HANNITY: But you want to get rid of 75 percent of regulation.
TRUMP: Yes, I do.
HANNITY: Or more.
TRUMP: 75 or more.
HANNITY: Paul Ryan said…
TRUMP: And by the way…
HANNITY: … a 20 percent corporate tax rate. You want a 15 percent…
TRUMP: By the way, the 75 percent — and we will have the same amount of protection for the consumer because it’s very important to me. But we’ll also be able to create jobs because right now, you can’t even start a company in this country.
HANNITY: Right. The media — a little bit of a contentious start, if you will, with them. They want to — I’ve seen now The New York Times, CNN, NBC — they’ve used the word “liar” to describe you as it relates if you’re talking about crowd size or the border…
TRUMP: They’re very hostile. These are very hostile people. These are very angry people.
HANNITY: But they also colluded against you in the campaign.
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: And my question to you is…
TRUMP: Well, they’re very dishonest people. The media is very dishonest. I’ve been saying it. I say it openly.
HANNITY: I said journalism’s dead, so we agree.
TRUMP: Never dead, but they’re very dishonest people in many cases. Hey, look, you have some very honest ones. But I get stories that are so false and so dishonest…
HANNITY: Martin Luther King’s bust?
TRUMP: Yes, they said Martin Luther King’s bust was taken out of the Oval Office by me.
HANNITY: It’s there.
TRUMP: See that’s a very serious charge because they’re not saying the bust was taken out. What they’re saying is that I’m a racist. That’s what they’re saying. That’s a very serious charge. Then it turned out the bust, it wasn’t — in fact, I got very angry at my people. I said, Who took that bust out? Because I wasn’t there. And they said it was never moved. It was in the same exact spot. It was never moved. I said, How could they say it?
A reporter said that it was taken out. But that’s a very, very serious charge because that’s a racist charge. Then when it was revealed that they were wrong, nobody even talks about it. It was a headline, massive story, Trump takes — I would never do that.
First of all, I had great respect for Dr. Martin Luther King, so I would never do that. But when it was revealed that it was wrong, it wasn’t even a story. Nobody even knows it. I’m saying it now and there have been a little — like, a line. But that’s a very — so I’ll give you another example…
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Let me give you one other. I went to the CIA, my first stop, because I have great respect for intelligence…
HANNITY: I saw (INAUDIBLE)
TRUMP: … not the man who headed the CIA. Hey, I don’t have any respect for him. But Brennan — I didn’t think he was good. But I have great respect for the CIA, for the people.
I went there. I have even more respect now because they took me for tours. They showed me. They’re amazing. I made a speech. Now, I know if it’s good or bad. I’m really good at knowing did I do well or did I do poorly? And hopefully…
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I couldn’t have done so poorly because I won, right?
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: No, but in your own head, you do, too.
HANNITY: I know.
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: When you do an interview, you say, You know, I did great or I didn’t do so good. I gave a speech that really was a 10, relatively speaking. I had a standing ovation like you wouldn’t believe. Everybody. And it was such a success.
OK. So now I see CNN and other people say, Well, who was in the audience from Trump? Trump? I went there with a few people. There’s nobody. It was all CIA. They said, But I heard the first row and the first two — you saw that press conference. Sean did a great job.
But this guy, whoever he was — I don’t even know who he was — he was saying that we stacked the audience. I can’t stack the audience at the CIA. I pay great homage to the wall with the stars. I paid great homage.
And the audience was standing ovation. They actually — they were standing from the beginning. They didn’t even sit down. It was one standing ovation, the whole thing. So I get back — and I will say, Fox treated it great. They said it was great.
When our new person running, Mike Pompeo, who is fantastic — he said to me the other day, That was so great. Everyone loved it. Everybody loved it. When I got back, I saw the speech. They didn’t like it. It wasn’t respectful. It was a smattering of applause. It wasn’t a smattering. It was — there were, like, 300, 350 people in the room. Over 1,000 wanted to come. And if I took a vote right now, I would have won 350 to nothing, believe me. But even that was demeaned as much as they can demean it.
