MARIA-02
Overnight stock market updates; Donald Trump expected to hold news
conference today in Washington, D.C.; Donald Trump calls in and answers
Maria's questions - Part 2>
Jeanine Pirro>
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(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Tom Brady is a friend of mine, we play golf together, the great quarterback. He's a phenomenal guy, great athlete. And I'm with him and I feel the same age as him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
DOOCY: Even if Trump loses in November, he's going to be right here on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. for the next several decades.
Because his organization has a 60-year lease with the federal government on this building, the old Post Office. That is the newest Trump international hotel. And it's where he's going to have a campaign event at about 10:00 this morning. Maria?
BARTIROMO: All right, Peter, thank you so much. Peter Doocy in D.C. this morning. I like that, he feels 35. I sort of feel that way, too.
UNKNOWN WOMAN: I think we all look at ourselves in the mirror and we don't see the older version of ourselves that we've become.
KEVIN KELLY, CEO, RECON CAPITAL: Yeah you want to see that from a politician, right?
BARTIROMO: I love it.
KELLY: That they're -- got tons of energy and they're ready and they've got purpose that, to make a change.
BARTIROMO: Look, you've got to -- you had to look at this campaign and say, "wow, this is hard work." I mean they are both working incredibly hard. So Donald Trump's going to join us momentarily. James Freeman, you've written a lot about this in the op-ed pages in The Journal. What do you want to hear from Donald Trump right now?
JAMES FREEMAN, ASSISTANT EDITOR, EDITORIAL PAGE, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL:
Well that optimism. Thinking he's Tom Brady's age. You heard it in the New York Economic Club speech yesterday. And you didn't always see it on the campaign trail but optimism, America (ph) can have better days ahead, and 4 percent economic growth as a national goal; great message. BARTIROMO: Yeah.
KELLY: I think one of the greatest things he said was talking about repatriating cash from overseas. And we can see that's going to resonate with business leaders. Especially, look at what happened to Tim Cook at Apple.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
KELLY: You had a super state, the EU, come in and intervene between a private contract and treaties between Apple and Ireland.
BARTIROMO: Right.
KELLY: So I think that will really resonate and that'll help jumpstart the economy.
BARTIROMO: Which is why this 15 percent corporate tax rate is the cornerstone of this tax plan that he has released. Let's get to the race right now, to The White House. Because Republican presidential nominee, Donald Trump, unveiled his economic plan yesterday. It calls for $4.4 million in tax cuts.
On the phone with me right now is Republican Presidential Nominee, Donald Trump. Mr. Trump thanks very much for spending the time.
TRUMP: Good morning, Maria.
BARTIROMO: Good morning, it was good to see you yesterday.
TRUMP: It was, it was.
BARTIROMO: It felt like you wowed the crowd. Now the Clinton campaign put out a statement saying that your latest revision of the economic plan would benefit you at the expense of millions of hard-working folks across the country. I want to give you an opportunity to respond to how Hillary Clinton came out immediately after you released that economic plan yesterday.
TRUMP: Well there's nothing much they can say. They're raising taxes very substantially and I'm lowering taxes very substantially. And that's all they're going to say. I mean they're going to say, "oh gee, it's not going to work." And that's the way politics is.
But hers is a major tax increase. Hers is going to drive business out.
Hers is going to close up new business, it's going to be more regulations, if that's possible.
Because you know Maria, one of the things I've seen and one of the things I think I'm most surprised at -- and I tell this when people say, "what are you most surprised at after you have campaigned so long and hard on this whole situation? I say, well I'll tell you. One of the things is the fact that we're going with a major tax cut and we're also going with a major reduction of regulations.
And going around from business to business -- and even homes -- but from business to business, they're more excited about getting rid of the regulations than reducing taxes from 35 percent to 15 percent. And if you would've told me that two years ago, I said -- I wouldn't believe it.
Because one is actual money, and the other is money but it's sort of amorphous.
BARTIROMO: Right.
TRUMP: And I will tell you, they're more excited about the regulations than this massive tax cut.
BARTIROMO: And I think yesterday you made the point that Obama put in place what, 3,300 new rules, just in the last 12 months.
TRUMP: He has created a major industry.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
TRUMP: And he's created an industry for lots of consultants and lots of professionals. And I hate to say this because the lawyers will have to get involved, but lawyers probably are doing very well because of it because these companies have to hire them to get unentangled from all this web of nonsense that they've put in. So he's created a major industry and it's a very negative industry. Because it holds back our country, and jobs, and growth.
