Donald Trump on Israel, Speaker's race, Nikki Haley & RFK, Jr.

Alright, joining me now, the 45th President of the United States who wants to be the 47th, President Donald Trump. Thanks, Mr. President.

Hello, Brian. So first off on the quick moving events, now we know over in Israel that 22 Americans have been killed. At least 17 are thought to be missing and maybe held as hostages in Gaza. Mr. President, if you were president right now, how would you get them back? How would Hamas pay the price or do you sit behind Israel? Well, Brian, I have to preface it by saying that it would have never happened. Zero chance, just like Ukraine would have never happened with Russia.

This would have never happened. We had Iran in a very weakened state. We were sanctioning everybody and fighting with everybody. You can't do business and China wasn't buying oil. Nobody was buying oil and Iran was a very poor country at that point. And now they're a very rich country because of Biden, because for the last three years they've made a fortune. And the $6 billion is a lot, but it's peanuts compared to the $100 billion a year they make on oil. And they're very rich. They were a very poor country and now they're a very rich country and they're the ones leading this whole situation. And you have a big problem on your hands and Israel has a problem like they never envisioned. This could have never happened under the Trump administration, Brian. But having said that, you had great relations.

You still do have great relations with Prime Minister Netanyahu. He's put together a coalition government. They're all on the same page, mobilized 300,000 men. They've asked for and gotten our support, additional munitions. But right now, Mr. President, if you were in control, if you were in the Oval Office, what would you do to get our people back? What would you do for retribution for the 22 dead?

You are going to have to be, and I have to preface this by saying I don't like telling you exactly what I would do because if I do, you're basically doing exactly what Biden does. He was saying we don't want to be attacked from the north, meaning through Hezbollah with Hezbollah. If they don't want to be attacked from the north, that would be terrible because that's the vulnerable point. And I say, why are they saying all of these things? And guess what happens? That was yesterday, and today they were attacked by Hezbollah from the north.

It's just incredible. So we don't want to be stupid people and tell, but I will say that this is all being caused by Iran. Iran is making a fortune, as I told you. They went from not making money with their oil to making a fortune. China wasn't buying.

Nobody was buying. I said if you do any business with Iran during this period of time, we would have had a deal with Iran within one week after I won the presidency. That horrible day didn't take place. That horrible result that was disgraceful, a disgrace to our country.

It'll go down and in for me when you look at what's happened to our country since then. But I know you never paid, under your administration, you guys never paid ransom. Brian, it's all coming through Iran and Obama wants to, he doesn't want to talk about it. He doesn't want to mention, he doesn't even mention them in his statements. It's all coming through Iran. But you mean President Biden. So, but right now... I also mean Obama.

What do you mean? I mean Obama and Biden, but Obama is Biden's boss, in case you didn't really know that. You believe, you believe President Obama is... I don't think, I don't think Biden knows what's happening, to be honest with you. I think that Obama is calling these shots and he's always felt this way about Iran.

There's no question about that. Now, I think Obama and Obama's people certainly are calling the shots, not Biden. So, so you don't have, this is just your gut tells you, but you don't have any proof that President Obama's calling the shots? No, that's my gut, but my gut's been right about everything, so you know.

It's good. They have an expression out there. Trump's been right about everything. You take a look at, go down the list, we've been right about everything. So you know how volatile the Middle East is? We're right about all of the people pouring into our country, right about Ukraine, we're right about everything. So what do we do, what do we do about getting our people back?

There are a lot of people, a lot of people from Obama in the administration that circle the Oval Office desk, the Resolute desk, and it's one of those things. But whether it's, whether that's the case or it's Biden, we are in a mess right now, a mess that should have never happened. I understand that, but if this is dropped in your lap, what's the best course of action, knowing that Israel is fully mobilized as a nation? Robert O'Brien told me Saturday night, first thing I would do is get our best hostage negotiators over there from the FBI to the military. And that was before we knew Americans were involved. What could we do to make sure those Americans are out okay?

Well, I think that's a big step, but I think that's a step that's very late right now. It's very late when you see what they're doing to people, when you see what's taking place over there. You have to be very hard in Iran. I don't want to tell you what I would do with Iran, but it's very simple what I do.