What I’m saying, Sean, is this. The media — much of the media, not all of it, is very, very dishonest. Honestly, it’s fake news. It’s fake. They make things up.
HANNITY: So then, here’s my question. Between Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, I think you reach 50 million people.
TRUMP: Yes, pretty close.
HANNITY: But if — we know now through WikiLeaks, some of these networks were colluding…
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: … with Hillary’s campaign to defeat you.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: I’ve seen major newspapers, two cable networks that used the word liar. And my question to you is, does that make you want to rethink entirely how this administration will deal with the media?
TRUMP: Well, they are the liars. Let me give you an example. When Sean got up, he talked about the audience and he talked about — I had the largest audience. I did. I had the largest audience. If you add the television, you add all the sources, the largest audience in the history of inaugurations. I did.
hey try and demean it so much. And when you look at pictures — I’d love to show you a picture — when I was in that speech, I looked out, it was a sea of…
HANNITY: Picture of the West Wing (ph).
TRUMP: … people, and they want to demean it. I don’t even know when that picture was taken, by the way, to be honest with you. But it wasn’t taken from where I was. They take a picture from the back, from the Washington Monument, a backward picture.
They are so demeaning and they are so dishonest. And in many cases now, it’s more of — but when you bring up …
HANNITY: But I don’t remember them treating Barack Obama this way.
TRUMP: They don’t.
HANNITY: There is a distinct difference.
TRUMP: Look, that could never have happened. The things that happen to me would — and he’s been very nice to me, I have to say, and he wrote me a beautiful letter. But the Martin Luther King thing is an example. That was a terrible thing.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up, more of my cable exclusive interview with President Donald Trump in the White House. And I will ask him how he plans to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
That and more as we continue from our nation’s capital.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will have an ambitious legislative agenda, as well. Our legislative work starts with repealing and replacing ObamaCare and saving families from the catastrophic rise in premiums and debilitating loss of choice and just about everything else.
REP. PAUL RYAN, R-WIS., SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: The president is eager to get moving on this agenda, and so are we. Already, we have hit the ground running, taking the first steps to keep our promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
TRUMP: ObamaCare is a disaster. The Democrats are up and they’re saying — oh, they’re putting up signs like it’s wonderful. It’s a disaster. I actually talked with Paul and the group about just doing nothing for two years, and the Dems would come begging to do something because ’17 is going to be catastrophic price increases. Your deductibles are through the roof. You can’t use it.
SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: His goal, first and foremost, is to make sure that we give the American people a health care system that’s affordable, more accessible, more doctors, more plans.
TRUMP: We have to take care of the American people immediately. So we can’t wait.
But every time they tell you about ObamaCare — we’re taking them out of a big jam.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: And welcome back to “Hannity,” as we are outside of the White House. And earlier today, during my cable exclusive interview with President Trump, well, I asked him about his campaign promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare. Let’s take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ObamaCare — I — the Republicans, they’re meeting in Philly, and you’re going to see them, but they had an artificial deadline. They set the deadline for tomorrow.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: They don’t think they’re going to make that. You want at the same time repeal and replace. I know there are nine separate plans out there. What is crucial for you to have in that plan to help…
TRUMP: Let me tell you what’s crucial for me. What’s crucial for me is for the public to understand that ObamaCare is a disaster, OK? Because now the Democrats are saying, Oh, it’s wonderful. It’s a horror show! You don’t have your doctor. You don’t have your plan. You have 116 percent increases, like in Arizona. It’s a disaster. It’s going to be worse this year than it was last year. It actually explodes in ’17.
And I told the Republicans. I said, look, if you really want to do something, just let it explode, and then they’ll come begging us to fix it, OK? Begging. But that’s not the right thing for the public because we have to get it fixed.
But ObamaCare doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. And President Obama told me something that was, I thought, terrific. And I believe he means it. He said, If you came up with a better plan and you could get a better plan approved, he would support it. And I actually believe he means it.
I do believe we’re going to have a much better plan. I think we’re going to have a cheaper plan. I think it’s going to be a lot less expensive. ObamaCare is the “Unaffordable Care Act.”