BARTIROMO: Yeah, for sure. Now you gave us some real detail yesterday.
Because you actually included new information. You have a new cap on deductions of $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for couples. And you also talked about trade adding to growth. However, you talked about the TPP and NAFTA as being really tough deals. And you also talked about full expensing for U.S. based manufacturers.
TRUMP: Right.
BARTIROMO: You updated this tax plan.
TRUMP: Well I updated it, I made it very much more detailed from what it was. We really lowered the rates if you think about it. I made it far simpler. I mean we're bringing the corporate tax from 35 down to 15. And you know, people are leaving, companies are leaving the country.
And they're also leaving -- I heard just before you got on, one of your guests brilliantly said that they really like what I'm doing with the money that's offshore. Which is, they say $2.5 trillion, I think it's over $5 trillion. Whatever it is it's a lot of money.
But companies are actually leaving to get their money. They have a lot of money. They're leaving our country so that they can get their money.
Because it's -- there's almost no way of bringing it back in. It's very interesting. Not only is the tax too high, because they have to give up massive amounts in the neighborhood of 35 percent, so they have to give 35 percent up of this money. Which they've already paid taxes on.
But they have to give up an additional 35 percent. But you know, importantly, the bureaucratic process -- I have a very good friend who's -- who deals with your show a lot and respects you a lot, and he runs a big company. And he told me that bureaucratically the paperwork and the effort they have to have to get this money back into the country is almost not work it. And he wasn't even referring to the high tax.
BARTIROMO: Wow.
TRUMP: So it's a disaster.
BARTIROMO: Look, I know that President Obama only has a couple more months in office, but he's still trying to push TPP, something that you have a major problem with. The President has enlisted, Mr. Trump, Ohio governor, John Kasich to help him post for his Asia-Pacific trade agreement. Kasich is attending a bipartisan meeting today about TPP. Kasich seems to be reaching across the aisle. As President, how do you plan to work with Democrats regarding trade?
TRUMP: Well I'm going to fight TPP and I love trade. But I don't like these deals where you get 12 countries, and you get all of these different countries, too complicated. You can't get out of those deals. You have to see the errors that go from one to another and back here. If somebody defaults you don't know how to default them.
But one of the -- I like one-on-one. We make individual deals with individual countries. If they don't behave, we terminate that. We give them a 30 day notice like in business, and we terminate the deal. And before the deal gets officially terminate, they come back and they behave.
These deals are ridiculous where you have so many countries. Some are good to us and some are bad to us. Some treat us horribly. With TPP, as you know, China will work to come in through the back door. They're not in the deal but they're watching us very closely. And if it's good they're gonna -- they want provision. And if it's good they're going to try and come in through the back door and take advantage of us there. Which of course we fully expect, they always take advantage of us because we're people that don't know what they're doing.
So TPP is a disaster for many reasons, and that's one of them, the complexity. You know it's 5,000 pages long and I guarantee you there probably aren't two people in our country that read it. We don't know.
And the other countries, they've read every word, every paragraph, every comma. And it -- believe me, it's good for others, it's not good for us.
And it's not good for our workers.
But one of the things that they don't have in TPP is a manipulation clause, a devaluation of money clause. They have, you know, devaluation, monetary devaluation is the single greatest tool these countries have been using over the years to just kill us.
BARTIROMO: Yeah. And you said yesterday that you're going to name China a currency manipulator if it keeps up.
TRUMP: Well of course we are.
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
TRUMP: It's currency manipulation and that's what they do and that's how they beat us. We make better product than they do. We can't compete.
Every time we're about to compete, they devalue their money, so .
BARTIROMO: But people are worried about you putting tariffs in place. I mean, are manufacturers going to do business with America if they see high tariffs? Do you consider yourself a free-trader?
TRUMP: Yeah, totally.
BARTIROMO: And are we going to see new tariffs in place?
TRUMP: Yeah, absolutely you will because you have so many people that are cheating. When there's cheating we have the ultimate weapon. You're gonna cheat, that's OK, we're gonna put tariffs in. You're gonna manipulate your currency so that our manufacturers can't manufacture, we're gonna put tariffs in.
If you won't let our manufacturers sell to China -- as an example, for instance, I have many friends that are manufacturers, they can't even get into China. And when they do they have to pay massive taxes. I hear numbers, I won't even say them on the phone because they're not even believable, they're so high. In the 70s, OK? In the 70s. That's how crazy it is.
But I hear numbers that are so bad and they can't even get in. And these are great manufacturers, China doesn't want them. So then China says, "all right, come over and build a plant." But they don't even want that to happen.
