Higher ratings, Heraldo Rivera are reporting this is Road Kill, my podcast, my weekly podcast, where we encapsulate some of the great events of the day and tell you how I feel about them from my position in the middle of the road. I had an old boss who said the only thing in the middle of the road is road kill. Hence the title. Today, a very special edition of Road Kill, an exclusive interview with Donald J. Trump, the forty fifth president of the United States, a friend of mine.

And he was very gracious with his time in a wide ranging interview. So fasten your seatbelts. Here is the president of the United States.

In our exclusive interview, roadkill with a rondeau wheelbarrow. The state of our union is stronger than ever before. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce a person I am proud to call a friend. He is the 40th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Mr. President, thank you so much. We are honored that your calling.

Well, I've known you for a long time, Heraldo, and it's been a lot of good a lot of good times.

A lot of good times. And I appreciate that you are the friendship. Really. It's terrific. I know, because I know you. What a gut punch. Impeachment was for you. But I'm not sure that, you know, heart to heart. You've expressed that that feeling. You know that that feeling of assault, of insult. You don't want to share that with us. What what was that like for you?

Well, it's a terrible thing. And, you know, I think of Nixon more than anybody else. And what that dark period was in our country and the whole thing with the tapes and the horror show, it was dark. And that went on for a long time. And I watched it. I watched Ronald Reagan where they were very close with Iran-Contra. And that was very dark. You went through that for years and never really got over the spell.

It was dark, but not nothing like Nixon, I would always think. Every time in the White House, I passed this beautiful portrait of various presidents. Right. But the portrait of Richard Nixon, I sort of I don't know. It's a little bit of a different feeling than I get from looking at the other portraits of presidents. And I got impeached for no reason whatsoever. A partisan, totally partisan or based on a perfect phone call it totally appropriate phone call that was even said by the other party to be perfect, the president of Ukraine.

And it was a disgraceful act by Nancy Pelosi and these horrible people. And I have a fight as I see Pelosi.

She says that you are no matter that you are acquitted, you are impeached for life. And she says it in a way that is almost gleeful, almost sadistic, in a way that you're impeach for life. You feel, Mr. President, that you are impeached for life?

No. She is the person that started an impeachment and lost. So she goes down as a loser, which he is. Nancy Pelosi was. It was said says sadistically. If you watch the way she said that with the hatred and the venom coming out of her ears, you just take a look at that. The hatred that was pouring from her when she said that my wife was sitting there and watched it and she said, oh, my. That was horrible the way she said it was so bad.

It's interesting that you picked it up. Some people did. Some people didn't. It wasn't just the words. It was the the craziness. And then to have her sitting behind me at the State of the Union, mumbling all night long, mumbling, you know, talking to me.

But under her breath, not actually. I really noticed the copy of the State of the Union tearing it up. And I think they lost very big. You know, our poll numbers are through the roof and everything else. But I will say that from my family. It was a very tough thing. Me. I'm so busy that, you know, I literally it just made my job so much busier. And yet we've accomplished more than any president in his first year or three years that we've ever had.

Harold, I mean, you can go to anybody and nobody's done what I've done in three years. And I had this whole cloud of bad people making up things. Amina's terrible and, you know, really into the bad people in the second.

But what about the first lady of the United States? How how difficult was this for her? This whole saga that you've been through?

Well, it was hard, especially since they knew I did nothing wrong. I did absolutely nothing wrong. Everybody knew it. Romney knew it, too, by the way. You know, that was a disgrace. And he knew he was going to vote with us. It was everyone is saying, no, he's good. He's good. Then he went into a cage and he he went into a cage with I guess they they held it. He did an interview with your friend, Chris Wallace.

And nobody. No. Knew what the interview was about. But it was, you know, previous to the vote. And, you know, he's a wise guy. He did a he did a handle. He did a Twitter handle with a phony name on it so he could criticize people without using his name so he could say things great about himself. He did tweet about how great he is, you know. Yeah. And like any I'm talking about Mitt Romney, how crazy, you know, how how crazy that was.

And he got caught. But now that was it disgraceful.

You don't think he had his religion? You don't think there was an ounce a year? No, I don't think that at all. They did report said he didn't. He brought up his religion very seldom. And all of a sudden he brought up his religion. When did you hear him bring up his religion? They did a report and one of the main papers that he very rarely brought up his religion. No, I don't think so. No.

Look, I've got fifty two and a half votes out of 53. I got fifty two and a half. And I guess it was the religion he should have voted for the other half. You know, he well he voted on one positive Landry other negatively. He should have probably if it was his religion should have. Voted on both. If you think about it, but no, I don't, he's just a bad guy. You know, he's a jealous, angry person.