The governor of Minnesota, who — hopefully, he’s better now because he took a pretty bad tumble. But he said a month ago that — actually, during the campaign and after the campaign, he said the “Unaffordable Care Act” — or he called it the Affordable Care Act — is now unaffordable. Bill Clinton called it crazy.
HANNITY: It went up $5,400 when it was supposed to be down $2,500 a year. Let me move on.
TRUMP: It is, by the way. It is unaffordable. And it doesn’t work.
HANNITY: You can’t even buy a catastrophic plan.
TRUMP: Correct. And the deductibles are so high that unless you get hit by a tractor, you’re never going to be able to use it.
HANNITY: Let me ask you. Energy — and you know this from your years in building. It’s the lifeblood of our economy.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: We are dependent on foreign nations…
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: … many of whom do not like us. We have more shale. We have new technology. We have hydro-fracking natural gas. We’re the Middle East of natural gas. How important a goal is it that you want this country to move towards energy independence?
TRUMP: Very important. It’s very important.
HANNITY: Can you do it in four years?
TRUMP: Oh, I think you can do it in a lot less than that. No, it’s very important. No, they stop you environmentally. They use the environment to stop a lot of good things, not only energy, buildings and factories, plants. They use it to stop things. It’s like a roadblock, but that’s not going to happen anymore.
And the by the way, I’m an environmentalist, OK? I believe strongly in the environment and I’m going to protect the environment. But you don’t have to have a man who wants to build a factory or a person or a company wait 10 years going through approvals, at the end of the 10-year, get rejected, OK?
HANNITY: You’ve mentioned the forgotten man a lot both during the campaign …
TRUMP: And woman.
HANNITY: — and woman — and in your inaugural speech. And you mentioned it last night. I gave you statistics, the very first interview I did with you, 95 million Americans out of the labor force, nearly 50 million in poverty, 44 million Americans on food stamps.
TRUMP: I’ve never heard you say that, Sean.
HANNITY: I say it every night.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: I’m kidding.
HANNITY: One day, you asked, what are all those numbers you give, you said. But explain — by getting rid of regulation, energy independence, jobs that will be created, a 15 percent — from the highest corporate tax rate to the lowest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, and repatriating trillions. How does that help and impact those people I talk about all the time?
TRUMP: Well, hugely. We’re going to have jobs. We’re going to have good jobs. We don’t have good jobs anymore. We’re going to have good jobs. Look at what I’ve done recently. Ford’s moving back and General Motors is going to be spending massive amounts of money. And Fiat Chrysler, the head who is a highly-respected man, Sergio, flew all the way from Italy to have — to go to the meeting two days ago. They’re going to spend a lot of money in the United States. Foxconn.
HANNITY: Seven billion dollars.
TRUMP: Foxconn…
HANNITY: Alibaba.
TRUMP: Alibaba, who’s a great guy, by the way. All of these companies, they’re all excited. They had no intention.
You know, here’s another thing with the media. Oh, they would have done it anyway. They weren’t going to do it. You see Jack Ma. He had no intention of doing it until I got elected. And he went down and he said, I’m only going to do this because of Donald Trump. And nobody put that in the papers, which is OK. What difference does it make, as long as he does it? And he’s going to do it.
These are great people. These are great companies. And they’re going to spend a tremendous amount of money. And it’s all because they know how good it’s going to be, and what it means is jobs.
HANNITY: And trade deals. You got rid of TPP. You want all bilateral trade agreements …
TRUMP: TPP — look, here’s the problem. Number one, they didn’t do anything on currency devaluations, which is a killer for our country because we don’t do it and everyone else does it. They just absolutely …
HANNITY: But you want bilateral?
TRUMP: Absolutely.
HANNITY: With everybody.
TRUMP: We’re going to make deals with every one of those countries. And you know what? If the deal doesn’t work out, we terminate the deal. When you get into the mosh pit, I call it — where you have all these countries together, you can’t get out of the deal.
