Full Video: FNC’s Sean Hannity Interviews President Trump After Putin Meeting
President Donald Trump discusses how his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin went and what’s next in peace negotiations and more in an exclusive interview on Friday’s “Hannity.” Full transcript:
SEAN HANNITY, FOX NEWS HOST: And welcome to “Hannity”. And tonight, we are back at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, and we are in beautiful Anchorage, Alaska. And the historic summit between President Donald Trump and president from Russia, Vladimir Putin, is now on the books. But not before Vladimir got an up-close look at the power, the sophistication, the strength, the might of the U.S. military with this incredible, perfectly timed flyover featuring a B2 stealth bomber and four F-35 stealth fighters. Now following that epic show of force, both leaders met for roughly three hours. What happened? How did the meeting go? And what’s next for Russia and Ukraine? Joining us now for his very first post-summit interview, the president of our great country. Sir, how are you? DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thank you very much. HANNITY: We’re glad you could be here. TRUMP: Thank you. HANNITY: So, you said before the interview, you said in two minutes, I will know. I watched very closely when you met him on the red carpet after both your planes landed, what vibe did you get in two minutes? TRUMP: Well, you know, I always had a great relationship with President Putin, and we would have done great things together in terms of — you know, their land is incredible. Their — the rare earth, the oil, gas, everything, it’s incredible. It’s the largest piece of land in the world as a nation by far. I think they have 11 time zones if you can believe it. That’s big stuff. But we would have done a lot of great things, but we had the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which stopped us from doing that. We would have had — we would have done so great, but we had the greatest — one of the great hoaxes. I mean, there were others like the election itself, as you know, as you covered better than anyone, but it was a rigged election and a horrible thing that took place in 2020. But we would have had a great relationship, but we did amazingly well considering — you know, he would look and see what happened. He would think we’re crazy, you know, with the made-up Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. We had something very important, and we had a very good meeting today, but we’ll see. I mean, it’s, you know, you have to get a deal. We agreed on a lot of points. I want to see people stop dying in Ukraine and that’s what’s happening. We’re losing 5,000, 6,000, 7,000. They’re Russians, mostly Russians, and they’re Ukrainian soldiers. There’s some people dying in cities and towns where they’re trying to blow up missile manufacturers and other things in some cities. I don’t know if you know what’s going on there, but there are a lot of people dying. And if we can end that war, it would be very good. And I was very happy to hear him say, if I was president, that war would have never happened. HANNITY: Mr. President, that was my next question. He said at the joint press conference that if — and you have said this many, many times and he confirmed for the world today that if you were president, this wouldn’t have happened. Did it — did any of the specifics come up as to why he said that? TRUMP: It did. It doesn’t matter at this point, but that this war should never have happened. You know, a lot of wars should never have happened. There was stupid things go down and the wrong people are talking. But Biden was a terrible president in so many ways. He should have never let it happen, and it did. There are millions of people killed. I mean, it’s the worst thing since I see all — everyone saying worst since World War II by far. There’s nothing even close. But we had a very good meeting today and I think a lot of points were negotiated on behalf of Ukraine and on behalf of, you know, the whole NATO situation where we’re dealing very well with a lot of foreign countries that are great, European countries. So, look, as far as I’m concerned there’s no deal until there’s a deal, but we did make a lot of progress. HANNITY: The meeting took place in this room. TRUMP: Yeah. HANNITY: This is where you met right in this room. TRUMP: Well — HANNITY: Did you have — TRUMP: Let me examine it. (LAUGHTER) HANNITY: Oh, there it is. That’s where you were sitting. TRUMP: That’s it. I would say that’s it. Yep. HANNITY: So, did you have alone time with him? TRUMP: Yeah, I did. And I did actually after our speeches. He made a very good speech, and I also finished it up and afterwards we spoke right after that. We spoke very sincerely. I think he wants to see it done. HANNITY: Yeah. In your press