Phone call
March 28, 2020
TRUMP:
One of the things we’re doing is we’re testing at such a level, so much higher than any other country, that—you know, like, it shows we have more cases? Well, the reason we have more cases, because we’re testing. So we’re finding a lot of people with, like, sniffles, and they have it, so that’s called a case. You know what I mean?
My next interview with President Trump was the morning of March 28th. The day before, Trump had signed a massive $2 trillion pandemic response bill that had passed the House and Senate almost unanimously. It provided money to individuals, large and small businesses, and local governments.
At a Fox News town hall four days earlier, Tuesday, March 24th, Trump said:
TRUMP:
I would love to have the country opened up and just raring to go by Easter.
Easter was only 19 days away when Trump made his comment to Fox News.
The audio quality of my call with President Trump is not very good.
TRUMP:
Hi, Bob. Hi.
BW:
President Trump, how are you?
TRUMP:
Hi, good. I’m running a big, big operation. The world is under siege, as you know. It’s very interesting. But I think we’re doing a good job. We’re getting a lot of equipment coming in. It’s unbelievable, though, Bob. What’s your feeling?
BW:
Well, I mean, we talked, and you know the leadership task that’s on your shoulders—
TRUMP:
Yeah.
BW:
—is, as we talked last time, people are going to be looking at this and trying to understand it 100 years from now. How do you feel, and all for the book, I’m recording this again. What are your priorities?
TRUMP:
Yeah, I can’t talk too long, Bob, because I have generals downstairs. I have National Guardsmen downstairs that I have to speak before. So I can only give a couple of—look, I think we’re doing a really good job. I think we’re getting a lot of credit. I think there’s a lot of really fake news out there where they try and demean everything. They had a case where CNN was going to interview somebody and the person went over and said Trump’s doing a great job, and they refused to put him on the air. You know, it’s a very respected person, by the way.
BW:
Okay, so the question, though, is what are—because it’s on your shoulders, what are your priorities? I’m really interested.
TRUMP:
My priorities are saving lives. That’s my priority. That’s my only priority. We got a great bill passed.
BW:
Yes.
TRUMP:
Actually $6.2 trillion. It’s $4.2 but—it’s $2.2, but it’s actually $6.2 because you get an extra $4 trillion. It’s the biggest bill ever passed. And that takes care of a lot of things. And it’s going to really help with the big comeback that we have to make. We made one comeback. Now we have to make a second comeback. And it gives us virtually unlimited money, credit, everything else we have to do. We’re taking care of people that lost their jobs. We’re taking care of jobs not being lost—a lot of jobs won’t be lost because the incentive is now to keep your workers. And tremendous things in that bill. I got it done. I got it passed unanimously.
BW:
Thursday you said you talked to President Xi of China. Would it be possible to get somebody to give me a summary of that call? I think so much is gonna hinge on—
TRUMP:
No, we had a very good call. And it was a long call. It was an hour.
BW:
Yes.
TRUMP:
Yeah, I could have somebody give you a summary. You know who could give you a summary is Jared. Jared’s a big fan of yours.
BW:
That’s great. And you said—
TRUMP:
Yeah. Jared Kushner was on that call, along with Mike Pompeo, along with a few other people. And Jared could give you—tell him I said it was okay. Jared could give you a recap. It was a very good call.
BW:
You had said you discussed with President Xi kind of how this began. Did he have an answer?
TRUMP:
Right. Well, I did, and I discussed it. And then I said, look, it’s no longer relevant right now. We’ll talk about it after it’s all over. Because in the meantime we have to fix what’s here. But there’s no reason to get into a big argument about that now.
BW:
Understand.
TRUMP:
Sometimes you just sort of say, okay, let’s talk about that sometime later. They’re very defensive, as you would be.
BW:
Of course. Well, you have the weight of the world on your shoulders, and I’m going to acquiesce to the responsibility and not even ask you any more questions. For the first time in my life. [laughs]
TRUMP:
Well, thank you. Are you feeling good? Don’t go out, right? Just relax, you know?
BW:
Yeah.
TRUMP:
Relax.
BW:
When we talked in February, I was fascinated. You said there’s dynamite behind every door. And this is before all of this accelerated, and I wonder if at that point did you have some inkling or intelligence that, my God, we’ve got this storm coming?
