On declassifying documents and the Russia probe

Hill TV: Have you reviewed the memos yourself? What do you expect them to show, if so?

President Trump: I have not reviewed them. I have been asked by many people in Congress as you know to release them. I have watched commentators that I respect begging the president of the United States to release them. We’re sitting with one right here, we’re sitting with two, you’re right. More than once. And I have had many people ask me to release them. Not that I didn’t like the idea, but I wanted to wait. I wanted to see what, you know, where it was all going. And I think this whole, it’s a hoax. You know Gregg Jarrett wrote a book called the Russian Hoax. It actually is a hoax. I call it a witch hunt, but it’s a hoax. Beyond a witch hunt.

On FBI employees Peter Strzok and Lisa Page

President Trump: When you see the two lovers and you see their most recent texts come out. It is very, very sad for our country to look at that. When you see him talking about the leaks and then say, ‘No we were trying to stop leaks in the FBI,’ OK. That didn’t work out because the following day others came out. But when you see the one about ‘We have to get this while Andy is still there.’

In other words, Comey was a bad guy. He gets fired. They only have Andy left because they know they’re doing wrong. So, we have to get this while, Andy’s, you know the one I’m talking about John.

Hill TV: Yes absolutely, it came out this week.

President Trump: I thought that was terrible. And maybe I thought. And maybe it didn’t pertain to me as much, but the one where he said, ‘Great going Page, the story just hit’ something to that effect. You’ll quote it accurately, you know. But, and the other one I guess, Strzok, said ‘great going.’ And then he goes, ‘now I can go and essentially investigate them.’ In other words, he’ll go up to a door of some person and say, yeah pretext. And say, ‘hey this story just appeared, what’s going on.’ I mean, number one, how illegal is it. But number two, how low is it?

ON THE EXISTENCE OF THE DEEP STATE

Hill TV: Mr. President, would you call this a deep state? People use that term.

President Trump: I don’t like to use it because it sounds so conspiratorial and believe it or not I’m really not a conspiratorial person. But I think it’s a sad day for our country.

ON ADDRESSING CONCERNS ABOUT FBI/DOJ CONDUCT IN RUSSIA PROBE

President Trump: I think that I hope to be able to put this up as one of my crowning achievements that I was able to do through the help of a lot of good people including you two, and all of the support we have. We have tremendous support by the way, to expose something that is truly a cancer in our country. When you look at the FBI, you know you have eight people or so fired now.

And what we’ve done is a great service to the country, really. You know, I hope, I hope to be able to call this one of, along with tax cuts and regulations, and all of the things I’ve done. You know you’ve been seeing, you probably saw the news conference I just did.

Hill TV: We did.

President Trump: We’re making great trade deals. In its own way, this might be the most important thing because this was corrupt. When you look at Bruce Ohr, whose wife was getting paid by people that did a totally phony deal. And they got a tremendous amount of money, the money.

I mean the millions of dollars. And how about [George] Papadopoulos who I didn’t know other than I sat with him for 15 minutes at a table, unfortunately, where they have a picture of this. I never even talked to the guy. I didn’t know who he was. And I didn’t know, one thing I will say about Carter Page. He never went around saying he knew me. He never went around saying the president is my best friend. They put him on some committee. Some person put him on some committee. They were both on the same committee.

And that was not a good committee for me, OK. (laughter) But they put him on the same committee and that was it. But he never went around talking about the president is my best friend. From day one he said, I never met the president. I didn’t know the president, but I was put on his committee. And I say that.

Hill TV: How much time has this taken up of your presidency by the way? The whole Russia thing.

President Trump: It takes a lot. Because if I don’t do it you know bad things can happen. I’ll give you one thing and Papadopoulos. I didn’t know him at all but once he, once he went public and I watched him, he was treated really badly. The guy with the tape recorder who got paid money.

I mean, he got paid a tremendous amount of money. I didn’t know the FBI had the right to pay somebody like that. I mean that’s. He got paid more than anybody at the FBI gets paid by a lot. Right?

Hill TV: History will tell us.

President Trump: Someday you’ll tell me if that was right (laughs) but um, so I’m very disappointed, unless they are doing it, that they have not taken very strong action, does that makes sense to you?

 Hill TV: It does.

President Trump: Because they’ve been abused by reporters. They’ve been, I mean, the FISA court has been laughed at and scorned by what’s gone on here.

 Hill TV: Without a doubt.

President Trump: And then you see 99.99 percent of the things get approved, it was supposed to be just the opposite I remember when they first started talking about the FISA court, you’ve learned a lot through what I’ve, you know, gone through. They were saying how tough it is to get to — then the report comes out like, 99.9 percent of the things that get in front of it, so they knew that and so they put fraudulent stuff in front of it.

ON INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY’S FAILURE TO ALERT HIM TO RUSSIA CONCERNS

President Trump: I’ve always said that the Russia hoax was an excuse for them losing the election. Even though actually, amazingly that started seven months before. That started when it looked like I may have a chance to win, OK? But see that didn’t do anything to me because I didn’t know about it.

One thing on that again, also, if they thought there was something with Russia, and I’m one of two people that are gonna be the president of the United States, they should have come to me and said, “Sir, you’re dealing with people that may have something to do with Russia. We want to let you know.” And I’d say, “I’m sorry whoever it may be, you gotta go, sorry.”

 Hill TV: They never did that, did they?

President Trump: They never did it, no, they never did it. No, but wouldn’t you think they’d say hey, you know there’s two people that have a chance.

ON IMMIGRATION AND BUILDING THE WALL

President Trump: So, we have started the wall. We got 1.6 [billion dollars]. We got another 1.6. We’ve fixed a lot of existing, we’ve started an 80-mile stretch. The entire Democrat life is to try and make sure we don’t have a wall, not because we don’t need it because we do. But because that was a promise that I made, and they want to try to make sure I don’t deliver on that promise. And we have a majority of one in the Senate because we have the filibuster rule, which we shouldn’t, um, you can’t get 10 votes. In other words, Buck, we got a majority of one. We got to get to 60. So, 10 Democrats are controlling the Senate. We shouldn’t have the filibuster rule. The first thing that Chuck Schumer would do if he ever took control of the Senate is get rid of the filibuster rule. And for whatever reason and nobody can explain it, they just won’t do it. Which means we need to get nine more, Republicans. So, it’s very tough thing, even though we need it.

(Agencies)