Think it was a reaction to your you're not giving him the secretary state job. No, I think we just had our difficulties. You know, I thought he should have won against President Obama in a second term. I thought that should have been easy. I don't. I'm not a McCain fan. Never was. But I didn't think he could have possibly won that one because, you know, he was handed over sort of a rough time in terms of many different things.

And first, African-American, I said that the whole thing was really stacked against McCain. And again, I'm not a fan, but I never said he should have won. That can be Obama.

Well, the Obama people let's say that the economy booming today is because of Obama.

Well, let me get this first. The Obama first term was a disaster. The Obama's second term was OK. Mitt Romney should have beaten Obama and he should have beaten them easily. And I would've beaten him more easily than I beat Hillary Clinton. As far as the Obama doing, he took over a something that was a mess, but rather easily fixed. So you can get some pretty good numbers. It's the slowest recovery we've had since the Great Depression under Obama.

And now the recovery is a monster. And I will tell you, a big part of our recovery, bigger even than the tax cuts were the regulation cuts, which they would never have done. They were going to put more regulations on if Hillary Clinton had got elected instead of 30000 were almost up to 30000, which is going to be a record year 2010 on the Dow, twenty nine thousand 342 as of this moment. So it just showed nobody thought that would even be possible.

And don't forget, they're trying to take credit for that big spread. If you look at the spread, when I won the market, went through the roof. Had I lost, the market would have gone down tremendously. But when I won the market immediately, you remember that big day right after the victory? Well, you can't really give credit to them for that. That's that has to go to me. I say I should get credit from Election Day, but President Obama, the boom.

Mr. President, are you worried that the stock market and the big economic boom are imperiled because of this. Corona virus spreading epidemic in, you know, China's closing for business. They're not buying cars from Europe right now. They're everything is. Everybody's in a panic. You've got those poor people stranded on that cruise ship in Japan. Are you worried about this virus affecting? I mean, obviously, you're worried about the virus and people getting sick. But what about the economy, as you know, is another victim?

Well, we're working on it very closely. I spoke to President Xi two days ago. They're working on it very professionally. It's a problem, we think, and we hope based on all signs that the problem goes away in April because which is not too far down the road, because heat kills this virus. We think now we're going to find out, Heraldo. But we think and they are having difficulty in China, but they are working very, very hard.

We're working with them. We're sending a lot of people and CDC is been great. But it is it's a problem in China has not been spreading very much in our country. We only have basically 12 cases. And most of those people are recovering in some cases fully recovered. So it's actually less Chinese.

Tell the truth about this. Well, you never know. I think they want to put the best face on it. So, you know, I mean, if somebody of you were running it, you'd probably you wouldn't want to run out to the world and go crazy and start saying whatever it is because you don't want to create a panic. But no, I think they've handled it professionally and I think they're extremely capable. And I think President Xi is extremely capable.

And I hope that it's going to be resolved again. The April date is very important. But, you know, this is a big thing. The April date is very, very important, because if that's the case, if he does, in fact, kill, that's when it starts getting hot and this virus reacts very poorly to heat and dies. So we'll see what happens.

What about, you know, closer to home? You talk about that behaving professionally. You threw out Colonel Venkman and his and his brother. I you know, I've been in the West Wing and my my feeling just the vibe that I got him from what I hear is the whole places. You know, it's a nest of vipers and snitches and backstabbers and rats. Why do you tolerate. You know. You know how many.

Well, I inherited I inherited a place with, you know, many different administrations. And they worked there for years. And we're civil service and with unions and all of it, you can't do what you'd like to do. In addition, you want to give people chances. You know, the fact that they come from Obama or they're never jumpers from Bush or whoever it may be. You know, and then you go back and you you have people, you have Clinton and you want to give people time now.

But Venkman, if you look at what his person said about him, Morrison, who I think there's a very good man. He said terrible things about Venkman. No, I didn't want him in. I watched his testimony self again. Forget he was the one that thought my call was bad. And he ran in and started saying, you know, terrible things about the call. And then when I released the transcript, the call was perfect. And I say it again.

It was perfect. It was totally appropriate. And it wasn't one call. It was two calls. They were both perfect, appropriate calls and nothing earthshaking.

There are so many people allowed to listen to your phone calls anyway.

Well, that's what they've done over the years when you call a foreign leader. People listen. I may end the practice entirely. I may have I may end it entirely. Sometimes you have 25 people. Now you have a print. You have secretary of state's princes Mike Pompeo is on the call. He found the call to be perfect. He found the gall to be absolutely fine with many people on the court. The only one this guy ran in said he didn't like to call.

First of all, that's very insubordinate. Why wouldn't he go to his is immediate. You know, he went to Congress or he went to shift or he went to somebody. But Venkman was a guy that when we took him out of the building, the building applauded. I don't know if you heard that. I didn't. That's the whole building that a lot many of the people in the building started applauding. No, I'm not a fan of admin.