conference, you talked about a lot of things that you agreed on and maybe one big issue you don’t agree on. Are you prepared to go public with that? TRUMP: No, I’d rather not. I guess somebody’s going to go public with it. They’ll figure it out. But no, I don’t want to do that. I want to see if we can get it done. You know, it’s still — it’s not a done deal at all. HANNITY: Uh-huh. TRUMP: And Ukraine has to agree. I mean, you know, President Zelenskyy has to agree, but it’s a terrible war where he’s losing a lot and both of them are. And hopefully, it can get completed. That’ll be a great achievement for them. Forget about me — for them. And you’ll save 7,000 lives a week. That’s a lot. HANNITY: I spoke very briefly to Secretary of State Rubio, and he did say to me, he goes, “There’s a difference when you’re in the same room together than versus, you know, talking to each other through the press.” Did you — TRUMP: Even through the phone, you know — HANNITY: Even through the phone? TRUMP: It’s not the same thing when you’re on a telephone. It’s not the same thing either. This was — I mean, we were together almost three hours and it was very extensive and we agreed on a lot of points. I mean, a lot of points were agreed on, but there’s not that much. There’s, you know, one or two pretty significant items, but I think they can be reached. Now, it’s really up to President Zelenskyy to get it done. And I would also say the European nations, they have to get involved a little bit, but it’s up to President Zelenskyy. I think we are and if they’d like, I’ll be at that next meeting. They’re going to set up a meeting now between President Zelenskyy and President Putin and myself, I guess. You know, I didn’t even — I didn’t ask you about it. Not that I want to be there, but I want to make sure it gets done and we have a pretty good chance of getting it done. HANNITY: If you had to grade it on a scale of one to 10? TRUMP: So, I think the meeting was a 10 in the sense that we got along great. And it’s good when, you know, two big powers get along, especially when they’re nuclear powers. You know, we’re number one. They’re number two in the world. And it’s a big deal. That’s a big deal. You never want to even mention that word, the word nuclear, but we have a tremendous nuclear, you know, I rebuilt it when I was president, first term, and I hated to rebuild it. It was the one thing — I hated to rebuild, but we had to. And we have the greatest nuclear force. We have the greatest military in the world, actually. And they have a big nuclear presence also. HANNITY: You got to — you got to respect it. You got to — TRUMP: You always have to respect it. You never want to use it. If you use that, it could be the end of the world. That’s how — that’s the kind of power we’re talking about. HANNITY: Let’s talk about what brought President Putin to the table. I would argue that there are four things in my mind. If you think there are more or you don’t think they were a factor, you did the trade deal with the European Union. And in that deal, you got nearly a trillion dollars in commitments to purchase American oil. That’s money that would otherwise be funding Putin’s war machine. That’s number one. India, 50 percent tariffs, if they import Russian oil. You also Vladimir Putin wasn’t moving at a speed you were comfortable with. So, you said you would — unlike Biden you wouldn’t give weapons to Ukraine. You would sell weapons to Ukraine. The last thing and I think I don’t think it could be underestimated is NATO is now paying twice what they were paying and those countries that weren’t paying their fair share are. Were those the four factors that brought him into this room today or — TRUMP: NATO is now paying 5 percent as opposed to 2 percent and they’re paying it. And you know, look, it’s headed by — as you know, Mark. You know Mark very well, he’s great guy and great people. The leaders, I got to know them very well about six weeks ago, and great relationship with NATO, European nations basically but a great relationship. I don’t want to say anything brought him to — he’s a very smart guy. Nothing brought him to the table, so to speak. I think that he respects our country now. He didn’t respect it under Biden. I can tell you that. He had no respect for it. I was so happy when he said this would have never happened. This — all those lives would be saved if they had a competent — if we had a competent president. Those lives would have been saved. It’s so — it’s so sad. You know, I’ve negotiated five wars to their end. And wars that were tough, India and Pakistan. (CROSSTALK) HANNITY: I have seven — India, Pakistan, Israel, Iran in 12 days, Rwanda, the Congo, Serbia, Kosovo, Cambodia, Thailand, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Egypt, Cambodia. You played a — you played a role in all of those, did you