Hello 'Pussy' this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle:
Meryl Streep called out you at the Golden Globes. You responded by calling her ‘over-rated.’
She is not! I know who is!
Do you have any idea why they feel so ashamed? I do!
Should I remain in bed, leave my country or fight against the dragon?
( see also the story by Wolfgang Hampel,
' Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say ' )
Betty and Don MacDonald in Hollywood
Wolfgang Hampel - and Betty MacDonald fan club fans,
I'm just rereading The Egg and I and enjoy it so much.
The Egg and I by Betty MacDonald is a memoir of the years in the late 1920’s that Ms. MacDonald and her first husband, Bob Heskett, spent running a small chicken farm near Chimacum, Washington. The Egg and I was Betty MacDonald’s first book, published in 1945, and she went on to write several more volumes of memoir, Nancy and Plum and the Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle books for children.
I can see from the book why the divorce ensued. Betty MacDonald begins her story with a quotation from Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew: “Such duty as the subject owes the prince, even such a woman oweth to her husband.” Betty MacDonald says she went into marriage with this sort of dutiful attitude, along with adherence to her mother’s advice “that it is a wife’s bounden duty to see that her husband is happy in his work.”
“Too many potentially great men are eating their hearts out in dull jobs because of selfish wives,” quoth Mom, and Betty listened and found herself supporting Bob in his dream of owning a chicken farm. With no electricity. No indoor plumbing. No radio. No telephone. Bats hanging in the cellar and flying into the house. Dropping boards and chicken lice. Days that began at 4 AM and ended at midnight or thereafter. Homicidal chickens. Bears and cougars. Ma and Pa Kettle as neighbors. Babies with “fits”.
The Egg and I is very funny.
Betty MacDonald had a way with words. Some examples, chosen almost at random:
“Farmers’ wives who had the strength, endurance and energy of locomotives and the appetites of dinosaurs were, according to them, so delicate that if you accidentally brushed against them they would turn brown like gardenias.”
“The parlor was clean and neat. . . I was amazed considering the fifteen children and the appearance of the rest of the house. But when I watched Maw come out of the bathroom, firmly shut the door, go over and pull down the fringed shades clear to the bottom, test the bolt on the door that led to the front hallway and finally shut and lock the door after us as we went into the kitchen, I knew. The parlor was never used. It was the clean white handkerchief in the breastpocket of the house.”
“Not me!” I screamed as he told me to put the chokers on the fir trees and to shout directions for the pulling as he drove the team when we cleared out the orchard. “Yes, you! I’m sure you’re not competent but you’re the best help I can get at present,” and Bob laughed callously.
Bob’s attitude in that last quote from the book, repeated frequently throughout, is one of the reasons that Betty left him in 1931 and returned to Seattle, civilization, and eventually a new husband, Mr. Donald MacDonald, who presumably appreciated her desire to support him in his work and returned the favor.
Vita Magica by Wolfgang Hampel is really fascinating and very interesting.
Wolfgang Hampel introduces life and work of Betty MacDonald at Vita Magica January 2017.
Wolfgang Hampel and Friends of Vita Magica visited Minister of Science of Baden-Württemberg, Theresia Bauer in Stuttgart.
They visited Landtag and had a great time there.
We are looking for your favourite city for International Betty MacDonald fan club event 2017.
Send us your votes please.
Deadline: January 31, 2017
Do you have any books by Betty MacDonald and Mary Bard Jensen with funny or interesting dedications?
If so would you be so kind to share them?
Our next Betty MacDonald fan club project is a collection of these unique dedications.
If you share your dedication from your Betty MacDonald - and Mary Bard Jensen collection you might be the winner of our new Betty MacDonald fan club items.
Thank you so much in advance for your support.
Thank you so much for sending us your favourite Betty MacDonald quote.
You'll be able to read more info during January.
We are so glad that our beloved Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is back.
New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many new interviews.
Alison Bard Burnett and other Betty MacDonald fan club honor members will be included in Wolfgang Hampel's fascinating project Vita Magica.
Very exciting Betty MacDonald fan club news!
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel is going to present life and work of Betty MacDonald in Vita Magica January 2017.
You'll be able to read more info during January!
Vita Magica December was very successful.Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel invited a very famous author.
The visitors enjoyed Vita Magica very much.
A great event!
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel interviewed Betty MacDonald's daughter Joan MacDonald Keil and her husband Jerry Keil.
This interview will be published for the first time ever.
New Betty MacDonald documentary will be very interesting with many interviews never published before.
We adore Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli
Thank you so much for sharing this witty memories with us.
Wolfgang Hampel's literary event Vita Magica is very fascinating because he is going to include Betty MacDonald, other members of the Bard family and Betty MacDonald fan club honor members.
It's simply great to read Wolfgang Hampel's new very well researched stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett, Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others.
Linde Lund and many fans from all over the world adore this funny sketch by Wolfgang Hampel very much although our German isn't the best.
I won't ever forget the way Wolfgang Hampel is shouting ' Brexit '.
Don't miss it, please.
It's simply great!
You can hear that Wolfgang Hampel got an outstandig voice.
He presented one of Linde Lund's favourite songs ' Try to remember ' like a professional singer.
Thanks a million!
Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli and our 'Italian Betty MacDonald' - Betty MacDonald fan club honor member author and artist Letizia Mancino belong to the most popular Betty MacDonald fan club teams in our history.
Their many devoted fans are waiting for a new Mr. Tigerli adventure.
Letizia Mancino's magical Betty MacDonald Gallery is a special gift for Betty MacDonald fan club fans from all over the world.
Don't miss Brad Craft's 'More friends', please.
Betty MacDonald's very beautiful Vashon Island is one of my favourites.
I agree with Betty in this very witty Betty MacDonald story Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say by Wolfgang Hampel.
I can't imagine to live in a country with him as so-called elected President although there are very good reasons to remain there to fight against these brainless politics.
And although the awards show kicked off with a few jokes at the president-elect’s expense, Meryl Streep took a serious tone to address the recent presidential election.
Streep accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award — basically a lifetime achievement award — but didn’t say much about her career. Instead, she spent the minutes allotted to her to speak critically of the current political climate and Trump, although she did not mention the president-elect by name.
“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” she said. “It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
Streep was referring to Trump’s remarks during the campaign, when he appeared to mock New York Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits the functioning of his joints.
“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing,” the actress said.
Don't miss these very interesting articles below, please.
Lately,
it appears Trump has gone back into the field to drag in a whole new
bunch of State contenders.
My favorite is Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, a person you have probably never heard of even though he’s been in Congress since the 1980s and is currently head of the prestigious Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.
Rohrabacher
is also a surfer and former folk singer who once claimed global warming
might be connected to “dinosaur flatulence.” My favorite is Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, a person you have probably never heard of even though he’s been in Congress since the 1980s and is currently head of the prestigious Subcommittee on Europe, Eurasia and Emerging Threats.
Don't miss the very interesting articles below, please.
I think the future dinosaur flatulence will be the behaviour of 'Pussy' and his very strange government.
Poor World! Poor America!
The most difficult case in Mrs.Piggle-Wiggle's career
Hello 'Pussy', this is Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle.
You took calls from foreign leaders on unsecured phone lines, without consultung the State Department. We have to change your silly behaviour with a new Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle cure. I know you are the most difficult case in my career - but we have to try everything.......................
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel sent his brilliant thoughts. Thank you so much dear Wolfgang!
Hi Libi, nice to meet you. Can you feel it?
I'll be the most powerful leader in the world.
Betty MacDonald: Nothing more to say
Copyright 2016 by Wolfgang Hampel
All rights reserved
Betty MacDonald was sitting on her egg-shaped cloud and listened to a rather strange guy.
He said to his friends: So sorry to keep you waiting. Very complicated business! Very complicated!
Betty said: Obviously much too complicated for you old toupee!
Besides him ( by the way the First Lady's place ) his 10 year old son was bored to death and listened to this 'exciting' victory speech.
The old man could be his great-grandfather.
The boy was very tired and thought: I don't know what this old guy is talking about. Come on and finish it, please. I'd like to go to bed.
Dear 'great-grandfather' continued and praised the Democratic candidate.
He congratulated her and her family for a very strong campaign although he wanted to put her in jail.
He always called her the most corrupt person ever and repeated it over and over again in the fashion of a Tibetan prayer wheel.
She is so corrupt. She is so corrupt. Do you know how corrupt she is?
Betty MacDonald couldn't believe it when he said: She has worked very long and very hard over a long period of time, and we owe her a major debt of gratitude for her service to our country.
Afterwards old toupee praised his parents, wife, children, siblings and friends.
He asked the same question like a parrot all the time:
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you?
I know you are here!
Betty MacDonald answered: No Pussy they are not! They left the country.
They immigrated to Canada because they are very much afraid of the future in the U.S.A. with you as their leader like the majority of all so-called more or less normal citizens.
By the way keep your finger far away from the pussies and the Red Button, please.
I'm going to fly with my egg-shaped cloud to Canada within a minute too.
Away - away - there is nothing more to say!
I can understand the reason why Betty MacDonald, Barbara Streisand, other artists and several of my friends want to leave the United States of America.
I totally agree with these comments:
This
is incredible! I'll You get what you pay/vote for and Trump is the
epitome of this ideology. America I won't feel bad for you because you
don't need my sympathy for what's coming but I am genuinely scared for
you. 'Forgive them lord for they know not who they do' or maybe they do
but just don't care about their future generations who will suffer for
this long after the culprits have passed away.
Daniel Mount wrote a great article about Betty MacDonald and her garden.
We hope you'll enjoy it very much.
I adore Mount Rainier and Betty MacDonald's outstanding descriptions
Can you remember in which book you can find it?
If so let us know, please and you might be the next Betty MacDonald fan club contest winner.
I hope we'll be able to read Wolfgang Hampel's new very well researched stories about Betty MacDonald, Robert Eugene Heskett, Donald Chauncey MacDonald, Darsie Bard, Sydney Bard, Gammy, Alison Bard Burnett, Darsie Beck, Mary Bard Jensen, Clyde Reynolds Jensen, Sydney Cleveland Bard, Mary Alice Bard, Dorothea DeDe Goldsmith, Madge Baldwin, Don Woodfin, Mike Gordon, Ma and Pa Kettle, Nancy and Plum, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and others - very soon.