I'm not a fan of what? I've never. I don't think I've ever met him. By the way, just so you understand, many of these people I've never met, but I'm not a fan of them and no question about it. And, you know, even if I just base it on what Jim Morrison said, I would not be a fan.

We know we both have known Roger Stone for decades. To me, I mean, I've always thought it was kind of a pain in the ass, to tell you the truth. But I was very disappointed at his conviction and I was horrified at the proposed seven to nine year sentence. I just heard from a guy who heads the PBA here in Cleveland. He he just had a guy shoot someone in the head. They got seven years. Roger Stone didn't heart hurt anybody, didn't steal a dime.

He's looking at seven to nine year sentence. It was it was terrible. It was really an overreach. But was it appropriate for you to get involved then? Are you worried that the independence of the Justice Department is threatened?

These Ramala people at all? Mueller investigation was a shakedown and a disgrace. It probably should be expunged because to be honest with you, the dossier now, everybody knows it was fake. Everything was based on the dossier. The dossier now is totally fake. They use the dossier knowing it was fake to get FISA warrants. That means they got FISA warrants illegally. That was where they did the whole situation with the Mueller report. Much of the Mueller report and even these attorneys, I know at least a couple of them were Mueller people.

What they did to Roger Stone was a disgrace in terms of everything, Fred, from the beginning. Twenty nine FBI agents loaded up with the most powerful rifles and machine guns. They attack him early in the morning. His wife was at tremendous hearing problem. Virtually no hearing. They barged into their bedroom. This is early in the morning. CNN following them. So they were obviously alerted. You know, nobody has been able to figure that one out and they should be able to figure it out.

Real easy to figure it out if they wanted to. CNN was following them. CNN taped it all and how would you like to be Roger Stone? And yet if you look at Podesta's brother, Hillary Clinton's campaign manager, look at the brother. Was it Tony Podesta? But look at the brother. He. He was Paul Manafort on steroids. He was the biggest one or one of the biggest in Washington. They found him doing many bad things.

He was forced to leave his firm. He was going to be I. It was going to be a very serious day the following day after he left his firm. You understand what I mean by that very bad day for him? Nothing ever happened to him. Nothing ever happened. And then you see that they put a guy like a Paul Manafort in solitary confinement. I'll ask us alone. It's awful. Listen to this there. Al Capone, you say he was about as tough as they come, right?

Right. Al Capone was never placed in solitary confinement. El Chapo. I don't think was placed in solitary confinement. But Paul Manafort was put in solitary confinement by.

Once you pardon him and Roger Stone. Well, I don't want to talk about pardons right now, but I think it's very unfair what happened to a lot of people, a lot of people in the meantime. James Comey is walking around making book deals. And if you read that report, 78 pages of scathing, scathing, horrible words about him were done by a man who is, you know, in all fairness, a Democrat named Horowitz.

As you engage in really, boy, Justice Department, a very bad recommendation for me.

And I don't know what's happening. Maybe they're using that report for some because I've stayed away. I have no obligation. In fact, I could totally be involved in this investigation. And some people have told me I should. But we'll see what happens. But Comey is walking around. You look at McCabe, who is a bad, bad guy. He's walking around.

Make John Brennan, the former head of the C.I.A., is walking around.

And frankly, Obama knew everything. OK. Obama knew everything. I mean, does anybody have any doubt about that? Obama knew everything.

So what how about that, president? How about my age? Listen to this earlier. How about struck and how about the lover struck on page two lovers?

And there was ill fated affair in the history of the world. They did. That was the worst cover. Ask you about Robert Mueller. A lot of people thought that he was past his prime. To be kind and some other things about him. But I never heard anyone call him a liar until you did a couple of days ago. What did he lie about?

Well, he said in Congress that he never applied for the job of the FBI director. And now it's been proven that he did. He came into my office, along with numerous other people, including Chris Wray. They all came into my office over a two day period. I think there were five people, maybe more. But around that number. And Robert Mueller wanted to go back to the FBI. He came in as director. He wanted to be the director again.

And I told him, basically, you've had enough time. And then within a very short period of time, he was appointed special prosecutor. I don't call him special counsel because special counsel is not it's not an accurate term. It's the special prosecutor, because what he and his 13 angry Democrats, all horrible, just horrible people, what they did to destroy the lives of people that you know, but to destroy the lives of many. Heraldo should never be forgiven, should never be forgotten.

And something has to be done about it. Right. So he went in with this 13 angry Democrats and they went in for bear. They went in to destroy people and they out. I agree.

They had destruction in my my guest, the exclusively the president of the United States, my friend, Donald J. Trump. Let me ask you brought up Democrats. Bernie Sanders looks like he's very, very hard, hard to stop. You know, first of all, what do you think about the prospect of running against Senator Sanders?

