In conversation with President Trump

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:00 Here we go.

Donald Trump 0:01 Hello, everybody.

David Sacks 0:03 Hello, Mr. President.

Donald Trump 0:04 Tell me, I love that house he has.

David Sacks 0:06 (laughs)

Donald Trump 0:06 I love David's house. What a house. That made the biggest impression, huh?

David Sacks 0:10 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:11 Thank you, sir.

Donald Trump 0:12 That was great.

David Sacks 0:12 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:13 I heard you have a pretty nice house too.

Donald Trump 0:14 Yeah, I have a... We're in a nice house. We like houses.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:17 Although it's only worth 18 million, right? Isn't that what they said?

Donald Trump 0:19 We like... I know the judge said 18 million.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:21 (laughs)

Donald Trump 0:21 People said, "Palm Beach has gone down a long way."

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:24 (laughs)

Narrator 0:25 (instrumental music plays)

Donald Trump 0:25 Hello, everybody.

David Sacks 0:26 I'm going all in.

Jason Calacanis 0:28 Let your winners ride.

Donald Trump 0:30 Rain Man, David Sachs.

David Sacks 0:33 I'm going all in. And I said-

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:35 We open sourced it to the fans, and they've just gone crazy with it.

David Sacks 0:39 Love you, Betsy.

Donald Trump 0:39 What's his queen of quinoa?

David Sacks 0:41 I'm going all in.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:43 Thanks so much for sitting down with us, Mr. President. The All-In Pod is basically the, the four of us having conversations. It's kind of a spectrum of different views. We got sort of like a little bit of some Fox News and then some MSD&C at the same time. So-

Donald Trump 0:56 Oh, that's okay.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:57 (laughs)

Donald Trump 0:58 Keeps it interesting.

Chamath Palihapitiya 0:59 Yeah, absolutely. Anyway, Chamath and I, we, we had a great time at the f- at the fundraiser that we did a couple weeks ago.

Donald Trump 1:05 Oh.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06 I think it turned out-

Donald Trump 1:06 Great time.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:07 Turned out great. And I, I heard the Winklevoss brothers are actually announcing that they're donating a million dollars each in Bitcoin to you tomorrow. So, I think that's a, a great result to come out of it as well.

Donald Trump 1:20 Yeah, I got to meet them for the first time at your house, and they're terrific, terrific. They, they did well. Uh, they might have started the whole thing. I don't know.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:29 (laughs)

Donald Trump 1:29 I don't know. I don't know if that court case was proper, but, uh, they were very nice, both of them.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:34 Absolutely.

David Sacks 1:35 Really nice guys.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:36 You know, and I think

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:37 maybe this is a good place to start in our conversation is, you know, one of the things I think we heard a lot at that dinner was just the, the difficulty that people in business were having under this Biden administration. You got the crypto guys who just want a framework. They just want the government to tell them how to operate, and they can't get that. You got no M&A happening right now in tech. The real estate guys, they can't get loans because the interest rates are through the roof, and there's a credit crunch. So, I think one of the common themes we just heard across that dinner was that it was just so hard to do business right now. And I guess maybe a good place to start would just be, you know, what, what's the number one thing or maybe the top three things that you would do to kind of get things moving again, you know, wha- if you're reelected?

Donald Trump 2:25 So, I'd say regulation, regulation, and taxes. Okay? You know, I gave the biggest tax cut in the history of our country and a lot to business. It took it down from... Look, as you know, they were paying... People, companies were paying 40%, 45%, including state and city taxes in many cases, and we got it down to 21%. We'd like to get it down lower actually, but, uh, we got it down, and the revenues were, were better than ever even with the lower rate. We had record, record revenues, which tells you a little bit about that. But also, the regulations, and when I asked a lot of people, a lot of big people, a lot of corporate types, uh, big corporate types, I said, "If you had your choice between just the taxes or just the regulations, where did I do better?" He said, "The regulations." I was the biggest cutter of rega- In four years, I cut more regulations than anybody by four, no, by far, not, not even close. And when I spoke to different people about the regulation versus the taxes, I, I don't think I've ever had anybody say, and the taxes were a massive cut, you know, from 37, 38%, if you look at it just there, to 21%. I don't think I ever had anybody say that the taxes were more important than the regulation cuts. I made it possible to build. I made it possible to do things, to invest. I was able to get, uh, companies with a lot of money outside of the USA to bring that money back in. You know, we cut the rate, and it was crazy. The rate was like 55%, so that means if they bring the money back, they lose half their money before they even start. But it was also, uh, impossible from a standpoint, a structural standpoint, a legal standpoint. It was very hard, and they were able to bring back, I mean, Apple's an example. They brought hundreds of billions of dollars back from other countries into the United States and invested it here. So, uh, but it's, it's very interesting 'cause I ask the question all the time, which was more important? And almost everybody said I did an even better job, and I got the biggest tax cuts, the biggest tax cuts, bigger than the Reagan tax cuts, but they found regulations and the regulation cuts were even more effective. And that's where we had the great economy, and that's where we had the most jobs ever produced.

David Sacks 4:38 So there's this odd thing that happens in certain states where taxes keep going up, and then you start to see the states break, right? Productivity breaks, crime goes up, and quality of life goes down. But then people don't understand that taxation and all of those things are correlated. Do you have an idea of why that is? Like, why don't people understand universally that lower taxation is better for productivity?

Donald Trump 5:02 Well, they don't understand it, and it's such an interesting question because you look at some of these places like Chicago and New York and, and LA and so many more where, you know, I'd hate to even mention the three 'cause there are worse examples than that. You look at what's happened in Oakland, and you look at what's happened in some, some cities that are disappearing. I mean, they're literally just crime waves. There, there nobody lives there except for criminals because you can't live there. You can't survive there. Physically, you can't survive there. And when you look at the kind of crime that we're talking about, and then they take the power away from the police. The police can't do anything. If they do anything to stop it, they end up losing their pension, their house, their family. They end up losing everything. They get put in jail, and we're not talking about the rogue cops who do something really bad and should be taken care of badly, you know, be nasty. You gotta be nasty to them also. But, uh, mostly, I mean, they, they... These people, they want to really, like 99%, they want to stop crime. They hate to see it. They're not allowed to even... They're told not to do anything.When you see a department store that was so proud, they opened up a new store in a certain city, and all of a sudden, there's, over the last couple of years this happened, this phenomena where 500 usually young people walk into the store and take everything. They have masks on. They walk out with television sets, air conditioners. They walk out with everything. This is a new phenomena that's taken place, and it's, it's incredible. Uh, look at drug stores. Look at what's going on. Like, in New York, you walk into a chain. I've seen it twice. I don't walk into too many drug stores, but I used to love it. I used to love to walk around and just look at what it is, whether it's a drug store or department store. But they told me, just a little while ago, I had a meeting with some people, and they say, "You walk into a drug store in New York, and everything's covered up with bars and glass, and if you want just a little thing of aspirin or if you want to buy a toothbrush, you have to wait a half an hour to get a clerk, and they open up this vault-"

David Friedberg 6:59 (laughs)

Donald Trump 7:00 "... and they give you a toothbrush, or they give you..." It's, how do you do business like that? This is a phenomena. There's never been anything-

David Friedberg 7:07 Yeah.

Donald Trump 7:07 ... like this. They didn't used to have theft of, of even the most minor items. They, they had very little theft, relatively speaking. They didn't have theft. But they had, the police would arrest them if they did something. Today, they don't. They have limits sometimes. If you steal less than $2,000, you don't get arrested. So nobody steals more than $2,000. Uh, it's incredible when you see what's happened to the quality of life in our country, and it's happened so quickly. It's, it's taken place so rapidly. Nobody's ever seen anything. But you look at retail, and I know the big deal, it used to be a big deal when a department store moved into a city or, you know, a certain store opened up even in a town. But it's usually the Democrat-run big cities where this problem is taking place, and I don't say that as a Republican. I just say, you look at the 25 cities, the top problems, they're just about all Democrat. They're Democrat-run.

David Friedberg 8:01 And they're also high tax, high regulation states.

Donald Trump 8:04 Yeah, no cash bail. All, all of these-

David Friedberg 8:06 Right.

Donald Trump 8:06 ... different things that have taken place. They're phenomena. It, it's a phenomena what's, what's going on. Nobody's ever seen anything like it, and it has to be stopped. It's a horrible quality of life, and on top of that, you can't walk to a store. You end up getting shot or mugged or something. The level of crime in the cities, in these big cities is, is out of control. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

David Friedberg 8:29 Mr. President, can I, can I just ask, on your point about the tax cuts, Larry Summers made a comment the other day, and I thought maybe you could respond to his tweet, that the tax cuts coupled with the tariffs that you've proposed would cause a massive, I think he called it the mother of all stagflation, where you would have kind of inflation because of the tariffs. You would have economic decline because more money would start to fund a, an increase in prices with tax coming down, tax cuts being put in place. Can you maybe just comment on, on, on the comment made by Larry Summers and how we implement tax cuts without inflation?

