FULL TRANSCRIPT: Trump’s Interview at National Faith Summit in Powder Springs, GA

So I was there. Actually, it was a basic. And the whole church got up and the church, by the way, you know, you see some churches aren’t getting big crowds. This church was packed every Sunday when he spoke every Sunday.

And then they had the flow rooms, I guess they called them where you had rooms that had like television set or whatever it was, closed circuit. I think they called it. And you’d sit there and you hoped you didn’t go there. But, you know, reasonably big church. But sometimes and they’d have them all over the place. Suddenly they’d have all these rooms with some pretty good sized rooms. The place was packed all the time.

But I watched him as he got up. And he said that he just said, no, “I can’t do this anymore. Won’t be able to do this.” It was his last sermon. And he always stood to the left of the lectern and he was holding it. And he always held it left to go hold it and walked around a little bit. But he was very comfortable to the left. I remember always it seemed that. But he was holding it with his right hand and just said, “I can’t do this anymore.” And he was — I don’t know if he hit 90, but he was not a young guy, but he was a fascinating person to watch. He was great. He was great.

The other person that I found incredible because my father would take me to Yankee Stadium to see Billy Graham. Right. Billy Graham. And that place would be packed. And he was amazing. And he was — that was another one. And he had a gentleman who would sing “How Great Thou Art.” You know who that is. And he sang it. Jay, that’s right.

DONALD TRUMP: He sang it for years. My father thought it was the greatest. It was. I’d said, “Well, compare this to Elvis’s version later on” to my father. Long later. But, you know, Elvis, this was before Elvis almost. But I said, “Dad, which is better?” He said, “Not Elvis.” And we all like Elvis. Right. But, you know, he was just — he was great. But Billy Graham was great. He had an influence. He had a real influence. And it’s nice to see Franklin Graham doing so well. He’s doing so many things for so many people.

Supporting Religious Charities and Figures

INTERVIEWER: You know, it’s amazing because your faith has played such a role in not in your actions, like when you mentioned Franklin. Many people don’t know that even recently you organized and gave seven million dollars to Samaritan’s Purse for the North Carolina disaster relief.

DONALD TRUMP: And you couldn’t give it to a better person. He’s — it’s amazing. Yeah, we raised a lot of money and we gave a lot of money. I had a friend of mine, Steve Witkoff. He gave him a million dollars or something. They are just a lot of people are very generous. But Franklin does a great job. He’s always whenever I go to because as president, I do it a lot. You’d go to a tornado or you’d go to a hurricane. I mean, I saw a lot of very bad things. The destruction of nature is amazing.

Some of these tornadoes, the big ones I watched and I’d look and it was like cut by a razor blade. The damage on the left was zero and the damage on the right was devastation. It would be like when you fly over it in a helicopter, you’d see a straight line as straight as it could be. But it was literally cut. A tree on the left was in touch. A tree on the right was turned upside down. And sometimes it was 500 yards away. Amazing the power of nature. But whenever I go there, I see Franklin. He’s always there. He’s always the first one. I said, “I’m going to beat you to one of these sites one of these days, Franklin.” And he really means that he’s a — he’s a good person.

A Story About Franklin Graham

I mean, I had one problem with Franklin. Should I tell him the problem?

INTERVIEWER: Sure.

DONALD TRUMP: She’s saying, No, but I was telling I tell stories. We have these big rallies. Last night we had a great rally at Madison Square Garden. And sometimes I’ll use a little bit not hard, not hard foul, but soft foul. We call it soft foul. But, you know, to emphasize something about somebody’s capabilities or whatever I might be talking about. And I got a letter from Franklin and I met him at the airport. It was on a visit that I made to actually to North Carolina at the airport. He was there with his planes and everybody and a lot of people. Boy, he gets such great volunteers. They’re really going.

So anyway, I got a letter a couple of days later and he says, “Mr. President, it’s Franklin Graham. And I just want to tell you, I love what you do. I love what you say. I love your stories. I think they’re great. And keep telling them. But they’d be even better if you wouldn’t use foul language.” And I went, true. I said, “I didn’t know I wasn’t sure I was supposed to be honored or not.” And — but he said the foul language. So I thought about it and I said, “I’m going to try.” And I did try.

And I’m not sure — I’m not sure I make the emphasis quite as good. I’ve been pretty good about it, but I’m not sure. Every once in a while you need a little bit of something, a little spice, a little spice to juice them up a little bit. But I got that letter and I sort of laughed. I said, “I’m not sure you’re right about this, Franklin, but I’m going to give it a shot.” But he’s done — he’s done a fantastic job.