And you take the lowest denominator. In other words, you have countries that don’t treat us well. They’re in there. We want to deal with the ones that treat us well. And if they don’t treat us well, we terminate or we give them a 30-day notice of termination. And then they come back and they want to renegotiate during that 30 days, and we get a better deal. We don’t make good deals anymore. You almost wonder who does these deals? How did it happen?
So just — look, to sum up, we’re going to make great trade deals. We’re going to bring back jobs. We’re going to have a strong military. We’re going to do great.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up, I asked President Trump about the threat of radical Islam and how he plans to defeat it.
That and more as we continue from Washington, D.C. Please stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will reinforce old alliances and form new ones and unite the civilized world against radical Islamic terrorism, which we will eradicate completely from the face of the earth!
We have to get rid of ISIS. Have to get rid of ISIS. We have no choice. This is evil. This is a level of evil that we haven’t seen.
Yesterday, I had the honor of swearing in General John Kelly as our secretary of Homeland Security. He’s going to be amazing. Tomorrow, I will swear in General James Mattis as our new secretary of defense. These men have devoted their lives to defending America, and now I look forward to working with them to keep our country safe from the many threats we face today. That includes protecting Americans from radical Islamic terrorism.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
JACKIE IBANEZ, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Live from America’s news headquarters I’m Jackie Ibanez in New York.
TransCanada Corporation submitting a new permit application now that President Trump has signed an order to expedite the Keystone XL pipeline project. The nearly 1,200 mile pipeline would run from the Canadian province of Alberta to Nebraska. Former president Barack Obama rejected the Keystone pipeline back in 2015 saying it would hamper efforts to reach a global climate change deal.
Vice President Mike Pence will speak at tomorrow’s annual March for Life in Washington, D.C. The prolife organization says this is the first time a vice president is slated to speak at the event now in its 44th year. The organization is expecting tens of thousands of demonstrators. They will rally on the National Mall before marching to the U.S. Supreme Court.
I’m Jackie Ibanez. Now back to “Hannity.” For all of your headlines, logon on to FoxNews.com. Have a great night.
HANNITY: Welcome back to “Hannity.” We are back in Washington, D.C. We are outside the White House. And today during my sit- down interview with our 45th president, Donald Trump, I asked about the threat of radical Islam and how he plans to defeat it. And here’s what he told me.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: One of the problems we have is evil in our time.
TRUMP: True.
HANNITY: Winston Churchill dealt with evil in his time. Roosevelt dealt with evil in his time. My father fought in World War II.
TRUMP: But they had evil with uniforms on.
HANNITY: That’s true. This is different.
TRUMP: We have evil that lurks around the corner without the uniforms. Ours is harder because the people that we’re going against, they don’t wear uniforms. They’re sneaky, dirty rats. And they blow people up in a shopping center. And they blow people up in a church. These are bad people. When you’re fighting Germany, they had their uniforms, and Japan, and they had their uniforms and they had their flags on the plane and the whole thing. We are fighting sneaky rats right now that are sick and demented. And we’re going to win.
HANNITY: Waterboarding black sites came up in your interview last night. And I was thinking, if I had an opportunity to speak with David Muir, I’d say, OK, two guys go into your house, they kidnap your child, one guy gets away with your child, you tackle the other guy. That guy knows where your child is, would you not water board that guy?
TRUMP: So waterboarding used to be used because they said it really wasn’t torture. It was the one step slightly below torture. That’s why waterboarding —
HANNITY: That’s why it was legal.
TRUMP: I mean, torture is real torture, OK? Waterboarding is — I’m sure it’s not pleasant, but waterboarding was just short of torture. When — you know, all of a sudden, they made it torture. So here’s the story. I spoke with people the other day who are in this world that were talking about it. I said absolutely, it works, absolutely. Now, General Mattis said that he doesn’t intend to use it. I’m with him all the way. Do I believe it works? Yes, I do.
HANNITY: Well, we actually know it works. I interviewed — there were only three people that America water boarded. One of whom was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. That led us to the courier which led us to bin Laden. And I know because I talked to the guy that was running the program at the time.
TRUMP: It works. In my opinion, it works.