Donald Trump 9:05 Well, let me say that I respect Larry Summers a lot. He's been right about a lot of things, and Obama and Biden have been wrong. Uh, certain things that he said turned out to be true, certain things. And, uh, he really, I do have a good respect for him. He's a different kind of a guy, and he speaks his mind. I happen to be a big believer in tariffs because I think tariffs give you two things. They give you economic gain, but they also give you political gain if... If a country is out of control, and something having nothing to do with economics or having nothing to do with, with money coming in or money going out, but other things that are very political 'cause there are a lot of other things involved in countries, you have tremendous power over a country. Now, not everybody can say that, but we can because we're the big piggy bank, but our piggy bank is gonna get smaller and smaller all the time 'cause we're losing power. We're losing a lot of, you know, countries on the dollar. I mean, they're going like flies. If we ever lose that, that's the equivalent of losing a, a war. That would be a unbelie- That would really make us third-world. We have lost so many countries. I looked the other day. So Russia's gone. Uh, you, you take a look. Ukraine doesn't sort of exist, in a sense. Nobody knows what's going on there. But when you look at China is essentially gone. They're trying to get out of it. They want it... They're a primary competitor. Uh, uh, Iran is not there. The other day, I read where Saudi Arabia is willing to now go in various different currencies instead of the dollar. This is a tragedy. This is a big thing that's happening against our country, and we cannot let that happen. With tariffs, it gives you a tremendous power, as an example, not to let that happen. You say, "You want to do that? We're going to put tariffs on your product coming into the United States." But more importantly, and, and that's a big importance, but probably of more importance is they tax us, we tax them, reciprocal trade. I think we should have a reciprocal trade act. If China's gonna charge us $100 tariff or 100% tariff on a car, then we should say, "You gotta pay 100% to us." You know, I put on a large tariff on China cars coming in, and it had a huge impact, a huge positive impact, but... And Biden only is doing the electric cars. I don't know why that is because the electric cars, they're gonna end up all being made in China, by the way. They're not gonna be made here. The United Auto Workers are gonna take a blow like no unions have. Between that and people coming in, pouring into our country, uh, unions are getting absolutely decimated, absolutely.

David Friedberg 11:35 President, uh, Trump-

Donald Trump 11:37 But the reciprocal, the Reciprocal Act is, I think, a very important thing. When these countries, and I don't mean just China. We have other countries. Uh, you could take the European Union. They don't want our farm product, and they don't want our cars, and they don't want anything. We have a massive deficit right there. But you could go with many countries, and they essentially do things to us, and we should do things to them. Basically, it should be reciprocal.

David Friedberg 12:02 One of the things we've talked about, President Trump, on this podcast a lot is the deficit.Under your administration, we added close to eight trillion. Under Biden, it's gonna be, paradoxically, about the same number. Seems incredibly unpopular in Washington to cut costs, but that's something we're gonna need to do. What's your plan? And it looks like you're gonna win a second term here. What's your plan in your second term to control spending? Can you get it under control? Is there the will in Washington to allow you to do that?

Donald Trump 12:30 Well, the biggest thing, I think, is growth, 'cause we can grow our way out. As an example, we have more liquid gold under our feet. I use the term. We have more oil, we have more wells, we have more everything than anybody else. When I started, we were number three, now we're number one. We were number one. He's gonna keep it that way until after the election. If they ever won the election, there's no more oil coming out. There's no more oil. They were going out. Oil is what caused the inflation. You'd have nothing coming out. It would be a disaster. So, they were intelligent enough to let the, the oil wells continue to go. They're not happy about it, but if this election were won by them, I can tell you right now, you would be, we would see oil go through the roof because they would really close it up. Already, they're taking out of the strategic reserves just for politics because they want to try and keep the prices down as low as possible. But the big thing, we have tremendous growth potential and we have tremendous numbers of dollars that can be saved through efficiency. Uh, the way we're spending money, hundreds of billions of dollars, what Biden did with, with the, uh, trillions of dollars that he borrowed for COVID. Now, I had a different situation. We were getting ready to start paying off debt. We were getting ready to make a lot... We had the greatest economy in history. I had to throw a lot of money at COVID in order that we didn't end up in a 1929-type depression, which we could still end up in now because of what they've done. But I threw a lot of money in and we ended up not in a depression, and then we ended up with a very strong, you know, we, I ended up with a higher stock market than it was just previous to COVID coming in, which was pretty much of a miracle according to most. But we had to throw money out there in order to keep our country going. We would have ended up, if I didn't do that, we would have ended up in a depression. The problem is, when Biden came in, he took trillions and trillions of dollars for COVID. He didn't use it for COVID, he used it for other things, but he took trillions of dollars out, and that caused a lot of the inflation. Energy caused, his energy policies caused inflation, and his spending, the, the unbelievable spending that they did caused inflation, tremendous inflation, and it's gonna have an impact for a long time to come.

David Friedberg 14:44 Can you talk about your impoundment authority intention? You mentioned that in the past, that you could go in and reduce the bureaucracy and the spend. I always tell people my position going into the election is less that I'm interested in knowing what the government's gonna do for me, and I'm more interested in knowing what the government's gonna stop doing that doesn't do any good for anyone. And there seems to be a lot of that. And I'm really curious to hear, sir, how you think about using the impoundment authority vested in you as the President of the United States to reduce some of the bureaucracy, wasteful spending, and create accountability, and what's be- do- you know, is there a team that, that you've built around you to help build a specific plan on, on backing out of some of these issues?

Donald Trump 15:25 Right. We have a lot of money floating around that should be brought back into the government, should be given back to DC, to Washington. As you know, there was a lot of money given out over the last couple of years, especially over the last... My money was given out to help us with COVID, then they took money and they have no idea what they're even doing with it. That money can be given back and it should be given back, and things can be done with that money that are, are positive. But we have... There are many, many things. I'll give you an example. Uh, education. We spend more on education per pupil than any other country. We spend numbers that are... And yet we're, we're terrible at it. We're down at the bottom of the list, and yet we're at the top of the list. Uh, I would give, I am going to, very early in the administration, we're gonna send education back to the states. We're gonna give them approximately half the number of dollars and they're gonna have so much money that, like they've never had before, because they can spend a fraction of what we're spending right now and have much better school systems. As an example, you go to ver- you could name many. You go to Nebraska, you go to Iowa, you go to many states, we'll do a far better job than we're doing right now, and they'll do it for a fraction of the cost. We'll save a tremendous amount of money and have better. Some states, I don't believe, will do a very good job, but they're gonna have to learn to. But we have, uh, I would say most of our states will do a much better job. I think all of them will do better than... Uh, you can't do worse than what we're doing right now, but all of them will do better, but some will be out- absolutely education factory, in a positive sense, factories. Uh, we are going to close up education. We'll have a tiny little group to make sure everyone's teaching at least English and perhaps proper math, et cetera, et cetera, but very little. Department of Education goes and education goes back to the states and where it belongs, I mean, where it absolutely belongs, and you're gonna save a lot of money. Uh, you can look at interior with that. You can look at, uh, environmental with a lot of that, where the environment can be controlled by the states instead of this big bureaucracy in Washington DC. I mean, what do you do when China's burning all the coal and they're sending the co- the, they're sending the ashes over the United States? 'Cause that's what happens. Takes three and a half days and it blows over the United States. In the meantime, we're keeping things good. We produce clean coal, we're gonna produce clean energy, but we have to get back to energy. We're spending b- uh, uh, trillions of dollars, uh, on artificial weak energy that's not gonna fire up our plants. Our plants have to be fired up. We have a phenomena coming up right now, and I was talking about it the other day to David, and that's AI. Little things, simple two, little simple letters, but it's big.... and I realized the other day, more than any time when we were at David's house and talking to a lot of geniuses from Silicon Valley and other places, they need electricity at levels that nobody's ever experienced before to ha- to be successful, to be a leader in AI. The amount of electricity they need is, like, double what we have right now, and even triple what we have right now. They are, they are w- i- it's incredible how much they need to be the leader, and we're gonna have to be able to do that. And a windmill turning with its blade knocking out the birds and everything else is not gonna be able to-

David Friedberg 18:50 (laughs)

Donald Trump 18:50 ... make us competitive. You'll have China-

David Friedberg 18:52 What about, what about, what about nuclear, Mr. President? Yeah. So let, let me just give you a statistic on this.

Donald Trump 18:56 Nuclear is okay.

David Friedberg 18:56 China is building 150 nuclear reactors, and they're only spending about $2,500 a kilowatt. In the US, we're not building any, and our cost to build them is about 10,000 bucks a kilowatt. And China's about to build as much capacity as 20% of the total US production in nuclear. We clearly have a problem here in nuclear.

Donald Trump 19:16 We do, and, uh, nuclear's okay with me. And what we're doing is, you know, if you look at Alabama, you look at a couple of states where they built these plants and they had cost overruns that are... Nobody's ever seen anything like it, where they're costing $25 billion to build a plant. There were a couple of them built in the South. I won't mention the places, but you know the places, and they came out at numbers that I think the most expensive things ever built in our country. And the inspectors would go in, they'd say, "Those walls aren't thick enough. Knock 'em down and build another wall." And, you know, the environmental people were brutal. You know, in France and in other places where they do have a lot of nuclear, they build small plants all the same, and if they need double the amount, they'll build two of them-

David Friedberg 19:56 Yeah.

