Politics is a dirty game

I don't know if you know this, but some people call you a fascist. Yeah, they do. So I figure it's all right to call them a communist. Yeah, they call me a lot worse than I call them.

They're getting smaller and smaller. They're getting smaller.

You've been successful in business, you've been successful in politics. What do you think is the difference between gaining success between the two different disparate worlds? Yeah, and they're different, very different. I have a lot of people that are in business that are successful and they'd like to go over to politics and then you realize they can't speak, they choke. It's hard to make a speech in front of, let's say you're talking about a big audience, but I get very big audiences. And for many people it's virtually impossible to get up and speak for an hour and a half and have nobody leave. It's not an easy thing to do. And it's an ability. But I have many people that are very, very successful in business, would love to do what I did. And yet, they can't pull the trigger. And in many cases, I don't think it would work. Almost for everybody, it's not going to work. It's a very tough thing to do. It's a big transition.

One of the great things about people from the business world is they're often great deal makers and you're a great deal maker and you've talked about the war in Ukraine and that you would be able to find a deal that both Putin and Zelenskyy would accept. What do you think that deal looks like? I think the deal and I wouldn't talk about it too much because I think I can make a deal if I win as president-elect, I'll have a deal made guaranteed. That's a war that shouldn't have happened. It's terrible. Look, Biden is the worst president in the history of our country and she's probably worse than him. That's something that should have never happened, but it did happen. And now it's a much tougher deal to make than it would've been before it started. Millions of people, I think the number's going to be a lot higher when you see this all at some point to iron out, I think the numbers are going to be, the death numbers are going to be a lot higher than people think. When you take a look at the destruction and the buildings coming down all over the place in Ukraine, I think those numbers are going to be a lot higher.

So you would like to see her do more interviews, challenged more. I don't know. I can't believe the whole thing is happening. We had a man in there that should have never been in there. They kept him in a basement. They used COVID. They cheated, but they used COVID to cheat. Then they cheated without COVID too. But you had somebody in there and now we have a woman that is not, she couldn't do an interview. This was a really soft interview. This is an interview where they're giving her multiple choice questions, multiple guess, I call it multiple guess. And I don't think she did well. I think she did very poorly.

How do you think you'll do in the debate coming up, that's in a few days? So I've done a lot of debating, only as a politician. I never debated. My first debate was the Rosie O'Donnell debate, the famous Rosie O'Donnell debate, the answer. But I've done well with debates. I became president. Then the second time, I got millions more votes than I got the first time. I was told if I got 63 million, which is what I got the first time, you would win, you can't not when. And I got millions of more votes on that and lost by a whisker. And look what happened to the world with all of the wars and all of the problems. And look what happened with inflation because inflation is just eating up our country, eating it up. So it's too bad. But there are a lot of things that could happen. We have to get those wars settled. I'll tell you, you have to get Ukraine done. That could end up in a third world war. So could the Middle East. So could the Middle East.

And there's a great possibility of World War III and we better get this thing done fast because five months with people like her and him, he's checked out, he just goes to the beach and thinks he looks good in a bathing suit, which he doesn't, he's sort of checked out. Hey look, you can't blame him. That was a coup, they took it over. They took over the presidential deal. The whole presidential thing was taken over in a coup. He had 14 million votes. He had no votes, not one. And nobody thought it was going to be her. Nobody wanted it to be her. She was a joke until six weeks ago when they said we're going to have to, politically, they felt they had to pick her. And if they didn't pick her, they thought there would be a problem. I don't know if that's right or not. I actually don't think it's right, but they thought it was right. And now, immediately the press comes to their aid. If we can go back to China, on negotiation, how do we avoid war with China in the 21st century?

Tough topic, but important. You said lost by whisker. I'm an Independent, I have a lot of friends who are Independent, many of whom like your policies, like the fact that you're a dealmaker, like the fact that you can end wars, but they are troubled by what happened in the 2020 election and statements about widespread fraud and this kind of stuff, fake election scheme. What can you say to those Independent voters to help them decide who to vote for? Right. I think the fraud was on the other side. I think the election was a fraud. And many people felt it was that and they wanted answers. And when you can't challenge an election, you have to be able to challenge it, otherwise it's going to get worse, not better. And there are lots of ways to solve this problem. Go to paper ballots. Do it easy way, I mean the paper ballots and you have voter ID and you have same day voting and you have proof of citizenship, which is very important because we have people voting that are not citizens. They just came in and they're loading up the...

Let me ask you about Project 2025. So you've publicly said that you don't have any direct connection to- Nothing. I know nothing about it. And they know that too. Democrats know that. And I purposely haven't read it, because I want to say to you, I have no idea what it's all about. It's easier, than saying I read it and all of the things. No, I purposely haven't read it and I've heard about it. I've heard about things that are in there that I don't like, and there's some things in there that everybody would like, but there are things that I don't like at all. And I think it's unfortunate that they put it out, but it doesn't mean anything, because it has nothing to do with me. Project 25 has absolutely nothing to do with me.