BARTIROMO: But don't you want American companies to be able to sell to those 1.3 billion people in China? .
TRUMP: Oh, absolutely.
BARTIROMO: I mean we're 300 million in this country. Our countries want to sell to the 1.3 billion in China.
TRUMP: Oh, absolutely, sure they will.
BARTIROMO: How are they going to do it if China's paying more tariffs?
TRUMP: Well it's very easy. They're going to do it because they're gonna want to do it. Look, they've been sucking us dry. They've been taking the money out of our country for years. We've rebuilt China. I mean we've built China, the money they've taken out -- Look it up, Liz (ph), we're like living in a third-world country. Take a look at our airports and our roadways. You take a look at everything, it's like what happened to us.
And we owe 20, we owe $20 trillion.
And by the way, we owe $1.7 trillion to China. Now think of that, they take the money out, they take our jobs, they take our business, and we owe them money. It's like a magic act. We owe them money. And by the way, we owe them a lot of money.
BARTIROMO: Yeah. Mr. Trump, let me ask you about this birther issue.
Your Senior Communications Advisor, Jason Miller, addressed the birther comments saying that you believe President Obama was in fact born in the United States.
Now I remember when this all went on and you were very successful in making sure this issue was front and center. He said Hillary Clinton's campaign first raised the issue to smear .
TRUMP: True.
BARTIROMO: . your communications person said that Hillary Clinton raised the issue first to then smear then candidate, Barack Obama, in her very nasty failed 2008 campaign for President.
TRUMP: Right.
BARTIROMO: That you believe that President Obama was born in the United States right now. Can you clarify your stance on this?
TRUMP: Well I'm going to make a big announcement on it today, probably during my first speech at my new hotel. We're opening as you know on Pennsylvania Avenue, the old Post Office. And it's -- you'll be happy to hear -- on budget, exactly on budget, even a little under budget. And about a year and a half ahead of schedule. That's something you don't hear from government. And it's gonna be great.
BARTIROMO: I just don't remember Hillary bringing it up. When did she bring it up, during the campaign?
TRUMP: Hillary brought it up during her campaign. It was 2008. And it was brought up to a fare-thee-well. And she brought it up and I was the one that was successful in getting him to release his birth certificate.
I'm going to have a big statement made today at the hotel. I'm speaking in front of medal of honor winners that endorse me. I have many medal of honor winners who have endorsed me and will be endorsing me today, which I'm very proud of. And I'm going to be making a major statement on this whole thing and what Hillary did.
But no, she is the one that started it. And she was unable, or incapable of finishing it. That's the way it worked out. But I got him to release his birth certificate. So .
BARTIROMO: I remember.
TRUMP: So we will have a big statement and I hope you're gonna be watching.
BARTIROMO: I'm definitely going to be watching. But the bottom line is we know that Obama now, he was born in America, correct?
TRUMP: You watch my statement. I have to -- we have to keep the suspense going, OK? So you watch .
BARTIROMO: OK.
TRUMP: . You're my friend, you watch the statement, OK? I think you'll be happy.
BARTIROMO: Listen, the story really struck us here at the show about Ivanka. She was drilled yesterday by a Cosmopolitan writer, OK, asking about your childcare plan. That same reporter spoke with Chelsea Clinton and she asked Chelsea Clinton softball questions earlier this year. Did you speak to Ivanka about what happened yesterday with Cosmo magazine, and how she handled herself?
TRUMP: I did. Cosmopolitan is a dying magazine. It used to be run by Helen Gurley Brown, isn't that correct?
BARTIROMO: Yes.
TRUMP: That's -- same one? Same magazine.
BARTIROMO: Absolutely.
TRUMP: Who was a friend of mine, who was a great, great woman. One of the legends in that industry. And since her passing, it's gone downhill. And now it's like a useless magazine, worthless magazine. And I was actually surprised -- she did it because she thought the person was a nice person, she'd do it. She did them a favor, because who wants to read it in Cosmo - - nobody reads Cosmopolitan magazine anymore.
So she did it to be nice and I heard the person -- I haven't seen it -- but I heard the person was really rude to Ivanka. And everybody loves Ivanka.
Ivanka's a good person. You know that.
BARTIROMO: Yes, she .
TRUMP: And everybody loves her and she did it out of her heart because she feels so strongly about child care. And she was like, attacked by this, you know, rather non-intelligent reporter. But really attacked viciously.
And I said, "don't let it bother you." You know? I said, "welcome to the world of Trump."