Donald Trump 19:56 ... as opposed to the nonsense that we've done where we build these-

David Friedberg 19:59 Yeah.

Donald Trump 19:59 ... massive plants, and they never get built, and they have cost overruns of, of three, four, 500%. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. No, I'm okay with nuclear, but you have to do it in a way that makes sense. And they c- they have nuclear applications today that can be built and can be built reasonably inexpensively.

David Friedberg 20:20 Right.

Donald Trump 20:20 But nuclear d- certainly is very strong

Donald Trump 20:22 power.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:22 Can I shift the conversation to foreign policy just for a minute, just to make sure we get, we get time to talk about foreign policy? Is that okay with you guys?

Donald Trump 20:28 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 20:29 Mr. President, I really appreciate your, your comments saying that you want to bring a peace deal to the war in Ukraine so that people stop dying, and I wholeheartedly agree with, with that sentiment. But I've seen that Emmanuel Macron, the president of France, is talking about actually putting NATO troops or French troops in Ukraine as potentially a next step, and that could be a tripwire for more NATO troops coming in. Can you guarantee that, no matter what, you're not gonna put American boots on the ground in Ukraine? Is that something you can say definitively now?

Donald Trump 20:58 I wouldn't guarantee it.

David Friedberg 20:59 Uh-uh.

Donald Trump 20:59 I wouldn't, uh, no. It's different for France. You know, they're neighbors, more or less. We have an ocean in between. It's different for Germany, although Germany's much less involved than they should be, and other countries, but, uh, you know, we have a big ocean in between. One of the things I think's, is so u- unfair, David, I think it's terrible, is that we're giving... Probably we're at least $100 billion more than Europe, meaning Europe as, as a whole, put together. And the economies are a similar size, believe it or not. That put together and us is about a very similar economy size. But it's much more important for them. It's important for everyone. You have to have... Uh, look, this would have never happened if I were president. It would've never... Putin would've never done it. And it happened for two reasons. It also happened 'cause oil went through the roof and he had, he had all this money to prosecute the war. But the oil was at a much lower level, the price of oil. He wouldn't have been able to afford the war. All of a sudden, when it hit almost $100 a barrel, he said, you know... I mean, he, he's one of the few to make money during a war because the oil has gone... And it stayed very high. It's extremely high right now, and it's going up. Oil prices all over the country are going up, as you probably have noticed. But-

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:13 Yeah.

Donald Trump 22:13 ... I will tell you, that would've never happened. Ukraine would've happ- never happened. Uh, the Israeli attack would've never happened. And inflation would've never happened. Those are three big things. Inflation would've never happened. But with Ukraine, and now it's very much, uh... Look, Ukraine is now... I read the other day where they don't have the soldiers. They don't have the manpower. They wanna use, uh, children. They wanna use old people, very old people, people that are not really perhaps, uh, equipped to fight. Uh, they're not doing well.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:45 Yeah, the average age of their soldier is, like, 43 now, so they're running-

Donald Trump 22:48 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 22:48 ... out of, they're literally running out of people. To make a peace deal there, would you be willing to take NATO expansion off the table if that's what it took to get the Russians and the Ukrainians to make a deal? Would you be willing to do that?

Donald Trump 22:58 So for 20 years, I heard that NATO, uh, if Ukraine goes into NATO, it's a real problem for Russia. I've heard that for a long time. And I think that's really why this war started. I'm not sure that this war would've started... Uh, Biden was saying all of the wrong things. And one of the wrong things he was saying, "Oh, Ukraine will go into NATO." That's one of the many things he said. Uh, when I listened to him speak, I said, "This guy is gonna start a war." Because as you know, for four years, there was never even talk of Russia going into Ukraine. That would've never happened. Russia was not gonna attack Ukraine. As soon as I got out, they started to form along the lines. And I thought that Putin maybe will... 'Cause he's a good negotiator. I thought he was gonna be doing that for negotiation purposes. Then all of a sudden they attacked, and I said, "What's going on here?" But if you look at the rhetoric from Biden, uh, he- he was saying the opposite of what, in my opinion, you had to say.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:53 Totally.

Donald Trump 23:53 The things he was saying, and he's still saying it. He's saying things that are so crazy.

David Friedberg 23:58 Inflammatory, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 23:59 I 100% agree.

Donald Trump 24:01 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 24:01 And, you know, it turns out that the month before the Russians invaded, Blinken told Lavrov that the administration was not only gonna bring Ukraine into NATO, but that they thought it was okay for the United States to put nuclear weapons in Ukraine. So no wonder the Russians hit the roof. I mean, you talk about, uh, provocation.

Donald Trump 24:20 Well, let's say you were running Russia, you wouldn't be too happy, and that's always been off the table. You know, they're... It's a border, and it's always been the-... You know, I don't think that they would have... If they thought that that was going to remain sort of a territory where you don't have NATO, but they don't want to have soldiers right on their border. They don't want to have it. It's always been understood, and that's even before Putin, uh, it's always been understood that that was a no-no. And now you can go against their wishes, and it doesn't mean they're right when they say that, but that was very provocative. And now it's even more provocative, and they're talking about, uh... I, I hear routinely they're now talking about Ukraine entering NATO. And now I hear France wants to go in and fight. Well, I wish them a lot of luck.

Jason Calacanis 25:03 (laughs)

Donald Trump 25:03 I think... (laughs) Good luck.

David Sacks 25:05 Sir, can I ask you about Israel-Palestine? So after October 7th, what's the right path to just resolve this once and for all and just move forward?

Donald Trump 25:15 Again, it's so sad to me because it would have never happened. Iran was broke. They had no money. I sanctioned countries that wanted to buy oil from Iran, and I would have made a fair deal with Iran. I was gonna get along with Iran. I was gonna get along with everybody. We did the Abraham Accords. I think e- e- eventually Iran would have been in the Abraham Accords. We had four strong countries go in, and nobody went in since I got out. That whole thing should have been loaded up right now. It would have... It should have been full. They did nothing with the Abraham Accords that everybody said were great. They said, "We're going to get the ultimate prize because of that." It was amazing. If anybody else did it, if a Democrat did it, they would have- they would have gotten, uh, what- they would have gotten every prize in the book, every prize in the book. But I did it, and it was a great thing that we did. It was a phenomenal thing. But when you look at what happened now and you see what's going on, it's very, very- very, very sad. That attack would have never happened in a million years. Iran didn't have the money for Hamas. They didn't have the money for Hezbollah. They didn't have the money for any of the 28 other cells of terror or whatever you want to call them. Iran was broke. I say respectfully, they had no money and they weren't given money. And actually, it was a big story when I was, uh, toward the end of my term. There was a lot of big stories that there- there was no terror going on because Iran didn't have the money. They had to survive. We would have made a deal good for everybody. Everybody would have been happy. The main thing is Iran can't have a nuclear weapon. That was my main thing. The deal was a simple deal. Iran can't have a nuclear m- uh, uh, you know, it can't have a missile, can't have a nuclear missile. It cannot have that nuclear capability. Other than that, we talk about everything. They would have been very happy. It would have been fine. And you would have had peace in the Middle East. The problem is, I had them at a point where you could have negotiated. A child could have made a deal with them. And Biden did nothing. He did nothing. A child-

Jason Calacanis 27:13 He doesn't like to negotiate.

Donald Trump 27:14 A young man that knew nothing or a young woman that knew nothing in kindergarten could have made a deal with Iran at that time because they wanted to make a deal, and Biden never took advantage of it. Now, they put back, no sanctions, all of the different things that they gave them. China buys billions and billions of dollars of oil every month, many billions of dollars a month. Other people are buying. So Iran now has $250 billion cash. They made it all in three and a half years, and now they're much tougher to deal with. And I will tell you, I got along great with Kim Jong Un. Eh, we solved that problem, and nobody was in danger. But this is a big problem. This is a real problem. And within 90 days or so, they're going to have and could have very well a nuclear weapon, and-

David Sacks 28:00 Wow.

Donald Trump 28:01 ... Israel is a big- is a big difference in Israel between Iran with a nuclear weapon and Iran without a nuclear weapon. And lots of luck in that negotiation. That's going to be a much more difficult negotiation.

Jason Calacanis 28:13 President Trump, I, I wanted to ask you a question about, uh, Roe v. Wade. You promised, uh, your base that you would overturn Roe v. Wade. You added three people to the Supreme Court, and you delivered on that promise. This might be the issue that determines the election, and many people believe it is. Are you going to do a national abortion ban? Would you support that, yes or no?