not? TRUMP: I did. I didn’t want to include the decimation of the nuclear arsenal in because it — I don’t consider it necessarily, you know, conclusive. But we did something amazing because for 22 years, no president was willing to do it. We decimated the nuclear capability, potential nuclear capability, which I think would have taken place within a month of Iran. And that was a big thing. HANNITY: I have to go back. This is too historic and deep and profound. At a press conference, the president of Russia stated something that you had stated many, many times and maybe people, your political opponents might have dismissed, but he said this war would not have taken place if you were president. Now, he did give you behind the scenes specific reasons why it happened under Biden. He did give you reasons. TRUMP: Yeah, he did. But I know the reason. And it’s a gross incompetence. I mean, we have a border that’s totally closed now, and people come in, but they come in legally. But we had zero, as you know, the first time you heard it was three months ago, but we’ve done it now three times in a row. Zero people coming in illegally. We have many things that are going well now. Our economy is great. We don’t have inflation. The price of energy is down. The price of groceries are down. The price of everything is down. People are happy. We’re saving Social Security. You saw that the other day where we have a genius in charge. I took him out of JPMorgan Chase. He was the head of — I mean one of the top people in there and he did great. He went to one of the big funds. He — you know, one of the top people that he, you know, they take a cut. I think he said he’s working for 1 percent of what he was working for. These are unbelievable people and the job he’s done in Social Security and making it really powerful and strong is amazing. And we’ve done that with many things. I love doing it. I love seeing this country be great again. And Vladimir said just a little while ago, he said, “I’ve never seen anybody do so much so fast.” He said, “Your country is like hot as a pistol.” And a year ago, he thought it was dead. Everybody thought it was dead. HANNITY: Let me ask you this. We mentioned — to whatever degree history will judge your involvement in in the seven conflicts we mentioned and this conflict in particular, however they will end up judging you, I don’t think any other world leader would be able to — would have been able to set up this meeting today. You’re expending a lot of political capital. I’ve watched a lot of leaders. I’ve been doing this since 1978 when I started my radio career. It’s a long time, and I’ve seen a lot of presidents come and go. A lot of world leaders come and go. And you’re willing to expend political capital. All of the conflicts that I mentioned, including this one, this does not impact the United States as much as it does our allies in Europe. TRUMP: It’s true. HANNITY: The Middle East when you involve our — when we get involved in the Middle East, but you’re doing it anyway. Now, why? Is it to save lives? You want to save the world? TRUMP: Yeah. Number one, to save lives in all cases, because wars are wars. When you see what would have happened with Cambodia as an example. Now I’m not involved but I was involved in negotiating a trade deal and I said you guys are going to be fighting Thailand, Cambodia, so many different. Look at — look at India. Take a look at India and Pakistan. They were shooting down airplanes already and that would have been maybe nuclear. I would have said it was going to go nuclear, and I was able to get it done. Number one is lives and number two is everything else. Wars are very bad and if you can avoid them and I seem to have an ability to end them, to get people together. I use the power of the United States. We built a great — we built a — we have got the greatest economy now in the world. We have trillions, not billions, trillions of or millions. We have trillions of dollars pouring into our coffers. I’m getting calls from people in government saying where did I get the $ 29 billion from? And I said, “Why don’t you try the tariff shelf?” And you know, we have, as an example, the European Nations, we made a great deal. They pay us literally trillions of dollars. Japan, so many. And you know what? They like us better. They respect us. They didn’t respect us. They were paying us nothing. Nothing. We were paying them. They weren’t paying us. And I turned it around and we’re actually a very rich country now. You know the — I told you my favorite word is the word tariff. I actually made that a little bit later because I got criticized by the fake news. You know, they said, “What about religion? What about family?” HANNITY: Well, how many countries now have you made trade deals with? And how much is it incoming? TRUMP: Many, many of them. And well, basically all