The following is a conversation with Donald Trump on this The Lex Friedman podcast. And now a quick few second mention to respond sir, check them out in the description. It's the best way to support this podcast. We got ground news for a non-partisan news, aggregator on cord for unifying, your machine learning stack, a silly for naps netsuite, for business and Shopify for e-commerce, Choose Wisely. My friends. Also if you want to get in touch with
Me for a multitude of reasons. Could elect stream it.com contact and now on to the full ad reads, as always, no ads in the middle, I try to make these interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. I enjoy their stuff, maybe you will too. This episode is brought to you by one of my favorite websites. Ground news, a non-partisan news. Aggregator I used to compare media coverage from across the political Spectrum.
The point is to see every side of the story, especially political stories and come to your own conclusion. We've been talking about it on this podcast on many podcasts. Just how biased specific media sources are like most problems in the world. This can be explained by incentives. The funding is drying out for news organizations. So they more and more rely on clickbait journalism.
And clickbait journalism requires extreme polarization. So just like in the Soviet Union, when everyone knew the official sources was propaganda, you have to arrive at the truth by getting a lot of sources and integrating them yourself and understanding where exactly the truth lies because it often lies in the Nuance, in the details, in the middle. Anyway, all that said, it's obvious that this is
The thing that could be solved with a tech solution and that's exactly what ground news is. Every story they provide comes with the breakdown of political bias and reliability of sources and it offers multiple perspectives. It's just a really, really nice website. Oh, and a cool feature, the blind spot feed shows discrepancies in media coverage and the left and the right. So go to ground news.com slash Lex to get 40% off the ground news Advantage plan.
Giving you access to all of their features. That's ground. Gr o UND news.com Lex.
This episode is also brought to you by on cord, a new sponsor. It's a platform that provides data, focused AI, tooling for data annotation curation and management and for model evaluation and a bunch of other stuff. Basically the whole machine learning stack but they do really well is focused on the data side of machine learning which does not often enough. Get the love it deserves many of the things they do, go under the flag of active learning. This is a topic that's always been fascinating to me.
But they just they pull off the whole thing really. Well, I just have to celebrate them for doing a great job, just on the interface, getting The annotation interface easy and natural and efficient is amazing like days. After Sam to The Meta segment, anything model 2 was released they integrated into their tooling so you can run this real-time object segmentation model inside their tool. And this works on both
Images and videos and so provides you in the initial segmentation that you can then. Adjust on top of that. They provide instructions on how you can fine-tune the segment, anything model such that it can perform better based on the annotations. If you provide you also have a bunch of other data management, kind of features for example, indexing, you can unify multimodal data from local and from cloud into one platform. And you can do all kinds of stuff like visualize it,
You can search it, you can do granular curation. I mean, it's just amazing in fact that these folks put together the whole machine learning staggered in one place. I just, I don't know, fills me with joy so thank you to them. And if your person or company that is using machine learning, go try out on cord to curate annotate and manage your AI data at Encore.com, Lex that's on cord.com.
Flex. This episode is also brought to you by a sleep, as pod for Ultra the night. Before I had a conversation with Donald Trump. I didn't sleep in my sleep. I wasn't home. And so I didn't sleep too well, I was going in my head through all the possible. Trajectories that conversation can go but primarily there's a temperature issue because the bed wasn't cold, like, it would be with a sleep. I just can't understand how amazing it is to have a
Cold bed with a warm blanket. It's an Escape From the turmoil of the world. This temporary respite from the chaos from the suffering, that is life.
And I wonder why it is that the world I saw on Ayahuasca is not the world of ever seen in my dreams.
Where was it? That I was able to go with the help of this rocket ship.
That I couldn't go while taking a nap. What is the human mind? Capable of? That's what psychedelics make me think. What are the limits of my mind? The limits of my visualization capability, the limits of my cognition capability, the limits of my Consciousness. I wonder
Anyway, go to hp.com/support, sinews code, Lex to get 350 bucks off the Pod, for Ultra this episode is also brought to you by net sweet and all-in-one Cloud. Business management system is the machine within the machine of capitalism. It helps you manage all the disparate components of a company financials HR, inventory, e-commerce, and so on, I speak to it at the end of this episode in the AMA, all the amazing.
Seeing possibilities, I have in my life to build to create and one of them is indeed running a company. Every time I talk about next week,
I'm pulled back into the start. If for a brief moment sometimes I feel like it is not me that decides where my life goes but some kind of winds of Fortune more and more. I'm starting to realize that I'm less the guy who plans and more the guy who follows his Instinct. But anyway, it does seem that if I get a chance to follow down this path,
It will be difficult but fulfilling one. And if you are walking down that path, join Over. 37,000 companies that have upgraded to netsuite by Oracle take advantage of net sweets, flexible financing Planet, that's three.com. Slash Lux that's in that sweet.com Flex. This episode is brought to you by Shopify a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great looking online store. I even I
I'm selling shirts unless we were not compromised, or I've been wearing this shirt that says, Birds aren't real. If you're not aware to conspiracy theory, that birds aren't real like like the name of the conspiracy theory suggests and that, in fact, the birds we see in the sky are drones used by the government to engage in Mass surveillance of a citizenry. So,
I have actually two birds aren't real shirt and one of them it says, birds are real and really big letters and I wear it around town and I get to start conversations with some interesting people. I think the shirts you wear create opportunities for discovering interesting people. So think of it that way.
Merch as Gateway for conversation. And if you want to sell gateways of conversation or other kinds of products, you can sign up for a one dollar per month. Trial period at Shopify.com, Lex, that's all lowercase, go to Shopify.com, Lex to take your business, to the next level today.
This is alekseevna podcast to support it, please check out our sponsors in the description and now, dear friends, here's Donald Trump.
They getting
smaller smaller again smaller. Right. I think people people do respect you more. When you have a big hammer for
something like school and about 20 guys that you pay a fortune to right. All right.
Okay.
You said that you love winning and you have won a lot in life in real estate in business and TV and politics. So let me start with the mindset. I psychology question, what drives you more the love of winning or the hate of
losing may be equally. Maybe both I don't like losing and I do like winning. I've never thought of it as to which is more of a driving force.