HANNITY: I want to ask you about —
TRUMP: Do you have even a doubt that it works?
HANNITY: None.
TRUMP: Neither do I.
HANNITY: None. Not one.
TRUMP: And I watch these people in television, “Oh, Donald Trump is in favor of torture.” Look, we have people that knocked down the World Trade Center, we have people that go into a club and they blow everyone up.
HANNITY: We both lost friends that day.
TRUMP: Everybody did, thousands of people. We have people all — and all over the world, we’re talking about. We’re not just talking — we’re talking all over the world. They go into a club and they machine gun everybody down. And then, they were not allowed to water board? It’s so – – it seems so foolish and so naive. But this is what we have to put up with. But here’s the story —
HANNITY: I would ask David Muir, if they kidnapped your kid and you have one of the kidnappers, what would you do to get the location of your child?
TRUMP: Or would you want him to talk in 48 hours from now by being nice to him, OK?
HANNITY: It’s over.
TRUMP: OK?
HANNITY: It’s over at that point.
TRUMP: And by that time, it’s too late. So, I’m not into it. I will tell you, though, it works. And I just spoke to people who told me it worked, and that’s what they do.
HANNITY: I spoke to the guy that ran the program and saw the waterboarding of those three people.
Let me ask you this. I will go through these very quickly, the countries that you’re going to be dealing with now. Israel, one of our closest partners, Prime Minister Netanyahu is coming. One of the big issues is the embassy, Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. How important is it to repair this relationship, and what about that move of that embassy?
TRUMP: It’s repaired.
HANNITY: It’s repaired already.
TRUMP: Got repaired as soon as I —
HANNITY: Within five minutes?
TRUMP: Yes. It’s repaired. We have a good relationship. Israel has been treated very badly. We have a good relationship with them.
HANNITY: And you’re holding back the money — the last-minute money that President Obama gave to the Palestinians.
TRUMP: We’re going to see what happens. Yes, I don’t want to talk about it.
HANNITY: Where do you stand on the embassy from Tel Aviv to —
TRUMP: I don’t want to about it yet.
HANNITY: Not yet? OK, how about — I know you spoke to General el-Sisi, did you ever see the speech that he gave on radical Islam?
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: And do you believe he could —
TRUMP: We have a very, very good relationship with the general. We’re going to have a very good relationship with Egypt. He went into a tough situation. And all I can say is I like him.
HANNITY: Do you trust the Saudis? Over the years, I would argue they’ve been very duplicitous.
TRUMP: Yes. I don’t want to tell you about that. I don’t like talking about how I feel about people because I don’t want to be put in that position. I hope I get along with everybody. But it’s possible I won’t. A lot of money is being spent from certain countries on radicalizing people. I don’t like that. I don’t like that.
HANNITY: Have you talked to Vladimir Putin yet? So much came up about this. Have you had discussions with him?
TRUMP: Well, no. He called me after I won, but I haven’t had a discussion. But I understand we will be having a discussion soon.
HANNITY: How about the leaders of China?
TRUMP: Yes. I have spoken to him and we have been dealing a little bit with China.
HANNITY: And I know you spoke to the leaders in India. What about Pakistan?
TRUMP: Yes, I have.
HANNITY: Let me ask this. I think is important. I actually agree with you wholeheartedly about the Iranian deal. Would you —
TRUMP: Well, I think it’s one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen. And I’m not just talking about —
HANNITY: We paid them ransom.
TRUMP: No, no. I think it’s, what — how about $1.7 billion, and that was a ransom payment, in cash, $1.7 billion in cash. But $150 billion — but that’s not even the important thing. I think it’s one of the worst deals I’ve ever seen. And why Kerry didn’t get up out of the chair and leave is hard to believe.
HANNITY: Let me ask you about the power of the pardon, which is absolute for a president. One night, I know you were watching my show and I had the mother of the sailor who is spending a year in jail because he took six pictures for his own use in a submarine and you were comparing it. Would that be something early on you would consider?
TRUMP: I’m actually looking at it right now.
HANNITY: Kristian Saucier.