of them because I — you know, I made along with some great people as you know, you know them very well. They’re on your show. But I made — I would say 12 or 13 of the big ones. In other words, we made the big deals and the rest we just assign a tariff to. And we do that by gut instinct. We do that by how we’re doing generally, how the relationship. And we do it also by deficits. If we’re losing a lot of money with the country, you got to pay a tariff. We got to make it even. We want to balance it out. And I was generous to a lot. Some of them, we lose so much money that, you know, frankly, you’ll never make it up. And if there are people that have been great to us as a country, then I take it a little bit easy. But for years, we’ve been a laughingstock all over the world. The way they took advantage of us. Now, in my first term, I did it, but we got hit with COVID. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country in my first term, but at the end of it, we got hit with — a thing called COVID. You may have heard of it. And it, you know, decimated the world, the whole world. And we did a phenomenal job, Operation Warp Speed. A lot of people say it was one of the most incredible things they’ve ever seen. Operation Warp Speed, what we did. We did a great job. But this was a tremendous problem for everybody. I mean, every country, even China, in all fairness, they got hit much later. People thought they avoided it. They got hit very hard. Everybody got hit. But we did a job like nobody’s seen. And we came back and we had a country that was respected again. And then we had this person get in there that had no right being president. He lost the election by a lot. His whole group was radical left, crazy people. And I’ll tell you, our country was in a — we were in a whole heap of trouble. And if — if that whole ideology didn’t change, I think our country would have been dead. You know, they say it. I was with also the king of Saudi Arabia, the head of Qatar, the head of UAE, about three months ago now already. The time flies and they put up $ 5.1 trillion investment in our country. And we have about $ 17 trillion coming into our country. The numbers like we’ve never seen before. And by the way, this is after six months. This isn’t like, you know, this is after months. We have — we never had numbers like that after years. And our country is so hot and we’re building so many factories. The car companies that left, they’re pouring back. The A.I., which is a hot thing, we’re leading China by a lot. We’re leading everybody with A.I. You know, a lot of these geniuses that you read about, they really are geniuses. I hope they’re right. They’re spending $ 50 billion to build a plant and $ 90 billion, you know, you think of $ 50 million for building a plant. No, they’re building $ 50 billion, $ 90 billion. They’re going to Arizona. They’re going all over the country. Arizona is a hot spot, but they’re going all over the country. And we’re way ahead of everybody else. And, you know, I the biggest problem they had, they couldn’t do the energy because the energy is massive. We need more electricity by twice that we have right now. In other words, as a country, we produce a lot of electricity. We need double that electricity at least to win the A.I. fight. Can you believe that one industry needs it? And so, you can’t just do that off the grid. The grid is old and it’s fine, but it’s old and tired and is subject to all sorts of problems. And I came up with an idea. I’m going to let you build your own electric plant. So, we have these companies building these massive factories of intelligence, factories of genius I call it. And they build their own electric plant with it. And I say build them big. And we have a great person, Lee Zeldin, is approving them very quickly and environmentally friendly and all of that, but very, very quickly. And an amazing thing’s happening. Wait until you see what happens when these things start to open. HANNITY: Let me go back to this issue of Ukraine and Russia for a second. Most people as they analyze this from the outside, this is how they — almost everybody, it’s kind of universal thinking how this ends. There’s going to be some land swaps. There will be more Russian territory than there had been. And what Ukraine wants and needs desperately is our security measures that won’t be NATO related. If you had to look into your crystal ball, is that how it ends? TRUMP: Well, I think those are points that we negotiated and those are points that we largely have agreed on actually, I think we’ve agreed on a lot and I can tell you the meeting was a very warm meeting. You know, he’s a strong guy. He’s tough as hell and all of that, but the meeting was a very warm meeting between two very important countries and it’s very good when they get along. I think we’re pretty close to