Well, I like it. I'd like him. I'd like I'd like any of them. I mean, I think would be good with anybody. I think, frankly, my first choice would be many, Mike.

I think it be easy because the non-debate has easy. Yeah. He's got money. But, you know, they spend two billion dollars on me, Hillary Clinton and mostly negative ads. And I won and I won really easily. If you look at, you know, the Electoral College, I won some states that were won by massive numbers. She spent 2 2 billion dollars. I mean, they had a $2 billion campaign. He won't have that much.

And frankly, he's so deficient in so many ways that I think he'd be easier than Bernie. Bernie has a group. And I also think this if a guy came in and bought the election, if they bought the Democratic nomination, I really think that you'd have a revolution within the Democrat Party. You had it a minute. You had a mini revolution last time. But you would have a real because they took it away from them last time. Or at least it was perceived she actually, you know, she got more votes than him and everything else.

So I view that. A little bit differently, but a lot of people perceive that they took it away from them, but this time they would be taking it away if a guy came in to buy it and took it away from Bernie. I think you'd have a revolution within that party.

You know, you've got a situation with the former vice president, Joe Biden, fading terribly and in the process in Iowa and in New Hampshire, he's desperately going to South Carolina right now. Do you think that, ironically, the Democrats moving to impeach you in, in effect, impeached Joe Biden with all the Hunter Biden, Hunter Biden, you know, day after day? Did did that destroy the former vice president's reputation and his status in standing? Well, there's a quote that was put in The Wall Street Journal that she aimed at Trump and took down Biden, and that's having to do with Nancy Pelosi.

She she aimed at me, there's no question about it, as she always wanted to impeach. You know, there's this theory that, oh, she didn't want it. You know, she's this great political pundit. He's just great political mind. She's not. She lost the house once before. I think she got a good chance of losing it again. And the party is not run by her. It's run by the left. And you see that even in the presidency, you see it with Bernie.

Bernie. You know, beyond socialist, in my opinion. But we'll have to talk about that at the right time. But no, I really think that. And just to finish out on the subject, I have to say I really believe that we are going to have a very interesting election. I think Biden is shot. He was shot from the beginning. I used to call him 1 percent, Joe, remember, 1 percent because 2 times.

But really, it was three. But two times when he really gave it his best, he was at less than 1 percent running for. And. Yeah. And if you look running for high offriends, running for president, he was at right side column 1 percent, Joe. And he's going to be back at 1 percent, Joe. You know, it's amazing that it faded fast. But, you know, he had the whole thing of the vice presidency for eight years.

And I thought, you know, in a certain way he was a good vice president because Obama got along with him. I think one of the biggest things that happened, one of the big telltale signs of trouble was when Obama wouldn't endorse him early on. And that was a strange to me. It was strange. I understand sometimes they don't. But to me, it was strange.

Was it strange this then, Rudy Giuliani to Ukraine, your personal lawyer, you sorry you did that?

Not at all. Rudy was a great crime fighter. You know that maybe better than anybody, right? I interviewed him and he is totally on his game.

Rudy's on his game. Rudy was a great crime fighter. You covered him for many years. And he was the greatest mayor in the history of the city of New York. Far better than Bloomberg. Bloomberg took over what Rudy gave him. Rudy was a far better mayor than Bloomberg. Tough and good. You know what Bloomberg did with with stop and frisk. Rudy used it and he used it sparingly and really brilliantly. And Bloomberg came in and he multiplied at times 10.

If you are a black person walking down the street, you are going to be stopped and frisked under Bloomberg. And that's why they had a revolution in New York because of what he did. Rudy did it very sparingly. It was very, very, very sparingly and very smartly. And it had an incredible impact on, you know, on guns and shootings in New York. Incredible. Rudy was a great mayor. Crime went way, way down.

Then Bloomberg came in and he said, well, you know what, this thing is so good. I'm going to stop every black person. And if you were a black person in New York, you would stop two times a day, three times a day. You couldn't go to your house. They were stopping every day. What Bloomberg did to black to the black community was a disgrace. And then he gets up and he cries in a church and he discards everything that he stood for.

And if he gets elected, I would be surprised and I would be very surprised that when the word gets out to the black community, where I'm doing extremely well, by the way, beyond what any Republican has done, I guess it's looking like. But I would be very surprised if the black community can support him. You like what he did is he took Rudy hard. They took Rudy's stop and frisk, which was done very gingerly, very smartly, very, you know, really a very smart job.

And he made it so vicious and so violent and they would stop it. And honestly, if you were a black person, you'd be stopped two, three times.

And I hear that. I wonder, it sounds like, you know, you made a big point at the State of the Union.

