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  Campaign 2024 Fmr. Pres. Trump Speaks to Reporters After Meeting With...  CSPAN  January 31, 2024 6:02pm-6:22pm EST

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ok -- a front row seat to democracy. >> republican presidential candidate donald trump spoke to reporters following a meeting with the psident of the teamsters union, sean o'bryan. the former president says he has a good shot at getting the union's official endorsement following the meeting. joe biden was eor teamsters in 2020. democratic nominee hlary clinton got the union's endorsement in 2016. is is about 20 minutes. mr. trump: just had a productive meeting with the teamsters. over the years i have employed thousands and thousands of
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teamsters. they've done a great job. especially in new york where we have a lot of unions. had great relationships with the union. we're with sean o'bryan, as you know, fred zuckerman, terrific people, great leaders. i think we had a very productive meeting. stranger things have happened. usually a republican wouldn't get that endorsement for many, many years, they only do democrats. but in my case it's different because i've employed thousands of teamsters and i thought we should come over and pay our respects and as you know, a big part of the voting block votes for me. very big part. some people say more than 50%. nobody knows what the exact number. is some people say more than 50% of the teamsters vote for me. so we had a very, very productive meeting, i think, with a lot of teamster representatives upstairs. ok. reporter: mr. president, the teamsters said they want to sit down with nikk haley, does that
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signal that they believe there's still a contest? mr. trump: i don't know if they're going to meet with her, she's at i think 12%, there was a poll today, it was 88-12. if they want to waste their time they can. reporter: if you were in the white house today would you strike aran directly. mr. trump: it wouldn't have happened if i were in the white house. you never would have had this attack, wouldn't have had the attack on israel, wouldn't have the attack on ukraine, wouldn't have the inflation that's destroying our country. the inflation is so tbheasmed damage done already by inflation has been so bad and while it may be down, you're still up 30%, prices are 30% higher than they were four years ago. that's a bad thing. so you wouldn't have had any of that. but you wouldn't have had attacks on israel. you wouldn't have had attacks -- you wouldn't have had attacks period. they weren't attacking. i knocked out isis. we took over 100% of the isis
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caliphate. that was it. we pulled our troops out. nobody has done what i did and you would have had no attacks, putin would not have attacked, guaranteed, for two reasons. one, the oil went up so high on bide -- under biden they made money by attacking. but the other reason. he wnt have done it against me. he talked about ukraine. it was the apple of his eye. he never would have done it. israel would have never been attack. china wouldn't be talking about taiwan. so all of these things that, you know, it's so sad to see. here we go we the middle east again, dropping bombs all over the place. would never have happened. reporter: are you considering -- [inaudible] mr. trump: i want to bring jobs back to the country. we were doing that. we save'd the steel industry now
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u.s. steel is being bought by japan. so terrible. but we want to bring jobs back to the country. sometimes tariffs can do that. we will bring back millions of jobs to our country and we're going to start making our product. we started that process, did very well with it. we'll finish it up. but right now a lot of the progress we made, whether it's on the border, because we had the safest border ever and now we have the worst border ever. i mean anywhere, there's never been a border like this ever in the world. what's happening at our border. and i hope the republicans don', don't make a bad border deal. a bad border deal would be worse than no deal at all. you don't need a deal to tighten up the border and to make it secure. i had the most secure board for the history. i didn't have a deal. i said no people are coming in. no drugs are coming in. we don't want to have human trafficking, which no one even talks about. that's number one uric take a look at that border today. human trafficking is up 114%
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they say. 114%. you wouldn't have that. we were working so hard on human trafficking. it's a horrible thing. you think of it as an ancient crime. it's not ancient because of the internet. it's tremendous for the people that do it, a tremendous moneymaker. none of that, you would have had none of that. and now you happening, the numbers are astronomical. drugs too. drugs pouring into our border. and you have think right to you don't need bills that complicate it and make it to a level that nobody is going to be able to do it. and the minimum, 5,000 people a day, if that can be right. it's hard to believe that can be right. they were negotiating to allow 5,000 people a day? that's a tremendous amount. nobody wants to have that happen to our country. and they're still not going to know where they're coming from right now, we have no idea who
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these people are that are pouring into our countries. last night i watched where they're beating up police officers in new york city. a gang of people that just came in, that didn't speak english. nobody knows who they are. where they come from. and very importantly, they come from, i can tell you, they come from jails and prisons. they come from mental institutions. and insane asylums. and they're terrorists. they have a lot of terrorists coming too. and we don't want them. i'm sorry. you know. we had a very strong border. [inaudible] mr. trump: i don't understand, what? mr. trump: i didn't do anything wrong. that's been proven as far as i'm concerned. actually we won in the court of appeals. you probably saw that.