But you can, this is all about Iran. Iran is leading this. Iran is wealthy. They just got $6 billion from an incompetent president.

Iran is very, very wealthy right now. And on top of the tremendous amount of money they've made in a short period of time, three years, remember, under the Trump administration, they couldn't have prosecuted this war because they didn't have the money. We would have made a deal. We would have made a deal with them, and they would have been just fine.

They would have been, everybody would have been happy. But what they've done now is, through weakness, is they've made a fortune on oil, and they've got another relatively peanuts compared to the oil money. But they've got $6 billion for hostages, which, by the way, is going to set a terrible precedent for our country. Terrible precedent, because I didn't pay any money. You know, we got 58 hostages, as you call them, but we got 58 hostages out. We never paid a dime for any of them.

Because once you do, you create a situation that's going to be absolutely terrible. Think of it. They got $6 billion for five hostages.

It was five and five, and then they paid, they got $6 billion. And the precedent that set, Brian, is terrible by doing that. So I want you to hear with the crown prince. Yeah, the Abraham Accords are perhaps the greatest achievement of the Trump administration in just four years, where these Arab nations, longtime enemies of Israel, recognize them, begin relations with them, and recognize Israel as a nation.

Next up seemed to be the crown prince. Here's what he said to Brett, happens if Iran gets a nuke. The world cannot see another Hiroshima. If the world sees 100,000 people dead, that means you are in a war with the rest of the world.

So it's a useless effort to reach a nuclear weapon, because you cannot use it. You've got to have a big fight with the rest of the world. If they get one, will you? If they get one, we have to get one.

For security reasons, for balancing power in the Middle East. But we don't want to see that. So if they get one... Well, that's what's happening. If they get one, he's going to get one, and that's true.

And he made a statement, and that's the way he feels in the Middle East. And you can kiss that deal goodbye with Israel and Saudi Arabia. You can kiss that deal goodbye.

That's going to be gone now for a long time. We would have had Saudi Arabia signed a long time ago. They would have been signed up along with the other countries that already signed the Abraham Accords.

But you can kiss that deal goodbye. They can't negotiate now. It would be impossible under the circumstances to make a deal with Israel and Saudi Arabia right now. If I put you back in the Oval Office right at this moment, Benjamin Netanyahu knows that he's got to take action, and he's about to go into Gaza. Is his fight our fight under any circumstances? Do we have American troops in there? We have to protect Israel. They've been, you know, a part, really a part of this country, the fabric of what we stand for. We have to protect Israel. There's no choice.

And do we have to do it? He has been hurt very badly because of what's happened here. He was not prepared. He was not prepared, and Israel was not prepared.

And under Trump, they wouldn't have had to be prepared. Look at what we did for them. And we did that alone. We didn't do that with Israel.

And you know what I'm talking about. We did that totally alone, not with Israel. But they were not prepared. They were very poorly... Was the Prime Minister distracted? Who would have thought their intelligence would have been able to pick this up? Thousands of people were involved. Thousands of people knew about it, and they let this slip by.

That was not a good thing for him or for anybody. Do you think American intelligence should have been able to help on that, or is that solely... Well, I would have thought American intelligence, but we don't have much intelligence in our country anymore. You look at our intelligence people, they usually... They were the ones that said the laptop from hell was from Russia, okay, 51 intelligence agents. And it turned out to be a lie. I think that, and I've said this for a long time, our so-called intelligence is highly... has been highly overrated.

It could be great again, but it has been highly overrated. Our intelligence should have known about it, and Israel's intelligence definitely should have known about it. Have you talked to the Prime Minister yet? I don't want to say about who I've talked to, but I was very disappointed that a thing like this could happen. And now they're getting hit very hard by the North. And I'm really shocked that the Obama administration can be out there saying, I hope they don't attack from the North.

Why are they doing that? How stupid a statement. That's like you asking me what I do. I don't want to tell you what I do exactly. I know exactly what I do. But, you know, you just can't say that as much as I respect you, Brian, and I do respect you a lot.

And I appreciate you've been very nice to me over the last year, which has really come a long way. But, you know, you just don't want to give away your chess game, right? Understood.