Donald Trump 28:35 So, uh, I don't need a national ban because it's up to the states. Right now, what I did is something that people have wanted to do for- from day one, 51 years it's been going on. And if you remember, over the years, you're too young, but over the years, all they wanted to do is they wanted to make- take it out of the federal government and move it into the states. And I got that done with the selection of three great justices. I got it done, and it was a big thing. But I will say over the last 10 years or maybe a little bit more than that, they started talking about the number of weeks and this and that. A lot of different subjects came in. It was no longer just simply bringing it back. Every legal scholar from Democrat to Republican, liberal, conservative, they all wanted it brought- given to the states, because from a legal standpoint, from a lot of other standpoints, including even a moral standpoint, they wanted it brought back to the states. And what I did is I got it back to the states, and now the states are in charge, and the people are voting. And some votes are coming out the way certain people wanted, and some votes aren't coming out the way certain people wanted. I mean, if you look at Ohio, I would say it was a more liberal vote than people would have thought, and you could say that for Kansas. And then you look at Texas, it was a different story. But the people of the states have got that issue now, and they're voting. And the one thing that we have to remember that there's been a lot of radicalism talked about, and the radicalism is really on the left because they're willing to do abortions in the eighth and ninth months- month. And even beyond that, I mean, we have some people, the governor, take a look at the governor of Virginia, the former governor of Virginia, where he talked about, "We will kill the baby after the baby is born."That's a very radical stance, and hopefully that's all gonna be taken off the table now. But just to put it simply, it's now up to the states. And like Ronald Reagan, I'm a believer in the exceptions, the three exceptions, as you know. And, uh, rape, incest, life of the mother, uh, the danger for the life of the mother. And we have, uh, a situation now where it's in the states' hands, and the states are going to be, uh, voting. The last thing people want, the people are gonna be voting. The last thing people want is for that to go back into the federal government. It was always fought, and very importantly, and people wanted it, they wanted it back in the states where it belongs legally and for a lot of other reasons.

Jason Calacanis 31:04 So you wouldn't support a national ban?

Donald Trump 31:06 No, I wouldn't support a national ban. No, I would not.

David Friedberg 31:09 Just shifting back to foreign policy for a moment, Mr. President, on the relationship with China, it's funny how Democrats and Republicans seem to have a unified voice in banging the drums on the, the rise of China. Do you think that war with China is inevitable? And if not, how do we avoid it?

Donald Trump 31:29 I think it's not inevitable. I think it's unlikely. Uh, I know President Xi very well, and we got along great until COVID. Then I wasn't so happy with him because they gave it to us. I said it came from the Wuhan lab. I was right about that. Uh, they said then it started in Italy, and then it started in France. It started everywhere but there, but it started in China, and it was a, uh, many, many millions of people died all over the world and cost the world probably $60 trillion, which is more money than China has and more money than anybody has. The death and destruction has been unbelievable. But I think it's, uh, I think it's high... if you have the right president, uh, we can live at peace with China. We can do very well with China, compete with China. But we don't have the right president right now. He's not respected by China. He's being laughed at by China, and he's a Manchurian candidate. I mean, he's received money from China, his family, and that makes him, to me, uh, somebody that shouldn't be negotiating. I think he's got a conflict of interest. Uh, but no, I don't see war with China as being inevitable at all.

Jason Calacanis 32:33 President Trump, do you think that Fauci and our government funded gain-of-function research, and do you think we should really be pursuing the investigation deeply into that? And if we did fund gain-of-function research, what does that say about our government and taking ownership of it? Because a lot of us lost a lot of years, kids didn't go to school, and, uh, it caused economic damage, as you pointed out earlier. The amount of money you had to spend to try to avoid a depression was really severe. And if we funded that, what does that make you think about our government and then Fauci covering it up, if that is in fact true? What does that make you think about our government?

Donald Trump 33:12 So, if you remember, I'm the one that stopped it, and I stopped it maybe for, uh, a lucky reason or an unusual reason. I said, "Why are we paying money to China?" It wasn't about gain of function or anything else. It was, "Why are we paying money to China?" China's got a lot of money, and they're doing fine. You know, we're considered like, uh, we, w- they want us to consider them a growing nation, uh, a nation in distress, all sorts of things 'cause they always take advantage of every treaty by saying that they need, you know, there, uh, uh, uh, an improving nation. I heard the other day they have all different terms for changing, but they're a growing nation. Well, we're a growing nation too. We're a nation that's becoming a third world nation based on what we're seeing. But I was the one that stopped that when I saw that. I was the one that stopped that. Uh, the Fauci thing is an interesting phenomena. Uh, he's a much... I was not a big fan of his. As you know, he said, "No, let everybody come in from China." I overrode him on that. I overrode him on a lot. But he wanted the people from China. When I heard about this, I stopped it. We had a room loaded up with people, and nobody could even believe it, but I stopped it. We would have lost hundreds of thousands of people more, maybe more, much more, maybe over the millions, but hundreds of thousands of people more had I not stopped people coming in from China because-

Jason Calacanis 34:33 Did he lie to you about the origin of COVID?

Donald Trump 34:36 Well, I've always said the origin was, uh, you know, where it came from, where it originally came from was the Wuhan lab. I happen to think it escaped from the Wuhan lab. I mean, I don't believe it came from, uh, the bats in 2,000 miles away caves. Uh, I don't believe it came from other countries as China tried to convince people it did. Uh, I thought it should have been called the China virus because it was a very much more accurate term than COVID. Nobody knows what COVID even means. Why is it COVID? Uh, but, uh, no, I was always, uh-

Jason Calacanis 35:07 But did Fauci lie to you, I guess, is, uh, what the American people want to know. Did Fauci lie to you? And if he did, should he be prosecuted?

Donald Trump 35:13 I don't think, uh, I dealt... You have to understand, Fauci was a much bigger factor in the Biden administration than he was in the Trump administration. I didn't rely on him that much 'cause I didn't trust him. Uh, I would say got along with him fine. Not really. But I didn't trust him. And again, I was the one that stopped the money going to China. I didn't like it. I didn't stop it because of COVID. I didn't stop it because of anything other than why are we paying money to China? It was strange. They should pay us money. We shouldn't pay them money. One of the things I can tell you, the World Health Organization, so we pay them almost $500 million, and China pays them $39 million. And so I got out of the World Health Organization. They did absolutely nothing. They called it totally wrong. I got out. They called me, and they said, "We'll do anything to keep you in, anything, anything." I said, "Well, why are they paying 39 million, and we're paying almost 500 million?" And they said, "Well, we'll work out a deal where you can pay much less." I said, "Well, now you're starting to talk." But even that, it was very popular when I got out. It was a very, politically, it would have been very hard to go back in. People were thrilled that I got out.I could have made a deal to go in for 39 million. They offered me a deal to go in for 39 million, and I actually turned it down. I said, "You know, it should be a thir- it should be... if you look at we're 350 million and they're 1.4 billion people," right? So, it should have been 25% or less than that, but I didn't want to quibble, but I could have gone back in immediately for $39 million as opposed to $500. Then a- a horrible, horrible election, which helped destroy our country took place in 2020, and they went back in, and they're paying more than $500 million. And they knew I could have made a deal. Now, it's a lot of money, not when you talk about the world, but it's still a lot of money in it, but it shows you the stupidity of the whole thing. They could have made a deal for 39 million, instead they're paying much more than they paid even before. And that's the way the mindset of our country is. And here's the big part. China totally controls the WHO. China totally controls them. We have very little control over them. And now they want to give control over our whole country to them, which would be a terrible mistake.

David Sacks 37:36 Fauci brings up sort of the kind of deep state personality that you talked about in 2016-

Donald Trump 37:41 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 37:41 ... that's kind of like riddled all over the government. How much progress do you think you made and how, what do you want to do-

Donald Trump 37:47 Mm-hmm.

David Sacks 37:47 ... if you become president in November? And do you have goals around the deep state this time around? And what are they?

Donald Trump 37:53 Well, I have a lot of things. I mean, I did a lot of things at the FBI. I fired a lot of their top people, including Comey, who's terrible at what he did, a terrible person and terrible at what he did. Uh, I fired McCabe and, you know, I don't have to go through Lisa and Strzok, you know, all of the-

David Sacks 38:09 (laughs)

Donald Trump 38:09 ... the lovers, and, oh-

David Sacks 38:10 (laughs)

Donald Trump 38:10 ... I fired a whole group of people.

David Sacks 38:13 (laughs)

Donald Trump 38:13 I got rid of them. And, uh, and, you know, so many of the agents are so incredible in the FBI down below, but, uh, we got rid of a lot. We, uh, you take a look at the World Health again. Uh, we got out of the World Health. We got out of the... uh, this is a similar thing that, you know, this is really similar to your answer, but we got out of the World Health Organization, which was a tremendous thing. We got rid of the Paris Accord. The Paris Accord was a disaster for us. We were going to pay a trillion dollars and other countries were paying nothing. Russia was paying nothing. China was paying nothing. It didn't even kick in for China until 2030, whereas with us, it kicked in immediately. So, I got rid of the Paris Accord. I did a lot of things having to do with not only people, but tremendous amounts of money because the Paris Accord was so unfair. And I said, "You know, when I do this, people are not going to like it, but I have to do it because it's right." People loved it. The public understood it. They loved it. And now they've gone back into the Paris Accord at the same terms and even worse than the terms I got out. It's really a shame. It's so many things. It's so sad to see so many things. I, I mean, the WHO, the Paris Accord, you take a look at these things, they could have gone back if they wanted to go back, if they had it, they could have gone back for a fraction of what they were doing. And they're very unfair to the United States. We're like a lapdog for every other

Donald Trump 39:39 country.