It' s such a pleasure to read them.
Let's go to magical Betty MacDonald's Vashon Island.
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund and Betty MacDonald fan club research team share their recent Betty MacDonald fan club research results.
Congratulations! They found the most interesting and important info for Wolfgang Hampel's oustanding Betty MacDonald biography.
I enjoy Bradley Craft's story very much.
Don't miss our Betty MacDonald fan club contests, please.
You can win a never published before Alison Bard Burnett interview by Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel.
Good luck!
This CD is a golden treasure because Betty MacDonald's very witty sister Alison Bard Burnett shares unique stories about Betty MacDonald, Mary Bard Jensen, Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and Nancy and Plum.
Wolfgang Hampel's Betty MacDonald and Ma and Pa Kettle biography and Betty MacDonald interviews have fans in 40 countries. I'm one of their many devoted fans.
Many Betty MacDonald - and Wolfgang Hampel fans are very interested in a Wolfgang Hampel CD and DVD with his very funny poems and stories.
We are going to publish new Betty MacDonald essays on Betty MacDonald's gardens and nature in Washington State.
Tell us the names of this mysterious couple please and you can win a very new Betty MacDonald documentary.
Betty MacDonald fan club honor member Mr. Tigerli is beloved all over the World.
We are so happy that our 'Casanova' is back.
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
and Betty MacDonald fan club research team are going to share very
interesting info on ' Betty MacDonald and the movie The Egg and I '.
Another rare episode (from March 21 1952) of the short-lived comedy soap opera, "The Egg and I," based on best selling book by Betty MacDonald which also became a popular film.
The series premiered on September 3, 1951, the same day as "Search for Tomorrow," and ended on August 1, 1952.
Although it did well in the ratings, it had difficulty attracting a steady sponsor. This episode features Betty Lynn (later known for her work on "The Andy Griffith Show") as Betty MacDonald, John Craven as Bob MacDonald, Doris Rich as Ma Kettle, and Frank Twedell as Pa Kettle.
Betty MacDonald fan club exhibition will be fascinating with the international book editions and letters by Betty MacDonald.
I can't wait to see the new Betty MacDonald documentary.
Enjoy a great breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.
Enjoy a very nice Tuesday,
Carin
Another rare episode (from March 21 1952) of the short-lived comedy soap opera, "The Egg and I," based on best selling book by Betty MacDonald which also became a popular film.
The series premiered on September 3, 1951, the same day as "Search for Tomorrow," and ended on August 1, 1952.
Although it did well in the ratings, it had difficulty attracting a steady sponsor. This episode features Betty Lynn (later known for her work on "The Andy Griffith Show") as Betty MacDonald, John Craven as Bob MacDonald, Doris Rich as Ma Kettle, and Frank Twedell as Pa Kettle.
Betty MacDonald fan club exhibition will be fascinating with the international book editions and letters by Betty MacDonald.
I can't wait to see the new Betty MacDonald documentary.
Enjoy a great breakfast at the bookstore with Brad and Nick, please.
Enjoy a very nice Tuesday,
Carin
Vita Magica
Betty MacDonald
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Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( English ) - The Egg and I
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( Polski)
Wolfgang Hampel - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - LinkFang ( German ) Wolfgang Hampel - Academic ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - cyclopaedia.net ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - DBpedia ( English / German )
Wolfgang Hampel - people check ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Memim ( English )
Vashon Island - Wikipedia ( German )
Wolfgang Hampel - Monica Sone - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( English )
Wolfgang Hampel - Ma and Pa Kettle - Wikipedia ( French )
Wolfgang Hampel - Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle - Wikipedia ( English)
Wolfgang Hampel in Florida State University
Betty MacDonald fan club founder Wolfgang Hampel
Betty MacDonald fan club interviews on CD/DVD
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Betty MacDonald fan club items - comments
Betty MacDonald fan club - The Stove and I
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Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Linde Lund
Betty MacDonald fan club organizer Greta Larson
Betty MacDonald fan club fan Heiderose Teynor
Meryl Streep called out Donald Trump at the Golden Globes. He responded by calling her ‘over-rated.’
Meryl Streep gave a sweeping, serious speech
at the Golden Globes when receiving the Cecil B. DeMille Award for
lifetime achievement. She championed press freedoms, criticized Donald
Trump and called for empathy in performances and "in real life."
It’s no secret that Hollywood skews liberal, and
there were probably few Donald Trump fans in the audience at Sunday’s
Golden Globes. And although the awards show kicked off with a few jokes at the president-elect’s expense, Meryl Streep took a serious tone to address the recent presidential election.Streep accepted the Cecil B. DeMille Award — basically a lifetime achievement award — but didn’t say much about her career. Instead, she spent the minutes allotted to her to speak critically of the current political climate and Trump, although she did not mention the president-elect by name.
“There was one performance this year that stunned me,” she said. “It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective, and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth.
“It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.”
Streep was referring to Trump’s remarks during the campaign, when he appeared to mock New York Times reporter Serge F. Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, which visibly limits the functioning of his joints.
“And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing,” the actress said.
You can watch the full, unedited version of the speech here:
Trump responded in a brief interview with the New York Times shortly after the Golden Globes aired. He told the Times he had not seen the speech, but he dismissed Streep as “a Hillary lover” and said that he was “not surprised” to be attacked by “liberal movie people.” (Streep spoke in support of Clinton at the 2016 Democratic National Convention.)
As Monday dawned, the president-elect followed up with a trio of tweets lambasting Streep’s speech, calling it an attack on him.
In addition, Trump referred to her as “one of the most over-rated actresses in Hollywood” and “a Hillary flunky who lost big.”
In her nearly four-decades-long career, Streep has been nominated for 30 Golden Globe awards and 19 Academy Awards, more than any other actor for either honor. She has won both awards multiple times, along with numerous Emmys and Screen Actors Guild Awards.
When Streep was named as a Kennedy Center Honors recipient, the performing-arts center noted that “the sheer breadth and joy of her artistry counts as one of the most exhilarating cultural spectacles of our time.”
The American Film Institute presented her with its Life Achievement Award in 2004, citing “her unparalleled talent and integrity.” A decade later, Streep received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, with the White House calling her “one of our nation’s greatest actors.”
On Monday, Trump added that Streep’s attack was unfounded, writing: “For the 100th time, I never ‘mocked’ a disabled reporter (would never do that) but simply showed him ‘groveling’ when he totally changed a 16 year old story that he had written in order to make me look bad. Just more very dishonest media!”
Trump has made that claim before — and in August, The Washington Post’s Fact Checker gave it “Four Pinocchios.”
“It remains a mystery why Trump feels the need to revisit past controversies, particularly ones that reflect poorly on his tenor and judgment,” The Post’s Glenn Kessler wrote then. “But, as the evidence shows, Trump clearly mocked Kovaleski — who in any case never ‘groveled’ or in any way took back his reporting.”
At a rally in Myrtle Beach, S.C., on Tuesday,
Nov. 24, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump mocks New York
Times reporter, Serge Kovaleski who is disabled.
(Reuters)
“I’m concerned that somebody with a platform like Meryl Streep is also, I think, inciting people’s worst instincts,” Conway said on the show.
On Sunday, Streep delivered her speech in a raspy voice after an introduction by Viola Davis that paid homage to the actress and her storied career.
Thank you very much. Thank you. Please sit down. Please sit down. Thank you. I love you all. You’ll have to forgive me. I’ve lost my voice in screaming and lamentation this weekend. And I have lost my mind sometime earlier this year. So I have to read.
Thank you, Hollywood foreign press. Just to pick up on what Hugh Laurie said, you and all of us in this room, really, belong to the most vilified segments in American society right now. Think about it: Hollywood, foreigners and the press. But who are we, and what is Hollywood, anyway? It’s just a bunch of people from other places. I was born and raised and educated in the public schools of New Jersey. Viola was born in a sharecropper’s cabin in South Carolina, came up in Central Falls, Rhode Island. Sarah Paulson was born in Florida and raised by a single mom in Brooklyn.
Sarah Jessica Parker was one of seven or eight kids from Ohio. Amy Adams was born in Vicenza, Italy, and Natalie Portman was born in Jerusalem — where are their birth certificates? And the beautiful Ruth Negga was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, raised in — no, in Ireland, I do believe, and she’s here, nominated for playing a small-town girl from Virginia. Ryan Gosling, like all the nicest people, is Canadian. And Dev Patel was born in Kenya, raised in London, is here for playing an Indian raised in Tasmania. So Hollywood is crawling with outsiders and foreigners. And if we kick them all out, you’ll have nothing to watch but football and mixed martial arts, which are not the arts.
They gave me three seconds to say this, so. An actor’s only job is to enter the lives of people who are different from us and let you feel what that feels like. And there were many, many, many powerful performances this year that did exactly that — breathtaking, compassionate work. There was one performance this year that stunned me. It sank its hooks in my heart. Not because it was good. There was nothing good about it. But it was effective and it did its job. It made its intended audience laugh and show their teeth. It was that moment when the person asking to sit in the most respected seat in our country imitated a disabled reporter. Someone he outranked in privilege, power and the capacity to fight back. It kind of broke my heart when I saw it. I still can’t get it out of my head because it wasn’t in a movie. It was real life.
And this instinct to humiliate, when it’s modeled by someone in the public platform, by someone powerful, it filters down into everybody’s life, because it kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.
Disrespect invites disrespect. Violence incites violence. And when the powerful use their position to bully others, we all lose. Okay. Go on with that thing.
This brings me to the press. We need the principled press to hold power to account, to call them on the carpet for every outrage. That’s why our founders enshrined the press and its freedoms in our Constitution. So I only ask the famously well-heeled Hollywood foreign press and all of us in our community, to join me in supporting the Committee to Protect Journalists, because we’re going to need them going forward, and they’ll need us to safeguard the truth.
