President has into. 5 years, but i have loved every minute of it has into. 5 years, but i have loved every minute of it. We have had fun. The biggest frustration is the way the media covers me, and the way the media covers perhaps this agenda. I am disappointed to buy it. I am very surprised by it. Generally, i think over my lifetime, i have gotten pretty good press. Here, no matter how big a victory, they covered incorrectly. Hence the term, fake news, et cetera, et cetera. I see that has been somewhat of a disappointment. I thought after i won i thought i was covered poorly during the campaign i thought after i won, they would be different. Actually, they have probably gotten worse. That would be somewhat of a disappointment. What is fake news . Pres. Trump when you do something and then they reported incorrectly. The problem is i would know and the public would not. Although i think a lot of the public believes me when i say it, so i would know what happened. And when they cover it, knowing what i know, if they covered incorrectly, that to me is fake news. It is unfortunate that it takes place but it does. And at a level that i would not be believed. And also with frequency. It is Pretty Amazing actually. I went back to your book the art of the deal, and you wrote most people are surprised by the way i work. I prefer to come to work each day and just see what develops. Do you take that same approach or just that . Pres. Trump i think i do. You get in and you say, what is the event of the day . Who is calling . What is happening . My life has been a pretty rapid ive seen a lot of changes, changes. I see it certainly in the white house. You come in and everything is going great, and then you find a tremendous conflict with another nation. Big stuff. There is something happened with respect to another country, or something happened with respect to a tragedy that takes place. Things happen when you are president , and i take it very seriously. Yeah, you have to see what happens that morning. You have to see what happens that evening. No question about it. What was your most difficult day thus far . Pres. Trump we have had a lot. Shooting. Ave a school metremendously it angers actually. It angers me. It frustrates everybody. You say, how could a thing like this happen . How is it possible . When you see innocent people being killed, teachers, that is something you can never really get over. And you say, is there something we can do . What can we do . Because there are so many different sides to it. What can you do . Pres. Trump well, you can do a lot of the things that we have done. We did a report, the Florida Shooting was horrible. For some reason, that group of people, i got to be from the with a lot of them, and we did a report and they appreciated the report. We didnt with them and with experts. Im going to give you a copy of it because actually, i would like to have another meeting. I think it was really comprehensive, really good, and they were a lot of red flags with that shooter. I think they said they were 36 red flags. And you are pretty disappointed, you know what i mean by a red flag . There were warnings out there. This was not a boy scout. And people did not do what they should have done. Now there are other cases where there are no warnings whatsoever and it comes out of the blue. Maybe in certain ways, that is almost more frustrating because you say, how could a thing like this happen . Those are events that are really tough to take when you are the president of the country. You have talked a lot about baltimore in the last 48 hours. Pres. Trump i have. Yout is not the record that have with africanamericans, but it is the rhetoric we have seen. I want to go back to what you said on election night. You said now is the time for america to bind the wounds of division. I say just time for us to come together as one united people. I pledge to every citizen of our land that i will be president for all americans. Pres. Trump that is true, and i mean it more now than i meant it then, but there was a tremendous divide between republicans and democrats. Between ideologies, whether it is health care. I listened some of the Health Care Plans i listened to some healthcare plans that would be so destructive, and when you want to take 180 Million People off of private health insurance, they love it. They fought for it. They want it. They work hard for it. And you want to take it away from them. There is a divide and that is one of many things. I am actually surprised by the level. Look, it was here for president obama. It was here for president bush. It was certainly here for president clinton. But there is a divide. There is no question about it. And i think it can change. I really do. It started on a bad foot when this whole hoax was created with russian hoax today. Somebody even said it with respect to mitch mcconnell. Mitch mcconnell could not care less about russia. You know, they throughout these phrases and they think it is wonderful, and they say, lets play it. I do believe that