Chamath Palihapitiya 39:39 Mr. President, I, I know you running out of time here, so, but I w- I, we haven't had a chance to, for you to speak to the border situation yet. So, I want to give you a chance to, to address that because that's always been really one of the, m- your main issues since always, since 2016. You wanted to build a wall. The Democrats did everything they could to thwart that. You built the, the wall, but then Biden left a bunch of holes in it and then sold off the parts for scrap metal.

Donald Trump 40:03 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 40:03 And now we've had the pro- and repealed your executive order. So, I want to give you a chance to speak to that. Just, but one piece I want to just add in, uh, as a follow-up question is, a lot of tech CEOs say, uh, "If we fix the border, can we get more H-1Bs for tech workers?" So, can you address that as well as what's going on with the border?

Donald Trump 40:21 Yes. So, uh, we built hundreds of miles of wall, David, as you know, and, uh, we're very proud of it. We did it as per specification by the Border Patrol. They wanted exactly the wall that we did with the climb panel on top, with steel, concrete, and then rebar, and all of the things. And they wanted y- they wanted to have vision through it, clearly through it. And 'cause I thought about concrete plank, frankly, going up 40 or 50 feet, and they, they didn't like that. They wanted to have vision through, and I understood that too. Uh, I sort of disagreed with it, but that's okay. We actually brought climbers in, Mount Everest climbers to climb, and, and we built a very hard wall to climb. It's, it's a very effective wall. Uh, and we built, uh, hundreds of miles, and then we were gonna add quite a bit at the very end, and we, we bought about 200 additional miles, and it was ready to be put up, could have been put up in three weeks, maybe four weeks. And areas that were rough areas that were people coming in, 'cause as you build the wall, they go in different areas, right? They go further out. Uh, it, the, it was so effective. It was so effective. Mexico gave us a lot of troops for free because of a certain negotiation that I had with them. You heard that. But it was so effective, the wall. But Biden, they didn't want to put up those slats that were going up routinely by us. That means you had gaps. You had, as an example, you had gates in certain area that we put up, we were going to put up, big powerful gates that we could open and, uh, you could let equipment through, et cetera, et cetera, if you needed it. And they got rid of everything. They sold it for five cents on the dollar, much of it, five cents on the dollar. I said, "I can't believe it." And that's the first time that I said, "They're serious. They actually want open borders. They want an open border." Nobody could believe it. I couldn't believe it because I never believed they wanted an open border because who would be stupid enough to want an open border? Look what's happened with an open border. I was very proud of that. We built... we had the safest border in the history of our country, and now we have the worst border in the history of the world. We had a safe border. I had a Remain in Mexico policy, uh, catch and release in Mexico, not in the United States. Everything was so good. But the Remain in Mexico is a big deal. Not easy to get, but it was a big deal. They were in Tijuana, hundreds of thousands of people, they had to be approved to come into our country.... and now you look at what's happened, we've been overrun, it's an invasion of our country by people, many people come out of jails and prisons, they come out of mental institutions, insane asylums, and we have terrorists coming into our country at a level that we've never seen before. It's very sad.

Chamath Palihapitiya 43:00 I never understood why the wall was so controversial, you know? Every country needs to have a border, and a wall's a really good way to enforce a border. I never understood why they were so animated about stopping you from building the wall after you ran on that issue in 2016. They held you up for years with litigation, and then like you said, they wouldn't just finish the little pieces of it, and they left big holes in it. And I think you're right, the only conclusion is they want an open border. I mean, how else do you explain it?

Donald Trump 43:27 They wanna destroy our country. You know, the fact is, it's, it's incredible. The big mistake I made, I should have said, "I will not build a wall. We do not want a wall." And that wall would have gone-

Jason Calacanis 43:40 (laughs)

Donald Trump 43:40 ... up in 15 minutes.

Jason Calacanis 43:41 The more important point I think, Mr. President, is we need high-skilled workers in this country.

Donald Trump 43:48 Yes.

Jason Calacanis 43:48 We need to recruit the best and brightest from the world.

Donald Trump 43:51 I agree.

Jason Calacanis 43:51 Every time we get somebody super intelligent from India, or Europe, any country, that is one less-

Chamath Palihapitiya 43:57 Three of us are immigrants, sir.

Jason Calacanis 43:58 Yeah, and three of the four here are immigrants. Um, the ones without the ties. And we-

Chamath Palihapitiya 44:02 (laughs)

Donald Trump 44:02 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 44:02 ... get these great people into our country and that's a loss for our adversaries and our competitors, and it's a gain for us, but I've never heard you talk about this. Can you please promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America?

Donald Trump 44:19 I do promise, but I happen to agree, that's why I promise, otherwise I wouldn't promise. Let me just tell you that it's so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also. And what I wanted to do, and I would have done this but then we had to solve the COVID problem because that came in and will, you know, sort of dominate for a little while, as you perhaps know. But what I wanna do and what I will do is you graduate from a college, I think you should get automatically as part of your diploma a green card to be able to stay in this country. And that includes junior colleges too.

Jason Calacanis 44:54 Ah.

Donald Trump 44:54 Anybody graduates from a college, you go in there for two years or four years, if you graduate or you get a doctorate degree from a college, you should be able to stay in this country. And you know more stories than I do, but I know of stories where people graduated from a top college or from a college and they desperately wanted to stay here, they had a plan for a company, a concept, and they can't. They go back to India, they go back to China, they do the same basic company in those places, and they become multi-billionaires employing thousands and thousands of people, and it coulda been done here. And a bigger example is you, they, they, you need a pool of people to work for your companies. You have great companies and they have to be smart people. Not everybody can be, uh, less than smart. You need brilliant people. And we force the brilliant people, the people that graduate from college, the people that are number one in their class from the best colleges, you have to be able to recruit these people and keep the people. It was such a big deal, somebody graduates at the top of the class, they can't even make a deal with a company 'cause they don't think they're gonna be able to stay in the country. That is gonna end on day one.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:00 That's fantastic.

46:01 Yeah, that's great. Well, I think we all-

46:02 That's fantastic.

46:02 ... wholeheartedly agree with that. Bei- being in the, being in the tech industry, we understand the

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:07 importance of that. They're telling us that you have to go, Mr. President, so thank you so much for spending so much time with us. We really appreciate it. It's been great having this conversation with you.

Jason Calacanis 46:14 Wait, hold on. Sorry. I'm sorry.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:15 Yeah. Oh, Chamath here.

Donald Trump 46:15 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 46:15 I have to ask, sir. I have to ask one question, sir.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:17 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 46:18 When you got elected in 20, uh, in the 2016 election, you said the first thing or one of the things you wanted to do was release the JFK file. And then you said later, "I saw it and I just, I wasn't really ready to do it." And then I saw a clip where you changed your mind and you said, "I think we're ready to see this file." And I'm just curious...

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:38 What's in it?

Jason Calacanis 46:39 Well, I... (laughs) No.

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:40 Tell us.

46:40 Yeah, what's in that file?

Jason Calacanis 46:40 I guess right now, what happened?

Chamath Palihapitiya 46:41 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 46:41 Like, what-

Donald Trump 46:42 Yeah, I actually did do it. Uh, I released a lot, as you know. But when it came to the whole thing, I was hit by some people that worked for me that are great people that you would respect and they asked me not to do it. And I'm saying, "Why? Tell me why." And they said, "Sir, I think it needs a little more time." And I released a lot, but I said, "If they feel so strongly, I respect the people," and would, would have done that again. But this time, I'm just gonna do it.

Jason Calacanis 47:09 RFK says the CIA killed his, his, um, uncle. Do you believe that?

Donald Trump 47:13 Well, this wasn't CIA that asked me, but I think CIA was probably behind it. But they didn't, they would have preferred that I not release the rest of it. So we re- we did give quite a bit, uh, it's gonna be done early on. A lot of people wanna see that. And whatever it may say, I won't say and sort of have an idea, but, uh, whatever it is, it'll be very interesting for people to see. And we're gonna have to learn from it.

Jason Calacanis 47:38 Promise us you'll come back again, Mr. President, this is gonna be a great hour.

Donald Trump 47:39 You know, there are other things we're gonna release too. We're gonna release-

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:42 That's amazing.

Jason Calacanis 47:43 Oh really? What? What else do you got?

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:45 (laughs)

Donald Trump 47:45 We'll talk to you about it off camera.

Jason Calacanis 47:46 Aliens?

Chamath Palihapitiya 47:47 (laughs)

Donald Trump 47:48 (laughs) By the way, I, generally speaking, and there are reasons not to release certain things obviously, but, uh, I gener- you know, it's, uh, transparency and I, I think it's important that we release that. And there are other things too. There are other things that, uh, you know about. But people, more than anything else, they want the JFK files. We're gonna release

Donald Trump 48:06 that immediately.

Jason Calacanis 48:07 Do you have a prediction for the debate next week? What's gonna happen?