One more thing. Once when I was standing around on the set one day whining about something — we were going to work through supper, or the long hours or whatever — Tommy Lee Jones said to me, “Isn’t it such a privilege, Meryl, just to be an actor?” Yeah, it is. And we have to remind each other of the privilege and the responsibility of the act of empathy. We should all be very proud of the work Hollywood honors here tonight. As my friend the dear departed Princess Leia said to me once, “Take your broken heart, make it into art.”
Read more:
Hillary Clinton made a rare appearance at ‘The Color Purple’ — and got three standing ovations
Donald Trump says D.C.’s dress shops are sold out of inauguration gowns. Wrong!
Meryl Streep, the Committee to Protect Journalists and its tense relationship with Donald Trump
Golden Globes: Lots of ‘La La’-dee-da, but a wake-up call from Meryl Streep
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Trump election: US presidency is not a family business, says Obama
- 8 January 2017
- From the section US & Canada
US
President Barack Obama says he has advised his successor Donald Trump
not to attempt to run the White House "the way you would manage a family
business".
In an interview with ABC News, Mr Obama said that Mr Trump must "respect" US institutions."After you have been sworn in," he said, "you are now in charge of the largest organisation on Earth".
He warned that there was a difference between governing and campaigning.
"There are world capitals and financial markets and people all around the world who take really seriously what he [Mr Trump] says," Mr Obama said.
Read more
- Trump blasts 'fools' who oppose Russian ties
- Biden tells Trump to 'grow up' over hacking claims
- US 'identifies agents behind Russian hack'
Mr Obama also talked about the US intelligence agency's report into alleged cyber-attacks by Russia and the attempt to influence the 2016 US presidential campaign.
He said that he had "underestimated" the impact of such attacks.
"I think that I underestimated the degree to which, in this new information age, it is possible for misinformation... and so forth to have an impact on our open societies."
He said that a conversation had taken place with Mr Trump in which he had discussed the importance of having faith in the intelligence community.
"There are going to be times where the only way you can make a good decision is if you have confidence that the process is working," he said.
Last week Mr Trump said he was a "big fan" of intelligence agencies, after months of casting doubt on the Russian link to the security breach. But he later raised questions over how the Democratic Party had responded to the cyber-attacks.
"How and why are they so sure about hacking if they never even requested an examination of the computer servers? What is going on?" Mr Trump asked in a tweet.
Mr Trump will be inaugurated on 20 January.
Following is a transcript of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s
interview on Tuesday with reporters, editors and opinion columnists
from The New York Times. The transcription was prepared by Liam Stack,
Jonah Engel Bromwich, Karen Workman and Tim Herrera of The Times. More
on the Trump transition here.
ARTHUR
SULZBERGER Jr., publisher of The New York Times: Thank you very much
for joining us. And I want to reaffirm this is on the record.
DONALD J. TRUMP, President-elect of the United States: O.K.
SULZBERGER: All right, so we’re clear. We had a very nice meeting in the Churchill Room. You’re a Churchill fan, I hear?
TRUMP: I am, I am.
SULZBERGER: There’s a photo of the great man behind you.
TRUMP: There was a big thing about the bust that was removed out of the Oval Office.
Continue reading the main story
SULZBERGER: I heard you’re thinking of putting it back.
TRUMP: I am, indeed. I am.
SULZBERGER:
Wonderful. So we’ve got a good collection here from our newsroom and
editorial and our columnists. I just want to say we had a good, quiet,
but useful and well-meaning conversation in there. So I appreciate that
very much.
TRUMP: I appreciate it, too.
SULZBERGER:
I thought maybe I’d start this off by asking if you have anything you
would like to start this off with before we move to the easiest
questions you’re going to get this administration.
[laughter]
TRUMP:
O.K. Well, I just appreciate the meeting and I have great respect for
The New York Times. Tremendous respect. It’s very special. Always has
been very special. I think I’ve been treated very rough. It’s well out
there that I’ve been treated extremely unfairly in a sense, in a true
sense. I wouldn’t only complain about The Times. I would say The Times
was about the roughest of all. You could make the case The Washington
Post was bad, but every once in a while I’d actually get a good article.
Not often, Dean, but every once in awhile.
Look,
I have great respect for The Times, and I’d like to turn it around. I
think it would make the job I am doing much easier. We’re working very
hard. We have great people coming in. I think you’ll be very impressed
with the names. We’ll be announcing some very shortly.
Everybody
wanted to do this. People are giving up tremendous careers in order to
be subject to you folks and subject to a lot of other folks. But they’re
giving up a lot. I mean some are giving up tremendous businesses in
order to sit for four or maybe eight or whatever the period of time is.
But I think we’re going to see some tremendous talent, tremendous talent
coming in. We have many people for every job. I mean no matter what the
job is, we have many incredible people. I think, Reince, you can sort
of just confirm that. The quality of the people is very good.
REINCE PRIEBUS, Mr. Trump’s choice for chief of staff: [inaudible]
TRUMP:
We’re trying very hard to get the best people. Not necessarily people
that will be the most politically correct people, because that hasn’t
been working. So we have really experts in the field. Some are known and
some are not known, but they’re known within their field as being the
best. That’s very important to me.
You
know, I’ve been given a great honor. It’s been very tough. It’s been 18
months of brutality in a true sense, but we won it. We won it pretty
big. The final numbers are coming out. Or I guess they’re coming out.
Michigan’s just being confirmed. But the numbers are coming out far
beyond what anybody’s wildest expectation was. I don’t know if it was
us, I mean, we were seeing the kind of crowds and kind of, everything,
the kind of enthusiasm we were getting from the people.
As
you probably know, I did many, many speeches that last four-week
period. I was just telling Arthur that I went around and did speeches in
the pretty much 11 different places, that were, the massive crowds we
were getting. If we had a stadium that held — and most of you, many of
you were there — that held 20,000 people, we’d have 15,000 people
outside that couldn’t get in.
So
we came up with a good system — we put up the big screens outside with a
very good loudspeaker system and very few people left. I would do,
during the last month, two or three a day. That’s a lot. Because that’s
not easy when you have big crowds. Those speeches, that’s not an easy
way of life, doing three a day. Then I said the last two days, I want to
do six and seven. And I’m not sure anybody has ever done that. But we
did six and we did seven and the last one ended at 1 o’clock in the
morning in Michigan.
And
we had 31,000 people, 17,000 or 18,000 inside and the rest outside.
This massive place in Grand Rapids, I guess. And it was an incredible
thing. And I left saying: ‘How do we lose Michigan? I don’t think we can
lose Michigan.’
And
the reason I did that, it was set up only a little while before —
because we heard that day that Hillary was hearing that they’re going to
lose Michigan, which hasn’t been lost in 38 years. Or something. But 38
years. And they didn’t want to lose Michigan. So they went out along
with President Obama and Michelle, Bill and Hillary, they went to
Michigan late that, sort of late afternoon and I said, ‘Let’s go to
Michigan.’
It
wasn’t on the schedule. So I finished up in New Hampshire and at 10
o’clock I went to Michigan. We got there at 12 o’clock. We started
speaking around 12:45, actually, and we had 31,000 people and I said,
really, I mean, there are things happening. But we saw it everywhere.
So
we felt very good. we had great numbers. And we thought we’re going to
win. We thought we were going to win Florida. We thought we were going
to win North Carolina. We did easily, pretty easily. We thought strongly
we were going to win Pennsylvania. The problem is nobody had won it and
it was known, as you know, the great state that always got away. Every
Republican thought they were going to win Pennsylvania for 38 years and
they just couldn’t win it.
And
I thought we were going to win it. And we won it, we won it, you know,
relatively easily, we won it by a number of points. Florida we won by
180,000 — was that the number, 180?
Trump Meets With The New York Times
President-elect Donald J. Trump met
with journalists from the newsroom and opinion staff at The New York
Times on Tuesday. Here are some of the issues discussed at the meeting.
By YARA BISHARA and NICOLE FINEMAN on Publish Date November 22, 2016.
Photo by Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times.
Watch in Times Video »
PRIEBUS: [inaudible]
TRUMP: More than 180,000 voted, and votes are still coming in from the military, which we are getting about 85 percent of.
So
we won that by a lot of votes and, you know, we had a great victory. We
had a great victory. I think it would have been easier because I see
every once in awhile somebody says, ‘Well, the popular vote.’ Well, the
popular vote would have been a lot easier, but it’s a whole different
campaign. I would have been in California, I would have been in Texas,
Florida and New York, and we wouldn’t have gone anywhere else. Which is,
I mean I’d rather do the popular vote from the standpoint — I’d think
we’d do actually as well or better — it’s a whole different campaign.
It’s like, if you’re a golfer, it’s like match play versus stroke play.
It’s a whole different game.
But
I think the popular vote would have been easier in a true sense because
you’d go to a few places. I think that’s the genius of the Electoral
College. I was never a fan of the Electoral College until now.
SULZBERGER: Until now.
[laughter]
TRUMP:
Until now. I guess now I like it for two reasons. What it does do is it
gets you out to see states that you’ll never see otherwise. It’s very
interesting. Like Maine. I went to Maine four times. I went to Maine 2
for one, because everybody was saying you can get to 269 but there is no
path to 270. We learned that was false because we ended up with what,
three-something.
PRIEBUS: I’ve got to get, we’ve got to get Michigan in.
TRUMP:
But there is no path to 270, you have to get the one in Maine, so we
kept going back to Maine and we did get the one in Maine. We kept going
to Maine 2, and we went to a lot of states that you wouldn’t spend a lot
of time in and it does get you — we actually went to about 22 states,
whereas if you’re going for popular vote, you’d probably go to four, or
three, it could be three. You wouldn’t leave New York. You’d stay in New
York and you’d stay in California. So there’s a certain genius about
it. And I like it either way. But it’s sort of interesting.