it. Now, look, Ukraine has to agree to it. Maybe they’ll say no because Biden handed out money like it was candy and Europe gave them a lot of money. You know, we gave them $ 350 billion. Europe gave them much less, but still a lot. A hundred billion dollars. HANNITY: What would your advice based on today when you talk to Volodymyr Zelenskyy? What’s your advice to — TRUMP: Make a deal. HANNITY: Make the deal? TRUMP: Got to make a deal. Yeah. Look, Russia is a very big power. And they’re not. They’re great soldiers and they have great — but you know, they also had the best equipment. You know, they had our equipment, and I gave them Javelins if you remember in my first term. In fact, there was a statement, I gave Javelins. You remember the statement. I gave Javelins and Obama gave — because it was Obama at that time — Obama gave them sheets. And that’s true. I gave Javelins and a lot of tanks were knocked out because of the Javelins. The Javelins, incredible weapon. It’s a tank — you know, you look at this big powerful tank. It ends up being a ball of metal lying on the ground and burning. I’ve never seen anything like it. We have the greatest military equipment in the world. But they did have courage in fighting. And you know, they’re fighting a big war machine. And we — I think are close to a deal, but I won’t — I don’t like saying it. I always say if I’m really close, I say 50/50 because so many things can happen. But I think President Putin would like to solve the problem. And it was a problem that should have never happened. This was a war. All of those families that lost somebody. And I have a book of thousands of people. They presented me with it today. Thousands of people, prisoners that will get released. We got have a thousand — more than a thousand prisoners that are going to release — HANNITY: That was agreed to today? TRUMP: Well, they have to accept them. You know, they’re going to release them. They have to accept them. I have a book of every — it’s so sad to see. And then you have another book of people that are dead, and they have dead bodies all over, thousands of them that they want to switch between the two countries. HANNITY: And you saw the pictures. TRUMP: I saw pictures of the dead. Yeah. Of some of the dead, but I saw pictures of over a thousand people that are prisoners, yeah, today. HANNITY: Let me — let me ask you — TRUMP: That we can get back. HANNITY: Okay. So, you’re cutting into Russia’s main source of energy, a main source of income, which is energy. You make this deal with the European Union. You tell India, if you keep importing oil from Russia, we’re going to put a 50 percent tax on you. The other big importer would be China. My understanding is you’ve had conversations with President Xi. Any conversations about Russia-Ukraine? TRUMP: So, Biden did something that was unthinkable. He drove and Obama, too. I stopped it and then you know tragedy happened, actually. It was a tragedy. The election was a tragedy. But he did something that was unthinkable. He drove China and Russia together. That’s not good. If you are just a minor student of history, it’s the one thing you didn’t want to do because they’re basically natural enemies. Russia has tremendous amounts of land. China has tremendous amounts of people, and China needs Russia land. But because of pure stupidity, they were driven together. And you know what? That’s what it is. I don’t know that it’s going to stay that way because it really is. There’s a — you know, there’s a natural friction there. But I think that today’s meeting went really well, and I think we maybe will have a good result, but I just don’t like to talk about. That’s why I agreed to do your interview, and I said, you know what, I’ll do it, Sean. But that was like two days ago. I had no idea that — I said, Sean, you could ask me about what we — (CROSSTALK) HANNITY: Basically say on national TV I regret saying yes to doing this interview. TRUMP: Yeah, I shouldn’t have done it but that’s okay. By the way, I have to say to the audience, this guy’s a fantastic person. He’s a great patriot. You love the country. HANNITY: I love our country. TRUMP: You are a very smart cookie. For anybody that ever questioned that, which I don’t think there are too many and just an outstanding man. HANNITY: I love the fact that there’s a possibility of peace everywhere. This is not insignificant. I agree with you. I don’t like to see the dying — I don’t think I’d want to see the books that you saw today. TRUMP: I don’t — I didn’t like looking. I was very sad to watch and see. HANNITY: When you talked before coming here about the consequences for Vladimir Putin being severe, I found that interesting. Severe would be defined by me — India doesn’t buy your oil. The European Union won’t buy it. And why in the back of my head was I thinking, wait a minute, Donald Trump just