Yes, you've been close with a lot of the greats in sport. You think about Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali. You have people like Michael Jordan who I think hate losing more than anybody so what do you learn from those guys?
Well they do have something different you know the great Champions have something very different like the sports champions and you know you have Champions and other fields but you see it more readily in sports you see it over a weekend or you see it during a game.
And you see that certain people stand out and they keep they keep standing out, but it's there for you. It doesn't take a lifetime to find out that somebody was a winner or a loser. And so the sports thing is very interesting. But you know, I play golf with different people and you have there's a different mindset among Champions. There's really a very different mindset, there's a different. There's a different thought process, you know, talent-wise
Sighs. Sometimes you can't tell the difference in talent but at the end of a weekend
they seem to win
and it's very interesting like as an example, a tiger or Jack Nicklaus, he was a phenomenal winner and he does have a different way about him and tiger has a different way about him and Michael Jordan and there's never one you would think that they would be one way. Arnold Palmer was the nicest guy you'd ever meet.
And then you have some Champions that aren't really nice, they're just focused on doing their job. So you have you know, there's not one type of person but the one thing I would say that everybody seems to have in common is, they're very driven, they're driven like Beyond, they don't seem to give up easily. They don't give up, they don't give up, but they do seem to be, you know, they have a passion that's maybe.
More than people that don't do as
well.
You've said that politics is a dirty
game. Yeah, yes, it is a dirty game. It's certainly true.
So, if it is a game, how do you win at that game?
What do you wonder that gay by getting the word out? And by using sense, you have to have a feeling where it's going. You also have to have a feeling of what's right? You can't necessarily just go, what's popular? You have to do, what's good for a country of you're talking about countries or but you you have to get the word out and
You have to just continuously like for instance, you have a great show, you have a great
podcast, it's very well watched. And I'm sitting here and I do this, a lot of people see it and I
do other things and a lot of people see that and I go traditional also, you have traditional television which is getting a little bit older and maybe less significant. Could be less significant, I don't know, but it's changing a lot the the whole plane of platform
It's
changing a lot. It's changed a lot in the last 23 years, but from a political standpoint, you have to find out what people are doing what they're watching and you have to get it, you have to get on. I just see that these platforms are
starting to dominate the getting very
big numbers. I
did spaces with Ilan and they got numbers
like nobody's ever heard before. So, you know, this is you wouldn't do that on like radio.
No, you wouldn't do that, those numbers, no matter. How good our show, you wouldn't do those numbers on radio, you wouldn't do them on television.
You've been successful in business, you've been successful in politics. What do you think the difference between gaining success between the two, the two different disparate
worlds? Yeah. And it different for different. I have a lot of people that are in business that are successful and they like to go over to politics and then you realize they can't speak.
They choked.
You know, chart to make a speech in front of that. It, let's say you're talking about a big audience, but I get very big audiences. And, you know, for many people, it's virtually impossible to get up and speak for an hour and a half
and
have nobody leave, you know, it's not an easy thing to do and it's an ability, but I have many people that are very, very successful in business would love to do what I did.
And yet they can't pull the trigger. And in many cases, I don't think it would work almost almost for everybody. It's not going to work. It's a very, it's a very tough thing to do, it's a big transition. And now, if you talked about the
people in the business and politics going into business,
likewise that wouldn't generally work out so
well either, it's different
talents, it's different because I have somebody wants to go into politics, so bad, but he's got a little problem. He's got stage fright.
Now he's a total killer but if he gets up into a stage in front of people, he doesn't do well to put it mildly, actually, I mean he does badly, so you have to be able to make hard decisions like you do in business but also be able to Captivate an audience. Look, if you're a politician, you have to be able to speak in front of large. Crowds are a lot of people can't do that. I've seen it. They can't even think about doing it.
And they don't,
there are many people in business right now I could name him but I don't want to embarrass anybody. They've been talking about running for president for 15 years.
And they're very big in business very well known actually and but it takes guts to run like for president. I can tell you, it takes guts to run. It's also a very dangerous profession if you want to know the truth but dangerous in a different sense to but it takes a lot of courage to run for president. It's not easy, but you have and you know, the same people. As I do there are a lot of people that would like to run for president and are very, very successful in
business.
But they don't have the guts to do it and have to give up a lot.
One of the great things about people from the business world is they're often great deal makers and your great deal maker and you've talked about the war in Ukraine and that you would be able to find a deal that both Putin and zalenski would accept. What do you think that deal? Looks like I think the deal and I wouldn't talk about it too much because I think I can make a deal if if I win as president-elect. I'll have a deal made guaranteed.
That's a war that shouldn't have happened is terrible. Look, Biden is the worst president in the history of our country and she's probably worse than him. That's it. That's something that should have never
happened, but it did happen. And now it's a much tougher deal to make than it would have been
before it started. Millions of people, I think the number is going to be a lot higher when you see this
all at some point iron out. I think the numbers are going to be the death numbers are going to be a lot harder than people think.
When you take a look at the destruction and the building's coming down, all over the place in Ukraine. I think those numbers are going to be a lot higher. They lie about the numbers, they try and keep them low. They knock down a building. That's two blocks along. These are big buildings and
they say one person was mildly injured. No, no. A lot of people were killed and don't, there are people in those buildings and they have no chance once they start coming down. There's
no chance. So,
That's a war that
absolutely has to get done and then you have Israel and then you have a lot of other places that are talking War. The world is a rough place right now and a lot of us because of the fact that America has no leadership and I believe that you'll be probably worse than by now watch the interview the other night.
I mean it was just a softball interview.
So you would like to see her do more interviews challenged more, I don't know II, can't believe the whole thing is
happening. We had a man in there that should have never been in there. They kept them in a basement. They use covet they cheated, but they use kova to cheat and they cheated without Cova to, but you had somebody in there and now we have a woman that is not, I mean she couldn't do an interview, this was a really soft interview. This is an
You were they given a multiple choice
questions, multiple guests. I got multiple guests,
and I don't think she did. Well, I think she did very poorly.