But
we had an amazing period of time. I got to know the country, we have a
great country, we’re a great, great people, and the enthusiasm was
really incredible. The Los Angeles Times had a poll which was
interesting because I was always up in that poll. They had something
that is, I guess, a modern-day technique in polling, it was called
enthusiasm. They added an enthusiasm factor and my people had great
enthusiasm, and Hillary’s people didn’t have enthusiasm. And in the end
she didn’t get the African-American vote and we ended up close to 15
points, as you know. We started off at one, we ended up with almost 15.
And more importantly, a lot of people didn’t show up, because the
African-American community liked me. They liked what I was saying.
So
they didn’t necessarily vote for me, but they didn’t show up, which was
a big problem that she had. I ended up doing very well with women,
which was — which I never understood why I was doing poorly, because
we’d go to the rallies and we’d have so many women holding up signs,
“Women for Trump.” But I kept reading polls saying that I’m not doing
well with women. I think whoever is doing it here would say that we did
very well with women, especially certain women.
DEAN
BAQUET, executive editor of The New York Times: As you describe it, you
did do something really remarkable. You energized a lot of people in
the country who really wanted change in Washington. But along with that —
and this is going to create a tricky thing for you — you also energized
presumably a smaller number of people who were evidenced at the
alt-right convention in Washington this weekend. Who have a very …
TRUMP: I just saw that today.
BAQUET:
So, I’d love to hear you talk about how you’re going to manage that
group of people who actually may not be the larger group but who have an
expectation for you and are angry about the country and its — along
racial lines. My first question is, do you feel like you said things
that energized them in particular, and how are you going to manage that?
TRUMP:
I don’t think so, Dean. First of all, I don’t want to energize the
group. I’m not looking to energize them. I don’t want to energize the
group, and I disavow the group. They, again, I don’t know if it’s
reporting or whatever. I don’t know where they were four years ago, and
where they were for Romney and McCain and all of the other people that
ran, so I just don’t know, I had nothing to compare it to.
But it’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.
What
we do want to do is we want to bring the country together, because the
country is very, very divided, and that’s one thing I did see, big
league. It’s very, very divided, and I’m going to work very hard to
bring the country together.
I
mean, I’m somebody that really has gotten along with people over the
years. It was interesting, my wife, I went to a big event about two
years ago. Just after I started thinking about politics.
And
we’re walking in and some people were cheering and some people were
booing, and she said, you know, ‘People have never booed for you.’
I’ve
never had a person boo me, and all of a sudden people are booing me.
She said, that’s never happened before. And, it’s politics. You know,
all of a sudden they think I’m going to be running for office, and I’m a
Republican, let’s say. So it’s something that I had never experienced
before and I said, ‘Those people are booing,’ and she said, ‘Yup.’
They’d never booed before. But now they boo. You know, it was a group
and another group was going the opposite.
No, I want to bring the country together. It’s very important to me. We’re in a very divided country. In many ways divided.
BAQUET:
So I’m going to do that thing that executive editors get to do which is
to invite reporters to jump in and ask questions.
MAGGIE
HABERMAN, political reporter: I’ll start, thank you, Dean. Mr.
President, I’d like to thank you for being here. This morning, Kellyanne
Conway talked about not prosecuting Hillary Clinton. We were hoping you
could talk about exactly what that means — does that mean just the
emails, or the emails and the foundation, and how you came to that
decision.
TRUMP:
Well, there was a report that somebody said that I’m not enthused about
it. Look, I want to move forward, I don’t want to move back. And I
don’t want to hurt the Clintons. I really don’t.
She
went through a lot. And suffered greatly in many different ways. And I
am not looking to hurt them at all. The campaign was vicious. They say
it was the most vicious primary and the most vicious campaign. I guess,
added together, it was definitely the most vicious; probably, I assume
you sold a lot of newspapers.
[laughter]
I
would imagine. I would imagine. I’m just telling you, Maggie, I’m not
looking to hurt them. I think they’ve been through a lot. They’ve gone
through a lot.
I’m really looking … I think we have to get the focus of the country into looking forward.
SULZBERGER:
If I could interject, we had a good conversation there, you and I, and
it was off the record, but there was nothing secret, just wanted to make
sure. The idea of looking forward was one of the themes that you were
saying. That we need to now get past the election, right?
MATTHEW PURDY, deputy managing editor: So you’re definitively taking that off the table? The investigation?
TRUMP: No, but the question was asked.
PURDY: About the emails and the foundation?
TRUMP:
No, no, but it’s just not something that I feel very strongly about. I
feel very strongly about health care. I feel very strongly about an
immigration bill that I think even the people in this room can be happy.
You know, you’ve been talking about immigration bills for 50 years and
nothing’s ever happened.
I
feel very strongly about an immigration bill that’s fair and just and a
lot of other things. There are a lot of things I feel strongly about.
I’m not looking to look back and go through this. This was a very
painful period. This was a very painful election with all of the email
things and all of the foundation things and all of the everything that
they went through and the whole country went through. This was a very
painful period of time. I read recently where it was, it was, they’re
saying, they used to say it was Lincoln against whoever and none of us
were there to see it. And there aren’t a lot of recordings of that,
right?
[laughter]
But the fact is that there were some pretty vicious elections; they say this was, this was the most.
They say it was definitely the most vicious primary. And I think it’s very important to look forward.
CAROLYN
RYAN, senior editor for politics: Do you think it would disappoint your
supporters who seemed very animated by the idea of accountability in
the Clintons? What would you say to them?
TRUMP: I don’t think they will be disappointed. I think I will explain it, that we have to, in many ways save our country.
Because
our country’s really in bad, big trouble. We have a lot of trouble. A
lot of problems. And one of the big problems, I talk about,
divisiveness. I think that a lot of people will appreciate … I’m not
doing it for that reason. I’m doing it because it’s time to go in a
different direction. There was a lot of pain, and I think that the
people that supported me with such enthusiasm, where they will show up
at 1 in the morning to hear a speech.
It
was actually Election Day, they showed up at, so that was essentially
Election Day. Yeah, I think they’d understand very completely.
THOMAS
L. FRIEDMAN, opinion columnist: Mr. President-elect, can I ask a
question? One of the issues that you actually were very careful not to
speak about during the campaign, and haven’t spoken about yet, is one
very near and dear to my heart, the whole issue of climate change, the
Paris agreement, how you’ll approach it. You own some of the most
beautiful links golf courses in the world …
[laughter, cross talk]
TRUMP:
[laughing] I read your article. Some will be even better because
actually like Doral is a little bit off … so it’ll be perfect.
[inaudible] He doesn’t say that. He just says that the ones that are
near the water will be gone, but Doral will be in great shape.
[laughter]
FRIEDMAN:
But it’s really important to me, and I think to a lot of our readers,
to know where you’re going to go with this. I don’t think anyone objects
to, you know, doing all forms of energy. But are you going to take America out of the world’s lead of confronting climate change?
TRUMP:
I’m looking at it very closely, Tom. I’ll tell you what. I have an open
mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s
interesting because there are few things where there’s more division
than climate change. You don’t tend to hear this, but there are people
on the other side of that issue who are, think, don’t even …
SULZBERGER: We do hear it.
FRIEDMAN: I was on ‘Squawk Box’ with Joe Kernen this morning, so I got an earful of it.
[laughter]
TRUMP:
Joe is one of them. But a lot of smart people disagree with you. I have
a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot of the things that
happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully. But I have
an open mind.
SULZBERGER:
Well, since we’re living on an island, sir, I want to thank you for
having an open mind. We saw what these storms are now doing, right?
We’ve seen it personally. Straight up.
FRIEDMAN: But you have an open mind on this?
TRUMP: I do have an open mind. And we’ve had storms always, Arthur.
SULZBERGER: Not like this.
TRUMP:
You know the hottest day ever was in 1890-something, 98. You know, you
can make lots of cases for different views. I have a totally open mind.
My
uncle was for 35 years a professor at M.I.T. He was a great engineer,
scientist. He was a great guy. And he was … a long time ago, he had
feelings — this was a long time ago — he had feelings on this subject.
It’s a very complex subject. I’m not sure anybody is ever going to
really know. I know we have, they say they have science on one side but
then they also have those horrible emails that were sent between the
scientists. Where was that, in Geneva or wherever five years ago?
Terrible. Where they got caught, you know, so you see that and you say,
what’s this all about. I absolutely have an open mind. I will tell you
this: Clean air is vitally important. Clean water, crystal clean water
is vitally important. Safety is vitally important.
And
you know, you mentioned a lot of the courses. I have some great, great,
very successful golf courses. I’ve received so many environmental
awards for the way I’ve done, you know. I’ve done a tremendous amount of
work where I’ve received tremendous numbers. Sometimes I’ll say I’m
actually an environmentalist and people will smile in some cases and
other people that know me understand that’s true. Open mind.
JAMES
BENNET, editorial page editor: When you say an open mind, you mean
you’re just not sure whether human activity causes climate change? Do
you think human activity is or isn’t connected?
TRUMP:
I think right now … well, I think there is some connectivity. There is
some, something. It depends on how much. It also depends on how much
it’s going to cost our companies. You have to understand, our companies
are noncompetitive right now.
They’re
really largely noncompetitive. About four weeks ago, I started adding a
certain little sentence into a lot of my speeches, that we’ve lost
70,000 factories since W. Bush. 70,000. When I first looked at the
number, I said: ‘That must be a typo. It can’t be 70, you can’t have
70,000, you wouldn’t think you have 70,000 factories here.’ And it
wasn’t a typo, it’s right. We’ve lost 70,000 factories.
We’re
not a competitive nation with other nations anymore. We have to make
ourselves competitive. We’re not competitive for a lot of reasons.
That’s
becoming more and more of the reason. Because a lot of these countries
that we do business with, they make deals with our president, or
whoever, and then they don’t adhere to the deals, you know that. And
it’s much less expensive for their companies to produce products. So I’m
going to be studying that very hard, and I think I have a very big
voice in it. And I think my voice is listened to, especially by people
that don’t believe in it. And we’ll let you know.
FRIEDMAN: I’d hate to see Royal Aberdeen underwater.