delayed possible a possible increase in tariffs on China, why do I think that probably President Trump was thinking ahead that maybe if you had to, that would have been part of the consequences? TRUMP: Well, because of what happened today, I think I don’t have to think about that now. I may have to think about it in two weeks or three weeks or something, but we don’t have to think about that right now. I think the, you know, the meeting went very well. HANNITY: All right. Do you ever think Hillary Clinton, the author of the bought and paid for Russian disinformation dossier, the author of the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax going into today would be saying she would nominate you for a Nobel Peace Prize. I don’t think you ever expected that happening. TRUMP: Well, you know, I don’t want to be involved in that, in the sense – – not because of her. It’s very nice. If she said that, that’s very nice. I really appreciate it, too, actually. But — HANNITY: She tried to ruin your life, and in many ways she ruined three years of your life. TRUMP: Well, she made me stronger and tougher, and you know, we had — HANNITY: You are way more forgiving than me. That’s — TRUMP: Well, it was a sad chapter in our country’s history. I will say that. Look, you can’t run a country that way. You know Vladimir Putin said something one of the most interesting things. He said, “Your election was rigged because you have mail in voting.” He said, “Mail-in voting, every election.” He said, “No country has mail-in voting. It’s impossible to have mail-in voting and have honest elections.” And he said that to me, it was very interesting (ph) because we talked about 2020. He said, “You won that election by so much.” And that’s how he got it. He said, “And if you would have won, we wouldn’t have had a war. You’d have all these millions of people alive now instead of dead.” And he said, “And you lost it because of mail-in voting. It was a rigged election”. But mail-in voting, Sean, it — the politicians, I think I’m going to make it a big — I know the answer is that Jimmy Carter years ago along with Scoop Jackson and some others, they had a committee, respected people, good committee, Jimmy Carter, good guy. You know, he’s a good man, and the conclusion was you can’t have mail-in voting. We have mail-in voting. It’s so dishonest. They send stuff. Some people get seven ballots. Look at California with that horrible governor they have there. He’s one of the worst governors in history. He’s incompetent. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. They send out like 38 million ballots. Some people get five, six, seven. But Vladimir Putin, smart guy, said you can’t have an honest election with mail-in voting. And he said there’s not a country in the world that uses it now. HANNITY: Oh, I would love to see election reform. TRUMP: We have to do it. I don’t know why we’re not doing it. And you bring it up. The Democrats don’t want it. HANNITY: Voter ID. TRUMP: Look, the Republicans want it, but not strongly enough. I mean, they got to want it strong because it can’t be — it can’t be honest. It goes through a postman. It goes through somebody else, somebody else, somebody. You know, when you go to a really well-run voting booth, you go in, you have to hand a card, a picture, a this or that. You don’t have everything perfect. You get sent back, go get it. It’s really, it’s very hard to do something fraudulent with a vote. HANNITY: Paper ballots. TRUMP: Mail-in voting, it’s a — it’s — they give you boxes of stuff. You have no idea where they came from. This mail-in voting, you can’t have a great democracy republic. You can’t have it. Well, maybe that’s why we’re going to end up with a communist mayor in New York. I don’t know. May — he probably is very happy with mail-in voting. But you can’t have a great democracy with mail-in voting. HANNITY: Voter ID, signature verification, chain of custody controls, updated voter rolls, partisan observers watching the voting all day, the vote counting all night, you do paper ballots, you pick a winner, and everyone goes home with confidence in the integrity. TRUMP: With 10 percent of the cost. HANNITY: Yeah. TRUMP: So, if you do paper ballots, it costs you 10 percent the cost of machines. HANNITY: Let me ask you this, the Trump — TRUMP: Very hard to cheat. HANNITY: The Trump doctrine, I have a definition of it. I’ve said it many times on TV and on radio. I can give you my version of it or will you give us your version? TRUMP: I’d rather have your version. HANNITY: You want my version? I’ll give you my version. TRUMP: I love your version. I’ve heard it before. HANNITY: My version is — TRUMP: I’ve heard it before, I love it. Go ahead. HANNITY: No forever wars. However, some are interpreting that to mean isolationism. TRUMP: Yeah. HANNITY: You’ve never been an isolationist. Your