But I will say this. It all starts with Iran. Everything that we're talking about, every single death, everything that you've seen, it starts and ends with Iran.

And I know you don't want to give away strategy. He hasn't mentioned Iran in one of his statements. His policy was totally opposite of yours when it came to Iran. He looked at Saudi Arabia as the problem and Iran to get back into the nuclear deal. That was his plan. Well, you're right.

He had the exact opposite. I call it April Fool's Day because you can't. It's like, you know, you say something like, who would like open borders? It's April Fool's Day. Open borders. Who wants no voter ID?

It's April Fool's Day. They want no voter ID because they want to cheat on elections. I mean, they want no voter ID. Why, Brian, why don't they want voter ID and not the Democrats? It's the people, you know, I think 84 percent of them said, no, we want voter ID. But the leaders want no voter ID. They want high taxes. They want all electric cars, which is going to drive the price up and they don't go far enough. You know, it's all these things. They want the opposite, almost the opposite of every single thing that's good for our country. And you have to wonder about that. But, you know, it's very sad.

I look at what's happening and I look at the weakness. This is largely because they never, they don't respect the United States anymore. They don't respect our president and they don't respect the United States. They would have never done this with me. And they didn't. Right.

And they did. I just want to bring you to something else just to get your comments. Black Lives Matter has a chapter that basically tweeted out mocking, supporting the Palestinians, Hamas, and mocking the Israelis, showing a paraglider. We have Harvard University, not their provost, not their leaders, but their students, 30 students. Different student unions come out in favor of the Palestinians.

Long Beach State, Columbia, NYU, Law Review. What is your take on all these people who look at this and think the problem is Israel? Not believable. You wouldn't have thought this could have happened 10 or 15 years ago.

It couldn't have happened, actually. A lot of people are not happy with leadership in Israel. A lot of people are not happy with, you know, look, Israel had the best lobby, if you want to call it a lobby, but that's what it was, of anybody in the world 15 years ago. But with AOC plus three, with all of these maniacs that are, you know, attacking it from every different angle, they've gone down. They've been diminished greatly. And you have congressmen that are supporting people, congressmen and women, that are supporting a cause that, frankly, was not supportable just five years ago, if you think about it. But look at AOC.

Look at the plus three. Look at the way they talk. And then when they finally get a chance, they get on air and they're asked to, you know, denounce what they said. They refuse to do it. They don't want to talk about it.

So, you know, Israel does not have the power within the United States that it once had. What kind of- And I think that's sad, by the way. Rashida Tlaib came out, big Palestinian flag, would not comment when asked, is it okay to cut off the heads of children?

They found, reportedly, 40 children with their head cut off. Is it possible, in your mind, to picture the type of humanity that would say that's okay? I think she's terrible. I think she's a horrible representative of our country. And frankly, she should be impeached for that.

That's what she should be. She should be impeached for that. It's barbaric. You look at what they've done to little children, babies, babies, where they cut off their heads. It's not even believable that we're having this conversation.

But nobody's seen anything like this. We saw very bad with the orange jumpsuits. And we took care of that situation.

But now you look at what's happening, and this is at a level that nobody's ever seen, and what I'm hearing is that the number of deaths is actually far greater than what we're hearing, having to do with Americans and also having to do with Israelis and others. So the speaker's had their vote behind closed doors. It looks like Steve Scalise is going to get it. If he gets the majority of the votes when they bring it to the floor, he'll get it over Jim Jordan. Your reaction? Because I know you came out in support of Jim Jordan. Well, I like Steve.

I like both of them very much. But the problem, you know, Steve is a man that is in serious trouble from the standpoint of his cancer. I mean, he's got to get better for himself.

I'm not talking about even country now. I'm saying got to get better. And this is tremendous stress, all of the things that you hear about and, you know, things that you don't want to get involved in from the standpoint of getting well. Steve is going through very, very serious cancer therapy. And, of course, then he had that horrible attack years ago that, you know, was amazing that he came back. I went to the hospital. I was with him the night it happened. I was literally with him holding his hand.