TRUMP:
Well, nobody knew that a thing like this could happen. The best decision I made was Europe and China, closing our doors. We would’ve had a much bigger problem, like many times bigger than we had. We would’ve had unbelievable amounts of death. You know, one of the things we’re doing is we’re testing at such a level, so much higher than any other country, that—you know, like, it shows we have more cases? Well, the reason we have more cases, because we’re testing. So we’re finding a lot of people with, like, sniffles, and they have it, so that’s called a case. You know what I mean? So we’re testing at a level—but we’re really trying to keep it under one percent. And we’re under one percent. We’re one of the lowest. We’re just about the lowest, actually.
COMMENTARY: Trump is defensive about case numbers and clearly concerned with how the numbers make him look rather than how the virus is rapidly spreading. Already over 147,000 people in the United States had contracted the virus and the death toll was climbing rapidly toward 3,000.
BW:
I see on the internet that Fauci is predicting we may have 100,000 deaths in this country?
TRUMP:
He thinks that could be—it could happen. And if we didn’t do what I’m doing, you would’ve had a number many times that. Can you believe that?
BW:
Well, we—listen, let’s get the history right. The history of where this lands in your relationship with China and on the trade and military issues—
TRUMP:
As I’ve been saying for a long time, and one of the reasons I got elected was China. You know, China’s taken advantage of this country for a long time. And we’ve done too much with China. China was not a good thing for us. We didn’t need to buy pencils, Bob, for two cents. We could’ve made them ourselves, you know? We didn’t need 10,000 pencils for every child. You understand?
BW:
How’s Xi’s mood? Because they’ve been clobbered also. I understand from the intel that there’s—
TRUMP:
They’ve been clobbered far worse than you read.
BW:
Yeah. And I understand that it shows in North Korea they’re being clobbered also.
TRUMP:
Like you wouldn’t believe.
BW:
Yeah.
TRUMP:
Oh, I got another letter from him, by the way.
BW:
Oh, good. Well, I’ve got those 29 letters—
TRUMP:
I’ll show you. Yeah. Very good letter.
BW:
—and we’ll get that history right.
TRUMP:
Very good letter. It’s just a letter. So, you know, it’s interesting timing. For all those people that say, well, he hasn’t made the deal. Well, what’s not making the deal? I’m in for three and a half years, and we haven’t had a war. Okay? And then you have something like this. And this stops wars, because they’ve got their own war now. You understand that, right?
BW:
Oh, listen, somebody told me that the virus is just blazing through North Korea.
TRUMP:
Yeah. A big problem. Iran is an unbelievable problem. Iran is an unbelievable problem.
BW:
Well, it’s good you can talk to President Xi of China. Was he angry with you at all?
TRUMP:
Well, they accused our soldiers of doing it, because they’re worried—
BW:
Yes, I saw that.
TRUMP:
And I said, look, you can’t do that. And you know, we had a little bit of an argument. But, basically, we—in the end I said, look, we’ll talk about that later. In the meantime, we have to get to work.
BW:
And so you’ve got that channel open? Because that’s clearly important.
TRUMP:
Oh, it’s clearly important. Because you can—things can cause wars. When stupid people say stupid things, it can cause wars, Bob. You know? Words cause wars.
BW:
Absolutely. Accidental—
TRUMP:
I had a couple of guys—you know, I called it the Chinese virus. That’s not easy for them to handle, okay?
BW:
Yes, I know.
TRUMP:
But I had guys that all of a sudden became emboldened, and they start—they were hitting China so hard. You’ve got to be careful. You can’t do that shit. I stopped them, fast. And I told him that, and he was happy about that.
WALSH:
Hitting China.
TRUMP:
But you know, we’re not dealing—I wish you could hear a tape of the call. I mean—
BW:
Yeah, that’s what I’d love to do.
TRUMP:
It was so incredible—there’s nobody that can describe that call. Call lasted for over an hour. There’s nobody that can describe that call but a tape. Bob, I’ve got to go back to work.
BW:
Okay, sir.
TRUMP:
Listen, you take care of yourself.… I’ll talk to you soon. Call Jared, okay?
BW:
You take care. Will do, sir. Have a good day.
[Phone call ends]
WALSH:
Such a better interview—such a totally different person there.
BW:
Yeah.
[Recording ends]