But so many of the people I know here that we just met backstage, I mean, they have been so incredible to us. And we’ve had about the White House, a lot of the pastors and respected people. I recognize a lot of them just originally by just seeing them on television for so many years. Right. Including you.

INTERVIEWER: I can say people don’t realize that, that we met. Literally, you were watching television and called me out of the blue. And I’ll never forget. You said you’ve got the it factor. And I said, “Oh, sir, we call that the anointing.” And that was our hello. And from the Swaggart families here, from Reverend Jimmy Swaggart to so many other great people that you’ve watched —

DONALD TRUMP: Is Jimmy Swaggart here?

INTERVIEWER: He couldn’t make it. But the whole family is over here.

DONALD TRUMP: I love it. Where is Jim? I love Jimmy here. I don’t even know if he likes me, but I think he does. But I love. Where is Donny? Donny, we’ve got to see Donny.

INTERVIEWER: And, you know, they literally have one of the biggest network.

DONALD TRUMP: Hi, Don. Wow. Well, say hello. How’s he doing? OK. That guy is a talented guy. So are you, by the way. Good job. Good job. Say hello to him.

Trump’s Faith and the Assassination Attempt

INTERVIEWER: And I think so many people don’t know this side. So we’ve taken a little bit of time because I have had the up close and personal seat in your life to see God in your life. And we’ll talk about faith offices and economy and immigration and everything in just a moment. But, you know, the media attacks you relentlessly and you’ve been under welfare and the absolute worst. I’ll never forget Ralph Reed and Joanne where we were at the Journey concert, my kids. And somebody said the president’s been shot.

And I froze like so many people started crying and started praying. And but when you rose up with fight, fight, fight. I think — I think so many see —

DONALD TRUMP: This means she likes me because she’s got tears. If she didn’t have tears now, she does. She really does. She’s a great, great person. Go ahead.

INTERVIEWER: Yes, sir. It was — it was very difficult for so many of us that do dearly love you and not only respect you as president and what you’ve done, but love you as a man. And we understand that. And I think the world got to see in one of the worst situations that you knew and know that that wasn’t luck, that that was God, because he has a purpose in your life.

So share just a tiny bit about thought in your life now and what — because we all have these journeys of faith. We have ups, we have downs, we fall, we get back up, you know, but you’ve consistently had this deep respect and honor of God in your life. And that day, I think, showed the world when you knew that God saved you for a purpose.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, thank you very much. You know, that was quite a day, but we had a tremendous crowd in Butler, Pennsylvania. And, you know, it was an amazing set of circumstances. And, you know, my two sons are shooters. They — they’re very good, very high quality. They’d be like a scratch golfer or better. I mean, they’re both very good. They know everything about guns and they learned it from their grandfather. They spent time in Europe back and forth during summers and all. And they’re very good.

But they understood. They know exactly what the weapon was that they used, that this person used. And it was 130 yards away. And when Don called me first, he said, you know, somebody was protecting you up there because it’s almost impossible for even a bad shot to miss you from that distance. Now, he didn’t miss me. Probably an eighth of an inch is the difference. And it all happened to be because I was looking there to the side on a chart on illegal immigration. Can you believe it?

That famous chart, that now famous chart. But I never do it. It’s very interesting because if you look at the circumstances, I never do it. I never use that chart at the beginning. And it’s always on the left. I never do it at the right. And I only use it maybe 15 or 20 percent of the time. I don’t use it for every speech. And, you know, I go off teleprompter a lot, which is, I think, better. But it’s nice to have a president that can go off teleprompter. Right. We don’t seem to be having that. We don’t seem to be having that much anymore.

But anyway, so I was talking about something and I just said, you know, pull down that chart. If you would. I turned to the right very quickly. And I knew something was really — something was real bad. And I went down, I think I was screaming, probably go down. Because, you know, I don’t think I would have been that if you see the thing which you’ve only seen about 10,000 times. It’s probably the most played clip ever. But if you see it, I mean, the move down was pretty fast. And I think I was probably listening to different people, including Secret Service, to get down. But, you know, I got hit. I got hit and, you know, hit hard. And but it was an eighth of an inch. And I was down there.