And I was there the night that it happened. And the doctors gave him probably a 10 percent chance that he made it. But there's tremendous aftereffect there. But he's got a very serious form of cancer. And, you know, most importantly, I want Steve to get well. I just don't know how you can do the job when you have such a serious problem.

Is that the only reason you endorse Jim Jordan? And you know what it does? These treatments, they drain you of strength, supposedly. It's like a draining of strength. And we need tremendous strength both inside and out because we have radical-level lunatics like Nancy Pelosi and Schiff and all these crazy people that are so bad for our country.

And they've got to fight them off and they've got to fight the outside world off. Right. So is that the only reason, Mr. President? Is that the only reason?

He's really hurt by the, you know, the amount of everything that he's going through. Is that the only reason you picked him over — is that the only reason you picked Jim Jordan, Mr. President? I want him to be well. Is that the only reason you picked Jim Jordan over Steve Scalise, his health? No, I like Jim. I think Jim is great. I like them both, by the way. But I think Jim is great. Tremendous fighter. Tough guy.

Really liked a lot. But, you know, don't forget, they have a vote now, Brian. They have to vote. And I think it's going to be very hard, maybe in either case, for somebody to get — you know, if you lose four votes, you can't get it. Now, I think Steve will lose far more than four, and I think probably Jim will, too.

And then you end up in one of these crazy stalemates. It's a very interesting situation. I think Jim Jordan is — But again, I like him very much. He likes me very much. I was there the night that he was so badly hurt. I was literally hearing that he wasn't going to be able to make it from the doctors. They were saying that they did a great job, and he did a great job.

But, you know, he's got to get well from the cancer. I think Jim — so that's the only — is that the only reason, Mr. President? Is that the only reason — is that the only reason you picked him over Jim Jordan?

Because it looks like Jim Jordan will now vote for Steve Scalise. Well, I mean, look, I'm going to endure — I'm going to be with anybody they picked. And if Jim decides to do that, that's going to be up to Jim. But I will certainly be with anybody they pick.

You know, I get along with — frankly, I get along with all of them. But I mean, the one thing with Steve, he's got to get well. He's got to get well.

He's got to get strong. Did Matt Gaetz hurt the party? Did Matt Gaetz hurt the party by ousting — leading a march to oust Kevin McCarthy? Well, he was upset that Kevin was doing a lot of the Obama work. He was working on the budget and getting something approved that, you know, we could have gotten a lot for.

And the debt ceiling, everybody was hurt with that. At the same time, Kevin's a great guy. He's a wonderful guy, but people were hurt by that.

It depends. I mean, it depends on how good the new speaker, whoever that may be, how good he does. I mean, maybe we'll end up with one of the great speakers of all time, in which case Matt Gaetz did a tremendous favor. But certainly some people aren't so happy with him, and other people, I guess, are with him 100 percent. Matt's a good guy.

He means well with this. And let's see how — you can't really say what's going to happen until you find out who's picked and how good a job that person does. Let's talk your political race. It looks like — I looked at the Emerson poll right before I came up. You're winning Pennsylvania by 9. On the real clear average, you're up in the primaries, 49-16, over DeSantis in New Hampshire.

You're up on Haley, 45-14. In the general, you beat the president on average, real clear average, 45-44. But Nikki Haley beats Biden by 4. Do you feel as though that Governor Haley is now — I beat Biden by more than 4. I beat Biden by 11 in The Washington Post. Right. They just take the average of the last, let's say, month? Yeah, but the most recent ones, the ABC Post, and that's a pretty good poll, I guess.

It's certainly maybe the most expensive one of all. But under that one, I beat — I'm up 11. They thought 9. Then they said 10.

Then it turned out to be 11. I'm up 11 in The Washington Post, ABC. And I know Nikki very well. I don't think she's going to do the job that you have to do to run our country. So I have a — I had her on today, yesterday. And here's what she said about the nickname you just gave her. I think it's lame. He's kind of lost his luster. I mean, it's a lame nickname.

It doesn't even — Was it Birdbrain? Yeah, it doesn't even make sense. What does that even mean? Like, he used to be cool at that.

He's not cool at that anymore. But look, I told my team, let's celebrate, because he sees the numbers we see. He knows exactly what we're doing. We're coming. We're coming. Get ready.