Donald Trump 48:09 Well, all I can say is this, I watched him with Paul Ryan and he destroyed Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan with the water, he was chugging water to the left and right. I didn't think a human being would be able to drink so much water at one time.

Jason Calacanis 48:21 (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 48:21 (laughs)

Donald Trump 48:21 And he beat Paul Ryan. So I, I'm not underestimating him. I'm not underestimating him. We, it is what it is. Uh, we'll see what happens, but you take a look at the last one. Uh, I happen to think he's incompetent for a lot of reasons, I think he's incompetent because he has gotten the worst policies, both foreign policy and internal policy. I mean, who would not wanna have a war? Who wants to have millions of people pouring in? Who wants to have high taxes? You know-... taxes are gonna raise by four times if this guy has his plan.

David Friedberg 48:54 Is he in cognitive decline? Do you believe he's in cognitive decline, Mr. President?

Donald Trump 48:57 Well, I shouldn't be the one to say that, but I don't think he's doing particularly well, but I didn't think he was well 25 years ago.

David Friedberg 49:02 (laughs)

Donald Trump 49:02 I thought he was not a smart person, and that was told to me by a certain member of the Kennedy family who was actually very friendly with me through a Palm Beach relationship. And, uh, I was told that very strongly, but, so I was never a fan of his. But I will say he beat, uh, he beat Paul Ryan, it was still years ago, but he beat Paul Ryan pretty badly. And, uh, I assume he's gonna be, uh, somebody that will be a worthy debater. Yeah, I would say s- I think-

David Friedberg 49:31 Okay.

Donald Trump 49:31 ... I, I don't wanna underestimate him.

David Friedberg 49:33 All right.

David Sacks 49:34 I think that's smart. Well, your, your, your team is telling us that, uh, they need you to go to a dinner, Mr. President. Uh, obviously, we could keep going for hours and hours, but, uh, it's been great to, to ha-

Donald Trump 49:42 We could.

David Sacks 49:43 ... we could. (laughs) Uh, but it's been great to, great to have you for the last hour here. And it w- it's been great to, getting to know you with the, the dinner that we did, and we hope that you'll come back on our show. Podcasts are getting bigger and bigger, so hopefully in your second term, you'll come on here, uh, and, uh, talk to us again.

Donald Trump 50:00 You think Biden would do this interview? I don't think so.

David Sacks 50:02 Absolutely not. Absolutely not.

Donald Trump 50:03 I don't... I don't... He'd be lost-

David Friedberg 50:05 I, I don't... No, I don't think so.

Donald Trump 50:05 ... after one question.

David Sacks 50:07 Well, we've invited him.

David Friedberg 50:07 We have invited him, sir. Yeah.

Donald Trump 50:08 I don't think he's doing these interviews.

David Sacks 50:09 Yeah.

David Friedberg 50:09 Yeah.

Donald Trump 50:09 So, that's... It's an honor to be with you all. Very good questions.

David Friedberg 50:11 We appreciate it, sir. Thank you.

Donald Trump 50:13 Thank you.

David Sacks 50:13 Thank you.

David Friedberg 50:13 Very... Appreciate it very much, sir. Thank you very much.

Donald Trump 50:14 Thank you very

Donald Trump 50:15 much.

David Friedberg 50:15 Thank you, sir.

David Sacks 50:15 There you have it. Wow. That was some hour, boys. What do we think?

David Friedberg 50:20 Let's do a wrap-up, huh? We're gonna do a-

David Sacks 50:22 Okay. Do a-

David Friedberg 50:22 Do a little wrap-up.

David Sacks 50:22 Do a little wrap here. Whoo!

David Friedberg 50:26 J Cal, what are your, what are your big takeaways?

David Sacks 50:29 Well, I'm undecided, as you know. We d- we had a limited amount of time with him, and obviously-

David Friedberg 50:33 J Cal, just say it. Just say it. You like him. You didn't... You were-

David Sacks 50:37 (laughs)

David Friedberg 50:37 Just say it. Just say it because it's written all across your face. Just say it. You like him. You're confused. I have some blockers.

David Sacks 50:42 He crushed your questions. No, he crushed your questions.

David Friedberg 50:44 No, I think he did a great job, sir.

David Sacks 50:46 Admit it. He crushed your questions.

David Friedberg 50:46 You, you asked great questions and he just dealt with them head-on. Just admit it. You like him. You like him! You look at him like... (laughs)

David Sacks 50:55 Well, I do like the fact that he came on the pod, I will say that.

David Friedberg 50:58 I told you you'd like him. I told you you'd like him. This is my point. Whether you, whether you come out of it wanting to vote for the president or not- Sure. ... everybody needs to, I think, just sit in a room and just hear him out.

David Sacks 51:09 If you're, if you, if you want me to answer the question, what I'll say is, there, there are some blockers I have that we didn't get to. January 6th, obviously. I did... You know, one of the blockers I have is obviously Roe v. Wade, and I think he handled that question really well. And I think we may have gotten a little bit of breaking news there in terms of him saying he would not do the national ban, and I think that's a big concern people have, and I think that's maybe the issue, according to a lot of experts. I'm sorry, I sound like Trump.

David Friedberg 51:36 I have three-

David Sacks 51:36 According to a lot of experts, people believe that could be the deciding issue, uh, of the election. And so, I, I think he handled it really well by saying the states are gonna choose and he's not gonna do the federal ban and he believes in the exemption. He was very, uh, he was very unequivocal about that, really clear that he would not do a national ban, really clear that the states would decide. And furthermore, he understood that the states are deciding. There's been a bunch of referenda at the state level-

David Friedberg 51:58 Yes.

David Sacks 51:58 ... and they are generally coming out at, on the pro-choice side. And he indicated that he understood-

David Friedberg 52:03 Well-

David Sacks 52:03 ... that some of the votes are not turning out the way the people-

David Friedberg 52:05 Which is what-

David Sacks 52:06 ... may have thought, and he's gonna respect that.

David Friedberg 52:07 ... 80% of people want. Right? 80% of people want women to choose.

David Sacks 52:09 He's gonna respect democracy.

David Friedberg 52:11 Yeah.

David Sacks 52:11 He's gonna respect democracy on that issue.

David Friedberg 52:13 Yeah.

David Sacks 52:13 So, I think he, he nailed that, that question.

David Friedberg 52:16 I think he was very definitive about Ukraine not entering NATO, and I think he was very definitive about an H1B policy that's pro-productivity and immigration.

David Sacks 52:30 That was the part I liked best, if I'm being honest.

David Friedberg 52:31 And giving grads green cards, that's, like, such a good idea.

David Sacks 52:34 That's breaking news too, by the way. I think we elevated the discussion about immigration beyond the wall and into recruitment, which is what I have been trying to do on this podcast for a couple years here now. So, to hear the president say, "I will do that for you because I want that," that, to me, was palatable. And, you know, there's a lot of things I agree with him on. And the January 6th stuff we didn't get to, so apologies to the audience on that. I know a lot of people have feelings about it, but, you know, you can only get so much from 50 minutes of interview. I think he did a great job, thanks. Well, CNN did a whole town hall on that issue. I mean, quite frankly, I felt like we dealt with a lot of substance here. So, but Chamath, I agree with you, he was really clear on Ukraine. He went further than he has in the past. In the past, he's said that he'll get a peace deal very quickly and that he wants the people to stop dying. But in this interview, he went further. He said that if France or other European countries send in troops, the US definitely will not participate in that. We are not gonna send American boots on the ground. The Biden administration, I don't think, has said that definitively the way that President Trump said it. Moreover, he understood that a major cause of the war was the desire to bring Ukraine into NATO, and I've never heard, I've never heard anyone in the administration say that. And he went further and said they keep saying these provocative things about, you know, even now they keep repeating that Ukraine's gonna be part of NATO. So, he understood, he understood the provocation there. Frayber, what is your take on him? You haven't come out and said who you're voting for, but this is your first time interacting with him, albeit for 50 minutes in a group setting. But what are you, what's your impression?

David Friedberg 54:02 Yeah, it's a diff- it's a difficult forum because we can't go deep and ask responsive questions and we don't have a lot of time, and there's four of us trying to ask questions. So, the format is a little difficult to get to the heart of the matter on, on some of these complicated topics like federal spending, deficit-

David Sacks 54:15 Yeah, we'd need two hours.

David Friedberg 54:16 ... debt. Yeah, and, and I think you need to just be able to, like, hone in on the question. You know, his response on how we're gonna reduce, kind of, the bureaucratic overhead and the wasteful spending in the federal government, and he kind of pivoted to the Department of Education, that's 3% of the federal budget. I don't wanna talk about the rest of it. And, you know, we're at a... It took us 200 years as a country to add a trillion dollars (laughs) to our federal debt, to go from zero to a trillion, and now we're adding a trillion every 100 days. And it's gonna take a lot more than just 1 to 3% cuts in spending to get us out of the, you know, the spiral, uh, that we're in. I also am concerned...... very, I think very rightly so. And I think he acknowledges the concerns that were mentioned by Larry Summers, that tariffs plus tax cuts could lead to, uh, serious inflation and economic contraction. Those are really difficult things to do together, unless you have a very clear plan for massively cutting spending at the federal level. So I don't feel like I got to the heart of the matter on those points and as you guys know, that's what I care so deeply about. I think we need to fix the machine to be able to do the things we want the machine to do over time. And I'm, I'm very deeply worried about that.

