President Trump at Bedminster yesterday. It was wide-ranging, and he talked about what he's looking for in a VP, the state of the economy, and even reveals he plans to cut one federal department. Take a look. Let's talk about vice president. Pete and I have gone off the wall.

We've talked about historically presidents pick vice presidents based upon what states they can deliver. We've talked about the fact that you're looking for, it seems to be, that you might be looking for a fighter. Let's just ask you directly, what are you looking for in a vice president? So you always have to say, and I mean it, is if something should happen to the president, you have to get somebody who can be a good president, okay? And I think you have to say that.

Then the second thing, I want somebody that can selfishly help me to get elected.

But typically, if you look over the years, look back a hundred years, it's almost never that a vice president helps. I mean, you're out there all by yourself. You really are. There's a day or two of, you know, hoopla, you picked a vice president, then it goes back. But it's almost never, it's almost never helped. Actually, the one person that helped, I guess you could say, is Lyndon Johnson, because he was a political, real political animal, and he sort of helped a little bit politically with Daley, etc., etc., I guess. But, you know, that's a theory anyway.

But typically, a vice president doesn't help. So I would say somebody that you can get along with, somebody that can help you get elected, somebody that can be, and first is somebody that can be a very good president. Debates coming up on June 27th.

How do you prepare for that? And what's it, I mean, you've stated it, Joe Biden's in a different place. How do you, what's your strategy coming into it? So debates are interesting because I had never debated before. And then I debated a lot on the first, you know, in 2016, I had like 14 debates or something. And, and it's been good. I mean, it's been good for me. It's been worked.

I think I won every debate. But I never had, you know, it was very interesting. In 2016, I said, who are these people I'm debating? Half of them I never heard of, because, you know, they're governors from someplace or they're senators. I said, start with Ted Cruz. And they say, well, he's the national debate champion. He's the this, he's the that.

And I said, that's not good news. You know, that's not good. I mean, I could have done with a little bit less, maybe I should have started with somebody else. But they were all, you know, they're talented politicians. That's what I mean, for the most part, they're politicians.

Very interesting. In running for president, 92% were politicians and 8% were generals, not admirals, right? Generals. And that's it. So when, you know, all of a sudden I'm going in as a business guy and different kind of a guy. But we had great four years. We were very successful, very — I mean, the things, we had the largest tax cuts in history. We had the largest regulation cuts in history. We had the best economy in history. We rebuilt our military. We had no wars.

I defeated ISIS. But since you've been out of office, things have deteriorated. And we've talked a little bit about that. At a level that's not even believable. And I think most people agree with you on that. The amount of money, which in terms of the economy, we're $34 trillion in debt. We've printed money we don't have that's led to massive inflation. How do you change that and turn that around to average

Americans out there who are struggling every single day, worse and worse under Joe Biden's economy? So we were doing great. We were energy independent. We were soon going to be energy dominant. I didn't want the Russian pipeline to be built because of the fact. Very simple.

I wanted to supply them with the energy. The whole thing was all — we're going to make a fortune.

We have more liquid gold than any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia and including — and then I do ANWR in Alaska, which is the biggest find. It's as big as Saudi Arabia. Some people say it's bigger. And Biden closes it up in his first week. The first Department of Interior, the woman who — the person in charge closed it in her first day in office.

Ronald Reagan tried to get it. He couldn't get it. Everybody tried to get it. Bush.

I got it. And they closed it up. But I'm going to reinstitute it very quickly. It'll happen very fast. But think of it. So we were rocking and rolling. We were energy independent. We were soon going to be double the size. We were in third place and even beyond that when I took over. We were leading. You have to see a graph. Russia, Saudi Arabia above them, Russia second. We're third. And then we go like this. I mean, we were — we were going to be energy dominant. We were doing things. The way you have to solve it is through growth. And we were going to have to move.

But also cutting, right, Mr. President?

Yes, growth and cutting. The problem I had is we were starting to really rock and roll. We had the greatest economy ever. Then we got hit with COVID. And if I didn't throw money at COVID, we would have had a depression like in 1929. And if I don't win, you're going to have a depression like in 1929. You know, one of the — I'll just say Scott — one of the greatest analysts on Wall Street considered maybe the best. He said the only reason the stock market says is because they think Trump is going to win.

Listen, I think that one of your strongest points is that you're a businessman. And people love that you ran this country like a business. And I believe that if you got an office, you will get the oil pipes going again. We'll get energy going. And I believe that we will grow.

But it's really hard when you're a politician to cut. Your friend,

Mille, in Argentina, he cut whole agencies. And now they went from 25 percent growth per month in inflation down to 8 percent per month. So it works. Are you willing to make —

No, you know he's MAGA. You know that.

I know he is. He's my friend. That's why I brought him.

He's my biggest fan.

Make Argentina great again. It works out perfectly, right?

No, that's what he calls it. He has hats. Make Argentina great again.

But he has — but he's cut agencies. Are you willing to make those kinds of dramatic cuts? Because I really think our — we have young kids, all of us. I think their futures are on the line. I mean, as he said, $34 trillion in debt. I think that means we're paying almost a trillion dollars in interest.

I'll give you an example.

Is it every month?

I'll give you — you mentioned —

Every year, every year, every year.

You mentioned the kids. So we're going to cut the Department of Education, let it be run locally.

We have this mess —

And the Department of Education?

Other than to have a little, tiny coordination. You know, it would be nice to make sure that everybody is teaching English. You know, let them learn English, OK?

I love this.

But no, no, we're cutting the Department of Education. I was ready to do it before. And then, again, the COVID really — if we didn't throw money at that, you would have had a depression.

We would have been in a depression. And when I got out, the stock market was higher than when just before COVID came in.

So that will be the first thing?

That will be the first department you're going to cut?

That's going to happen immediately.

We're going to do, like, Department of Interior. There's so many things you can do.

One of the things that's so bad for us is the environmental agencies.

They make it impossible to do anything. And so, in Louisiana, they had these massive refineries that — LNG plants, but massive, essentially, refineries.

Fourteen, fifteen years they've been trying to get permits.

I got it done in one day. One day I got the permit.

Don't tell anybody, please.

I got it — I didn't know who the hell was doing it.

In one case, Japan was putting — and, by the way, they're like $20 billion.

That was a massive — these are like the Empire State Building laid down times two on its side. All pipes — I mean, it's unbelievable — on the coast in Louisiana.

And I got those things — the first one I got done in, like, 24 hours.

They worked on it for 14 years.

And it was terrible, I mean, what they were doing.

The environmental agencies have stopped — they stop you from doing business in this country.

And we did a great job.