first term, you beat the hell out of the ISIS caliphate in record time. TRUMP: Right. HANNITY: You took out Soleimani on that tarmac. You beat Baghdadi and associates. You dropped the mother of all bombs on Afghanistan. Your second term, you did something I don’t think anybody thought would happen, and that is somebody had the courage, they talked a lot about it for decades, taking out Iran’s nuclear program. So, you’re not an isolationist, but you don’t want forever wars either. TRUMP: Right. HANNITY: And every action you’ve taken militarily is consistent with that philosophy. TRUMP: And I beat ISIS. We wiped out ISIS. HANNITY: You beat the ISIS caliphate. TRUMP: And General Caine who’s with us right now, he’s right outside actually. General Caine, we call him Razin Caine. That’s his nickname. That’s good name actually. HANNITY: What’s my nickname? I don’t even want to know. TRUMP: He’s a — he’s a great guy. But General Caine was the one that did it. Beat ISIS. I was told it was going to take five years. He did it in four weeks. HANNITY: Wow. Mr. President, I’m going to let you go, but a big day today and you’re going to fly back, I assume, to our nation’s capital and probably have time to reflect on this day. The next step, you had said that you wanted a meeting as quickly as possible, maybe with you, President Zelenskyy, and President Putin. TRUMP: Yeah. HANNITY: I don’t know if I trust the two of them in alone together — in a room alone together. I think it would be better if you are there. TRUMP: Well, they both want me there. HANNITY: Did that come up? TRUMP: Yeah, it did. I mean, they both want me there and I’ll be there. You got to see it out. And it is a big day. I think either way it’s a big day, but if we get this solved, it’s a really big day because we’re going to save a lot of lives. HANNITY: Are you confident it can happen in a shorter time period? TRUMP: Fairly short. Yeah. HANNITY: Fairly short. So, maybe in the next month? TRUMP: I thought this would be the easiest of them all and it was the most difficult — again, you say six or seven. It’s a lot. HANNITY: Yeah. (INAUDIBLE) are hard. TRUMP: I’ve — I’ve done it. I’ve saved a lot of lives. HANNITY: If you get this one done, it’ll be eight. I got — I can — my count is eight. If you include the Abraham Accord, it’s more. TRUMP: Abraham Accord — HANNITY: By the way, you know, the impression of you is I think a lot of people — because I think there’s a false caricature of you that Donald Trump would be the candidate, the leading candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize might make some liberals head explode, but you are involving yourself. You are expending political capital and there — in many instances is really not a lot of benefit for the United States except that you keep doing your day job. TRUMP: Well, it’s interesting because somebody said, if I get this settled, I’ll get the, you know, the Nobel Peace Prize. I said, well, I’m not involved in it but what about the other six wars or whatever it is? I mean, those were big. Those were wars. As an example, you go to Africa, the Congo against Rwanda. HANNITY: Yeah. TRUMP: Thirty-one years, 8 million people dead and I settled it. What about — HANNITY: And by the way, how do you settle India, Pakistan? TRUMP: Well, because I deal with all of the countries for trade. And while I have them on the phone, if I’m dealing with them or my people, Scott and Howard and all the people that are doing such a great job, if the and — Marco Rubio has been fantastic, J.D. has been fan — we have a great group of people. So, if there’s a war going on, they say, you know, there’s a war going on and if we’re doing trade with one or both of them, I say, we’re not going to do a deal unless you make peace. You have no idea. I mean, I’ve settled wars that have gone on for 35 years, a couple of them, and you know, the Congo and Rwanda that was 31 years, I think 8 million people dead with machetes. A lot of machete deaths. They walk in, the machetes are swinging all over the place. What a horrible situation. And we got it settled. HANNITY: Mr. President, I know you spent more time. I never did an interview with somebody that said, I regret sitting here doing the interview. You could take it back if you want. TRUMP: Well, you said 10 minutes and you’ve kept me a little bit longer than that. (LAUGHTER) HANNITY: Mr. President, we do — it’s a historic day and I know that Americans, I don’t think that — I think this transcends political ideology. I think most people understand that the death, the dying, the war, if it stops, that’s a great thing for everybody. I wish you all the success in your mission and thank you for taking the time to talk to us. We appreciate it. TRUMP: Thank you very much, Sean. HANNITY: We appreciate it. TRUMP: Appreciate it. HANNITY: Thank you. TRUMP: Thank you, Sean.