How do you think you'll do in the debate coming up? It's in a few days. So, I've done a lot of debating
only as a politician. I never debated. My first debate was the Rosie O'Donnell debate right into famous Rosie. O'Donnell debate the answer, but I've done well with debates and I became president. Then the second time I got
Millions more votes than he got the. First time I was told
if I got 63
million which is what I got the first time you you you
would win, you can't not win, and I got millions of more votes than that and
Lost by a whisker but and look what happened to the world with all of the wars and all of the problems. And look, what happened with inflation because inflation is just
eating up our country, eating it up.
So it's too bad, but
There's a lot of things that could happen. We have to get those were settled. We have to get, I'll tell you. You have to get Ukraine done. You that could end up in a third world war. So could the Middle
East? So could the Middle East? So maybe let's talk about what it takes to negotiate with somebody, like Putin orders or zalenski. Do you think Putin would be willing to give up any of the regions that already
captured? I don't know. I can tell you that this, all of this would have never happened and it would have been very easy because you don't have like,
That question wouldn't be asked, you know, that's a tougher question once that starts happening because he has taken over a lot of church or now I guess they're insurgents now to, right? So, you know, it's a little bit interesting that that's happening and that it can happen and it's interesting that Putin has allowed that to happen. Look, that's one that should have should have never started. We have to get it stopped. Ukraine is being demolished.
Hushed, they're destroying a great culture, that's largely
destroyed. What do you think works better in those kinds of negotiations? Leverage of, let's say friendship, the carrot or the stick friendship, or sort of the threat of using the economic and military power.
So it depends on who the person is and it's everyone's different negotiations, interesting because it depends on who the person is and then you have to guess or no through certain knowledge which
Which is, you know, more important, the character, the stick, and with some people, it's just taken with some people. It's the carrot. I think the the stick probably is generally more successful and that, you know, we're talking about war, but the kind of Destruction that we're witnessing now and nobody's ever seen. I mean, it's a terrible thing and and we're witnessing it all over Whitney. Sing it in.
In all parts of the world and a lot of things are going to get started. Look what's going on with China, look at Japan. They're starting to rearm. Now, this started to rearm because China is getting, you know, taking over certain islands and there's a lot of danger in the war right now in the world. There's a lot of and there's a great possibility of World War 3 and we better get this thing done fast because five months with people like her.
And him. He's checked out. He just goes to the beach and think she looks good in a bathing suit, which he doesn't? He sort of checked a, hey, look, you know, you can't blame him. If that was the coup, they took it over, they took over the presidential deal, the whole presidential thing was taken over in a coup, he had 14 million votes, she had no votes that one
And nobody thought it was going to be her. Nobody wanted to be her. She was a joke until six weeks ago when they said we're going to have to politically. They felt they had to pick her.
And if they didn't pick her, they thought they'd be a problem. I don't know if that's right or not. I actually don't think it's right. But, you know, they thought it was right. And now immediately the Press comes to their
aid. If it can go back to China on negotiation, how do we avoid war with China in the 21st
century? Well, there are ways. Now here's the problem. If I tell you how and I'd love to do it. But if I
I give you a plan. Like I have a very exacting plan. How to stop, Ukraine. And Russia, and I have a certain idea, maybe not a plan, but an idea for China because we do we, you know, we're going to wearing a lot of trouble. They'll be in a lot of trouble too, but we're in a lot of trouble, but I can't give you those plans because if I give you those plans, I'm not going to be able to use them. They'll be very unsuccessful, you know, part of it. Surprise, right? Right. But they won't be able to
help us
much. So you have a plan of what to say to Putin.
Yeah. I know it's office. No, I had a very good relationship with him and had a good relationship with zielinski to but had a very good relationship with Putin.
Tough topic, but important, he said lost by a whisker. I'm an independent. I have a lot of friends who are independent, many of whom like your policies, like the fact that you're a dealmaker like the fact that you
Can and Wars, but they are troubled by what happened to 2020, election and statements about widespread fraud and this kind of stuff fake collector scheme. What can you say to those independent voters to help them decide? Who to vote
for? I think the Freud was our the other side. I think the election was a fraud and many people felt it was that and they wanted answers.
Hours. And when you can challenge an election you have to be able to challenge it. Otherwise it's going to get worse, not better. And there are lots of ways to solve this problem. Go to paper ballots and do it the easy way. I mean the paper ballots and you have voter ID and you have same day voting and you have proof of citizenship which is very important because we have people voting that are not citizens, they just came in and they're loading up.
The payrolls, they're loading up everything to putting students in schools. I don't speak a word of English and they're taking the sheets of people that are citizens of our country. So look, we have the worst Border in the history of the world. We have coming into our country right now. Millions and millions of people at levels that nobody's ever seen. I don't believe any country's ever seen it and they would use Sticks and Stones not
To make it happen, not to let it happen. We don't we don't do anything. And we have a person who was the borders are who now said, she wasn't really the borders up, but she was, she was the borders up, but she was in charge of the border and we have her and she's saying very strongly. Oh, I did such a good job, she was horrible, horrible, the harm, she's done, but we have people coming in from other countries, all over the world. Not just South America and they're coming in from prisons, and
Jails they're coming in from mental institutions, and insane. Asylums.
And their street criminals right off the street they take him and they're being given to our country during drug dealers. Human traffickers were destroying our country. This is a sin. Once been allowed to take place over the last four years, were destroying our country and we'll see how that all works out but it's not even believable. And now you see you saw and Aurora Colorado, a group of very talented.
Young Thug's from Venezuela taking over big areas, including buildings. They're taking over buildings. They have their big rivals, but they're taking over buildings. We're not going to let this happen. We're not going to let them destroy our country. And, you know, when those countries crime is way down there, taking them out of their prisons, which is good, because good for them, I do the same thing. By the way, if I ran one of those countries, any country in the world, I would make sure that
Has every one of our prisoners. Every one of our criminals would be here. I can't believe they're going, so slowly, but some aren't and, but they all are doing it, and we can't let that happen. They're emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions into the United States of America. We can't let that happen.