The Surreal Experience

And some things are surreal. I was asked a question the other day by a big journalist. What was it like when you won the presidency? And in fact, it was Joe Rogan that asked me this question. I was very good. Good question. I thought it was a good and, you know, I talked about it was sort of surreal because all of a sudden I’m riding down to the White House and I’m passing a building that I just built, a hotel, Pennsylvania Avenue. Beautiful. And I sold it to Waldorf. It’s a Waldorf Astoria now. It’s nice. And it was very successful.

And then we go down a little further and we’re at the White House. And then all of a sudden I’m standing by the Lincoln bedroom. I said, you know, that was such a surreal experience. But when I was shot in front of, you know, massive numbers of people, tremendous numbers, you couldn’t even see the end. And I was down there. I was absolutely — I fully understood what had happened. I was shot in the ear and the Secret Service thought I was shot elsewhere. They thought I was shot much more than once. And I guess eight bullets were shot. And the Secret Service person shot one also helped.

But as I understand it, probably by the local police who shot one also hit the rifle and Secret Service guy hit the target. But both of them, you know, played a very big role. Otherwise, you would have had a much because he had a lot of ammunition. This guy, a lot of people. And it was wall to wall people. It would be like, you know, taking everybody going back as far as you can. It was as as dense as it is right in this room right now. So it could only have people.

But I knew exactly where it was. So I knew it was my ear. They said, no, I said, no, it’s my ear. I got like seven or eight guys sitting on top of me. They were heavy. They were very heavy people. And anyway, but but and by the way, they were very brave because, you know, they were jumping. They jumped on top of me and the bullets were flying right over their head. They were very — Secret Service was very brave. They were very brave. And, you know, they really were. It was incredible. I heard the bullets. You know, I didn’t know if you hear those those things are moving and you hear them as clear as you can, as clear as I hear you.

Miraculous Timing and Circumstances

So anyway, but what I did — what I did see is when you’re in that position, you have like this feeling that usually a lot of times you wouldn’t really understand. I had total. But when Don called me up, he said, “Dad, you know what? For one hundred and thirty yards to me, it sounded pretty far away. But for a shooter, one hundred and thirty yards is like nothing.” And he said, “It’s a miracle that this — that’s when I first realized it’s a miracle that that bullet just hit your ear. It’s a miracle.” But if I didn’t turn.

So all of these circumstances, if I didn’t turn at that exact angle because he was right, exactly 90 degrees, he was exactly there. If I didn’t turn, if I turned halfway, no good. If I turned a little bit past that, no good. It had to be that exact angle. And I was going further. But this was the angle. And this was when the bullet came in, because a hundredth of a second later, I would have been turned too far because I was going further. Another 25 percent because the chart was back here.

So I was doing that and it went by. And he said that, you know, “God has to have done this because it’s impossible.” Think of all the circumstances when you think and think of all the circumstances you’re turning. That’s a big luck right there. Right. Big something. Something happened that you’d be just in that position. And it was only an eighth of an inch off. Right. So it’s it’s like I mean, it’s incredible. But also, as I said, I’m never right. I’m always left. It’s always at the end. It’s never — I’d never take it up at the beginning. This was almost the first sentence of what I was talking about right at the beginning. First paragraph, at least. And it was — so it was very early. So there was so many different things.

Confirmation from Doctors

And I remember Don and then it was confirmed by Eric. Eric said, “I can’t believe it.” And when I got to the hospital, the doctor, the doctors, everything was great. Unbelievable. But it was — the ear bleeds a lot. Just in case you don’t want to find out about it. But the ear bleeds a lot. The doctor said, like the most in the body has to do with cartilage. I don’t know. But then there was a lot. And I said, “Why does it?” He said, “Let me tell you, before I tell you that, I suggest you go and buy a lottery ticket.” The doctor told me that I’m sitting and I said, “Why?” He said, “You are the luckiest guy. I’ve been doing this for twenty five years. That I’m even talking to you is a miracle or that I’m talking to you is a miracle.” Right. So somewhere, all of us, we had a little help up there.

Winning the Election and God’s Will

And I would like to think and I don’t know this at all, but I would like to think that it’s because he wants our country and maybe the world to be helped, wants our country to be helped. God wants our country to be helped. It would be really. It would be a really nice thing to say that. But now we have to win an election, too. So I hope we — number one, we win the election. And I think we’re doing very well in the election, by the way. But I hope we win the election and we have to get all the Christians to get out there and vote because, you know, I shouldn’t scold anyone. But Christians aren’t known for being very solid voters.