TRUMP: I think it’s very unfair in light of what’s happened with other people. I think it’s very, very —
HANNITY: Did you hear the story of Clint Lorance, another guy, got 30 years. He was doing his job, protecting his team in Afghanistan.
TRUMP: We’re looking at a few of them. And by the way, if another event didn’t happen, I would look at him. But how can you have somebody else get away with such a tremendous amount and then this person who takes a picture of his desk on an old submarine — look, if China or Russia wanted information on that submarine, they’ve had it for many years. That I can tell you.
HANNITY: When you saw the Women’s March this week and then you hear Madonna say “I thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House.” Imagine if I said that when Barack Obama was here.
TRUMP: Honestly, she’s disgusting. I think she hurt herself very badly. I think she hurt that whole —
HANNITY: Cause.
TRUMP: — cause. I thought her, and a couple of others, but I thought she was in particular — I thought what she said was disgraceful to our country.
HANNITY: Last question, and then we’re going to — you will take us to the Oval Office, which is nice. You were very passionate last night about Chicago and about the violence. In the course of Barack Obama’s presidency, 4,000 people died, murdered, and another however-many-thousand more shot. You might go in and help fix it if they can’t fix it.
TRUMP: You had many people shot last night. The news this morning is that many, many people were shot last night in Chicago. Chicago is worse than some of the countries you read about in the Middle East where there’s wars going on. And there’s no reason —
HANNITY: It’s a warzone.
TRUMP: There is no reason for it.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming up, President Trump takes me inside the Oval Office as our cable exclusive interview with the 45th commander-in-chief continues. Please stay with us.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: We will get our people off of welfare and back to work rebuilding our country with American hands and American labor.
From this day forward, it’s going to be only America first.
We’re bringing manufacturing back to the United States and its happening, it is happening big league.
MARIA BARTIROMO, HOST, “MORNINGS WITH MARIA”/FBN: Toyota will reportedly invest $600 million into a factory in Indiana. The company is also going 400 jobs. This is on a string of others
STUART VARNEY, HOST, “VARNEY & COMPANY”/FBN: Foxconn, partnering with Apple, is considering a $7 billion plant in America, 30,000 jobs here.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He has one after another made announcement after announcement that jobs are coming back.
TRUMP: We are going to put a lot of people back to work. We’re going to use common sense and do it the way it’s supposed to be done.
Together, we will make America strong again. We will make America wealthy again. And yes, together, we will make America great again.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
HANNITY: Welcome back to “Hannity.” And we are at the White House in Washington, D.C. And earlier today, President Donald J. Trump, well, he gave us a tour of the Oval Office. And here is more of my cable exclusive interview. Take a look.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: It’s inauguration night. You gave your speech.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: You go to the balls, you come back, and you’re in the White House, in the residence with Melania. And by the way, that’s Marine One right there.
TRUMP: That is right.
HANNITY: And so my question is, what’d you say? What are you thinking?
TRUMP: Well, it was a beautiful evening, it was an incredible day. People liked the speech, which was good.
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: It’s just somewhat of a surreal experience to be honest with you.
HANNITY: I’m sure.
TRUMP: But I don’t have too much time to think about it, because there’s so many things to do, so many problems to solve. You know, we’re —
HANNITY: What a beautiful helicopter.
TRUMP: That’s beautiful.
We’re a country that has some difficulty, to put it mildly, it’s a very difficult situation. But we’ll get them straightened out.
HANNITY: I have known you for years, and on a personal level, whenever I have ever talked to you, it’s either 11:00 p.m., 12 midnight, 1:00 a.m. or 5:00 or 6:00 a.m. You’re a workaholic.
TRUMP: Well, I like working. I don’t think I’m a workaholic. I just like what I’m doing. I don’t go too much for the vacations because I’m bored.
HANNITY: You get bored on vacations?
TRUMP: And the good thing about this, I have plenty to do, you know —
HANNITY: You’re busy now.
TRUMP: There’s plenty to do. It’s the ultimate, I would say.