So, a lot of people believe that there was some shady stuff that went on with the election, whether its media bias or big Tech but still the
The claim of widespread fraud is the thing that bothers
people. Well I don't focus on the past, I focus on the future. I mean I talked about how bad the economy is have been inflation is now bad things like which is important Afghanistan. Was in my opinion the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to our country and because of that, I think Putin went in when he saw how, how stupid we were Putin went in.
But it was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. I really believe that. But you know, we left, we left 13, dead soldiers, think of it, 13 dead soldiers, many soldiers horrific lie hurt with arms and legs and everything else. God we left hostages behind, we left, Americans behind, we left military equipment, the likes of which nobody's ever left behind before.
For billions and billions of dollars of equipment. They're now selling the equipment, they're one of the largest arms dealers in the world and very sad. Very sad. And and, you know, we were there for a long time. I was going to get out. We were getting ready to get out there. We got interrupted by the election, but we would have been out with dignity and strength. We were having very little problem with the Taliban when I was there because they knew
It's going to be tough. I dealt with Abdul, Abdul was the leader and we got along fine. He understood. But, you know, there was shooting, they were killing a lot of our people before I came down. And when I got there, I said, I spoke to him. I said, can't do it. Don't do it anymore. We went 18 months before. This happened. This horrible day happened. We went 18 months and nobody were shot at or killed.
What do you think that was the character this thick in that case?
Yes, and I've got a standard
stick. Definitely is a
threat of military
force. That was just a kid doesn't have to be, but that was this thing.
Well, let me just Linger on the election. A little a little bit more for this selection. It might be a close one. What can we do to avoid the insanity and division of the previous election, whether you win or lose?
Well, I hope it's not a close one. I mean, you know, I don't know how people can vote for somebody that is destroyed our country, the inflation. The
An economy, but but to me in a way, the worst is what they've allowed to happen at our border where they've allowed millions of people to come in here from places that you don't want to know about. And I can't believe that that's going to be a close election. You know, we're leading in the polls but and it looks less, but I think in the end, it's not going to be a close election.
What do you think is the right way to solve the immigration? Crisis is mass deportation. One of the solutions you will think about well you've got
you get the
the criminals out of here, fast, right? You know, the people from mental institutions, you got to get them back into their mental institution. No country can afford this year, it's just too much money. You look at what's happening in New York and Chicago and la. And lots of places and you take a look at what's happening. There's no country can afford this, we can't afford it, and we've got to get the bad ones out, immediately and the rest have to be worked on. You know, it's happened before. Dwight Eisenhower
I was sort of a moderate president moderate type person but he hated when he saw people pouring into the country and they were nothing like now you know, I probably got elected in 2016 because of the Border
And I told people what was happening and they understood it. And I won the election and I won the election. I think, because of the Border our border is
25 times worse right now than it was in 2016.
I had it fixed too. I added the last week of my, the famous chart that I put up was exactly that, you know, the chart? When I look to the right, I said there's the chart being that was not a pleasant experience, but the chart that I put up said and that was done by border patrol. That was the lowest number that we've ever had come into our country in recorded history, and we have to get it back to that again, we will
let me ask about
Project 2025. So you've publicly said that you know, have any direct connection
to nothing. I know nothing about it and they know that Democrats do that. And I purposely haven't read it because I want to say to you I don't I have no idea what it's all about. It's easier than saying I read it and you know, all of the things know, I purposely haven't read it and I've heard about it. I've heard about things that are in there that I don't like and there's some things in there that everybody would like.
But there are things that I don't like at all. And I think it's unfortunate that they put it out, but it doesn't mean anything because there's nothing to do with me project. 25 has it has absolutely nothing to do
with me.
You posted recently about marijuana and that you're okay with it being legalized, but it has to be done. Safely, can you explain your policy there?
Or just put out a paper? And first of all, medical marijuana has been amazing. It's been I've had friends and I've had others and doctors telling me that it's been absolutely amazing. The medical marijuana and we put out
Out a statement that we can live with the marijuana, it's got to be a certain age to be a certain age to buy it. It's got to be done in a very concerted lawful way and the way they're doing it in Florida, I think is going to be actually good. It's going to be a very good but it's got to be done in a good way. It's got to be done in a clean way. You go into some of these places like in New York. It's all. It smells all marijuana. You can't the way you've got
Have a system with his control.
And I think the way they've done it in Florida as very good.
Do you know anything about psychedelics so I'm not a drug guy but everything did Ayahuasca. Yeah and there's a lot of people that speak to sort of the health benefits and the spiritual benefits of these different psychedelics. I think we would probably have a better world if everybody in Congress took some mushrooms perhaps 90 you don't you stay away from all of this.
That's tough.
I know also veterans use it for dealing with PTSD and all that kind of stuff. So it's it's great and it's interesting that you're thinking about being more accepting of some of these drugs which don't just have a recreational purpose, but a medical purpose in treatment purposes. So
we put out a statement. Today, we're going to put it on another one, probably next week. Be more specifically, I think it's pretty specific and we'll, we'll see how that all goes. That's a referendum coming up.
In some states. But it's coming up and we'll see how it does. I will say, it's been very hard to beat it. You take a look at the numbers. It's been very hard to beat it, so I think it'll generally pass, but you want to do it in a safe way.
Speaking of marijuana, let me ask you about my good friend, Joe Rogan. See you had a bit of tension with him, so, when he said, nice things about RFK, jr. I think you've, you've said, some not so nice things about Joe. I think that
I was a bit unfair and as a fan of Joe, I would love to see you do his podcast because he is legit the greatest conversationalist in the world. So what's the story behind when tension? I
don't think there was any tension and I've always liked him, but I don't know. When I've only seen when I walk into the arena with Dana and I shake his hand, I see him there and
I think he's good at what he does, but I don't know about doing his podcast. I mean, I guess I do it but I haven't been asked and I'm not asking them, you know, I'm not asking anybody. It
sounds like a challenging negotiations that, you know, it's just that, it's
not really a negotiation and he's sort of a liberal guy, I guess, you know, from what I understand. But he likes Kennedy. This was before I found this out before, Kennedy came in with us, he's going to be great. He's doing Bobby's going to be great.