INTERVIEWER: You know, show of hands, how many of you have done early voting already? Yeah. And so that’s you’re showing us we are going out by the droves and who is going to vote?

DONALD TRUMP: Okay, more a little bit more. That’s good because we’re leading in all the early votes and that’s unusual. Usually the Republicans aren’t leading in early votes. They usually, in fact, oftentimes very far behind. We would be 20 points behind. Sounds like impossible. But then you’d win because they’d come out on, you know, a Tuesday and everybody would come out on Tuesday. But we really we really have a good note. But we’re leading and that’s very unusual to be leading almost. It’s not done.

I don’t know what this is. The Democrats always vote early and the Republicans always vote late. The Republicans want to see the vote go into the hopper. The old days, it was a hopper. Today, it’s a machine, which is but they want to see that, they want to see the vote go into into the machine. And so it’s great. We have a lot of people. I was at Penn State the other night. I said, “Who voted?” And they raised their hand. About 15 percent raised their hand. And the beauty of that is that that means that all those other people.

Then I said, “Who is going to vote?” And the whole room practically raised. I said, “I like that because we already have those votes and we’re leading with just a small.” So we have a chance to do unbelievable things. So I hope everybody goes out and votes.

Faith Initiatives and Accomplishments

INTERVIEWER: President Trump, we recognize and believe, too, that God has saved you for a purpose. And that there is a country to save. And as you said, a world. And in your first term, you created the Faith Initiative and Opportunity Faith Office. We fought for pro-life Supreme Court justices, religious liberty, prison reform, second chance. Alice Johnson, John Ponder are here. So many different people are here. We had 10,000 faith leaders.

DONALD TRUMP: Is Alice Johnson here?

INTERVIEWER: She’s here.

DONALD TRUMP: Alice, you have a big. Alice, I love Alice. Oh, wow. Hi. Is it going well? She’s a great woman. You know what she would I — should I tell just a second of your story because she was put in prison for being on a phone because she wasn’t making that she was on a call and it had to do with things that pretty much are almost legal today. And she was on a phone call having to do with drugs. She was having a hard time. And they gave her like 50 years in jail. And a group of people came over and they made me aware of it. And I said, “That sounds very unfair.” And she had already served as a 22 or 23 years, Alice, or something like 23. I mean, think of it. She had like 28 years left.

And first I gave her a commute and then I gave her a full pardon and I called her in. So good to see you. I called her in and she came to the White — the Oval Office. I said, “So how many people are” because she’s a great woman. She’s a really good woman to a good person. And I said, “How many people are like you in jail?” She said “A lot.” I said, “Everybody,” because I was testing her, because I know some some deserve to be there. Right. Alice, if you would have said everybody, I wouldn’t have probably listened. She said, “No, no, by no means. Some are very bad people, you know, rough people.” But she said “Some are great.” I said, “Can you give me a list?” And she gave me a list of a lot of good people that are right. I hear they’re doing really well, too. So we we got them out of jail, too. Great to see you. Thank you. Thank you, Alice. We love Alice.

Plans for Faith Office in Second Term

INTERVIEWER: And there’s so many things to accomplish and people want to know what. When you win, as things come forth, what happens for you in the second term for faith office, what your administration looks like.

DONALD TRUMP: So, well, first of all, we’re going to set that up and we’ll be talking to you and all of the people that we just met and anybody else that you think is appropriate. But it’s important and it’ll be directly into the Oval Office and me. So we’ll do that. Now, we have to save religion in this country. I mean, honestly, religion is under threat in this country, serious threat. And we can’t let that happen because I really believe it’s sort of the fabric of our country. It’s the thing that holds our country together. And we can’t — we can’t lose it. And we’re not going to lose it. We’re not going to lose it.

INTERVIEWER: President, I know your time is limited because we’re all going to go to the rally tonight. You’ve got a special invitation to go to the rally, guys. But we want to ask you a few more questions. And we’ve got Gary Bauer here, because if you just heard what President said, that faith office will be in the Oval Office in the White House and directly reported to him, because that to him is one of the most important things to people, is that we remain very strong in all of our faith. And we are so grateful for that, for you being a protector and a fighter for religion and faith and our freedom to protect. Gary? Amen.

Question from Gary Bauer

GARY BAUER: Mr. President, right here in the front, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Hello.