HANNITY: Hard on your family? For example, I met your son, your 10-year- old.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: What a wonderful, smart, charming kid. And then they attack him. That’s got to hurt you and Melania.
TRUMP: Well, “Saturday Night Live,” a person from “Saturday Night Live” was terrible. It’s a failing show, it’s not funny. Alec Baldwin is a disaster. He’s terrible on the show. And by the way, I don’t mind some humor but it’s terrible. But for them to attack, for NBC to attack my 10 year old son —
HANNITY: Horrible.
TRUMP: — it’s a disgrace.
HANNITY: And he’s a great kid.
TRUMP: And he’s a great boy.
HANNITY: I know him. I know — yes.
TRUMP: And it’s not an easy thing for him. Believe me.
HANNITY: I know you talked a little bit about this, the nuclear codes. How long was that meeting? How in depth was it?
TRUMP: Well, I don’t go into it. I can tell you, though, that’s serious stuff and when you see the kind of destruction that’s explained to you, you realize that getting along with people is a very good thing.
HANNITY: And that’s what you said about Putin, if we can get along, we’ll get along.
TRUMP: Right. I don’t know Putin, but if we can get along with Russia, that’s a great thing. It’s good for Russia, it’s good for us. We go out together and knock the hell out of ISIS, because that’s the real sickness, you know the whole ISIS thing is the real sickness. But if we get along with Russia and other — not just we should get along with everybody if we can. Now, in some cases you won’t be able to but we’ve got to try.
HANNITY: In many cases it’s going to be harder when — I’ve always said there’s a clash of culture or civilizations, you know, countries that practice Sharia. By the way we’re in the Oval Office.
TRUMP: This is the Oval Office. That’s a great statue of —
HANNITY: That’s Lincoln.
TRUMP: Abraham Lincoln.
HANNITY: By the way —
TRUMP: There’s the bust of Martin Luther King, which was falsely reported, false reported that it was taken out of the office. When I arrived it was immediately taken out. These are lying people. These are bad people. And Martin Luther King is here, will always be here. And the apology was this —
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: Did you — Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson.
HANNITY: Get a shot of these.
TRUMP: I did. I moved paintings around the White House. I just thought it would be great. So we have George Washington, Honest Abe Lincoln, we have Andrew Jackson who they say was the most like my campaign because his was a vicious campaign.
HANNITY: It was a pretty rough campaign.
TRUMP: We have a book on Adam’s and Jefferson. That was the most vicious campaign in the history of our country until this campaign.
HANNITY: When you first walk in this office every day and you think of it —
TRUMP: Just take a look. And look at my desk, papers. You don’t see presidents with papers.
HANNITY: I’ve got one question about the desk, and you have Ivanka and Jared have young kids. Are we going to see one of the kids maybe crawling through there?
TRUMP: Could be, I think it’s a good idea, before they get too old.
HANNITY: Yes.
TRUMP: But that was John. That’s a secret door in that desk, and that was a famous picture.
HANNITY: Why did you pick that desk?
TRUMP: Well, it was Ronald Regan. It was a lot of great president actually, FDR, Roosevelt. It was — we’ve had a lot of great presidents using this desk, and I thought that would be the appropriate desk. You know when I came here you have a right to use your desk and this and you can pick. They have like seven desks.
HANNITY: You were very impressed with your phones too.
TRUMP: I have great phones. I have phones — let me tell you. The technology that we have in this country is incredible. Unfortunately perhaps we don’t use it.
HANNITY: But we need to.
TRUMP: It is great. And the experts that do this work, we have really brilliant people doing it.
HANNITY: I assume you’re going to be putting, there’s a picture of your father —
TRUMP: Picture of my father, right.
HANNITY: That wasn’t there yesterday.
TRUMP: No it wasn’t, I just added that. That’s good, you know that?
HANNITY: I did notice that.
TRUMP: Well you picked that up fast.
HANNITY: And I really — why did you choose the rug of Reagan? You could have also designed your own.
TRUMP: Yes, and others. But I thought that — first of all, I liked it. I liked the look, I like the lightness, and I like having it be Reagan. I like Reagan. I disagreed with him on some things, primarily trade —
HANNITY: Trade, yeah.