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:28 You know, I had a couple reactions to that. So number one is, I thought it was interesting how he reacted to the question about Larry Summers because he knows Larry Summers, and he actually said several very complimentary-

David Friedberg 55:37 He respects him, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:38 ... things towards him. So he may not agree with him on everything, but he said that Larry had gotten a bunch of things right, and he's an interesting guy. And Larry did get the inflation call right, remember, at the very beginning-

David Friedberg 55:50 Right.

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:50 ... of the Biden administration. So it was interesting. I thought that President Trump handled that question very tactfully, I think. It's not like he wasn't looking to-

Jason Calacanis 55:58 Do we really buy-

Chamath Palihapitiya 55:58 ... attack anyone or anything like that.

Jason Calacanis 56:00 Yeah. Do we really buy he's going to do this tariffs thing anyway? Like, it seems like that's a bit of pandering maybe to the voter base. It sounds like a great solution, right?

David Friedberg 56:07 To your point-

Jason Calacanis 56:07 But I don't think he's going to do it. Yeah.

David Friedberg 56:09 Once the economic advisors get together and look at the analysis and what this will do to costs of things, inflation will go up, et cetera-

Jason Calacanis 56:16 Yeah.

David Friedberg 56:16 ... you know, maybe there's a rethink ultimately on how that's implemented and on what particular slices of the economy it's implemented. So I'm sure, as you point out, it probably gets toned down for this to, you know, to even become a reality. Uh, it seems quite difficult to implement.

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:28 Yeah, just on the, on the second piece, on the, the deficit. You know, Jake, how you asked a pretty tough question there, where you basically said, look, your, your, your def- the debt has grown as much under your first term as it has under Biden. Remember that? The $8 trillion or something?

Jason Calacanis 56:40 Yeah. I mean, it's fa- it's almost exactly the, going to be the same. 6.5-

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:43 Right.

Jason Calacanis 56:43 ... to date from Biden, $7.8 trillion from, from Trump.

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:46 But I think he had a pretty good answer, which was that, look, at the first year of COVID, we were dealing with, you know, a depression, a potential depression.

Jason Calacanis 56:53 Yeah. He mentioned-

Chamath Palihapitiya 56:54 I don't know if you mentioned that the economy, GDP was down 30%.

Jason Calacanis 56:58 Yeah, he talked about 1929.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:00 So-

Jason Calacanis 57:00 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:00 Yeah, exactly.

Jason Calacanis 57:00 Yeah, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:01 So he basically explained that we had to do that. But then after that, we shouldn't have kept going. And I do think that Trump is just not as big a spender as Biden. I mean, look, Biden's been in Washington for 50 years. He thinks government's the answer for everything. He loves spending money, and he spent trillions on COVID even after we didn't need to. So I get the sense that Trump was a reluctant spender. I'm not saying he didn't spend. Whereas Biden, I think, is a eager spender. And-

Jason Calacanis 57:29 Yeah, I disagree.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:30 ... I, I, I think that if, if he had the power-

Jason Calacanis 57:32 I just think that any modern politician wants to spend because it's popular. I just think it's their nature.

Chamath Palihapitiya 57:36 I think if Trump had the power by himself to rein in spending, I think he would. I think the issue is that the president by himself can't do that much.

Jason Calacanis 57:43 Which is what my follow-up question was, right? I was trying to t- ask him, like, can you actually do it as president or not? Like, is there the wherewithal to do it?

David Friedberg 57:51 I think the other aspect I wanted to see, I'm really glad he talked about de-dollarization, and I, he mentioned it up front. And so that, to me, really resonated. It really rings true to the effect of US spending, US foreign policy. So much of this is driving, and I'm concerned about, right, driving the Saudis into the arms of the Chinese and, and other foreign adversaries to the United States. And I would have really liked to have spent a little time with him on the Saudi relationship, where he sees that headed, how the Saudi relationship will affect the Middle East, and how the Saudi relationship could affect the US dollar and, uh, and dollar reserves around the world. But I think he's acutely aware of de-dollarization and, uh, foreign reserves in dollars being sold down, and that the, there are serious effects to that. I didn't hear a follow-up on, like, what the specific responses will be, uh, you know, to, uh, to the drivers there, which I, I would have loved to have spent a little more time on.

Jason Calacanis 58:44 Kamath, what do you think-

David Friedberg 58:45 And then-

Jason Calacanis 58:45 ... will be the viral moments to come out of this, if any? What do you think the mainstream media or social media will take from this? Any moments you think were breaking news or notable?

David Sacks 58:55 Well, I think there's a lot of clarity on a couple of important points. One is no federal ban on abortion. I think that that's important news for a lot of people. The second is this clarity on H-1Bs, which is very different from what has to be done at the border, and I think that was very clear and new, and I think it's very positive for our community, meaning the tech industry.

Jason Calacanis 59:16 Absolutely.

David Sacks 59:16 I think-

Jason Calacanis 59:16 Yeah, that's why I appreciate that, yeah.

David Sacks 59:18 We, we need that clarity because we're trying to hire these people, and we are losing them every day. And then the third was, I think the clarity on NATO was also very definitive, and I think that that's important. The fourth, which was an implication of what he said, which is a little depressing, is I think there's a lot of us that want to see this Israeli-Palestine conflict resolved.

Jason Calacanis 59:44 Right.

David Sacks 59:45 And I think what he's saying is, we can't because we've let the genie out of the bottle. We have an adversary now with a quarter of a trillion dollars of excess cash who has no incentive to negotiate.

Jason Calacanis 59:55 Iran, you're referring to.

David Sacks 59:56 That's Iran. So that's really depressing. And then the fifth one was around this JFK thing. I, the reason why I asked the JFK question is not necessarily that I have a specific interest in JFK, but it's emblematic of, it's a proxy for this deep state, this idea of secrets or this idea of there's a layer of people that are embedded in the United States government that decides on behalf of all of us. And I think when you have somebody who can push back against that and use transparency and sunlight as the cleansing function, that is what we need.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:32 If we're going to rebuild trust in our government and institutions, we're going to need a lot more-

David Sacks 1:00:36 Exactly.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:36 ... transparency, and if that one's hanging out there, why not resolve it? I mean, did he say he thinks the CI- CIA did it? I think I heard him say that. I think the CIA did it.

David Sacks 1:00:45 No, I didn't. What I heard was he said-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:46 I think the CIA was behind-

David Sacks 1:00:48 ... it was behind the people that were influencing him not to.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:50 ... the coverup, yeah.

David Sacks 1:00:50 No, I think what he said was the CIA was-

Jason Calacanis 1:00:51 They didn't want the information out.

David Sacks 1:00:52 He thought the CIA-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:00:52 Yeah, we should be clear about that because it could be, it could be quoted out of context.

Jason Calacanis 1:00:56 Yeah, we're going to need to see the transcript on that.

David Friedberg 1:00:57 He did not say that he thought the CIA was behind this, that-

David Sacks 1:00:59 No, he did not say. He didn't come anywhere close.

David Friedberg 1:01:01 Right, he said that-

David Sacks 1:01:02 He said that he thought the CIA was behind-

David Friedberg 1:01:04 Influencing the people.

David Sacks 1:01:04 ... influences that were telling him to not do it, and he listened to them out of trust and respect for them, which I think that's a reasonable judgment in the moment.... but my point is-

Jason Calacanis 1:01:12 Yeah. We gotta see that transcript. Yeah.

David Sacks 1:01:14 My point is, exposing that is a very important way of giving the influence and power back to the people.

Jason Calacanis 1:01:21 Absolutely.

David Sacks 1:01:22 You know, I've, I've mentioned this quote from Mike Pompeo, which is really powerful, but it's something to the effect of, you know, the people on the top floor of the CIA do not believe it's a Democrat or a Republican that runs America, but that they do.

Jason Calacanis 1:01:38 Hm.

David Sacks 1:01:39 And he said that in the context of being asked, "What is the one regret you have, or some of the biggest regrets you have, in running the CIA?" And Pompeo said that he didn't fix that. So, I think that there's a lot of embedded versions of this establishment class that lurk in many institutions, whether it's the EPA, whether it's the CIA, whether it's the NIH. And if there are ways in which the president can unlock the data that's necessary, or the information, for all of us to have a little bit more clarity on what's happening, I think it's important. And I do think-

Jason Calacanis 1:02:16 Speaking of-

David Sacks 1:02:16 ... for many people, that, the JFK file, is representative of a lot of them.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:21 Well, and then dovetailing that, Sax, the Fauci discussion where he said, "I don't trust, I didn't, I never trusted Fauci," and then kind of pushing it on, like, "Hey, do you think he should be prosecuted? Did we fund it or not?" Seems pretty clear he believes we funded Dana Research. His position was, "I just didn't want to spend the money," which I appreciate about him, like-

David Sacks 1:02:39 With China.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:40 With China, yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:41 He didn't wanna spend the money in China, yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:02:42 Yeah, a- and so I ki- What did you think of that point, yeah?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:02:46 Well, I, I thought that his response on that was similar to a, a lot of his responses, which is he did not take the edgy position that he was sort of being teed up to take. I mean, kind of, like, same thing with, like, the Larry Summers thing. You know, he, he had mild criticism, I thought, for Fauci, but he didn't go scorched earth at all on, on Fauci there. And-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:08 But he said he didn't trust him.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:10 I would just say this-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:10 He said, "I never trusted him."