GARY BAUER: Yes, sir. Great to see you again. Great to see you again, particularly after last night when you turned Madison Square Garden into MAGA Square Garden. I thought that was fantastic. Yeah, sir. Everybody in this room, millions of people like them all over the country are already voting for you. They’re going to vote for you eight days from now. And the main reason is they love you, of course. But the main reason is simply gratitude. The things you already did in your first term. It’s a Christian virtue to be grateful when somebody does something for you. So you deserve the vote of every Christian in America.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, Gary.

GARY BAUER: My question is about your second term, because one of the big issues right now that this loser of an administration is inflicting on us is they’ve taken the entire power of the federal government, the Justice Department, the Department of Education, and they’re trying to smash young women by making them compete against men in athletics. And so these women are getting physically hurt. Not only that, but they have to tolerate going into a locker room or a shower or a bathroom with biological men. So they’re losing their places of privacy.

She also wants, as you know, Kamala Harris, to give surgeries to prisoners in our federal prison system and illegal aliens to change their gender and use taxpayer money. Sir, you’ve raised this dramatically and consistently when a lot of Republicans won’t talk about these issues. What do you plan to do on this in your second term? And when we see you after Inauguration Day.

DONALD TRUMP: So and you know, it’s almost and Gary knows this better than anybody. It’s almost amazing that we even have to have a question like that, isn’t it? Because who would think that men should be playing in women’s sports? If you would have gone back, let’s say, Gary, 10 years ago, I think, but 15 years ago, the concept of men playing in women’s sports that would say what kind of a question is that? That doesn’t happen, does it?

The concept of surgeries, they call it transitioning, transitioning into from a male into a female or whatever. It’s — it’s so incredible that we’re talking. And I like to say that we’re the party of common sense, because to a certain extent, whether you’re conservative or not conservative, it’s like we’re the party of common sense. I’ll give you another example. Who would want open borders where prisoners from all over the world are allowed to come into our country, where criminals are bused into our country and we accept them? were murderers. Thirteen thousand and ninety nine, to be exact, over the last three years are allowed to come into our country. That’s what we’re doing. It’s crazy. They’re destroying our country. But it’s going to end on day one. Gary, we’re not going to put up with it. All right. Day one.

Question from Kelly Shackelford

INTERVIEWER: I know we only have a few moments, but Kelly Shackelford is here and has a question for you as well. A first liberty.

KELLY SHACKELFORD: Mr. President. First, I just start with eight years ago. I asked you the question about judges and you promised conservative judges. Thank you for fulfilling your promise. The concern I want to ask about is as a religious liberty group, I mean, all this weaponization of the government we’ve been seeing against religious freedom. You mentioned the FBI investigation of Catholics. We’ve got all these. We had the Navy SEALs case where they were trying to throw all these people out of the military because of their religious beliefs on the vaccine mandate. I just wonder if you have any plans to turn this around if you get it when you get an office and to be able to do something to change things in the way they’ve been going.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, the mandate was a terrible thing. And a lot of good people were hurt very badly by, you know, they just stuck to their guns and that’s it. And they ended up getting thrown out of a lot of different things, even beyond the military. They were thrown out of jobs and everything else that was horribly handled by Biden and by some other people. But as far as overall, we have just plans to do it right. We’re going to do it right.

And again, that’s the same kind of a thing. We can’t hurt people and we have to use sense. We have to use common sense. We have to use judgment, good judgment. We lost so many great people in the military. And, you know, they have a hard time getting people in the military. We lost so many great people because of the vaccine. If you want the vaccine or if you don’t want the vaccine, but you can’t be forced to take it. And if you don’t take it, you’re going to lose. You’re going to lose your job. And we lost a lot of people. So, you know, we’re talking already about that, where they come back and they get their full back pay, et cetera, et cetera. So we’re talking about that. Thank you.

Decision to Move Embassy to Jerusalem

INTERVIEWER: President, let’s talk about Israel. You made promises. I always say promises made, promises kept. And Israel was a big one. Five presidents had campaigned on that as candidates, but did not follow through. There were so many other things you did from, of course, Iran and basically defunding them and bankrupting them to UNESCO, to UNRWA, to the Taylor Forest Act, to recognizing the Golan Heights, to sovereignty in Israel, the sovereign right to stand for themselves. How about the embassy? Because that’s such a story where everyone puts you under pressure. What happened and how did you make that decision?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think I’ve been better to Israel than — think I have been better at Israel than any other president by far. Thank you very much, everybody. As Paula mentioned, we did Golan Heights. We did the Abraham Accords, a big deal. That was incredible. Nobody thought that was possible. And if we were there, you would have had that filled in, maybe even with Iran, because Iran was broke. They had no money. We had sanctions on them. I told China, “If you buy one barrel of oil, you can’t do business in the United States anymore.” They said, “We’ll pass.”