And I've watched you and Dr. Darrell Scott. Pastor Scott, I hear a great guy and a great guy.

You've been a supporter of yours. It sounds really as if you are reaching out to the African-American community. I joked on Hannity's show that you're almost campaigning like a Democrat in in terms of the minority community. You really you you see an opening there. Do you do you foresee a real change in the racial dynamic of American politics?

Well, I think I do. And I think, you know, I have I have polls that show 32 percent, 34 percent, Romney got 4 percent. And I have polls that are showing numbers that are unheard of. And why lowest unemployment in the history of our country for black Americans, for African-Americans, lowest in history by far. Not even close, by the way I took care of. What they have is they have black colleges and universities.

Right. And they're always coming up looking for money. Always every year. As I said, why do they always come? It's very demeaning to them. And I got to know a lot of the principles of these schools. They're great people, the the deans and the heads of the schools. I say, why do you always come up? He said, Well, they told me we have to because we have no bill. We have to come up.

And they one man said, I feel like a beggar. And for years they come up and I worked it out. So they have no long term financing. Nobody else would have done that. And then opportunity zones. I worked with Tim Scott of South Carolina, who is fantastic, by the way. And we did opportunity zones and then we did criminal justice reform. They couldn't get it. Van Jones came to my office asking me for help.

He had no chance of getting it. He came in asking why he didn't give me the credit that he should have. But that's OK. I never get credit. But what happened? He came in. He needed five senators. They happen to be Republican. He needed some senators to locate a little bit because they were very much against it. I was able to work it out. I got senators and I got some guys that were not in favor to let it happen.

The great guys and I very much appreciate what they did. We have great support in the Republican Party. It's doing great. And there's really tremendous unity other than Romney, this tremendous unity. And so you look and you see and it's really amazing. And I got criminal justice reform. So for and not only for African-Americans, for Hispanics, for so many people that were so badly like Alice Johnson, her all the she was in jail for 22 years.

She had another 20 years left for something that today, I mean, would have been it would have in many cases they wouldn't have even prosecuted. Right. That's right. Right now, she was in jail for 15 years. She was going to be in jail and a letter out. And she's an incredible woman. And I said to her the other day, I said, how many people are like you in jail that you know, you know, when you're where you were?

Because she was there for a long time. She said many. I said, are they all like that? She said, no. You have some very bad people, too, but you have many people that are really great people that should be let out. I said, give me a list. Give me a list in a know. I know it's one of those.

What you did there is very honorable and necessary, and I totally applaud. I got a million questions that are just going to I got to circle back to Rudy Giuliani. Wanted to give him a title. Why don't you make him like your presidential envoy to.

Well, two things about you, about Rudy. You have to understand where I'm coming from. I was illegally spied on by Comey and Brennan and all these sleaze, the sleaze of the world. And, you know, when people talk about Clapper, when people talk about, you know, the intelligence agencies. Well, I was not given a very good first glance at it. I had called me. I had Clapper. Then we saw Lisa Page and we saw a struck and we saw all of these people.

By the way, how about the people that fixed the what the documents? How about the person that forged and changed the documents before putting them into the FISA court and FBI then jail, whereas he is not in jail.

Why isn't he in jail?

It's a lot like a one sided thing. No, no. Oh. To me, that's 10 times worse than what I just did. And by the way, you know, Randi, the The Post, he's a radio guy and he's good, too. He was he was the one that they said Roger Stone intimidated when he heard that Roger was going to prison. He said, what are you talking about? I didn't know you sending that. He didn't know what the hell they were doing.

And he said, I don't want him to go to prison. And supposedly they told him, we don't care. We're doing it anyway. This is the kind of treatment that was given.

I'm really happy for high level prosecutors quitting the case. Why they even have for high level prosecutors on that stupid.

I don't think they quit the case. I think what they do is they felt they got caught. You want another chance? I don't think they quit for moral reasons. I think they got caught in the act by me. Now, what am I going to do? Sit back and let a man go to jail maybe for nine years when murders aren't going to jail? Look, you have some of the most serious, horrible rapists and everything else. They don't go to jail for nine years.

You look at you look at schedules. You take a look. Some of them go to jail for nothing, for note, for no time. And then this guy is going to go to jail for nine.

You know, they're doing that to get to you. They're doing it because they're people. They're doing it so when you tell me about Rudy. So here's what it is my choice. I deal with the commies of the world. And or I deal with it, in other words. I was given a very bad taste of our intelligence department. IT departments because I see it. They spied on my campaign illegally. Hopefully they're not going to get away with we're going to find out.