there was a chance that we could do something. Probably would be i do believe that there is a chance we can do something. Probably would be in the second term. That is one of the things im a about. Surprised i thought there would be better unity. We are accomplishing a lot. We are getting what we want. The military is being we built. The tax cuts we got. The regulation cuts o are the biggest of any president in history, even if it is longer years. But with all of the things we have got think of va choice, think of all of the things we have got. You would think that would make people happy. What they read the tweets. Do you think you are a uniter as president . Pres. Trump if i got fair coverage, i would not even have to treat. It is my only form of i would not even have to tweet. It is my only form of defense. If the press covered me fairly, then i would not need that, but they dont cover me fairly. Today in jamestown, i made a speech that was not supposed to be a political speech at all, i talked about 400 years ago. It was an amazing and important period of time, and there was one protester who stood up. He stood up and held up a sign and said whatever, he said something. He got more publicity than the speech got. I dont need publicity, steve, at all, but i just thought it was so terrible. And it was on fox with john roberts. He talked about the protester for almost the entire segment of that. And i said, isnt that a shame . One guy stands up manatt and impressive person not an impressive person. He stood up and he got all way i say, that is pretty sad. Recover your rallies in entirety. When you stand behind the podium looking at that crowd, what are you thinking . Pres. Trump for one thing, im thinking that never in the history of politics as that happened. And you understand what i mean because ive never had an empty seat. I dont believe from the beginning from the time that i came down escalator. I think because you do cover it really well. One of the reasons im doing the interview is respect for you and the fact do do a really good job of covering the rallies. But others cover the rallies, too. I dont think we have had an empty seat. I dont think you have seen an empty seat with thousands of people outside great sometimes we take ads or we communicate, please, do not come. We will have a 22,000 seat arena in an nba arena or even bigger with stadiums. We have never had an empty seat. When you think about that, that has never happened before. When you look at bidens opening when he could not get 150 people to an opening in the Basketball High School gymnasium. It is a very unique thing. I will tell you people are surprised that i look comfortable. There is such love in those arenas and stadiums that i speak in. It is really not hard. It is hard to explain that to people. I have successful friends, and they say, how do you get up . Much of it is not a teleprompter. I will have notes or something but much of it is offthecuff because there is tremendous love in those rooms. It is amazing, and im sure that you see that. It is an incredible love. I have to say that i believe it is stronger now than it was election day and i think it is stronger now than ive ever seen it before. When congressman Elijah Cummings calls you a racist, your reaction is what . Pres. Trump i think the word has really gone down a long way because everybody is called a basis now. Her own party called nancy pelosi a racist two weeks ago. Is so overused. It is such a disgrace. I can tell you i am the least racist person there is in the world as far as im concerned. And they use it almost when they run out of things to criticize. They say, he is a racist, he is a racist. In some cases. There are people who are racist, bad people, but with me, they have a hard time getting away with it and they dont get away with it. If you look at what ive done for africanamericans between i mean, look at criminal justice reform. President obama tried so hard to get it. He couldnt get it. Look at opportunity zones, and the opportunity zones are tremendous success, by the way. They are not covered but i think it is one of the most successful things ever done for the inner cities. Tim scott of South Carolina worked so hard on it, so many other people did and it has become a real success. The biggest beneficiary are africanamericans. The africanamerican population. It is incredible what has happened. Between that, criminal justice reform, and the biggest thing is the lowest Unemployment Rate in the history of this country for africanamericans. By far. When you see those things and when people if the news, the lamestream, mainstream media, whatever you want to call it, fake news, if it were covered, people would feel differently, but they dont talk about that. People dont talk about opportunity zones. I dont think ive ever seen a thing about opportunity zones. When i did criminal justice reform, everyone would say oh i wont tell you names because i am not looking to build them up, but the biggest names were there on the other side, liberal