BARTIROMO: Yeah, well you know what, she handled herself beautifully.
TRUMP: No, she did but it's very unfair. And this is a magazine that's a dead magazine. I said, "what are you wasting your time? You shouldn't even do it."
BARTIROMO: So she, so she did so much work on the child care plan. Let me ask you about that because viewers want to know. You said you were going to strip all the deductions and now this is a deduction for child care for families. It's getting high marks and resonating with families, but how do you pay for it?
TRUMP: Well I'll tell you. Number one, I am stripping deductions. And I'm simplifying the tax plan and everything. But we met -- as an example, we were in Philadelphia, right outside of Philadelphia, the suburbs as we call it. And we had an amazing group of people. And many of them were women that we talked to at a round table before I went out and made the actual announcement.
And Maria, you have to see what these people are going through with child care. It's impossible for them, impossible. And you know, they're not people of wealth, they're not -- in many cases they're barely making it.
In some cases they're not making it, and we have to help them. So you know, I have simplified the tax plan greatly, but we have to do this for them. Or, you know, or we might as well not have a country.
You have to see how these people are living, and the problem they have with child care. It's incredible. So, you know, I think we've made a very good case. And sure it is a slight complication to the plan, but a complication to the plan when you see these incredible women -- and men, by the way, failing (ph) .
BARTIROMO: It's really one of the biggest expenses, you're absolutely right.
TRUMP: It's the -- it could be their biggest expense. I mean it's bigger than their mortgage .
BARTIROMO: Yeah.
TRUMP: . mortgage costs. It's bigger than their housing costs, it's incredible.
BARTIROMO: And when you unveiled it .
TRUMP: . So, I'm very proud of it.
BARTIROMO: When you unveiled it you had all those women around you. We had Marsha Blackburn on the show earlier this week. Do you think it's resonating with women? This is a group you've got to get the votes in order to win the election. What do you think this plan has done with regard to the impact on women?
TRUMP: Well I think it is resonating with women. Women are -- I mean we have been called by so many people -- and you know Hillary Clinton was all talk, no action. All of a sudden she wants to come up with this plan and her plan is not a good plan. But she was caught off sides. But you know, again she wasn't available for the last three days.
BARTIROMO: Right, let .
TRUMP: But she was caught off -- you know, she was caught by surprise. I will say this is something that's been really close to my heart. But it's been so close to Ivanka's heart. And Ivanka was pushing for this before I even said I'd run. I said if I run, she goes, "Dad, if you run, you have to do something for women with child care. Do you understand that?" I'm saying, "OK, I promise." You know. So this is something that is very close to Ivanka's heart.
BARTIROMO: And she's got credibility on it, she's got kids herself.
TRUMP: Absolutely.
BARTIROMO: Let me switch gears. You're a New Yorker, I'm a New Yorker, there's a report, Mr. Trump, that New Yorkers are leaving New York in droves for other states because of high taxes. In 2014 alone, more than 126,000 New Yorkers fled the state. How do you plan to make living here affordable for New Yorkers, and can you take New York?
TRUMP: Maria, if I left New York and moved to another state, like Florida, I would save tens of billions of dollars. And the reason I don't do it is, (1) Simple reason -- I'm loyal to my state. But they've got to do something with taxes. Because not everybody is like me. They've got to do something with taxes. The taxes in New York are killing the people that are here.
And people are leaving. And they're the wealthy people. They're leaving and they're saving millions and millions of dollars a year. New York has got to get going, they've got to do something with taxes.
BARTIROMO: Well have you spoken to de Blasio about this? Mayor de Blasio?
TRUMP: No, no, I just met -- I was with Andrew Cuomo the other day, who I like. And I -- look, he knows the problem. We have to do -- you have to do something with taxes in New York. I was with him at the, at the very famous -- that very famous morning. Where Hillary had her difficulty.
We sit together for a long period of time. We talked and you know I told him. And he understands, it's not like he doesn't understand it. Unless they cut taxes very substantially, you're gonna lose a lot of people from New York.
BARTIROMO: I mean, do you think you resonated with him? Do you think de Blasio should cut taxes? How's he doing?
TRUMP: Well we had a great opportunity a few years ago, having to do with Upstate New York. And taking our energy out from under our feet. And unfortunately they never seized on that opportunity and we have unbelievable poverty, Upstate New York. And we could have had the opposite, we could've had the opposite.
Other states did seize on it. You look at Pennsylvania and look at Ohio, you look at others, and they took advantage of it but we didn't. And now with the oil prices being so low and energy, you know, prices being so low, it's not the same opportunity.