TRUMP: The North Sea, that could be, that’s a good one, right?
ELISABETH
BUMILLER, Washington bureau chief: I just wanted to follow up on the
question you were asked about not pursuing any investigations into
Hillary Clinton. Did you mean both the email investigation and the
foundation investigation — you will not pursue either one of those?
TRUMP:
Yeah, look, you know we’ll have people that do things but my
inclination would be, for whatever power I have on the matter, is to say
let’s go forward. This has been looked at for so long. Ad nauseam.
Let’s go forward. And you know, you could also make the case that some
good work was done in the foundation and they could have made mistakes,
etc. etc. I think it’s time, I think it’s time for people to say let’s
go and solve some of the problems that we have, which are massive
problems and, you know, I do think that they’ve gone through a lot. I
think losing is going through a lot. It was a tough, it was a very tough
evening for her. I think losing is going through a lot. So, for
whatever it’s worth, my, my attitude is strongly we have to go forward,
we have so many different problems to solve, I don’t think we have to
delve back in the past. I also think that would be a very divisive, well
I think it would be very divisive, you know I’m talking about bringing
together, and then they go into all sorts of stuff, I think it would be
very, very divisive for the country.
SULZBERGER: I agree, I think speaking not as a journalist now, it’s very healthy. There, and then we’re going to go
MICHAEL D. SHEAR, White House correspondent: Mr. Trump, Mike Shear. I cover the White House, covering your administration …
TRUMP: See ya there.
[laughter]
SHEAR: Just one quick clarification on the climate change, do you intend to, as you said, pull out of the Paris Climate …
TRUMP: I’m going to take a look at it.
SHEAR
[interrupts]: And if the reaction from foreign leaders is to slap
tariffs on American goods to offset the carbon that the United States
had pledged to reduce, is that O.K. with you? And then the second
question is on your sort of mixing of your global business interests and
the presidency. There’s already, even just in the 10, two weeks you’ve
been president-elect, instances where you’ve met with your Indian
business partners …
Graphic: Donald Trump Is Choosing His Cabinet. Here’s the Latest List.
TRUMP: Sure.
SHEAR:
You’ve talked about the impact of the wind farms on your golf course.
People, experts who are lawyers and ethics experts, say that all of that
is totally inappropriate, so I guess the question for you is, what do
you see as the appropriate structure for keeping those two things
separate, and are there any lines that you think you won’t want to cross
once you’re in the White House?
TRUMP:
O.K. First of all, on countries. I think that countries will not do
that to us. I don’t think if they’re run by a person that understands
leadership and negotiation they’re in no position to do that to us, no
matter what I do. They’re in no position to do that to us, and that
won’t happen, but I’m going to take a look at it. A very serious look. I
want to also see how much this is costing, you know, what’s the cost to
it, and I’ll be talking to you folks in the not-too-distant future
about it, having to do with what just took place.
As
far as the, you know, potential conflict of interests, though, I mean I
know that from the standpoint, the law is totally on my side, meaning,
the president can’t have a conflict of interest. That’s been reported
very widely. Despite that, I don’t want there to be a conflict of
interest anyway. And the laws, the president can’t. And I understand why
the president can’t have a conflict of interest now because everything a
president does in some ways is like a conflict of interest, but I have,
I’ve built a very great company and it’s a big company and it’s all
over the world. People are starting to see, when they look at all these
different jobs, like in India and other things, number one, a job like
that builds great relationships with the people of India, so it’s all
good. But I have to say, the partners come in, they’re very, very
successful people. They come in, they’d say, they said, ‘Would it be
possible to have a picture?’ Actually, my children are working on that
job. So I can say to them, Arthur, ‘I don’t want to have a picture,’ or,
I can take a picture. I mean, I think it’s wonderful to take a picture.
I’m fine with a picture. But if it were up to some people, I would
never, ever see my daughter Ivanka again. That would be like you never
seeing your son again. That wouldn’t be good. That wouldn’t be good. But
I’d never, ever see my daughter Ivanka.
UNKNOWN: That means you’d have to make Ivanka deputy President, you know.
TRUMP:
I know, I know, yeah. [room laughs] Well, I couldn’t do that either. I
can’t, that can’t work. I can’t do anything, I would never see my, I
guess the only son I’d be allowed to see, at least for a little while,
would be Barron, because he’s 10. But, but, so there has to be
[unintelligible]. It’s a very interesting case.
UNKNOWN: You could sell your company though, right? With all due respect, you could sell your company and then …
TRUMP: Well …
UNKNOWN: And then you could see them all the time.
TRUMP:
That’s a very hard thing to do, you know what, because I have real
estate. I have real estate all over the world, which now people are
understanding. When I filed my forms with the federal election, people
said, ‘Wow that’s really a big company, that’s a big company.’ It really
is big, it’s diverse, it’s all over the world. It’s a great company
with great assets. I think that, you know, selling real estate isn’t
like selling stock. Selling real estate is much different, it’s in a
much different world. I’d say this, and I mean this and I said it on “60
Minutes” the other night: My company is so unimportant to me relative
to what I’m doing, ’cause I don’t need money, I don’t need anything, and
by the way, I’m very under-leveraged, I have a very small percentage of
my money in debt, very very small percentage of my money in debt, in
fact, banks have said ‘We’d like to loan you money, we’d like to give
you any amount of money.’ I’ve been there before, I’ve had it both ways,
I’ve been over-levered, I’ve been under-levered and, especially as you
get older, under-levered is much better.
UNKNOWN: Mr. President-elect …
TRUMP:
Just a minute, because it’s an important question. I don’t care about
my company. I mean, if a partner comes in from India or if a partner
comes in from Canada, where we did a beautiful big building that just
opened, and they want to take a picture and come into my office, and my
kids come in and, I originally made the deal with these people, I mean
what am I going to say? I’m not going to talk to you, I’m not going to
take pictures? You have to, you know, on a human basis, you take
pictures. But I just want to say that I am given the right to do
something so important in terms of so many of the issues we discussed,
in terms of health care, in terms of so many different things. I don’t
care about my company. It doesn’t matter. My kids run it. They’ll say I
have a conflict because we just opened a beautiful hotel on Pennsylvania
Avenue, so every time somebody stays at that hotel, if they stay
because I’m president, I guess you could say it’s a conflict of
interest. It’s a conflict of interest, but again, I’m not going to have
anything to do with the hotel, and they may very well. I mean it could
be that occupancy at that hotel will be because, psychologically,
occupancy at that hotel will be probably a more valuable asset now than
it was before, O.K.? The brand is certainly a hotter brand than it was
before. I can’t help that, but I don’t care. I said on “60 Minutes”: I
don’t care. Because it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters to me
is running our country.
MICHAEL
BARBARO, political reporter: Mr. President-elect, can I press you a
little further on what structures you would put in place to keep the
presidency and the company separate and to avoid things that, for
example, were reported in The Times in the past 24 hours about meeting
with leaders of Brexit about wind farms …
TRUMP: About meeting with who?
BARBARO:
Leaders of Brexit about wind farms that might interfere with the views
of your golf course and how to keep, what structures, can you talk about
that meeting, by the way?
TRUMP: Was I involved with the wind farms recently? Or, not that I know of. I mean, I have a problem with wind …
BARBARO: But you brought it up in the meeting, didn’t you?
TRUMP: Which meeting? I don’t know. I might have.
BARBARO: With leaders of Brexit.
MANY VOICES: With Farage.
TRUMP:
Oh, I see. I might have brought it up. But not having to do with me,
just I mean, the wind is a very deceiving thing. First of all, we don’t
make the windmills in the United States. They’re made in Germany and
Japan. They’re made out of massive amounts of steel, which goes into the
atmosphere, whether it’s in our country or not, it goes into the
atmosphere. The windmills kill birds and the windmills need massive
subsidies. In other words, we’re subsidizing wind mills all over this
country. I mean, for the most part they don’t work. I don’t think they
work at all without subsidy, and that bothers me, and they kill all the
birds. You go to a windmill, you know in California they have the, what
is it? The golden eagle? And they’re like, if you shoot a golden eagle,
they go to jail for five years and yet they kill them by, they actually
have to get permits that they’re only allowed to kill 30 or something in
one year. The windmills are devastating to the bird population, O.K.
With that being said, there’s a place for them. But they do need
subsidy. So, if I talk negatively. I’ve been saying the same thing for
years about you know, the wind industry. I wouldn’t want to subsidize
it. Some environmentalists agree with me very much because of all of the
things I just said, including the birds, and some don’t. But it’s hard
to explain. I don’t care about anything having to do with anything
having to do with anything other than the country.
BARBARO:
But the structures, just to be clear, that’s the question. How do you
formalize the separation of these things so that there is not a question
of whether or not you as president …
TRUMP: O.K.
BARBARO: … are trying to influence something, like wind farms?
TRUMP: O.K., I don’t want to influence anything, because it’s not that, it’s not that important to me. It’s hard to explain.
BARBARO: Yes, but the structures?
TRUMP:
Now, according to the law, see I figured there’s something where you
put something in this massive trust and there’s also — nothing is
written. In other words, in theory, I can be president of the United
States and run my business 100 percent, sign checks on my business,
which I am phasing out of very rapidly, you know, I sign checks, I’m the
old-fashioned type. I like to sign checks so I know what is going on as
opposed to pressing a computer button, boom, and thousands of checks
are automatically sent. It keeps, it tells me what’s going on a little
bit and it tells contractors that I’m watching. But I am phasing that
out now, and handing that to Eric Trump and Don Trump and Ivanka Trump
for the most part, and some of my executives, so that’s happening right
now.
But
in theory I could run my business perfectly, and then run the country
perfectly. And there’s never been a case like this where somebody’s had,
like, if you look at other people of wealth, they didn’t have this kind
of asset and this kind of wealth, frankly. It’s just a different thing.
But
there is no — I assumed that you’d have to set up some type of trust or
whatever and you know. And I was actually a little bit surprised to see
it. So in theory I don’t have to do anything. But I would like to do
something. I would like to try and formalize something, because I don’t
care about my business.