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:11 Well, yeah, absolutely. Nobody-

Jason Calacanis 1:03:11 That's pretty scorched earth for politics.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:14 No, nobody, nobody trusts, uh, Fauci. You asked him whether Fauci should be prosecuted.

Jason Calacanis 1:03:19 Yes.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:19 He did not take the bait on that. That's my point.

David Friedberg 1:03:20 He was very respectful, actually.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:03:22 Yeah.

David Friedberg 1:03:22 I, I was very surprised to hear how he respected Fauci and how he framed the, his response to that question, and I think that says a lot.

David Sacks 1:03:30 But can I tell you why you're surprised? Because I think we have been fed... This is what I'm saying. We have been-

David Friedberg 1:03:35 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:03:35 ... fed a narrative of what President Trump looks like. Now, in fairness, we're also being fed a narrative of what President Biden is like. And this is why you have to see these men up close and personal for yourself. Because, David, the fact that you're surprised is less about the fact that Donald Trump has changed.

David Friedberg 1:03:52 Right.

David Sacks 1:03:52 It's more the fact that you've been told a narrative and you've believed it. And so now when you see the actual truth, you have to re-underwrite, "Hold on a second, he's actually pretty thoughtful. He's pretty presidential. He doesn't go off on people." That's not what-

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:06 Yeah.

David Sacks 1:04:06 ... you probably thought going in because that's not what the mainstream media portrays about what you should be thinking about.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:11 Well, he ha- In fairness, he has gone in on people pretty hard over the last eight years. (laughs)

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:14 He's a counter-puncher.

Jason Calacanis 1:04:15 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:04:15 I don't think he hits people unless they hit him first. I mean, that's his pattern. But look, I, I, I agree with Chamath here that w- my overall take on this... And look, my position is, is clear because I wrote a long post on X endorsing Trump a couple weeks ago. But everything I heard here in this interview was consistent with the reasons why I stated I wanted to support him. He clearly favors a pro-growth agenda. He wants to keep taxes low, uh, and reasonable. He wants to reduce regulations. He's wanted to increase the number of H-1Bs, get the dream team over here for tech while sealing the border, while cutting down on crime. In Blue Cities, he talked about how crime was out of control. He wants to negotiate peace deals. He, I think, understands very well why we have this war going on in Europe. Overall, I heard a lot of reassuring things, and I didn't hear anything that I would put in the category of grievance or a desire for revenge. You know? The media is trying to portray him as, like, s- seeking vengeance or something like that.

Jason Calacanis 1:05:23 Well, that's because he says he is.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:05:24 Didn't get, didn't get that vibe at all.

Jason Calacanis 1:05:26 He said over and over again. Let's be clear. He said over again, "I will be your retribution." So, he may not have said it on this podcast...

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:05:32 Did you get any of that in this interview?

Jason Calacanis 1:05:35 No, I've just heard him say it 50 times in the last 60 days, (laughs) so... (laughs)

David Friedberg 1:05:39 But Sax, where would you like to have seen him be stronger?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:05:41 Maybe that's the same clip played over and over again on CNN.

David Friedberg 1:05:43 Yeah. Where would you like to have seen him be stronger or different on any of his major positions? What, what would you, as his advisor, advise him to shift or double down on a bit?

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:05:55 Well, I mean, I think Chamath is, is right that, with respect to the Middle East, the, I think his position isn't perfectly clear because it's not only about Iran in the Middle East, right? Um-

David Friedberg 1:06:08 Yeah.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:08 But the truth of the matter is, politically, I don't know that he could say more. And, you know, I think that's just a very, very tough issue where you're bound to alienate and polarize one side or the other. And so, I think he's sort of definitely walking a tightrope there.

Jason Calacanis 1:06:22 Yeah, when he says, "It would never have happened," like, I'm always like, ugh, you know, like, "Would never happen under me."

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:27 Well, I mean-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:27 I would like to have a little more of the why. Why do you believe that? And he never gets into the details. He just says that over and over.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:34 Well, but maybe he's right, you know. Like, when I hear Trump-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:36 Maybe.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:37 ... talk, what I hear is someone who's a deal maker. He was a deal maker in business. Now, he's a deal maker politically. He's willing to have conversations with anybody. There was even a moment when he's talking about Iran where he said maybe he could have worked out a deal. Um, but in any event, he's somebody who I think is willing to negotiate, which is, I think, is a positive thing 'cause when's the-

Jason Calacanis 1:06:59 Absolutely.

Chamath Palihapitiya 1:06:59 ... last time Biden negotiated anything? He doesn't seem interested at all.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:03 Uh, my thing, n- I mean, I, I didn't get to ask, but, you know, one of the things I had queued up was, you know, I just think you've done a phenomenal job in talking to people who most people feel are difficult people to get along with. You know, Kim Jong Un, Xi, Putin. I think it's a superpower, talking to dictators.... uh, despots, people who are cantankerous and difficult and he always seems to get the better of them, or at least get, at least gets our interest as Americans aligned with whatever their interests are. So I don't know if you-

David Friedberg 1:07:33 Jake, let me ask you, and I'm not trying to be-

Jason Calacanis 1:07:34 ... give him any plus on that.

David Friedberg 1:07:35 Yeah, I, I don't want to be insulting. I'm asking, like, in the past, you've said that he was embracing the dictators and he was kowtowing to them. I o- I think you've said comments like that in the past where-

Jason Calacanis 1:07:44 Well, no, what I'm saying-

David Friedberg 1:07:45 ... you sort of, you have, you have, you-

Jason Calacanis 1:07:46 Yes.

David Friedberg 1:07:46 Yes, or something that felt like he was more trying to embrace and engage with them in a way that's like why would you-

Jason Calacanis 1:07:51 I, I have always felt-

David Friedberg 1:07:52 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:52 ... you should talk to everybody all the time. Um, you know, that, that's not my issue with Trump, you know, that's never been my issue with him.

David Friedberg 1:07:57 Mm-hmm.

Jason Calacanis 1:07:57 I think that's like a superpower. The fact that he went into North Korea and stepped over in the DMZ, y- you saw the look on Kim Jong Un's face. He just, Kim Jong Un just wants a little attention. He wants a little recognition. And this idea, like, we're not going to give him any recognition is stupid because if you give him a little recognition, now you're sort of tilting him towards, hey, maybe you could be part of this. Like, maybe you could come to the West and see a movie-

David Friedberg 1:08:20 Yeah.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:20 ... premiere or come to the NBA Finals as opposed to start lobbing, you know, dysfunctional missiles over Japan. Like maybe we can kind of-

David Friedberg 1:08:29 I love that video, you know that video where they're like setting up their little press shooting in the, in the conference room?

Jason Calacanis 1:08:33 Yes and he, he-

David Friedberg 1:08:34 Oh my God, that video is so funny.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:35 ...he smiled on Kim Jong Un's face when Trump says-

David Friedberg 1:08:37 That's literally the best video.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:37 ... "You want me to go over? I'll go. Should I go over? Should I do it now?"

David Friedberg 1:08:41 (laughs)

Jason Calacanis 1:08:41 "I'll go over. Okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna welcome it."

David Friedberg 1:08:44 That's so good.

Jason Calacanis 1:08:44 And Kim Jong Un is beaming and you're like, he just played him. He played him. Like he walked 10 feet into North Korea and now Kim Jong Un's like, "You know what? I don't need these missiles."

David Friedberg 1:08:53 I guess my, my, my big unanswered question, I did want to ask him about like Dalio's prediction of like the cycle of empires, 500 years, 600 years, a cycle.

Jason Calacanis 1:09:01 Oh God, you're obsessed with that.

David Sacks 1:09:03 Well, let's play counterfactual, Freeberg. What do you, what do you, how do you compare the answers you've heard to what you have heard or what you think President Biden's answers would be to the things that you care about?

David Friedberg 1:09:13 I honestly feel like there's a little bit of a blinder to the question, like there's a pivot back to what I've done, what I'll do, versus the like, let's actually talk about where we are in the debt cycle and this is exactly what, like history repeating itself. At the time that you take on all the debt, you drive internal conflict, January 6th is a great like data point, you drive external conflict. We've had two or three wars start in the last four years. How do we reverse those things so that we don't repeat history? And we sat down with Dalio and we asked him this question, "Is there a way to not repeat history?" And he said, "Yes, there is." And we talked with Graham Allison about this. And all these guys believe that there's a way to avoid it. There have been moments where we've nearly had the external conflict and that's why I asked him about war with China. But I want to understand if there is this broader kind of construct of what is going on because he, he hits on all the data points correctly, de-dollarization, increased spending, bloated bureaucracy, conflicts