But New York had an unbelievable opportunity that the environmental gangs - - and I'm an environmentalist in many ways. Believe me, I'm a believer.
But the environmentalists really stopped them from doing that and it's really one of the sadder things I've ever seen in government.
BARTIROMO: And we know that tapping into the energy resources in this country is one of the key parts to your economic plan. But you know Mark Cuban came on Fox recently and he said, "look, your economic plan is obviously, number one, tax reform. Number two, scaling back regulation.
Number three, tapping into energy. And number four, making sure that trade deals are advantageous to America.
But billionaire Mark Cuban says if that plan goes through, there's going to be a market sell-off, Mr. Trump. Listen to what he said, I want to get your reaction. Roll this fight.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
MARK CUBAN, BUSINESSMAN: I have my Trump hedge on. In the event Donald wins, I have no doubt in my mind the market tanks. And so I literally have put on a more than 100 percent hedge .
UNKNOWN: Really?
CUBAN: . that I'll put on it stronger.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BARTIROMO: How do you respond, Mr. Trump?
TRUMP: Well I know Mark. And you know, the problem with Mark, he's not smart enough to understand what we're doing. He's really not smart enough, in my opinion, to really understand what's going on. I've known him for a long time. He's tweets me all the time, he sent me so many different tweets. And calls me, although I must say, not over the last number of months because I said, "look, this guy would you send not so many tweets?"
I'll have to, I'll have to send you all of the Mark Cuban tweets and conversations.
But Mark is not, I really believe not smart enough to understand what's going on. He's a mixed up guy.
BARTIROMO: I mean .
TRUMP: And I think this, look, I think that this plan is a great plan.
We're in trouble. Explain to Mark we have $20 trillion in debt. We have high taxes in this country, very high taxes. Our companies -- much like New York but on a much larger scale -- our companies are leaving, they're leaving this country. They're moving to other countries. They're leaving for lots of reasons.
But they're leaving because taxes are too high, regulations are too high, and they're leaving because they can't get money back that is their money.
They can't get money back into our country, both bureaucratically and from a tax standpoint. And people have to understand that.
BARTIROMO: And most people, business people, understand that a 15 percent corporate tax rate would be huge. But what about the entitlement? I mean, are you going to do anything about social security, medicare, isn't that where much of the cost is?
TRUMP: Well you know we have a contract with people on social security.
And they're violating -- so many people want to violate that contract, I don't. But what we are gonna do is; waste, fraud, and abuse -- which is massive -- and we're going to bring it so that it's properly run. But we are not going to do that, we have a contract and we're not going to do that.
BARTIROMO: Mr. Trump, we got the debate on the horizon, first presidential debate. We're in countdown mode, less than two weeks away. How are you preparing?
TRUMP: Well I think I did -- I will do that like I did the other 11 debates. I had 11 debates and I really loved the process. You know I never did a professional debate. I think my whole life has been a debate, Maria. A little bit like your life, right?
But our lives have been a big, fat debate. But I've never debated professionally and these guys, these politicians are, you know, some of them are virtually professional debaters. And yet every single poll had me winning every single debate. Every single poll had me winning every single debate.
So I think I'll continue that. I will prepare the way I prepared for the other debates, nothing very formal. And you know, really you're preparing all your life for these. You're not preparing over a two week period, and cramming.
BARTIROMO: Right, that's true.
TRUMP: You're really preparing all your life. And I've seen people -- and you know the people I'm talking about because you've seen it, too -- and I've seen people prepare and lock themselves in a house and talk to nobody and take no calls and do nothing for weeks but prepare for a debate.
And they get on the stage and they freeze, and they choke. And they are horrible. And I've seen it that way very often actually, where they're -- they have so much knowledge crammed into their head that they can't speak. And, you know .
BARTIROMO: I mean do you, do you feel like you have to bone up on the issues, foreign policy, I mean economic issues we know (ph).
TRUMP: I think I'm very good on foreign policy. I think I'm highly underrated on foreign policy. And I was against the war in Iraq, believe me. You know they like to say, "well, you've made a statement to Howard Stern." Well that was long before the war started and that was really not much of a statement. That was, they sort of like -- that was probably the first time the word Iraq was ever mentioned to me in any capacity.
And I said, "well I don't know, Howard," you know, it was one of those things. But that was many months before it started though. I was against it, in fact, somebody that told me about it the other day, Sean Hannity -- who's a great guy, by the way -- but Sean Hannity said, "I know you were against it, you used to argue with me." Because Sean was in favor of the war.