Doral
is going to run very nice. We own this incredible place in Miami. We
own many incredible places, including Turnberry, I guess you heard.
There’s one guy that does — when I say Turnberry, you know what that is,
right. Do a little [inaudible]. But they’re going to run well, we have
good managers, they’re going to run really well.
So I don’t have to do anything, but I want to do something if I can. If there is something.
BARBARO: Can you promise us when you decide exactly what that is, you’ll come tell The New York Times about it?
[laughter]
TRUMP: I will. I’ve started it already.
SULZBERGER: One of our great salesmen, by the way.
TRUMP:
I can see that. I’ve started it already by, I mean, I’ve greatly
reduced the check-signing and the business. I’ve greatly reduced
meetings with contractors, meetings with different people that, you
know, I’ve also started by — ’cause I’ve said over the last two years,
once I decided I wanted to run, I don’t want to build anything. ’Cause
building, like for instance, we built the post office, you’ll be happy
to hear, ahead of schedule and under budget. Substantially ahead of
schedule. Almost two years ago of schedule. But ahead of schedule, under
budget, and it’s a terrific place. That’s the hotel on Pennsylvania.
FRIEDMAN: Just so you know, General Electric has a big wind turbine factory in South Carolina. Just so you know.
TRUMP:
Well that’s good. But most of ‘em are made in Germany, most of ‘em are
made, you know, Siemens and the Chinese are making most of them.
[cross talk]
TRUMP: They may assemble — if you check, I think you’ll find that the, it’s delivered there and they do most of the assembly.
JULIE
HIRSCHFELD DAVIS, White House correspondent: Mr. President-elect — I’m
sorry I entered late, but I did want to ask you about …
BAQUET: You should introduce yourself.
DAVIS: I’m Julie Davis, one of the White House correspondents.
TRUMP: Hi, Julie.
DAVIS: I apologize for my delayed flight. I wanted to ask you about personnel. They say personnel is policy.
TRUMP: I can’t quite hear.
DAVIS: Personnel.
TRUMP: Personnel.
DAVIS:
You hired Steve Bannon to be the chief strategist for you in the White
House. He is a hero of the alt-right. He’s been described by some as
racist and anti-Semitic. I wonder what message you think you have sent
by elevating him to that position and what you would say to those who
feel like that indicates something about the kind of country you prefer
and the government you’ll run.
TRUMP:
Um, I’ve known Steve Bannon a long time. If I thought he was a racist,
or alt-right, or any of the things that we can, you know, the terms we
can use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him. First of all, I’m the
one that makes the decision, not Steve Bannon or anybody else. And
Kellyanne will tell you that.
[laughter]
KELLYANE CONWAY: 100 percent.
TRUMP:
And if he said something to me that, in terms of his views, or that I
thought were inappropriate or bad, number one I wouldn’t do anything,
and number two, he would have to be gone. But I know many people that
know him, and in fact, he’s actually getting some very good press from a
lot of the people that know him, and people that are on the left. But
Steve went to Harvard, he was a, you know, he was very successful, he
was a Naval officer, he’s, I think he’s very, very, you know, sadly,
really, I think it’s very hard on him. I think he’s having a hard time
with it. Because it’s not him. It’s not him.
I’ve known him for a long time. He’s a very, very smart guy. I think he was with Goldman Sachs on top of everything else.
UNKNOWN: What do you make of the website he ran, Breitbart?
TRUMP: The which?
UNKNOWN: Breitbart.
TRUMP:
Well, Breitbart’s different. Breitbart cover things, I mean like The
New York Times covers things. I mean, I could say that Arthur is
alt-right because they covered an alt-right story.
SULZBERGER: [laughing] I am, I am. I’ll take whatever you say. I am always right, but I’m not alt-right.
[laughter, cross talk]
TRUMP:
The New York Times covers a lot of stories that are, you know, rough
stories. And you know, they have covered some of these things, but The
New York Times covers a lot of these things also. It’s just a newspaper,
essentially. It’s a newspaper. I know the guy, he’s a decent guy, he’s a
very smart guy. He’s done a good job. He hasn’t been with me that long.
You know he really came in after the primaries. I had already won the
primaries. And if I thought that his views were in that category, I
would immediately let him go. And I’ll tell you why. In many respects I
think his views are actually on the other side of what a lot of people
might think.
DAVIS:
But you are aware, sir, with all due respect, that African-Americans
and Jews and many folks who disagree with the coverage of Breitbart and
the slant that Breitbart brings to the news view him that way, aren’t
you?
TRUMP:
Yeah, well Breitbart, first of all, is just a publication. And, you
know, they cover stories like you cover stories. Now, they are certainly
a much more conservative paper, to put it mildly, than The New York
Times. But Breitbart really is a news organization that’s become quite
successful, and it’s got readers and it does cover subjects that are on
the right, but it covers subjects on the left also. I mean it’s a pretty
big, it’s a pretty big thing. And he helped build it into a pretty
successful news organization.
Graphic: 20 Things Donald Trump Said He Wanted to Get Rid of as President
Now,
I’ll tell you what, I know him very well. I will say this, and I will
say this, if I thought that strongly, if I thought that he was doing
anything, or had any ideas that were different than the ideas that you
would think, I would ask him very politely to leave. But in the
meantime, I think he’s been treated very unfairly.
It’s very interesting ’cause a lot of people are coming to his defense right now.
PRIEBUS:
We have never experienced a single episode of any of those accusations.
It’s been the total opposite. It’s been a great team, and it’s just not
there. And what the president-elect is saying is 100 percent true.
[cross talk]
TRUMP:
And by the way, if you see something or get something where you feel
that I’m wrong, and you have some info — I would love to hear it. You
can call me, Arthur can call me, I would love to hear. The only one who
can’t call me is Maureen [Dowd, opinion columnist]. She treats me too
rough.
I don’t know what happened to Maureen! She was so good, Gail [Collins, opinion columnist]. For years she was so good.
[cross talk]
SULZBERGER: As we all say about Maureen, it’s not your fault, it’s just your turn.
[laughter]
ROSS
DOUTHAT, opinion columnist: I have a slightly different, but somewhat
Steve Bannon-related question, I guess. It’s about the future of the
Republican Party. You started out here talking about winning in so many
states where no Republican has won in decades, especially Midwestern
Rust Belt states. And I think many people think that one of the reasons
you won was that you deliberately campaigned as a different kind of
Republican. You had different things to say on trade, entitlements,
foreign policy, even your daughter Ivanka’s child care plan was sort of
distinctive. And now you’re in a situation where you’re governing and
staffing up an administration with a Republican Party whose leaders, and
Reince, may differ with me a little on this, but don’t always see
eye-to-eye on those views.
TRUMP: Although right now they’re loving me.
[laughter]
UNKNOWN: Well, right now they are.
[cross talk]
TRUMP:
Paul Ryan right now loves me, Mitch McConnell loves me, it’s amazing
how winning can change things. I’ve liked Chuck Schumer for a long time.
I’ve actually, I’ve raised a lot of money for Chuck and given him a lot
of money over the years. I think I was the first person that ever
contributed to Chuck Schumer. I had a Brooklyn office, a little office,
in a little apartment building in Brooklyn in Sheepshead Bay where I
worked with my father.
And
Chuck Schumer came in and I gave him, I believe, I don’t know if he’s
willing to admit this, but I believe it was his first campaign
contribution, $500. But Chuck Schumer’s a good guy. I think we’ll get
along very well.
DOUTHAT:
I guess that’s my question is, how much do you expect to be able to
both run an administration and negotiate with a Republican-led Congress
as a different kind of Republican. And do you worry that you’ll wake up
three years from now and go back to campaigning in the Rust Belt and
people will say, well, he governed more like Paul Ryan than like Donald
Trump.
TRUMP:
No, I don’t worry about that. ’Cause I didn’t need to do this. I was
telling Arthur before: ‘Arthur I didn’t need to do this. I’m doing this
to do a good job.’ That’s what I want to do, and I think that what
happened in the Rust Belt, they call it the Rust Belt for a reason. If
you go through it, you look back 20 years, they didn’t used to call it
the Rust Belt. You pass factory after factory after factory that’s empty
and rusting. Rust is the good part, ’cause they’re worse than rusting,
they’re falling down. No, I wouldn’t sacrifice that. To me more
important is taking care of the people that really have proven to be, to
love Donald Trump, as opposed to the political people. And frankly if
the political people don’t take care of these people, they’re not going
to win and you’re going to end up with maybe a total different kind of
government than what you’re looking at right now. These people are
really angry. They’re smart, they’re workers, and they’re angry. I call
them the forgotten men and women. And I use that in speeches, I say
they’re the forgotten people — they were totally forgotten. And we’re
going to bring jobs back. We’re going to bring jobs back, big league.
I’ve spoken to so many companies already, I say, don’t plan on moving
your company, ’cause you’re not going to be able to move your company
and sell us your product. You think you’re going to just sell it across
what will be a strong border, you know at least we’re going to have a
border. But just don’t plan on it.
And
I’ll tell you, I believe, and you’ll hear announcements over the next
couple of months, but I believe I’ve talked numerous comp — in
four-minute conversations with top people — numerous companies that
have, leaving, or potentially leaving our country with thousands of
jobs.
FRIEDMAN: Are you worried, though, that those companies will keep their factories here, but the jobs will be replaced by robots?
TRUMP: They will, and we’ll make the robots too.
[laughter]
TRUMP:
It’s a big thing, we’ll make the robots too. Right now we don’t make
the robots. We don’t make anything. But we’re going to, I mean, look,
robotics is becoming very big and we’re going to do that. We’re going to
have more factories. We can’t lose 70,000 factories. Just can’t do it.
We’re going to start making things.
I
was honored yesterday, I got a call from Bill Gates, great call, we had
a great conversation, I got a call from Tim Cook at Apple, and I said,
‘Tim, you know one of the things that will be a real achievement for me
is when I get Apple to build a big plant in the United States, or many
big plants in the United States, where instead of going to China, and
going to Vietnam, and going to the places that you go to, you’re making
your product right here.’ He said, ‘I understand that.’ I said: ‘I think
we’ll create the incentives for you, and I think you’re going to do it.