But I like that he likes Kennedy. I do to you know, he's a different kind of a guy but he's got some great things going and I think he's going to be Beyond politics. I think he could be quite influential and taking care of some situations that you probably would agree should be taken care
of the Joe Rogan poses an example. I would love to get your psychology about behind the tweets and the post on truth. Are you sometimes being intentionally provocative?
Or you just speaking your mind and are there times where you regret some of the truths you posted?
Yeah, I do. I mean, but not that often, honestly, you know, I do a lot of reposting, the ones you get in trouble. Whether the repost because you find down deep, they're into some group that you're not supposed to be reposting. You don't even know if there's groups are good, bad or indifferent. But the reposts are the ones that really get you in trouble. When you do your own words. It's
Sort of easier but the repost go very quickly. And if you're going to check every single little symbol and I don't know, it's worked out pretty well for me. I tell you, it's
Truth is very powerful truth and it's my platform and it's been very powerful. Very, very powerful goes everywhere. I call my typewriter, you know, that's actually my typewriter. What are you doing? Usually, when you're composing a truth, like a chilling back on a couch, couches beds. Gotta lot of different things. I mean like late at night and just, I'd like to do some letter that, you know, I'm not a huge sleeper and but whenever I do them, you know, pass
Like 3:00, they criticized in the next day. Trump was up true thing. Okay. Trump was true thing at 3:00 in the morning and this should be no problem with it. And then when you think about time zones, how do they know that you're like, you know, in a time zone, like an Eastern zone. So but but every time I do it after like two or three o'clock it's like why is he doing that? But it's gotten
I mean, you know the truth is become a very successful platform and I like doing it and it goes everywhere soon as I do it. It goes everywhere.
The country seems more divided than ever. Yeah. What can you do to help alleviate some of that division?
Well, you can get rid of these two people that terrible, the terrible. You don't want to have them running this country. They're not equipped to run a Joe just Joe
It's a disaster. Okay, and Kamala, I think she'll end up being worse than him. We'll see. I think a lots. Now, you know, the conventions over with and I see I'm leading in just about all the polls. Now they had their little honeymoon period as they call it and we'll see how that all goes who knows for my personal opinion. I think you are at your best when you're talking about a positive vision of the future versus
Criticizing the other side?
Yeah, I think you have to criticize though. I think, I think they're nasty.
They came up with a story that I look down and I called soldiers that died in World War One, suckers and losers. Okay. Now number one, who would say that number two, who would say it's a military people. Nobody was a made-up story is just a made-up story and they like to repeat it over again. They know it was made up. I have 26 witnesses. That nothing was said, they don't want to hear about that.
Like she lied on McDonald's. She said that that you worked at McDonald's. It's not a big lie, but it's a big lie. It's so, you know, I mean they just went and they checked and unless you can show something. They don't talk about. The pressures are going to follow up with it, but I'll keep hammering it, but you never worked at McDonald's. Who was just a few no sort of a cool thing to say, hey, I worked at McDonald's, you know? But one of the worst was two days ago. I went to
Arlington, at the request of people that lost their children. They'll always be children to those people. You understand that that's not politically incorrect. As thing to say, the mother comes up, I lost my child. But, you know, the child is the soldier and lost a child because of Biden. And because of Kamala, as just as though they had a gun in their hand because it was so badly handled, it should have been done at Bagram, which is the big error
Base. It shouldn't have been done at a small little airport right in the middle of town where people stormed it. It was a true disaster.
And they asked me if I'd come and celebrate with them. Three years, three years they've died three years ago and I said I'm going to try got to know them because I brought them here actually one night. They almost all came here and they said, I wonder if Trump will actually come and see us. I heard they were here, I came set. So we stayed for like four hours, listening to music up in a deck, right upstairs? Beautiful.
And they were great people. So they called me over the last couple of weeks and they said we're going to have a reunions or three year and it would you be able to come and it was very hard for me to do it logistically but I said I'll get it done and I got there and we had a beautiful time. I didn't run away I didn't you know I didn't just walk in shake hands and walk in like people do and I wasn't looking at my watch like Joe Biden does
and it was amazing. So I did it for them. I didn't do it for me. I don't need the publicity. I mean, I get more publicity probably than anybody who would know that better than me. But I think maybe more than anybody maybe more than anybody that's ever lived, I don't know. But I don't think anyone could have any more. Every time you turn on television, there's like nine different stories on different topics and they were all about them. As an example, you interview a lot of people good people successful people.
Well, let's see how you do with this interview versus them. Okay, I mean, I can tell you right now you're going to get the highest numbers you've ever had by sometimes a factor of 10. But, but when a gold star,
Family asks me to come in and spend time with them and then they said, sir, we did a ceremony. And then we went down to the graves which was quite a distance away. They said, sir, would you come to the grave? And then they said, when we were there, it's very sad. Actually, because these people shouldn't have died. They shouldn't have died. They died because of Biden. And because of Kamala, they died because it just like if they pulled the
Bigger. Okay. Now I don't know that's controversial to say but I don't think it is Afghanistan was the most incompetently run operation. I think I've ever seen military or otherwise they're incompetent but the families asked me if I'd go I did go then the family said could we have a picture at the tombstone of my son and we did son or daughter? There was a daughter too and I took numerous pictures with the families. I don't know.
Buddy else, it was in the pictures but there were mostly families. I guess that was it. And then I left, I spent a lot of time with him. Then I left and I get home that night and I get a call that the Biden Administration with Kamala is accusing me of using Arlington for publicity. I was in use just the opposite, it's just the opposite. And actually did you see that just came out. The families actually put out a very strong statement defending
Ending me. They said we asked him to be there or politicians and the media can play those games and you write your name gets a lot of use your probably legit, the most famous person in the world.
But on the previous thing in the spirit of unity you used to be a Democrat setting the politicians. Decide, what do you respect most about people who lean left, who are Democrats themselves or of that persuasion progressives liberals and so on.
Well look, I respect the fact that everybody's in there and you know to a certain extent, life is what you do while you're waiting to die. So you might as well do a good job. I think in terms of what's Happening Now, I think, you know, we have a chance to save the country. This country is going down.