And I said that to a lot. And all I wanted was Iran can’t have a nuclear weapon. I just wanted that’s all I wanted. Very simple. You can’t have a nuclear weapon. And, you know, we are closer to a World War Three right now than we’ve ever been between Russia and Ukraine. And the Middle East is all exploding and going crazy. We are really very close and we don’t have competent people running our government. They’re incompetent people. And it’s a you know, it’s a very dangerous thing.

But Paul is alluding to because I told her the story one time when. When I was campaigning, I said that we’ll make Jerusalem the capital of Israel. And a lot of — a big part of that is you’re going to move the embassy when you move the embassy. I guess it’s semi-automatic. Right. And so I was going to do that and I was all set to do it. And I was being called, I guess, six or seven presidents. And it was promised without question. But then they never did it. And I never understood why. But I do now because when I got to office, I was inundated with calls from very important countries and unimportant countries. Everybody was calling me. “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. It’ll be bloodshed in the streets. Don’t do it. It won’t be good. Don’t do it” anyway. But I was going to do it. And I promised I was going to do it. And I felt there wouldn’t be bloodshed. I was right about that, by the way. But they said there’d be bloodshed. It was every bad thing.

So I started getting a lot of calls because people were hearing that I was going to do it. And I don’t want to say but who, but you can imagine from the biggest countries, from the most powerful countries. I was getting calls from and specific countries, too, and would like to speak to the president. Would it be possible? And they said it was about Jerusalem and the capital becoming the capital of Israel. And that means, you know, they were going to try and talk me out of it. So this was on a Thursday. And I said, “Would you tell them I’m going to call them back on Monday?” So good.

Then on Friday or whatever day it was, I announced that I was doing it. I think. And I did it. I got it done. And then on Monday, I called everybody back. “Hi, what’s up? What do you want to talk about?” And they said, “Oh, that’s that’s we wanted to talk.” But by that time, it was already — it was already I mean, it was out there and there was no you know, I was told that the whole world was going to explode if you did that. And it didn’t happen. It didn’t happen. And importantly, I got the — I got it built.

Once we were there, General walked in. “Sir, would you please sign the following papers?” I said, “What’s that for?” “Two billion dollars to build an embassy.” I said, “Two billion. Are you two billion? This is the United States. That’s why Elon Musk is going to do a good job cutting costs.” He was great last night, but I said to David Friedman, the ambassador, a very good guy. I said, “David, is there anything we can buy there that’s like we can renovate and fix up and have an embassy fast?” Because you know that if you’re going to have an embassy, they wouldn’t have the embassy built for 25 years and would cost a fortune. And they wanted to buy this site, which was not a great site, but it was a tremendous amount of money.

So he calls me up the next day, says, “We have a great site. You know, we’ve been there a long time. We have a great site and there’s a building on it. You’d have to be renovated and we can renovate it.” And the bottom line is it was a much better site. We owned it already. We didn’t have to spend any money. And I spent almost nothing. And we got it built in about four months. We renovated the building for less than a million dollars. Think of it. So we saved two billion and just a little cute story.

That friend of mine is in New York, a very rich guy, a very big Wall Street guy. And he’s got Jerusalem stone on facing the elevators in a big building in New York. Very prestigious building. He’s got Jerusalem stone. And every time I walk in, he said, this is – he’s Jewish. He’s so proud of the Jerusalem stone. He said, “Donald, this is” before I was president. I don’t know if I’ve been up there since, but he’d always say, “Look at this. It’s Jerusalem stone.” After about 10 times, I said, “You don’t have to tell me it’s Jerusalem stone.”

So anyway, so now I’m in Jerusalem and I have to renovate a building and I want to do it quickly so I get the embassy open and we have it and it’s done. And that way, it’s sort of more permanent. You know, it’s not where they can change it and go back. So the contractors are all there. Everybody’s around. They say, “Can you use Jerusalem stone?” And is it very expensive? They said, “No, it’s cheap as hell. It’s the cheapest thing. We have a lot of it. It’s all over the place.” So we did the whole building in Jerusalem stone. And it’s gorgeous. You know, it’s beautiful. No, it is such an expensive stone, but it wasn’t expensive for me. So anyway, we did a good job. We got it built. We not only named it, we got it built. And it’s a beautiful embassy. There’s no reason for them to do another one.