We’re going for a very large tax cut for corporations, which you’ll be
happy about.’ But we’re going for big tax cuts, we have to get rid of
regulations, regulations are making it impossible. Whether you’re
liberal or conservative, I mean I could sit down and show you
regulations that anybody would agree are ridiculous. It’s gotten to be a
free-for-all. And companies can’t, they can’t even start up, they can’t
expand, they’re choking.
I
tell you, one thing I would say, so, I’m giving a big tax cut and I’m
giving big regulation cuts, and I’ve seen all of the small business
owners over the United States, and all of the big business owners, I’ve
met so many people. They are more excited about the regulation cut than
about the tax cut. And I would’ve never said that’s possible, because
the tax cut’s going to be substantial. You know we have companies
leaving our country because the taxes are too high. But they’re leaving
also because of the regulations. And I would say, of the two, and I
would not have thought this, regulation cuts, substantial regulation
cuts, are more important than, and more enthusiastically supported, than
even the big tax cuts.
UNKNOWN:
Mr. President-elect, I wanted to ask you, there was a conference this
past weekend in Washington of people who pledged their allegiance to
Nazism.
TRUMP: Boy, you are really into this stuff, huh?
PRIEBUS: I think we answered that one right off the bat.
Interactive Feature: Trump Tower, the Center of the Political Universe
UNKNOWN: Are you going to condemn them?
TRUMP: Of course I did, of course I did.
PRIEBUS: He already did.
UNKNOWN: Are you going to do it right now?
TRUMP:
Oh, I see, maybe you weren’t here. Sure. Would you like me to do it
here? I’ll do it here. Of course I condemn. I disavow and condemn.
SULZBERGER:
We’ll go with that. I’d like to move to infrastructure, apologies, and
then we’ll go back. Because a lot of the investment you are talking
about, a lot of the jobs you are talking about — is infrastructure going
to be the core of your first few years?
TRUMP:
No, it’s not the core, but it’s an important factor. We’re going for a
lot of things, between taxes, between regulations, between health care
replacement, we’re going to talk repeal and replace. ’Cause health care
is — you know people are paying a 100 percent increase and they’re not
even getting anything, the deductibles are so high, you have deductibles
$16,000. So they’re paying all of this money and they don’t even get
health care. So it’s very important. So there are a lot of things. But
infrastructure, Arthur, is going to be a part of it.
SULZBERGER: It’s part of jobs, isn’t it?
TRUMP:
I don’t even think it’s a big part of it. It’s going to be a big number
but I think I am doing things that are more important than
infrastructure, but infrastructure is still a part of it, and we’re
talking about a very large-scale infrastructure bill. And that’s not a
very Republican thing — I didn’t even know that, frankly.
SULZBERGER: It worked for Franklin Roosevelt.
TRUMP:
It didn’t work for Obama because unfortunately they didn’t spend the
money last time on infrastructure. They spent it on a lot of other
things. You know, nobody can find out where that last — you know, from a
few years ago — where that money went. And we’re going to make sure it
is spent on infrastructure and roads and highways. I have a friend, he’s
a big trucker, one of the biggest. And he orders these incredible
trucks, the best, I won’t mention the name but it’s a certain truck
company that makes — they call them the Rolls-Royce of trucks. You know,
the most expensive trucks. And he calls me up about two months ago and
he goes, ‘Man, I’m going to buy the cheapest trucks I can buy.’ And I
said, ‘Why?’ and — you know, and this is the biggest guy — he goes, ‘My
trucks are coming back, they’re going from New York to California and
they’re all busted up. The highways are in such bad shape, they’re
hitting potholes, they’re hitting everything.’ He said, ‘I’m not buying
these trucks anymore, I’m going to buy the cheapest stuff and the
strongest tires I can get.’ That’s the exact expression he used, ‘the
cheapest trucks and the strongest tires.’
We’re
hitting so many bad points, we, you know, I said, ‘So tell me, you’ve
been doing this how long?’ 45 years. He built it over 45 years. I said,
‘Have you ever seen it like this?’ He said, ‘The roads have never been
like this.’ It’s an interesting …
BAQUET:
What did, what did, I’m curious what Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan said
when you said, ‘I’m going to launch a multibillion-dollar
infrastructure program.’ Are they reluctant to spend that?
TRUMP: Honestly right now …
DOUTHAT: Trillion. Trillion, I think, was the figure.
BAQUET:
Because they would be in the wing of the Republican Party that would
say, ‘That’s great, but you’re not going to be able to do that and
balance the budget.’
TRUMP:
Let’s see if I get it done. Right now they’re in love with me. O.K.?
Four weeks ago they weren’t in love with me. Don’t forget — if I read
The New York Times, and you don’t have to put this on the record — it
can be if you want, you might not want …
SULZBERGER: You say if, but you do …
TRUMP: Well, I do read it. Unfortunately. I would have lived about 20 years longer if I didn’t.
SULZBERGER: There’s Nixon’s quote right there if you’d love to reread it —
TRUMP:
I know. But when you look at the different, all the newspapers, I was
going to lose the presidency, I was going to take the House with me, and
the Senate had no chance. It was going to be the biggest humiliation in
the history of politics in this country. And instead I won the
presidency, easily, and I mean easily — you look at those states, I had
states where I won by 30 and 40 points. I won the presidency easily, I
helped numerous senators — in fact the only senators that didn’t get
elected were two — one up in New Hampshire who refused to say that she
was going to vote for me, who by the way would love a job in the
administration and I said, ‘No, thank you.’ That’s on the record. This
is where I’m different than a politician — I know what to say, I just
believe it’s sort of interesting.
She’d
love to have a job in the administration, I said, ‘No, thank you.’ She
refused to vote for me. And a senator in Nevada who frankly said, he
endorsed me then he unendorsed me, and he went down like a lead balloon.
And then they called me before the race and said they wanted me to
endorse him and do a big thing and I said, ‘No thank you, good luck.’
You know, let’s see what happens. I said, off the record, I hope you
lose. Off the record. He was! He was up by 10 points — you know who I’m
talking about.
So,
others — if you look at Missouri, [Senator Roy] Blunt, he was down five
points a few days before the election, he called for help, I gave him
help, and I think I was up like over 30 points in Missouri. I was
leading by a massive amount, 28 points. I gave him help and he ended up
winning by four points or something. I brought a number of them.
Pennsylvania, brought over the finish line. Let’s see, we brought
Johnson, in, you know, that was a good one. We brought him over the line
in Wisconsin. Winning Wisconsin was big stuff, that’s something that …
FRIEDMAN: Mr. President-elect, I came …
TRUMP: So right now I’m in very good shape, but
FRIEDMAN:
I came here thinking you’d be awed and overwhelmed by this job, but I
feel like you are getting very comfortable with it.
TRUMP:
I feel comfortable. I feel comfortable. I am awed by the job, as
anybody would be, but I honestly, Tom, I feel so comfortable and you
know it would be, to me, a great achievement if I could come back here
in a year or two years and say — and have a lot of the folks here say,
‘You’ve done a great job.’ And I don’t mean just a conservative job,
’cause I’m not talking conservative. I mean just, we’ve done a good job.
SHEAR:
To follow up on Matt, after you met with President Obama, he described
you to folks as — that you seemed overwhelmed by what he told you. So I
wonder if you are overwhelmed by the magnitude of the job that you’re
about to inherit and if you can tell us anything more about that
conversation with the president and the apparently subsequent
conversations that you’ve had on the phone since then. And then maybe
talk a little bit about foreign policy, that’s something we haven’t
touched on here, and whether or not you believe in the kind of world
order — a world order led by America in terms of having this country
underwrite the security and the free markets of the world, which have
been in place for decades.
TRUMP:
Sure. I had a great meeting with President Obama. I never met him
before. I really liked him a lot. The meeting was supposed to be 10
minutes, 15 minutes max, because there were a lot of people waiting
outside, for both of us. And it ended up being — you were there — I
guess an hour-and-a-half meeting, close. And it was a great chemistry. I
think if he said overwhelmed, I don’t think he meant that in a bad way.
I think he meant that it is a very overwhelming job. But I’m not
overwhelmed by it. You can do things and fix it, I think he meant it
that way. He said very nice things after the meeting and I said very
nice things about him. I really enjoyed my meeting with him. We have —
you know, we come from different sides of the equation, but it’s
nevertheless something that — I didn’t know if I’d like him. I probably
thought that maybe I wouldn’t, but I did, I did like him. I really
enjoyed him a lot. I’ve spoken to him since the meeting.
SHEAR: What did you say to him?
TRUMP: Just a basic conversation.
I
think he’s looking to do absolutely the right thing for the country in
terms of transition and I really, I’m telling you, we had a meeting,
Arthur, that went for an hour and a half that could have gone for three
or four hours. It was a great — it was just a very good meeting.
UNKNOWN: Sort of like this meeting.
[cross talk, laughter]
TRUMP:
He told me what he thought his, what the biggest problems of the
country were, which I don’t think I should reveal, I don’t mind if he
reveals them. But I was actually surprised a little bit. But he told me
the problems, he told me things that he considered assets, but he did
tell me what he thought were the biggest problems, in particular one
problem that he thought was a big problem for the country, which I’d
rather have you ask him. But I really found the meeting to be very good.
And I hope we can have a good — I mean, it doesn’t mean we’re going to
agree on everything, but I hope that we will have a great long-term
relationship. I really liked him a lot and I’m a little bit surprised
I’m telling you that I really liked him a lot.
Let’s go foreign policy, sure. Sure.
FRIEDMAN: What do you see as America’s role in the world? Do you believe that the role …
TRUMP: That’s such a big question.
FRIEDMAN:
The role that we played for 50 years as kind of the global balancer,
paying more for things because they were in our ultimate interest, one
hears from you, I sense, is really shrinking that role.