And I called it with Venezuela. I called it with a lot of different countries, and this country is going down. If we don't win this election, the election coming up on November 5th, is the most important election this country's ever had. Because if we don't want it, I don't know that, they'll be another election and it's going to be a communist country or close.
And there's a lot of people listening to this myself included, that doesn't think that comma is a communist.
Well, she's a Marxist.
Her father is a Mark says. It's right? And she's at is she a little unusual? Yeah. She's advocating for some policies that are towards the direction of democratic socialism, let's say but there's a lot of people that kind of know the way government works and they say well none of those policies are going to actually come to reality. It's just being used during the
Campaign to, you know, groceries are too expensive, we need them cheaper. So let's talk about price controls and that's never going to come to reality.
It could come to reality. Look. I mean she came out with price control. It's been tried like, 121 different times at different places, over the years and it's never worked. Once it leads to Communism, it leads to socialism, it leads to having no food on the shelves.
And it leads to tremendous inflation.
It's just been idea
whenever we use terms like communism for her and I don't know if you know this but some people call you a
fascist. Yeah they do. So I figured it's all right to call them a communist year. They called me a lot worse that I call
that they do. Indeed. It's just sometimes
interesting though, they'll call me something that shareable and then I'll hit them back and they'll say, isn't it terrible? What Trump said, I said for him and they just call me. So I believe you have to fight fire with fire. I believe they're very evil people.
All these are evil people. You know, we have an enemy from the outside and we have an enemy from within and, in my opinion, the enemy from within a radical left lunatics, and I think you have to fight back.
Whenever there is a lot of fighting fire with fire, it's too easy to forget that there is a middle of America that
Is.
It's moderate and kind of sees the good in both sides and just likes one side more than the other in terms of policies. Like I said, there's a lot of people that like, your policies, like your skill and being able to negotiate an end Wars and they don't see the the impending destruction of America.
You know, we had no Wars when I was President that's the big thing that's in 78 years is that happen? But we had no Wars when I was President we defeated Isis but they were that was a war. That was
Started that we weren't anywhere near defeating, but think of it, I had no Wars and Viktor Orban. The prime minister of Hungary.
Said the world has to have Trump back because everybody was afraid of trump. Now, that's what he said. So I'm not using that term but I think they're respected me. But he said China was afraid. Russia was afraid. Everybody was a friend and I don't care. What were they using it? Probably, that's even a better word if you want to know the truth. But let's use the word respect. They had respect for me. They had respect for the country.
I mean, I ended the Nord stream to pipeline the Russian Pipeline. Nobody else could have done that. I ended it was done, then Biden comes in and he gave it, he approved it
So we're defending German in these other countries for peanuts compared to what it's worth and they're paying the person would defending them against billions and billions of dollars for energy. I said, how does that work? And we had it out with them and it worked out good and they paid me, they paid hundreds of billions of dollars or you wouldn't even have an 80 right now. You wouldn't have NATO if it wasn't for
me,
As the leader of the United States, you were the most powerful man in the world. As you mentioned, not only the most famous, but the most powerful and if you become leader again, you will have unprecedented power. Just on your own personal psychology. What is that power due to does? It? Is there any threat of it corrupting? How you see the
world? No, I don't think so. Look, I've been there for four years. I could have done a big number and Hillary Clinton. I thought it looked terrible to take the
and his wife and put her in prison.
She's so lucky. I didn't do anything. She's so lucky. Hillary is a lucky woman because I had a lot of people pushing me to they wanted to. They wanted to see something, but I had I could have done something very but I thought it looks so bad think of it. You have the president of the United States and you also had secretary of state, right? She was, but you're going to put the president's wife in prison.
And yet when I got out there, you know they have all these hoaxes. They're all hoaxes. But they have all these dishonest Oaks is just like they did in the past with Russia. Russia Russia, it was a hoax, the 51 different, you know, agencies or agents. That was a hoax. The whole thing was a hoax, the whole there was so many hoaxes and scams.
And but I didn't want to put her in jail and I didn't. And I explain this to people, you know, they say, lock her up, lock her up. It doesn't, we won. I said, we don't want to put her in jail. We want to bring the country together. I want to bring the country together. You don't bring the country together, by putting her in jail, but then when I got out, you know, they went to work on me. It's amazing and they suffer from massive Trump do.
Arrangements syndrome TDS and I don't know if they're, it's curable from their standpoint.
A lot of people are very interested in footage of UFOs.
The the Pentagon has released a few videos and there's been anecdotal reports from fighter pilots, so a lot of people want to know, will you help push the Pentagon to release more footage? Which a lot of people claim is available.
Oh, yeah, sure. I'll do that. I would do that. I'd love to do that. I have to do that, but they also pushing me on Kennedy and I did release a lot, but I had people come to me and begged me not to do it.
But I'll be doing that very early on. Yeah, I know, but I would do that.
There's a moment where you had some hesitation about Epstein releasing some of the documents that Epstein. Why? The hesitation,
I don't think I have. I mean, I'm not involved. I never went to his Island. Fortunately, but a lot of people
did, why do you think so many smart? Powerful people allowed him to get so close.
He was a good salesman who's, you know, Hale and Hearty type of guy.
He had some nice assets that had throw around like Islands but a lot of big people went to that Island.
But fortunately, I was not one of them.
It's just very strange for a lot of people that the list of clients that went to the island is not been made
public. Yeah. It's very interesting. Isn't it probably will be by the way.
Awesome. So if you're able to you'll be
glad certainly take a look at it now. Kennedy's, interesting, because there's so many years ago, you know, they do that for danger to because, you know, in dangers, certain people, etc, etc,
So, Kennedy is very different from the Epstein thing. But yeah, I'd be inclined to do the Epstein. Not have no problem with
it. That's great to hear. What gives you strength. When you're getting attacked, you're one of the most attacked people in the world.
I think you, you can't, you can't care that much. I know, people that care so much about everything, like what people are saying, you can't care too much because you end up choking.