and conservative sides. It was very bipartisan, but they dont even talk about it anymore. If somebody else did it, if president obama did criminal justice reform, which is so good for the africanamericans, so good. So important. Getting alice out, 28 years left to serve. Jack johnson, who was so unjustly convicted, the heavyweight champion from the early 1900s. So many things we have done. President obama did that, it would have been great. When i do it, people dont want to talk about it. Poll says 80 of africanamericans believe your rhetoric is racist. Why is that message not getting out . Pres. Trump because the press doesnt talk about what i have done for africanamericans. They dont. They dont talk about criminal justice reform. I did it. I had to really twist arms. It was hard to get some of the people. And we got it. It is being hailed many people hail it, they talk about it, but they dont even mention i had anything to do with it. I was the one that was able to get it done, so if the press treated me fairly i dont want to complain. I am president , right . How bad could it be . The truth is if i was not able to get out my own message, i would not be elected anything, because the press is very unfair. If the press did treat me fairly, i would have tremendous support from the africanamerican communities. When kanye west comes out and supports me, it has a big impact. Jim brown, amanda hollanfield, mike tyson, so many athletes, representatives, and so many more. When kanye did it, it was very interesting. My numbers really they really went up. We covered it. Pres. Trump interesting thing is people heard. They said, wait a minute, we did not know this about president trump. But that is the facts. That is the way it is. For instance, i doing an am interview, and people say well, i didnt know he did criminal justice reform. That was a clinton thing that was horrible, and biden. It was horrible for africanamericans. I am the one who opened it up and got it unclogged. It was a terrible situation with people going to jail for 50 years over something that in some cases would not even be thought of for a year or six months, or in some cases, for nothing today. It was a very unfair thing. I am proud of it, but the media does not talk about it. Purposely. John kennedy relied on dwight eisenhower, george w. Bush father, bill clinton relied on richard nixon. Have you reached out to former president s, and if so, who and why . Pres. Trump not too much. I speak with george bush. I spoke a little bit to the father, but really not too much. It is hard when people are against you. I very much disagreed with the war in iraq, so it is hard to say that all of a sudden i can forget that. I am in a situation where we are in the middle east, we have defeated, as you know, the caliphate in syria. I did that because i wanted to do that, and we did it. 100 of the caliphate. When i was at 99 , people said , oh, you cant pull out. You cant pull out. When i took it over, it was a mess. Anyway, i defeated 100 of the caliphate. That is not mean isis does not run around bombing us, because they are stone cold crazy, but i disagreed very strongly with having gone into the middle east. We are in there now with more than trillions of dollars, millions of lives, and you have to count both sides. I actually count both sides. Millions of lives. They went into a country that did not knock down the world trade center. They did not knock down the world trade center. It was not iraq. It was not sued on hussein. He had plenty of problems, ok, he was not a good person but he did not knock down the world trade center. So we got caught in this quicksand, but we are getting out. I call them the endless wars. The endless wars. And the stores have to end, and we are doing very well. And our military is being built up like it has never been before. When i took over, our military was totally depleted. Now it is big numbers, but those numbers are more important to me than almost any numbers. If we do not have protection from bad actors, then we are going to be in big trouble. But all of that is coming at a price. In 2011, you tweeted i cannot believe the republicans are extending the debt ceiling. I encourage them to stop this. It is an embarrassment. Yet, youre spending will be far exceeding what barack obama spent, another 2 trillion in the debt. Pres. Trump sure, but the differences he was not building of the military. The military was getting depleted. I have to build up the military, and i have to do it with bush and obama. With bush, we were in these wars all over the place, and with obama, the same thing. They never ended. In afghanistan, we are spending 50 billion a year. 50 billion. I do not know if you know that, but we have pulled out more in there. We are working on a deal, as you have heard, and at some point we want to get out as quickly as we can, but afghanistan is one thing and with syria we are just about out. We defeated the caliphate and we are just about out. I want to get out of these crazy wars that we should have