Hopefully they're not going to get away. It should never happen to another president. But they spied on my campaign. Everybody knew it, including President Obama. They spied on the opposite party's campaign. The party that wasn't in power. And they used everything they could. Their intelligence agencies and beyond. So when you tell me why did I use Rudy? And one other thing about Rudy. Number one, he was the best, best proxy. You know, one of the one of the very best prosecutors and the best mayor, but also other presidents had him you know, FDR had a lawyer who was practically, you know, was totally involved with government.

Eisenhower had a lawyer. They all had lawyers. Bill Clinton had a lawyer. You know, he had a very good lawyer. You know, that was they all had lawyers and they do things for him. And it's really circumventing it, but very legally and may be getting things done faster. But Rudy is a high quality guy who, by the way, has a treasure trove of information and he's working with the Justice Department, from what I understand.

All right. Let me let me relieve the Rudy situation. Here's a look at this quickly on the attorney general bar. Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you had picked William Barr instead of Jeff Sessions when you.

Yeah. My life would have been a lot easier. A lot of the countries in the middle of it. Yep. My life would have been a lot easier, but I might have been less popular. You know, it's a funny thing. Somebody told me the other day, why would you get BP that spot?

Because they say they liked that. I fought it. They liked it. I won. They like that. My base is much more energized. Let's assume none of this stuff happened, that we had a nice, boring presidency. Right. I don't think I'd have nearly the energy here, the Republican Party, that we know that that may be so.

But what a ride. What a crazy ride you were on. I.

My life would have been a lot easier. Billboard's a very good man doing a very good job. But my life would have been much easier. There's legislation.

Is there a tentative peace plan with the Taliban, as The New York Times is reported? We are working on one and we'll see if we can get one would like to bring our troops back home there, really? They're law enforcement as opposed to soldiers to a large extent, and we shouldn't be there. It's time to come home. We're having a very good dialogue. We'll see and we'll know over the next week or two.

But, you know, they just think they can outwait you. The longest war in history, the Taliban, they think that will give the give us a week of relative calm and then we'll start withdrawing.

But I'd like to make a deal. Do you know what they'd like to make a deal to look no matter how. And they're good fighters and we're good for we're the greatest fighters in the world. We could win that war. If I wanted to kill millions of people, I could win that war quickly. If I wanted to kill millions of people, I don't choose to do that. I'm not going to kill millions of innocent people to say, hey, we won in Afghanistan.

It's a nineteen years they've been in there, but we can't use our real weapons, our power. We have a tremendously powerful weapons.

And I'm not Doric tents. It's I'm not even talking about nuclear. I'm talking about we have time here. Yeah, I hear ya.

But I don't want an assignments there. I don't want you to feel like I need a yes or no on that.

Is there say it again. Is there a tentative peace?

Very reluctant. I think we're very close. I think there's a good chance that we'll have a deal and we'll see. I mean, we're going to know over the next two weeks. That doesn't mean we have one, but we'll know over the next two weeks. Let's put it this way. Nobody else has been able to get one. And this is. And there's also a chance that we'll get one between Israel and the Palestinians. The toughest deal of all time.

Right. They always say that the sale of all your.

You've been such a loyal friend to me. I appreciate you so much. I just want you to know that even when I disagree with you, I I I appreciate your sincerity. And I think you're doing a great job. And the economy shows with two quick follow last questions.

Thank you. With the Pensacola, Florida, attack by the Saudi Air Force pilot revealed to be, you know, a terrorist attack. So you got a Saudi involvement there. You got so g the the journalist that they carved up in their embassy, you got the 911 hijack, the Saudi, Saudi, Saudi.

I you know, I know that you think Iran is the evil doer in the Mideast. But is it possible that we have the wrong bad guy? That it's not Iran, that Saudi Arabia is really the one that's sticking it to us?

Well, I know there are Saudis were involved in the World Trade Center much more than anybody else. You know, when President Bush attacked Iraq, there were no Iraqis involved. There were Saudis, and they went to Afghanistan to be trained. OK. So, you know, I know I know what we have. And frankly, this guy was caught and I'm I'm not you know why I like the idea of opening up cell phones and finding out who and some very good people in New York like that idea to me.

I will tell you and some very good people like that idea, and I'm for it. And I'm working on that. You know, encryption or whatever you would call it. But when you open up the phone. Because we should open and we probably will open up his phone because we'll find out how many other people involved, if anybody. How many other people were involved in that horrible attack, do you think?

I trust Ben SOLMAN, the crown prince and these people logit or do you think they in this? You know, they're funding all these madrassas, these religious extremists.

And so, yeah, I know exactly what you're saying. I have a very good relationship with them. They buy millions and billions and billions of dollars of product from us. They buy tens of billions of dollars of military equipment, which we use, which we actually is they are paying us now. And like past presidents, you know, I have a different theory, but they have nothing but money, nothing but cash. And they pay us now for services and for protection and other things like, for instance, when they were attacked by Iran, they needed help.