One of the tragic things about life is that it ends. How often do you think about your death? Are you afraid of it?
I have a friend who's very very successful and he's in his 80s mid 80s and he has been that exact same question. I said, I turned it around. I said, well what about you? He said, I think about it every minute of every day and then a week later, he called me to tell me something and he starts off the conversation.
Action by going Tick-Tock Tick-Tock. This is just dark. This is a dark person, you know, in a sense, but it is what it is. I mean, you know, if you're religious, you have, I think a better feeling toward, you know, you're supposed to go to heaven, ideally, not hell, which is supposed to go to heaven. If you good, I think our country is missing a lot of religion. I think it really was a much better place with religion. It was some it,
Almost a guide, you know, to a certain he said it was a guide. You want to be good to people without religion. There's no real there. No guardrails. I'd love to see us. Get back to religion, more religion in this country
while mr. President, thank you for putting yourself out there and thank you for talking today.
Look, I love the country, I want to see the country be great and we have a real chance of doing it, but it's our last chance and I appreciate it very much. Thank you. Thank you.
Thanks for listening to this conversation with Donald Trump to support this podcast, please. Check out our sponsors in the description and now as I've started doing here at the end of some episodes, let me make a few comments and answer a few questions if you would like to submit questions including in audio and video form go to, Let's Friedman.com Ama or get in touch with me for whatever other reason at luxury. Mint.com contact, I usually do this in a t-shirt but I figured
Now, for this episode, I'll keep my suit and tie on. So first this might be a good moment to look back a bit. I've been doing this podcast for over six years and I first and foremost have to say thank you. I'm truly grateful for the support and the love of gotten along the way. It's been I would say the most unlikely journey and on most days. I barely feel like I know what I'm doing, but I wanted to talk a bit about how I approach these conversations.
These conversation is its own unique puzzle. So I can't speak generally to how to approach these. But here, it may be useful to describe how I approach conversations with world leaders of which I hope to have many more and do a better job every time I read a lot of history and I admire the historian perspective as an example. I admire William Shire, the author of many books on Hitler, including the rise and fall of the Third Reich. He was there. And
Lived through it and covered it, objectively to the degree. That one could academic historians. By the way, criticize him for being a poor historian because he editorialized a little too much.
I think those same folks criticized and Carlin and his Hardcore History Podcast. I respect their criticism, but I fundamentally disagree. So in these conversations with world leaders, I try to put on my historian hat. I think in the realm of Truth and public discourse, there's a spectrum between the ephemeral and the Eternal, the outrage mob and clickbait. Journalists often focused on the ephemeral, the current thing the
Current viral, shitstorm of mockery and division, but when the battle of the day is done, most of it will be forgotten. A few true ideas will remain and those the historian hopes to capture. Now, this is much easier said than done. It's not just about having the right ideals and the Integrity to stick by them. It's not even just about having the actual skill of talking, which I still think I suck at, but,
Let's say it's a work in progress. You also have to make the scheduling work and set up the entirety of the environment in a way that is conducive to such a conversation. This is hard really hard with political and Business Leaders. They are usually super busy and in some cases super nervous because well they've been screwed over so many times with clickbait, got your journalism. So to convince them and their team to talk for, two, three, four, five hours, it's hard and
And I do think a good conversation requires that kind of duration. And I've been thinking a lot about why I don't think it's just about needing the actual time of three hours to cover all the content.
I think the longer form with a hypothetical skilled, conversationalist, relaxes things and allows people to go on tangents and to Banter about the details. Because I think it's in the details that the beautiful complexity of the person is brought to light.
Anyway, I look forward to talking to more world leaders and doing a better job every time. As I said, I would love to do interviews with Kamala Harris, and some other political figures on the left and right, including Tim walz ALC, Bernie Barack Obama Bill and Hillary and I'm the right JD Vans vivec, George W and so on. And on the topic of politics, let me say as an immigrant, I love this country. The United States of America, I do believe,
It is the greatest nation on Earth and I'm grateful for the people on the left and the right who step into the arena of politics to fight for this country that I do believe. They all love as well. I have reached out to Kamala Harris, but not many of the others are probably should do a better job with that. But I've been doing most of this myself, all the Reach Out, scheduling research, prep recording, and so on. And on top of that, I very much have been suffering from imposter syndrome with the voice in my head constantly.
Pointing out when I'm doing a shitty job. Plus a few folks graciously, remind me on the internet. The the very same sentiment of this aforementioned voice. All of this. While I have the option of just hiding way down, Mighty, programming robots. And doing some cool AI research with a few grad students, or maybe joining an AI company, or maybe starting my own. All these options. Make me truly happy.
But like I said, most days I barely know what I'm doing. So who knows what the future holds. Most importantly, I'm forever grateful for all of you for your patience and your support throughout this roller, coaster of life. I've been on, I love you all.
Okay, now, let me go on to some of the questions that people had. I was asked by a few people to comment on Pavel, durov arrest and on X being banned. In Brazil, let me first briefly comment on the dura of arrest. So basic facts Pavel durov, is CEO of telegram, which is a messenger app that has end and encryption mode. It's not on by default and most people don't use the end-to-end encryption but some do Pablo was
Arrested in France, on a long list of charges related, to quote-unquote, criminal activity, carried out on the telegram platform, and for quote, unquote, providing unlicensed, cryptology Services. I think telegram is indeed used for criminal activity by a small minority of its users. For example, by terrorist groups to communicate and I think we all agree that terrorism is bad, but here's the problem. As the old saying goes one man's terrorist
It is another man's freedom fighter and there are many cases in which the world unilaterally agrees who the terrorists are. But there are other cases, when governments, especially authoritarian, and Klein governments tend to propagandize and just call whoever's in the opposition. Whoever opposes them terrorists, there is some room for nuance here, but to me at this time, it seems to obviously be a power, grab by government wanting to have backdoor access.
Us into every platform so they can have censorship power against the opposition. I think generally government should stay out of censoring or even pressuring social media platforms, and I think a resting, a CEO of a tech company for the things said on the platform, he built is just nuts.