TRUMP:
I don’t think we should be a nation builder. I think we’ve tried that. I
happen to think that going into Iraq was perhaps … I mean you could say
maybe we could have settled the civil war, O.K.? I think going into
Iraq was one of the great mistakes in the history of our country. I
think getting out of it — I think we got out of it wrong, then lots of
bad things happened, including the formation of ISIS. We could have
gotten out of it differently.
FRIEDMAN: NATO, Russia?
TRUMP:
I think going in was a terrible, terrible mistake. Syria, we have to
solve that problem because we are going to just keep fighting, fighting
forever. I have a different view on Syria than everybody else. Well, not
everybody else, but then a lot of people. I had to listen to [Senator]
Lindsey Graham, who, give me a break. I had to listen to Lindsey Graham
talk about, you know, attacking Syria and attacking, you know, and it’s
like you’re now attacking Russia, you’re attacking Iran, you’re
attacking. And what are we getting? We’re getting — and what are we
getting? And I have some very definitive, I have some very strong ideas
on Syria. I think what’s happened is a horrible, horrible thing. To look
at the deaths, and I’m not just talking deaths on our side, which are
horrible, but the deaths — I mean you look at these cities, Arthur,
where they’re totally, they’re rubble, massive areas, and they say two
people were injured. No, thousands of people have died. O.K. And I think
it’s a shame. And ideally we can get — do something with Syria. I spoke
to Putin, as you know, he called me, essentially …
UNKNOWN: How do you see that relationship?
TRUMP: Essentially everybody called me, all of the major leaders, and most of them I’ve spoken to.
FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP:
I wouldn’t use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I
think — I would love to be able to get along with Russia and I think
they’d like to be able to get along with us. It’s in our mutual
interest. And I don’t go in with any preconceived notion, but I will
tell you, I would say — when they used to say, during the campaign,
Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump, I said, huh,
wouldn’t it be nice, I’d say this in front of thousands of people,
wouldn’t it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn’t it be
nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn’t it be nice if we
went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being
dangerous, it’s very expensive, and ISIS shouldn’t have been even
allowed to form, and the people will stand up and give me a massive
hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with
Putin or that I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that’s a
positive thing. It is a great thing that we can get along with not only
Russia but that we get along with other countries.
JOSEPH
KAHN, managing editor: On Syria, would you mind, you said you have a
very strong idea about what to do with the Syria conflict, can you
describe that for us?
TRUMP:
I can only say this: We have to end that craziness that’s going on in
Syria. One of the things that was told to me — can I say this off the
record, or is everything on the record?
SULZBERGER: No, if you want to …
TRUMP: I don’t want to violate, I don’t want to violate a …
SULZBERGER:
If you want to go off the record, we have agreed you can go off the
record. Ladies and gentlemen, we are off the record for this moment.
[Trump speaks off the record.]
TRUMP: Now we can go back on.
SULZBERGER:
I’m going to play the cop here. We’ve got only two and a half minutes
left, because they have a hard stop at 2. And by the way, I want to
thank you again, on behalf of all of us …
TRUMP: Thank you.
SULZBERGER: … for this meeting, and really I mean that. We are back on the record. Maggie, you get the last question.
TRUMP: Is he a tough boss, folks? Is he tough?
HABERMAN:
I have two questions, very, very quickly. One is your vice
president-elect left open the idea of returning to waterboarding. You
talked about that on the campaign trail. I’m hoping you can talk about
how you view torture at this point, and also what are you hoping that
Jared Kushner will do in your administration and will you bring him in
formally?
TRUMP: O.K., O.K. So, I didn’t hear the second question.
HABERMAN: Jared Kushner. What will Jared Kushner’s role be in your administration?
TRUMP:
Oh. Maybe nothing. Because I don’t want to have people saying
‘conflict.’ Even though the president of the United States — I hope
whoever is writing this story, it’s written fairly — the president of
the United States is allowed to have whatever conflicts he wants — he or
she wants. But I don’t want to go by that. Jared’s a very smart guy.
He’s a very good guy. The people that know him, he’s a quality person
and I think he can be very helpful. I would love to be able to be the
one that made peace with Israel and the Palestinians. I would love that,
that would be such a great achievement. Because nobody’s been able to
do it.
HABERMAN: Do you think he can be part of that?
TRUMP:
Well, I think he’d be very good at it. I mean he knows it so well. He
knows the region, knows the people, knows the players. I would love to
be — and you can put that down in a list of many things that I’d like to
be able to do. Now a lot of people tell me, really great people tell
me, that it’s impossible, you can’t do it. I’ve had a lot of, actually,
great Israeli businesspeople tell me, you can’t do that, it’s
impossible. I disagree, I think you can make peace. I think people are
tired now of being shot, killed. At some point, when do they come? I
think we can do that. I have reason to believe I can do that.
HABERMAN: And on torture? Where are you — and waterboarding?
TRUMP:
So, I met with General Mattis, who is a very respected guy. In fact, I
met with a number of other generals, they say he’s the finest there is.
He is being seriously, seriously considered for secretary of defense,
which is — I think it’s time maybe, it’s time for a general. Look at
what’s going on. We don’t win, we can’t beat anybody, we don’t win
anymore. At anything. We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with
trade, we certainly don’t win with the military. General Mattis is a
strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him
that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said — I
was surprised — he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said,
‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers
and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very
impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being
like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed
my mind. [An earlier version made a mistake in transcription. Mr. Trump said “changed my mind,” not “changed my man.”]
Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in
steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you
what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not
going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think.
If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would
be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less
important, much less important than I thought he would say. I thought he
would say — you know he’s known as Mad Dog Mattis, right? Mad Dog for a
reason. I thought he’d say ‘It’s phenomenal, don’t lose it.’ He
actually said, ‘No, give me some cigarettes and some drinks, and we’ll
do better.’
SULZBERGER: So, I, with apologies, I’m going to go to our C.E.O., Mark Thompson, for the last, last question.
TRUMP: Very powerful man …
MARK
THOMPSON: Thank you, and it’s a really short one, but after all the
talk about libel and libel laws, are you committed to the First
Amendment to the Constitution?
TRUMP:
Oh, I was hoping he wasn’t going to say that. I think you’ll be happy. I
think you’ll be happy. Actually, somebody said to me on that, they
said, ‘You know, it’s a great idea, softening up those laws, but you may
get sued a lot more.’ I said, ‘You know, you’re right, I never thought
about that.’ I said, ‘You know, I have to start thinking about that.’
So, I, I think you’ll be O.K. I think you’re going to be fine.
SULZBERGER: Well, thank you very much for this. Really appreciate this.
TRUMP:
Thank you all, very much, it’s a great honor. I will say, The Times is,
it’s a great, great American jewel. A world jewel. And I hope we can
all get along. We’re looking for the same thing, and I hope we can all
get along well.
Mr. Tigerli in China
Copyright 2016 by Letizia Mancino
translation by Mary Holmes
All rights reserved
Yes Betty, either or it seems he wanted to fly only with
Singapore Airways.
Boeing or Airbus, it’s just the same
isn’t it? Aren’t they both just fat birds with 500 passengers?
Yes, but Singapore Airlines has the
most beautiful airhostesses: delicate, fine, graceful… Mr. Tigerli had looked forward to the flight
so much!
So the little man was disappointed?
You just can’t imagine how disappointed
he was.
But thank God one of the hostesses was a
pretty Chinese girl. Mr. Tigerli purred loudly but she didn’t hear him because
the purring of the Airbus 380 was even louder.
The poor cat!
You’ve said it Betty. Mr. Tigerli was
in a very bad mood and asked me for a loud speaker.
I’m sure you can get one in 1st
Class.
“”Russian Girl” had even heard you over
the roar of the Niagara Falls” I said to Mr. Tigerli. “You are a very
unfaithful cat. You wanted to get to know Asiatic girls. That’s how it is when
one leaves one’s first love”.
And what did he say to that?
“Men are hunters” was his answer.
Yes, my dear cat, a mouse hunter. And
what else did he say?
Not another word. He behaved as if he
hadn’t heard me.
The Airbus is very loud.
I told him shortly “Don’t trouble
yourself about “Chinese Girl”. There will be enough even prettier girls in
China. Wait till we land in Guilin”.
Did he understand you?
Naturally Mr. Tigerli understood me
immediately. Yes, sweetheart, don’t worry. They will find you something sweet
to eat.
And he?
He was so happy.
No problem going through the immigration
control?
Naturally! Lots of problems. How could I explain to
customs that the cat had come as a tourist to China to buy shoes?
Fur in exchange for shoes…
Don’t be so cynical Betty!
Cat meat in exchange for shoes?
He came through the pass control with
no trouble!
Is this Mr. Tigerli?
 |
Betty MacDonald's Vashon Island is a paradise.
info to: Sandra Lorinda Traci Petr Dana Jana Michaela Rebekah Swiss Charrd Tru John Darsie Darsie Toby Jeanine Carol Justin Lila Daniel Mo Nika Steve Neal Jitka Jitka Tami Pete Laurie Maia Nancy Kelly Pam Mary Jan and all our other friends
www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/
info to: Sandra Lorinda Traci Petr Dana Jana Michaela Rebekah Swiss Charrd Tru John Darsie Darsie Toby Jeanine Carol Justin Lila Daniel Mo Nika Steve Neal Jitka Jitka Tami Pete Laurie Maia Nancy Kelly Pam Mary Jan and all our other friends
www.bettymacdonaldfanclub.blogspot.com/
Take an illustrated day trip through Washington state’s largest city with artist Candace Rose Rardon.
gadventures.com
Linda White yes,if my health allows.I have a few problems but is something I have always wanted to do,especially as I reread her books.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 6:37pm
Linde Lund Dear Linda I'll keep you posted.
Like · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 6:42pm
Bella Dillon · Friends with Darsie Beck
I still read Mrs Piggle Wiggle books to this day. I love her farm on vashon.
Unlike · Reply · 1 · August 1 at 10:32pm
Lila Taylor Good morning...Linde Lund
Unlike · Reply · 1 · 18 hrs