And we sent. But they're paying they're paying billions of dollars for that help.

Nobody ever you never know these bad people. Double dealers, though. No.

But you have you have an ideology and you have some bad ones. You have some bad ones all over. Don't forget, in Iran, they kill many, many people. You know the protests. They kill people. They shoot people with united shoots.

Why don't you talk to them? Why don't you talk to Iran?

Because in my opinion, John Kerry has made it very tough because. And I think he's totally violated the Logan Act. John Kerry's made it very tough because he's telling them or he has told them. I think now he knows that we're looking at the Logan Act with respect to him. He's told him, don't make a deal. Don't make a deal. Maybe Trump will lose and you'll make a deal with a stiff. You'll make a deal with a Biden or somebody because they just don't make a deal because.

Just wait, wait. Because it makes him look bad. If they make a deal, that's most of it, in my opinion. But he's in my opinion, he's violated the Logan Act and violated it seriously. And we'll see what happens on that.

So you don't think that you. Even the back channel to Iran. Oh, I have plenty of back channels. Look, they are desperate to make a deal. Their economy is crashed. They're not funding terrorism like they were when I took over. They were they were terror. They were there were 18 sites of confliction. Now they just want to survive. Their economy went down 25 percent last year. Their GDP is down so much. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

They should talk. They don't know how to go about it. We're going to find out. But I think they want to try and wait it out till after the election, hoping that some stiff gets elected and they can have their way.

I don't I don't think that's going to happen. I got my final question. You and I were together in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. You were criticized every newspaper front page. Are you responsible for thousands of deaths in Puerto Rico? Yeah. I now you have a parade of local officials either resigning or going to jail for corruption. They will write their houses that were unused. I want to apologize on behalf of, you know, any extent that my folks, you know, helped to slander you.

Wasn't your fault. The island still needs help. Can you. I know. Can you take a second look at over the.

I am. I love the people of Puerto Rico. You know that what they did to me over there would not remember. I was passing out towels and everyone is screaming, no, no. And we were having fun. All of us. And they were all screaming at the back. Throw us. He thought, you know, the the crowd was tremendous, right? The room was packed. You were there. You were laughing. We were all.

So I was throwing them towels in the back, you know, like taking basketball shots, soft towels, you know, big things of towels or with running. And they said, oh, it was terrible the way he was. The people were loving it. They were having a good time. And frankly, they just got wiped out their homes. Everybody's laughing. We're all having a good time. There was love in that room. And when I got home, I saw like I was throwing like I was demeaning them by throwing towels there also.

Over here, Mr. President. Over here. Over here. You were there. Everybody was having a good time and they needed a good time. Their houses were wiped out. They were been terrible turmoil and stress. So, you know, no, I love the people of Puerto Rico and we are working. But I also said the corruption at the top level. I told you that while we were there is is enormous. I'll tell you what the best friend at Puerto Rico's ever had her although is me.

They've gotten ninety three billion dollars over a fairly short period of time. Is not a state in the union that's gotten that much money? Not sure.

Make the mistake once you advocate for Puerto Rico becoming a state.

Well, some people want that, and I guess they're talking about that. I want to get I want to get things fixed first. But Border Rico is has been very, very poorly run by Democrats. Very, very poorly run.

You know, Jerry, final questions, Will. Would Americans vote for a gay man to be president? I think so. I think there would be some that wouldn't you know, I wouldn't be among that group, to be honest with you. But I think that yes, I think that it doesn't seem to be hurting. Pete Boudette edge, as you say, as you would call him, it doesn't seem to be hurting him very much. And but there would certainly be a group of, you know this better than I do.

There'd be a group that probably wouldn't. But, you know, you are you and I would not be in that group.

We would not and nor would they. I just want to circle back to where I started the first lady of the United States. I know with conversations that we've had, how will hurt you are that the American pop cultural, you know, establishment is not embraced there. She's not on the cover of Vogue and Cosmopolitan as she should be. Bizarre town and country. What do you what do you think about, you know, the fact that they are boycotting the first lady, the United States, and one of the most beautiful ever?

I most stylists ever. And yet she's so almost disrespected by the fact that they ignore her.

So when I met her, considered to be one of the most beautiful models in the world by everybody. One of the most beautiful one of the most elegant. And the thing I liked about her. She'd always go home at night. Everyone else was out partying all night. And some people said, oh, that's not nice. I'd say, no, I think that's great. She liked to go home at night. You know, she was a very solid person and she was very successful.

And really I mean, really successful, but very successful. And she got a great heart. And I see that she she was uncovers before she became first lady. And now it's like one of those things. It doesn't bother her. She's very, very solid. She's an amazingly, very confident in herself. Somebody that was it would say, what's going on here? And I'll tell you what, our people know it. I go I go to a rally in Ohio.