never been in. We should not have been in these wars. These wars are wars we could have done with great damage through intelligence and other things. At the same time, i want to have the Strongest Military on the planet earth, and we now do. When i got here, it was really in bad shape. I cannot even tell you how bad it was. Now we have new fighter jets, we have new missiles. Our nuclear has been renovated, fixed, and in some cases made brandnew. We have tremendous submarines we are building right now, tremendously powerful nuclear submarines, and a lot of good things are happening. I think we are going to end up making a deal with russia where we have some kind of arms control, because all we are doing is adding on to what we dont need, and they are too. China is trying to catch us both right now. It will be us, then russia, then china, but china is way behind. They are trying to catch us. One of the things i have done, china had the worst year they had in 27 years. That was in the wall street journal yesterday. They are not doing too well right now. We are tariffing them, taking care of our farmers out of those tariffs because china hit them as a way to retaliate against president trump. Our farmers are great patriots. They are incredible. Our farmers will ultimately be the biggest beneficiary. A lot of good things are happening with respect to that. We are talking to china right now, but really it will be up to me. We cannot let china do what they have done to us over the last 25 years. They have taken hundreds of billions of dollars out of our country every single year. Hundreds of billions, with a b. Not millions. Billions. What you think you can reach a deal . Pres. Trump i think i can reach a deal if i want to. The tariffs are killing them in companies are moving out of china, going all over. Including coming here because they do not want to pay the tariffs. I think we could make a deal, absolutely. Let me followup up on two points. You have issued 43,000 tweets. Did you ever regret sending one out . President trump not much. Honestly, not much. I sent the one about the in quotes, and that turned out to be true. Remember the big deal that was . I heard a minute after i sent it, i was called by my people sir, did you say yeah, i did. What is such a big deal . The reason it was such a big deal as it turned out to be true. I guess you could say a lot of the times the bigger problem are the retweets. You retweet something that sounds good, but it is from a player that is not the best player in the world. That causes a problem, but overall i would say no, not at all. It is a modernday form of communication. And it is not tweets. That is a typewriter. What it really is is as soon as i do it, it is breaking news. Even if it is good morning, they say breaking news, the president has just said good morning. It is an incredible way of communicating and you get it out fast. Otherwise i dont know. How would i combat news that is dishonest . How would i combat a reporter or network that is totally dishonest . Cnn is 100 negative. Nbc is negative. I made a lot of money for nbc with the apprentice. It was a tremendous success at the time when they did not have any successes. But they forgot about that very quickly. They wanted to extend me, and i wanted to run for president i think we have done a great job. The countrys right now on the right path and i think we have tremendous potential, you know . Take a look at the european union, that is doing poorly. Take a look at china, it is doing really poorly. Take a look at other countries, they are not doing well. We are the hottest country in the world, doing great economically and otherwise. Now have a strong military, a lot stronger after this last budget. At some point, i will be able to cut that, but we did not have a great military. There was no choice. It was great to have a balanced budget, but if we cannot protect ourselves having a balanced budget, it does not mean anything. Final question, as you day in theis job, a presidency and in the white house. Walk us through that day. President trump i stay up late. I like to read a lot, people dont understand that, and i watch a lot. A lot of fox . President trump yes, a lot of fox. I tend not to watch too much cnn, because it is such incorrect reporting. That is why their ratings went down so low. I will be watching the debates tonight. If i didnt, you would say i can imagine. I would like to know who i will be running against. Maybe you will tell me. You tell me. Pres. Trump i dont know. I think the four or five top ones would be the ones that would certainly have the best chance of getting it. There is a picture of your dad in the credenza in the oval office. Would he be surprised that you were president today . Pres. Trump he was always very proud of me. You know, i went to schools, i did well. He was just very proud of me. I came into his business he was a man who never let anyone sign a check, and when i came in, i could sign checks. He was just a very strong guy, was a very dominant figure, but