TRUMP: He was not as strong on trade as I felt he should have been, but that’s OK. But he represented us very well.
HANNITY: In your lifetime, who was the president that maybe you admire the most?
TRUMP: Well, I like Reagan. I didn’t like him on trade but other than trade, I liked him very much, and he was OK on trade. But not great.
HANNITY: I was surprised — my last question for you. I was surprised last night. I was watching your interview and you were holding up the letter that Barack Obama had — had left you.
TRUMP: Right.
HANNITY: It seemed like a lengthy letter.
TRUMP: It was.
HANNITY: And you seemed to have a personal rapport with him. And you were right, this was a really, really incredibly vicious campaign.
TRUMP: What amazed me is that I was vicious to him in statements, he was vicious to me in statements, and here we are getting along, we’re riding up Pennsylvania Avenue talking, we don’t even mention it. I guess that’s the world of politics. But I was tough on him, he was tough on me. And I like him, he likes me. I think he likes me. I mean, you’re going to have to ask him, but I think he likes me.
HANNITY: He doesn’t talk to me.
TRUMP: Not too much.
(LAUGHTER)
HANNITY: I can’t figure out why.
TRUMP: But look, he wrote me a very nice letter, beautiful letter.
HANNITY: Helpful to you?
TRUMP: It’s something to think about. I agree with what — letter he wrote.
HANNITY: Very, very last question.
TRUMP: Yes.
HANNITY: Has this whole experience changed you in ways — in any way that you can think of?
TRUMP: I don’t think I’ve had the time to be changed because I’m cutting the prices of airplanes, I’m cutting the prices of army tanks —
HANNITY: You’re working.
TRUMP: I’m cutting the prices of submarines, you know, we’re lacking submarines and we’re going to build new submarines but the price is too high, so I’m cutting the prices way down. Doing a lot of work in addition to getting Ford, General Motors, and some others to start building cars here, right?
HANNITY: Mr. President, good to see you.
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
HANNITY: Thank you for your time, you’ve been very generous.
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HANNITY: And coming we have more “Hannity” right after this break as we continue outside of the White House in Washington, D.C. as “Hannity” continues.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REINCE PREIBUS, WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF: The first one is withdraw the United States from the Transpacific Partnership.
TRUMP: Great thing for the American worker, what we just did.
SEAN SPICER, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: The president’s vision is to negotiation fair trade deals and create jobs, increase American wages, and reduce America’s trade deficit.
TRUMP: There will be plenty of trade, but TPP wasn’t the right way. So we are going back to those countries one on one. And that’ll be beautiful.
KELLYANNE CONWAY, SENIOR COUNCIL TO THE PRESIDENT: President Trump hosted labor union leaders — the trade guys and gals — and some of the workers. It was just a remarkable exchange.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We will work with him and his administration to help him implement his plans on infrastructure, trade, and energy policy so that we can put America back to work in the middle class jobs that our members and all Americans are demanding.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Nice to win. Do we agree? It has been a while.
We are here now because tens of millions of Americans have placed their hopes in us to transfer power from Washington, D.C., and give it back to the people. Since taking office, I have taken major contractual steps to restore the rule of law and to return power to everyday Americans. We want to get our people off of welfare and back to work.
(APPLAUSE)
TRUMP: And we believe that the world’s best country ought to have the world’s best infrastructure.
At the same time, we will unleash the full power of American energy, ending the job killing restrictions on shale, oil, natural gas, and clean, beautiful coal.
All of us are joined. All of us are bound by duty and bound by god to give our full devotion to this country and its people. That obligation forms the moral foundation of our agenda. That agenda includes a lean, efficient government, appointing Supreme Court justices, so important, who will uphold and defend our constitution, reducing taxation and regulation, fair trade that creates a level playing field as opposed to what we have right now, and fostering respect for our country and its flag.
We are now only at the beginning of this incredible journey together. I am honored to be your partner in this amazing quest. I am privileged to stand with you shoulder to shoulder as we work every single day to make America great again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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