I go to a rally in Pennsylvania. I went to one the other. I mean, what did, too? I mean, the one in Iowa was unbelievable. The one in New Hampshire was unbelievable to see what's going on. Tens of thousands of people can't get it. They have so many signs honoring our first lady. We love our first lady. We love our first lady. The people love Melania. They love her. Absolutely love her.

But the press is crooked. You know, it's very unfair. It's fake. It's fake news. And they've they've really gone down in the hearts and minds of people. But the people love our first lady and she works very hard. Well, I sent her my best wishes. And to you and to the rest of the way, I always Don Junior going to run for president. Forty point forty six president.

I don't think so. I think he's just really working hard now. He does like politics.

I will say that he and Kimberly are, you know, rocking around here. And Eric likes politics and, you know, and Iraq is like so natural at it. So I don't even know if she likes it or not. She just did. You know what she does? She's she's gotten 15 million jobs training. That's what she does. She goes to the big companies, gets them to train people. Wal-Mart, a million people, different companies, millions of people.

But she just stopped. She she had a goal of 500000 jobs when she started at the beginning. And she she beat that in about two months. And now it's 15 million jobs that she does a great job. She's another one. She doesn't get credit for what she does and she doesn't want it. She just wants to make people happy.

She's a she's an elegant and highly competent person. I'm I'm delighted to know her hajari the peace plan.

You know, I don't I say. But the peace plan.

You know, I admire the fact that you put something together. But I you know, I did a lot of time over there. And I don't think the Palestinians are ever going to go for a deal in which they have to surrender the Jordan Valley.

And so much of their majority will agree that a deal won't happen. Most people agree with you. And, you know, when I'm doing this, I'm giving it a shot because I'm good at it. I do it well. I have very capable people. David Friedman is unbelievably one of the most successful lawyers in New York by far, and he's the ambassador to Israel. Then, Jared, you know how smart Jarrett is. And, you know, there's a group of people that were giving it a good, strong shot.

There are those that say it can't happen another way. It just it can't happen historically. The mindset of of them, plus the Jewish people is just never going to happen. You know, it's interesting, whenever you have a deal, when I was in the private sector, I'd have a deal that was really a tough deal. You'd use an expression. This is tougher than Israel and the Palestinians getting together because that was known as like the impossible deal.

So I'm here. That's what I've done really great over my life. I'll give it a shot. You know, let's see what happens. If you look the other day, they withdrew from the a committee in the United Nations. The Palestinians withdrew something and said very good statements about me. Not necessarily the deal, but about me. That was a big that was a that was very telltale. And I think Israel I know Israel would like to do a deal.

And I think the Palestinians are going to want to do a deal.

I like the idea of an American embassy, a full blown embassy with an ambassador in East Jerusalem, somewhere else in the Palestinian territories. I think they'll be OK.

Well, something's going to happen. So I think we have a real shot at doing and not I'm not going to guarantee this one. Some some deals. I can guarantee this one, I guess. But, you know, we have a good shot at doing something. We'll see. We'll know in the not too distant future. We were delayed by the election.

You know, the never ending election, never ending election in Israel, that the third time's the charm. Finally, if I don't ask you about climate change, my kids will be really mad at me. Why not? You have a czar. Well, appoint someone. Check out the carbon emissions and, you know, see what's true and what's not true.

Well, we could, but we really have great people. And, you know, I always say it. We want the cleanest air, the cleanest water. You know, we have our cleanest numbers in many years. This year just got released, the cleanest numbers on carbon, on water cleanliness or air purity, you know, air clean this. We want the cleanest air or one crystal clean water. And we actually are very much into it. What I don't want to do is give trillions of dollars away on Paris Accords that go to other countries that we don't even know where it's going.

I don't want to do that. And that hurt our businesses where we have to close up businesses because of it. But we're going to have the cleanest air we now have. We now have the best like with the best we have ever been. Right now, at this moment, oil and the environment means a lot to me. We're the best we've ever been right now.

And finally, you know, we started here many times a year.

This is you. You what I hear is very simple. And I'm doing this because, you know, are you OK?

I love you work. But are you OK? Are you OK after this?

There we are. You just said.

And finally and finally and finally, they say you got to shake off this impeachment nonsense. We're going to move on. I'd be into victory.

I'm okay. Total victory. All right. And I think you do, too. R-AL Do I think you do, too?

It's a total victory for us. I absolutely believe that. And I appreciate Brenda Wade. I really do.

Well, I appreciate you as you take care of yourself. Thank you very much. Thank you. Bye. Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for listening to this special edition of Road Kill.

I'm Heraldo Rivera reporting roadkill with a Rondo Rivera.