Advice on Raising Children

INTERVIEWER: President, there’s so much we’d love to talk about economy, immigration, and you can talk about as much as you want. But the one thing I want to definitely leave us with, I’ve had this front row seat of watching you as a father and a grandfather. I love when Eric would tell this story. He’d be five years old and you’d line him up to go to school. You’d say no drugs, no alcohol and no smoking. And Eric’s like, but I’m five years old. And your children are some of the greatest people and your grandchildren on this planet.

And we know the importance of family and leaving a legacy. Many of us are fighting because we’re moms, we’re dads, we’re grandparents, and we’ve had good lives. But we want to make sure that our children and our grandchildren have an inheritance and have the same freedoms we have. Talk about your family and how that works and plays out in your policy.

DONALD TRUMP: So a lot of people ask me about, you know, raising their children. They have children. And I’ve known a lot of families, you know, very smart families, very substantial families. It doesn’t matter whether you’re not. But some of these people are very smart and very, very rich. And their children were very smart, but their children never had a chance because they started drinking at an early age or they were on drugs. And I add cigarettes because I just added cigarettes. It’s not a good thing to be doing. It’s been proven as bad. So I might as well add it. It’s only about a second extra. You’d say no cigarettes. What is that, a second or a second and a half? Right. No, sir.

But it’s alcohol. Now, in those days, it was — I had a brother who was a great guy, handsome, the best guy, best personality. But he had an alcohol problem and he would always tell me, “No drinking.” He was a strong guy, “No drinking. You can’t drink. No drinking.” Because there were no real drugs. I don’t think there were drugs at that time. I was a long time ago. And it’s a no drinking under any circumstance because he had a problem and he knew it was a problem. It’s a hard problem to cure. Some people in the room have that problem. A lot of people have that problem. But it’s a hard problem to get rid of.

And he’d always say it to me. And I’ve never had a glass of alcohol. I would never have. I never had a glass. Literally. So because of him. And if I did, I’m the personality type that maybe I’d have a big problem. I don’t know. I mean, I think I probably possibly would. I’d have three, four or five. Bring them in. Keep going.

So I never had. And, you know, the great thing about that is I have friends. I had a friend at the Wharton School of Finance and he hated the taste of scotch. Hated it. I remember it so vividly. And we’d go out and order scotch, even though he hated it. No, he said, “You got to get used to it,” because when you’re out in business, because he wanted to be a businessman, when you’re out in business, you’ve got to be able to socialize. And scotch is the hot thing and all that. And he became a tremendous alcoholic. I’ve been sad.

And I remember when he first started. I remember at the first time he ever had a drink. Very smart guy. He had a drink and he hated it. “Oh, this is terrible.” And but he got to like it. And the one thing about it, I mean, I can speak to somebody who’s never had a drink. I mean, literally, I maybe over the course of a life, maybe a few zips, like just a zip of of something that’s nothing, but never had a drink, never had a glass of of alcohol. And as somebody that has it or that never smoked, there’s no longing to smoke. There’s no longing to drink. There’s no longing for drugs. There’s no longing for any of that stuff. And that’s that’s for sure.

But I know people that that they drink. They you know, they’re always boy, it’s a very hard thing. Even 10 years later, it’s sort of a hard thing. And I always say to people, because it’s a very competitive world. And these guys, I would ask me oftentimes to be successful. What do I do? And by that time, it was too late because the kid was hooked on alcohol. Hooked on drugs. So they probably drugs maybe is more prevalent than alcohol, but they’re both a disaster.

But I tell him, I say, and I used to tell like Ivanka, “Ivanka, no drugs, no alcohol, no cigarettes.” And I’d say it all the time. She go, “Dad, leave me alone. Oh, you’re such a pain in the ass, Dad.” Is that terrible to speak to? But she meant it with love. She meant it with love. But I drive them. I drive them. I would really say it a lot, too, because I’ve watched really smart kids, brilliant kids get absolutely brought down. They never had a chance. They never had a chance because they got hooked. And you’ll never get hooked if you never try it, if you never do it. So I don’t know. To me, it’s stardom young.