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that case has been largely won in the court of appeals. that was a political case. coordinated with the white house by the attorney general. i assume is what you're talking about. we won that case. largely in the court of appeals. reporter: the carroll case -- mr. trump: that is a ridiculous case. that case is a ridiculous case. we're appealing it. she didn't know anything about me. she didn't know when it happened. it was nothing. people are looking at that case, it's a disgrace. we're appealing that case. we had a very hostile judge. we're appealing that case. it's a ridiculous case. reporter: would you lock the u.s. acquisition by -- mr. trump: i would go after it. it's a horrible thing. when japan buys u.s. steel, i would block it ince tan tainusly. reporter: traditionally former presidents have access to intelligence briefings, biden
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canceled that for you. would you expect intelligence briefings in the -- as the republican nominee? mr. trump: i would cancel intelligence briefings for him, because i don't believe he's competent. reporter: the conversations you've had with people, is it true you told people you don't want to see a democrat, particularly president biden, get a win? mr. trump: i said if you're not going to get a great border bill, don't do a bill. if it's in the going to be good, if it's not going to solve the border problem, don't do the bill. that was very important to me. and a lot of people do call me they respect me. and they say, what do you think? if the bill is in the going to be a great bill and really solve the problem, i wouldn't do it at all. not for political reasons. just for u.s. reasons. prip would it benefit
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republicans with a bipartisan bill? mr. trump: you could do it either way. i want to see a great bill. this isn't republican or democrat. that's a terrible bill, 5,000 people a day, that's a lot. that's record setting stuff. no. i want to see a great bill if we get a great bill we should do it if we don't get a great bill but i don't think we're going to get a great bill if you're starting at 5,000 people a day it's insane. it's interest, we just had a meeting with the teamsters. one of the biggest problems they have is millions of people are pouring into the country. and that's a killer for the teamsters. and i'm going to stop it. that's why the teamsters, i think, support me. i don't know if the top people will support me, we have to find that out. within the union itself, i have tremendous support. reporter: did they offer endorsement? it. i felt -- we have a good shot, i think they like what i do. they never had better -- a better four years than they had during the trump administration. i can say that for a lot of
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business a lot of people. african-american, asian american, hispanic american. they had the best four years they've ever had. every one of them. reporter: president biden last week, i know you called it a joke, i'm just curious is that something to expect? mr. trump: i think the u.a.w. made a terrible decision. by allowing electric cars. they will be made in china i'm not going to allow all electric cars. i'm going to have all kinds of cars. the electric mandate is a disaster they don't go far enough they cost too much we don't have the materials to make them but china does. you've heard me say it 100 times. i would end that. you can buy an electric car absolutely but you'll also be able to buy other types of cars and type os of propulsion, depending on what you want. you'll be able to buy what you want to buy. we want, many of you were there,
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iowa, where it was 40 degrees below zero on voting night. 40 degree best low zero. and did you notice all those cars pulled over to the side in they were all electric cars. they dent work well in cold weather. that was very cold weather. i just want to say though, we had an incredible month. we beat in iowa, knocked t competition. got the best vote percentage wise, margin wise of any candidate that ever ran. we went to new hampshire got the most votes of anyone who ever ran, that's like a home run record. who had the most home rupp who had the most hits? we got the most votes of anyone who ever ran in the new hampshire primary we just had an incredible time. we're now focused on nevada which is next. and we think we're going to do there, get close to 100% of those votes. and then we have the islands coming up too, by the way. you know that. don't forget that. that's for about four delegates.
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we have that coming up. i know we go to a place that's been very good to it, i've been very good to them, southlina. i think we'll do great there. we see a poll today that we're like 40 points up. in fact we actually went up over the last week or two. but right now, we're going out, as you know, next week we're going to nevada. where we have the caucus. the big caucus. and i think we'll do very well. [inaudible] mr. trump: i don't understand the question. say it again, louder. reporter: your trade representative -- mr. trump: which which one? reporter: has talked about joe biden's policy on china. how do you campaign against a platform that your official made.