You posted recently about marijuana and that you are okay with it being legalized, but it has to be done safely. Can you explain your policy there? Well, I just put out a paper and first of all, medical marijuana has been amazing. I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing, the medical marijuana. And we put out a statement that we can live with the marijuana. It's got to be a certain age, got to be a certain age to buy it. It's got to be done in a very concerted, lawful way. And the way they're doing in Florida, I think is going to be actually good. It's going to be very good, but it's got to be done in a good way. It's got to be done in a clean way. You go into some of these places, like in New York, it smells all marijuana. You've got to have a system where there's control. And I think the way they've done it in Florida is very good.

Speaking of marijuana, let me ask you about my good friend, Joe Rogan. So you had a bit of tension with him. So when he said nice things about RFK Junior, I think you've said some not so nice things about Joe, and I think that was a bit unfair. And as a fan of Joe, I would love to see you do his podcast, because he is legit the greatest conversationalist in the world. So what's the story behind the tension? Well, I don't think there was any tension. And I've always liked him, but I don't know him. I only see him when I walk into the arena with Dana and I shake his hand. I see him there and I think he's good at what he does, but I don't know about doing his podcast. I guess I'd do it, but I haven't been asked and I'm not asking them. I'm not asking anybody.

The country seems more divided than ever. What can you do to help alleviate some of that division? Well, you can get rid of these two people. They're terrible. They're terrible. You don't want to have them running this country. They're not equipped to run it. Joe, just Joe, it's a disaster. And Kamala, I think she'll end up being worse than him. We'll see. I think a lot's now, the convention's over with, and I see I'm leading and just about all the polls now. They had their little honeymoon period as they call it, and we'll see how that all goes. Who knows?

There's a lot of people listening to this, myself included, that doesn't think that Kamala is a communist. Well, she's a Marxist.

As the leader of the United States, you were the most powerful man in the world. As you mentioned, not only the most famous, but the most powerful. And if you become leader again, you'll have unprecedented power. Just on your own personal psychology, what does that power do to you? Is there any threat of it corrupting how you see the world? No, I don't think so. Look, I've been there for four years. I could have done a big number on Hillary Clinton. I thought it looked terrible to take the president's wife and put her in prison. She's so lucky I didn't do anything. She's so lucky. Hillary is a lucky woman because I had a lot of people pushing me too. They wanted to see something, but... I could have done something very bad. I thought it looked so bad. Think of it, you have the President of the United States, and you also had Secretary of State, she was, but you're going to put the president's wife in prison. And yet when I got out, they have all these hoaxes.

A lot of people are very interested in the footage of UFOs. The Pentagon has released a few videos, and there's been anecdotal reports from fighter pilots, so a lot of people want to know, will you help push the Pentagon to release more footage, which a lot of people claim is available. Oh yeah, sure, I'll do that. I would do that. I'd love to do that. I have to do that. But they also are pushing me on Kennedy, and I did release a lot, but I had people come to me and beg me not to do it. But I'll be doing that very early on. Yeah, no. But I would do that.

There's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing some of the documents on Epstein. Why the hesitation? I don't think... I'm not involved. I never went to his island, fortunately, but a lot of people did.

One of the tragic things about life is that it ends. How often do you think about your death? Are you afraid of it? I have a friend who's very, very successful, and he's in his 80s, mid 80s, and he asked me that exact same question. I turned it around and I said, "Well, what about you?" He said, "I think about it every minute of every day." And then a week later, he called me to tell me something. And he starts off the conversation by going, "Tick tock, tick tock." This is dark person in a sense, but it is what it is. If you're religious, you have I think a better feeling toward it. You're supposed to go to heaven, ideally, not hell, but you're supposed to go to heaven if you're good. I think our country's missing a lot of religion. I think it really was a much better place with religion. It was almost a guide. To a certain extent it was a guide. You want to be good to people. Without religion there are no guardrails. I'd love to see us get back to religion, more religion in this country.

Thanks for listening to this conversation with Donald Trump. To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, as I've started doing here at the end of some episodes, let me make a few comments and answer a few questions. If you would like to submit questions, including in audio and video form, go to lexfridman.com/ama or get in touch with me for whatever other reason at lexfridman.com/contact. I usually do this on a T-shirt, but I figured for this episode, I'll keep my suit and tie on, so first, this might be a good moment to look back a bit. I've been doing this podcast for over six years, and I first and foremost have to say thank you. I'm truly grateful for the support and the love I've gotten along the way. It's been, I would say, the most unlikely journey. And on most days, I barely feel like I know what I'm doing. But I wanted to talk a bit about how I approach these conversations. Now, each conversation is its own unique puzzle, so I can't speak generally to how I approach these, but here it may be useful to describe how I approach conversations with world leaders, of which I hope to have many more and do a better job every time. I read a lot of history and I admire the historian perspective. As an example, I admire William Shirer, the author of many books on Hitler, including The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. He was there and lived through it and covered it objectively to the degree that one could. Academic historians, by the way, criticize him for being a poor historian because he editorialized a little too much. I think those same folks criticized Dan Carlin and his Hardcore History podcast.