What do you think? Everyone, she's not coming anywhere. She's down to me by 40 and 50 points. I'm beating her in South Carolina, her state, by 30 points or more.

I think 35 points. We're beating her in Iowa by almost 40 points. We're beating her in New Hampshire by 44 points. It's just words with these politicians. She's getting clobbered.

The sanctimonious — you know, he was not very close. But when it first started, I was winning by a lot. But now I'm winning by legendary numbers. But as much as I'm beating him by, I'm beating her by more, because she hasn't even caught him. It's just words with her. I know her very well. Birdbrain means not very smart.

I don't think there's anything wrong with that. A lot of people didn't like the name sanctimonious. A lot of people didn't like the name Lion Ted. A lot of them didn't — I could give you plenty of names that didn't like Crooked Hillary.

They didn't like that name. But we came out just fine. We did great in the election, and we did even better in the second election by almost 12 million votes. Right. Mr. President — I think we're just fine. No, Nikki's getting clobbered.

And you know what? She hasn't really gained anything. People like to say she gained. She was in the debate, and she actually stayed the same. She didn't go up at all after the debate because people don't like her.

She wasn't likable at all. Right, I know. Lastly, RFK was in yesterday. He made an independent — he's going to run as an independent. They say 45 percent approval with Republicans, 14 with Democrats. Will he hurt you more if you get the nomination more than Joe Biden? Well, he's a Democrat.

I think it's probably helpful of me. He's a Democrat. Look, he's a Kennedy.

Number one, you put the name Kennedy. That's a Democrat. But if you look at his environmental stance, he closed up New York. He wouldn't let pipelines go through to Massachusetts and various other places go through New York State.

He was very, very tough. He was brutal on the environment. He actually destroyed Andrew Cuomo. He actually destroyed him because Andrew Cuomo wouldn't do a thing without his approval, and New York State got left behind. The environmental stuff that he approved is just terrible. So, no, he's a Democrat.

I think it's probably very good for us. I mean, who knows? I mean, you'll tell me. We'll talk about it next November.

I know you've got to run, but I have one more question. You're suing Christopher Steele. He was thrown out of the Democrat Party, so of course they don't love him. But he was thrown out of the Democrat Party, but he's a Democrat. If you look at his environmental record, it's destructive to our country. Lastly, I hear you're suing Christopher Steele. Is that true? Oh, yeah, we're suing him and doing very well.

We're in a London court, and we're doing very well. He wrote a fake dossier. It was paid for by, I guess, Hillary Clinton, and I guess the D. You look at the Democrat National Committee, a real bunch of nice people. That whole thing was a fake, and it's come out that way, and now we're suing them, and I hear we're making great progress.

There was a story written about it yesterday. Hillary Clinton took a shot at your voters. He said they need to be deprogrammed. How do you feel about that? How do you think they feel about it? That was one of the reasons, one of the many reasons she lost the last election.

Nobody has to be deprogrammed. Look, we have MAGA. It means if you ask Joe Biden, if you ask Biden, what do you think? What does it mean, MAGA? Do you know what it means? Define it.

What does it mean? He wouldn't know it means make America great again, and we also have an America first policy. We put America before we put against other foreign nations, many of them hostile to us, so we're all about making America great again. We're about putting America first. Our country is a nation in decline. We're a nation that's failing. We have millions and millions, far more than you report, not your fault, but far more than you report or has been, I believe the number is 15 million.

I believe it's a bigger number than New York State. They came in illegally into our country from prisons, from jails, from mental institutions, from insane asylums and many terrorists, and many of the same people that are trying to destroy Israel right now. They come in from the Middle East and they're coming in and they're young and they're male.

They're coming in young and they're male. What is going on? Are we going to be attacked from inside also?

Because I believe so. We have an open border where millions of people are flowing through, and I don't have to convince you because I know you think it's horrible, but what's happening to our country is unbelievable. Stay safe, Mr. President.

It's a very tumultuous time right now in the world. Best of luck on the campaign trail. Thanks so much for your time. Thank you, and Brad, you're doing a great job. Keep it up. Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.