a very good man. He was a very good person with a tremendous heart. A very strong person. He would be only surprised in that he never thought i would be running for politics. For office. I think if i said i was running for president , he would think i had a chance of doing it. He never got to see this, unfortunately. He died a little while before, but he was 93, and he led a good life. He was a good man. Great brother, great father, great brothers and sisters. In that way i was very lucky. I think my father would say if i wanted to run, i thing my father would have said i would have done very well. Who knew this exactly was going to happen who can say that . You have political families that everyone thinks are going to do great and they did not do so great. My father would have been very proud. He loved this country and he had confidence in me. Your agenda in the second term would be what . Pres. Trump i think getting costs, now that the military is close to being totally rebuilt, i think cost will be a big factor. We want to strengthen up Social Security so no one gets hurt later on. I have to strengthen a lot of good things up. We are going to do very Strong Health care, very, very Strong Health care. It is very important to me, because obamacare is not good. We managed obamacare really well, and i had a decision to make do i manage it well or manage it purposely poorly . Politically, i should have managed it poorly, but we managed it well and it is still too expensive and still not good health care. We will make something very good, and we will leave that for the beginning of my second term. If we can win the house, the senate and the presidency, we will have health care that is going to be phenomenal. And many other things. We have a lot of things to do. Just to be on the record, some budget cuts are on the agenda in the second . Pres. Trump absolutely. Just in terms of the military you know, a lot of this money, steve, is going to rebuilding. You have to order new planes. Once you order planes, they last for a long time. We have planes that are 45, 50 years old. The story you have reported on it, right . Where the grandfather flew the same plane as a young son who is now flying. We had old equipment. We were getting parts from the graveyard in the desert, the plane graveyard. They dont make the parts anymore. It is ridiculous. Now we have brandnew f35s and f18s. We have the best missiles in the world. New patriots, new tomahawks. No one is even close in submarine technology to us, and now we have phenomenal stuff. We have aircraft carriers coming on. We have the president gerald ford coming on, and it is out in the trials right now. We have a lot of great things happening. Mr. President , we thank you for your time. Pres. Trump thank you very much. Great honor, thank you. Led coverage of the 2020 president ial candidates at the iowa state fair, starting thursday at 1 45 eastern with montana governor steve bullock, joe biden. On friday at 10 00 a. M. Eastern, we are live with Julian Castro and beddoe orourke. At on saturday, we are live 10 00 a. M. Eastern with governor kamala,ee, senator harris, amy klobuchar, senator senatorgillibrand, and cory booker. Watch the 2020 president ial candidates lies at the iowa state fair, starting thursday on cspan. Watch anytime online at cspan. Org or listen live from wherever you are on the go using the free cspan radio app. Journalns washington live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. Coming up sunday morning, we will look at campaign 2020 and boosts by democrats to turnout with justin myers, ceo of the super pac for our future. Plus, james antal, sharing his views on campaign 2020. Cspans 7 00ch a. M. Eastern sunday morning, and look for podcast week this week on washington journal, starting at 9 00 a. M. Eastern. On monday, we talk with larry oconnor, host of the washington examiners examining politics. Tuesday, rachel quester, producer of the daily. On wednesday, mark leon goldberg, host of global dispatches. On thursday, chris stirewalt, stirewalt,erina and i will tell you what. And friday, jennifer briney, host of the dish. Reagan is an intellectual. He is an intellectual. He is comfortable with ideas. He understands the power of ideas. And with that count of foundation, intellectual foundation, a political leader can do all kinds of marvelous things. Author and historian lee edwards will be our guest on indepth sunday from noon until 2 00 p. M. Eastern. He is the, author of just right plus, a collection of biographies author of just right, classic collection of biographies. Join our program with calls, facebook questions and tweets. Be sure to watch our coverage of the 2019 National Book festival on august 31 on booktv on cspan2. The democratic president ial candidates met over two nights this week in detroit. For a cnnsponsored debate. Here is the first night with 10 of the candidates. The debate is 2. 5 hours. We begin with remarks by members of michigans Democratic Party and dnc chair, tom perez. This is 15 minutes