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mr. trump: i don't know her, i think the tariffs should be higher. i have a lot of respect for bob. i think he's got a friend, i don't know her but he's friendly. reporter: as high as 50%? mr. trump: we're going to see what happens. what i want to do is bring back manufacturing into our country. i want to make -- i want to make the cars sold by china in here in the united states. and i think we'll do that. and i had a very good relationship with china, it came apart when we had the covid situation. i didn't want -- that was a step too far, what happened there was a step too far. i said from the beginning it was wuhan and it was wuhan. i had a very good relationship with china. but we want china to manufacture here we dent want them to make their cars in china and you know, bob and i have these discussions all the time. there's pros ancones but not very many of them. the fact is, we want them to manufacture. we want them to spend money in this country. if they're going to sell cars in this country they should make
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them in this country. we want them to make them in this country. we want them to put our workers to work. thank you all very much. any other questions? reporter: you repeatedly said it's fallen off, i'm curious, now that you're here for the day what would you do if back that the white house to actually make it safer, carjackings, they killed one man. used to come to d.c. and it felt safe. you'd come from from nebraska, iowa, you'd say this is so beautiful. so safe. so nice. now you come in and have a good chance of being shot. they had thee people killed last week too. so you know, it's just -- the crime is -- has got to be -- you have to have strong, if you have procedures on law enforcement and they don't have them. and i know a lot of the police
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in d.c. got to know them. they're great. but they're not allowed to do their job. you have to let them do their job. it's a crime fest right now. and we can't have that. also physically, graffiti all over the place. garbage all over the roads. medians falling down on the roadways. when foreign loaders come to this country they probably look around and says this d.c.? the graffiti is horrible. you have beautiful white columns and a swastika on the white column. it's got to be -- the place has got to be cleaned up. made -- it's got to be made great again to be honest with you. because it was something so special. think about over the years, frankly, in my term, when i saw tents starting to form in the parks, we took them out, we had to take them out immediately because once you have, you know, you can take out two or three. when you have 1,000, but when you look at what's happening with the homeless in d.c. and probably migrants too because the migrants are coming into d.c. at levels they have never
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seen before. in all fairness to d.c. and you have hundreds of thousands of people coming in to this country, millions and millions of people, a lot of them coming right here. we have to make our capital safe and we have to make it clean and respected and beautiful and that's part of my plan. we're going to run it through the federal government and it's going to be run very tough and very smart and very safe. people are coming here and they're getting shot. they come here for an evening, i want to see the lynn condition memorial, i want to see something, i want to see something so beautiful. i want to look at the capitol building. i want to look at the white house. they go home in a casket. not going to happen. we're going to straighten it out. reporter: said they wouldn't have happened, the strike, you were president but president biden is now facing a decision to react. what would you do if you were? mr. trump: you shouldn't say what you're going to do. he says we're thinking about
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doing so. you have to do something. this should have never happened. when i was president iran had no money. they had no money to do this. they had money, but they didn't have money to do this. we would have made a great deal with them. i would say had it worked out differently, two weeks after the election we would have had a great deal with iran. everybody would have been happy. instead iran now has $200 billion and they're spreading their money all over the place. and things are happening that would have never happened with me. and most democrats aimrea with that. i watch over the weekend one of the shows. they said two people said i do agree that this would not have happened with trump as president. reporter: talking about your meeting today they called you a known union scab. mr. trump: they're wrong. i've get death with union miswhole life. had a great relationship with unions. do it both ways. i have unions, some jobs i have
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nonunions. some parts of the country they don't have unions. if you wanted a union they don't have them. other part, i happened to grow up in new york. done great there. we had all unions, just about. now i could have gone a different way but i didn't. you know. you have companies that will build nonunion in new york. but i didn't do that. i think they respected that. i think we had a great meeting today, it's going to be interesting. nice to see you all, thank you very much. reporter: what do you say to americans who argue that the country needs more workers not fewer. they don't want the border close down? mr. trump: most people need it closed down. i can tell you, people feel differently about different things but the unions and the testers if they don't have it closed down, they're not going to exist. they're not going to be able to exist. so thank you very much. thank you. reporter: what about those who vote for the bill? mr. trump: i think they're
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making a terrible mistake if they vote for the bill. it's a terrible bill. terrible bill for our country. terrible bill. 5,000 people alone. don't even look at the rest of the bill. 5,000 people? a day? coming into our country. who is negotiating this bill. it's a terrible bill. thank you all. we'll see you on the trail, right? mr. trump: your hand. what was wrong with it? reporter: the other one. no one told you? mr. trump: nothing. maybe it's a.i. [laughter] mr. trump: nothing. i didn't see that. [inaudible] mr. trump: infrastructure is very important for the teamsters. sean very important. we talked about it. we had a very