It has a chilling effect on him on people working at Telegram and I'm people working at every social media company and also people thinking of launching a new social media company. Same is the case of X being banned. In Brazil, it's I think a power grab by Alessandro de mirallas, a Supreme Court Justice in Brazil. He ordered X to block certain accounts that are spreading quote-unquote, misinformation, you on, and X, deny the request, then the Mariah.
He has threatened to arrest X representatives in Brazil and in response to that X pulled the representatives out of Brazil, obviously, to protect them. And now ex having no representatives in Brazil, apparently, violates the law based on this. The Mariah's band X in Brazil. Once again, it's an authoritarian figure seeking censorship power over the channels of communication. I understand that this is complicated because there are evil people in the world and part of
Role of government is to protect us from those evil people, but as Benjamin Franklin said, those who can give up essential Liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve. Neither Liberty, nor safety. So it's a trade-off. But I think in many places in the world, many governments have leaned too far away at this time from Liberty. Okay. Next up, I got a question on AI, which I emotionally connected with, I'll condense it as follows.
Hello, Lex. I am a programmer and I have a deep fear of slipping into irrelevance because I am worried that a, I will soon exceed my programming skills. Let me first say that I relate to your fear. It's scary to have a thing that gives you a career and gives you meaning to be taken away for me, programming is a passion. And if not for this podcast, it would probably at least in part be my profession. So I get an
Fertile feeling every time. Claude the LMI use for coding at this time, just writes a lot of excellent. Approximately correct code. I think you can make a good case that it already exceeds. The skill of many programmers at least in the same way that the collective intelligence of stack Overflow exceeds the skill of many programmers. It many individual programmers, but in many ways it still does not.
But I think eventually more and more, the task, the profession of programming will be one of writing natural language problems. I think the right thing to do and what I'm at least doing is to ride the wave of the ever-improving code generating LMS and keep transforming myself into a big picture. Designer versus low level, tinkerer what I'm doing. And what I recommend you do is continually switch to whatever
date of the our tool is for generating code. So for me currently I recently switched from vs code to cursor and before that it was the maxed. Yes, code-switch. So cursor. Is this editor that's based on vs code, that leans heavily on LMS and integrates the cogeneration Really nicely into the editing process. So it makes it super easy to continually use the LMS. So, what I would advise and what I'm trying to do myself is to learn how to use it in to me.
Esther, it's code generation capabilities. I personally tried to now allocate a significant amount of time to designing with natural language, first versus writing code from scratch. So using my understanding of programming to edit the code, that's generated by the llm versus sort of writing from scratch. And then using the llm to generate small parts of the code, I see it as a skill that I should develop and parallel to my programming skill. I think this is
Rise to many other careers to don't compete, with AI for your job, learn to use the AI to do that job better but yes, it is scary and some deep sort of human level, the threat of being replaced. But at least, I think we'll be okay.
All right. Next up I got a very nice audio message and question from a gentleman who is 27 and feeling a lot of anxiety about the future. Just recently he graduated with a bachelor's degree and he's thinking about going to grad school for biomedical engineering, but there is a lot of anxiety. He mentioned anxiety. Many times in the message. It took him an extra while to get his degree. So he mentioned he would be 32 by the time he's done with his Ph.D. So it's a big investment but he
In his heart. He feels like he's a scientist. I think that's the most important part of his message of your message. By the way, I'll figure out how to best include audio and video messages in future episodes. Now, on to the question. So, thank you for telling me your story. And for submitting the question, my own life story similar to yours. I went to Drexel University for my bachelor's Master's and doctoral degrees and
I took a while just as you are doing I did a lot of non-standard things that weren't any good for some hypothetical career. I'm supposed to have. I trained and competed in Judo and Jiu-Jitsu for my entire 20s. Got a black belt from it. I wrote a lot including a lot of really crappy poetry, I read a large amount of non technical books, history philosophy, and literature. I took courses on literature and philosophy that weren't at all.
I've acquired for my computer science and electrical engineering degrees. Like a course on James Joyce. I play guitar and bars around town. I took a lot of technical classes, many, for example, on theoretical computer science. That were way more than we needed for the degree. I did a lot of research and I quote, it up a bunch of projects that didn't directly contribute to my dissertation. It was pure curiosity and the joy of exploring.
So, like you, I took the long way home, I say, and I regret none of it throughout that people around me. And even people who love me, wanted me to hurry up and to focus, especially because I had very little money. And so I had a sense like, time was running out for me to take the needed steps towards a reasonable career and just like you, I was filled with anxiety and I still am
Filled with anxiety to this day. But I think the right thing to do is not to run away from the anxiety, but to lean into it and channel it into pursuing with everything. You got the things you're passionate about. As you said, very importantly in your heart, you know you're a scientist. So that's it, you know exactly what to do. Pursue the desire to be a scientist with everything, you got, get to a good grad school, find a good advisor and do epic shit with them.
And it may turn out in the end that your life will have unexpected chapters. But as long as you're chasing dreams and goals of absolute unwavering dedication, good stuff will come of it and also try your best to be a good person.
This might be a good place to read The Words. If by Rudyard Kipling, that I often return to when I feel lost and I'm looking for guidance on how to be a better man.
If you can keep your head, when all about you are losing theirs, and blaming it on you, if you can trust yourself. When all men doubt, you but make allowance for their doubting too. If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, or being lied about don't deal in lies or being hated, don't give way to hating. And yet, don't look too good. Nor talk too wise if you can dream and not make dreams your master, if you can think and not make thoughts your aim if you can meet with.
Triumph and disaster and treat those two Impostors, just the same. If you can bear to hear the truth, you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools or watch. The things you gave your life to broken and stoop and build em up with worn-out tools. If you can make one heap of all your winnings and risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss and lose and start again at your beginnings and never breathe.
Worried about your loss.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they are gone. And so, hold on, when there is nothing in you except the will, which says to them, hold on. If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue or walk with Kings and lose the common touch. If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, if all men count with you but none too much if you can fill.
In the unforgiving minute, with sixty seconds worth of distance, run
yours is the
Earth and everything that's in it, and which is more. You'll be a man. My son.
Thank you for listening and see you next time.