Final Remarks

INTERVIEWER: And President, I know if you want to take a moment, you can and just say final words to everyone. And then we’re going to pray over you. And Danny Gokey is going to come up and sing an amazing song that I think is going to touch all of us. And that will be our conclusion. But go ahead and take the liberty to share with what you want to share.

DONALD TRUMP: First of all, I don’t even know if you know how important you are, because I’m talking to a lot of religious leaders, pastors, ministers and others. I think it’s just an incredible job that you do. And sometimes you’re not appreciated by the fake news media. Sometimes you’re scorned by the fake news media. But I just want to let you know that the people think you’re so important. I got rid of the Johnson amendment and I fought that very hard during my entire term because I you know, they didn’t want you to speak to people.

And if you did, they’d take away your tax exempt status. And I said, “But these are the people that me and others want to hear from. And you’re not letting them speak. What’s that all about?” And we’re going to try and get rid of it permanently the next time. That’s one of the things we want to do. We got rid of it during my term, but I’m going to put it in. And it’s amazing that people would fight me on that. But they do. You have people that are against us very much so in politics and in our country. And sometimes I think maybe they hate our country. But you are so important. You do such an incredible job and you keep the country together. And the more powerful you become, the better the country is going to be. So I’m just with you all the way. Thank you.

Closing Prayer

INTERVIEWER: We like President Trump. Know how much we appreciate him and thank him. And I’m going to ask for those of you who’ve been called on to come up and pray. We’re going to go right over here, President. We’ll just stand here and thank you for standing. We’re just so grateful for all of you. Why don’t you just grab the person’s hand next to you and we’re going to pray together as we come and just lay hands on President Trump.

We believe that God not only hears our prayers, but he answers it. And I think it’s amazing. We started in May. These groups, small groups in May of 2011, it started as a prayer group. And I tell you came to me and you said, you know, I don’t like the way the country’s going. And you said, “I’m thinking about running for president.” You said, “What do you think?” And I told you what I thought. And you said to me, “What does God say?” And when you said that to me, I took that so serious. I called up many of the people who are standing behind you right now.

Danny Gokey, American Idol winner, man of God and of faith. My America. Amen. Amen. I’m going to ask you to stretch your hands to the president. And Jimmy, I know you’ll I think have your jackets and a start leading in prayer. And we will go from there and have just a few people lay hands on the president. Thank you. How many of you just had an amazing time today with the president? Thank you.

JIMMY: I think it would be good. I think it would be good if you all stretched out a hand towards President Trump and unite our hearts together for him. We thank you, oh, God. And we come to you in the name of Jesus, who is Lord Christ, our king. We thank you that in your presence there is fullness of joy and it’s your right hand pleasures forevermore. And we thank you for our country. We love you, Jesus. And we also love our country. And we thank you that you have raised up a man, Donald J. Trump, to be a warrior for the word of God and the wisdom that comes from God. Thank you for protecting him, for keeping your hand of blessing upon him. And we pray as you raise him up once again to be our president, that you would give him strength and wisdom and joy in the journey.

PASTOR: Father God, right now, as I pray over President Trump, I thank you that you secure his life, his calling, his purpose, that no weapon formed against him will be able to prosper and a thousand will fall to his side and ten thousand in his right hand. But it will not come nigh him. We secure his family, his children, his calling and everything that pertains to what you have called him to carry out. And I ask for divine visitation that you would continue to give him your wisdom, according to James 1:5, that you would give him the mind of Christ, according to Philippians 2:5, that you said in Psalm 33, that blessed is the nation whose Lord is God. And we just thank you for our fighter of faith and for freedom and for religion, God, and most of all, for our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And we give you all the praise and all the glory.

PASTOR TRAVIS: Last night, you mentioned that the other team are vessels. But I want you to know, and we want you to know, we believe you’re a vessel. You’re a chosen vessel. That’s a Bible verse in the book of Acts that said Paul was a chosen vessel. And we’re praying for God’s blessing on your life. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine on you. May the Lord be gracious unto you. May he lift up his countenance, his favor upon you, and give you peace and blessing and bless this nation. And we pray it all in your name, Lord Jesus. Amen.

INTERVIEWER: Well, President Trump, we want to say thank you so much. We love you. We value you. We’re praying for you. But I’m telling you guys, we’ve had a lot of praise and worship and a lot of great speakers and a lot of great information and we’re activated. Now it just would not be a President Trump meeting without going out with a little bit of a dance. So here we go. Get your dance on. YMCA.

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