WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump sat for an exclusive Oval Office interview Tuesday with The Daily Caller’s Saagar Enjeti and Vince Coglianese for approximately 38 minutes.

The transcript is as follows:

THE DAILY CALLER: “So you have been batting almost 1000 on primary endorsements. You have to be pretty proud of that.”

POTUS: “And the one I didn’t get was Friess, I was asked to do that, by my son Don, and I did it but I did it — I was asked the morning of — and by the time I did it I guess 70 percent, almost 70 percent of the vote was already cast. So, I don’t consider that to be, maybe I’ll take a quarter of a loss on that one. But I think it’s 48 and a quarter, it’s 48-1 which is pretty good, right? Pretty good.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Could you give us some insight into what goes into how you pick somebody to endorse?”

POTUS: “It’s very much my gut instinct coupled with a lot of talented people that I have that know where these people have come from over the last two years. For instance, sometimes I’ll have a nasty never-Trumper and every once in a while it’s recoverable but generally speaking if somebody is that much opposed. Now if somebody is opposed, that’s one thing, if they’re that much opposed to a tune of coming up with the never-Trumper type stigma, it’s rare that I’ll get involved.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sir, what win are you most proud of so far?”

POTUS: “I think we have a lot of them. The Republican governor of Georgia, he was down 10, and I endorsed him, and I think he won 70-30. He won by 40 points. I did that endorsement at the request and I liked him a lot. First of all, I have to really respect the candidate, I have to like the candidate, otherwise I’m just not going to get involved. But he’s currently running as you know, he won the race against the man that was favored. But I did that for Sunny Purdue. But when I did it he was down about 10 points. And he ended up winning by 70-30. He won by 40 points, so that means he picked up 50. I mean, there are a lot of them. I would say of the list of 48 victories, I would say that close to half of them were races that could’ve been lost. I think the one in Ohio was a great victory, because when I get involved I don’t have the percentages, but he was very, very down. And he ended up winning by 1,800 votes. I would say Kansas is a good example. The governor of Kansas was running against somebody that’s always been, you know Kris who’s always been very strong Trump, right from the beginning. And you know he’s the governor of Kansas he’s running against. Kris is a good man, so I endorsed him, and he won.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Yeah, close one.”

POTUS: “Close one, but he won. He was down 11. He was down 11 when I endorsed him with about a week, with about three days left, and he ended up winning. Donovan on Staten Island. He was down ten and won by 24 points.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Right.”

POTUS: “Or thereabouts. That was a surprise because he was going to, you know, he was expected to lose. I endorsed him. He won by a lot. As you know he was expected to lose against the previous congressman, right? He followed him. I guess the one they talk about the most is Florida because he was at 3, don’t forget when I endorsed him, he was at 3. I put out two tweets. I put one out where I say he’s really good, blah, blah, blah, but that wasn’t an endorsement. That was when he was at 3. A lot of people don’t view that, they view the endorsement. Then a few months later and he went from 3 to — so he was at 3, with little money but a great guy and brilliant education. You know, he went to Harvard, Yale — great, terrific student, very smart guy. Just a very impressive guy, I’ve always liked him — Ron DeSantis. But he was at 3 and he went up to in the 20s with just not an endorsement. And then the endorsement, I mean —.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “And he took off.”

POTUS: “Well, the one who lost, who was expected to be the governor of Florida for the last four years. You know, they thought he had $21 million in the bank and his poll numbers were into the 20s and 30s. And Ron hadn’t really started much of the fundraising yet. And he was at 3. So then he went up from 3 to in the 20s. And then he started fundraising and did very well. And then he went from the 20s to win by 20 points. And that seems to be the one that people are most impressed with.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Yes, they felt the impact of the endorsement.”

POTUS: “I could go on for an hour, but there were many of people that were way behind that ended up winning.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “We do have a lot of different questions for you on a bunch of different subjects that I know you want to talk about. One that I want to make sure to get out of the way earlier is about this new Woodward book. There are a bunch of allegations in it about senior aides stealing documents from the desk. Right here.”

POTUS: “That’s false. You know the deal was, that it’s false. Made up. Disgruntled employees or just made up, could just be made up by the author. That was on the South Korean trade deal, which I’ve completed just recently. And we’re going to be signing it, I think we’ll be signing it during United Nations week in a couple of weeks in New York. The deal was done, it’s an incredible deal. It was a terrible deal. But it was a Hillary Clinton deal where we lost hundreds of thousands of jobs. And I voided the agreement, made a new one and there’s a good example, that wasn’t having to do with North Korea, that had to do with just the South, with the Korean deal on trade. And that deal, I got it completed, and it went from a horrible deal to a deal that’s good for the United States and hopefully good for South Korea. That was a one-way horror show. There was nobody taking anything from it. I mean, nothing. I can tell you that deal went relatively smoothly along.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “So the Woodward book is falsehoods, you think.”

POTUS: “Well, it’s just nasty stuff. I never spoke to him, and maybe I wasn’t given messages that he called. I probably would’ve spoken to him if he got through, but he was, for some reason I did not get messages on it. I’ll tell you, General Kelly just put out a statement that his statement was totally false — he never made it. He put it out a little while ago, you’ll get it from Sarah. But I did have something done for you guys cause I figured you may.”

BILL SHINE: “Sir, right on top of the little.”

POTUS: “Oh, good, thank you. I just had this made up. This doesn’t even, no president in history has done what I’ve done in two years. The other side is going crazy, they are lunatics. And here’s a list of things that I’ve done that you guys can have. I just had it made up for you because you guys have always been fair. Kelly has said that it’s a false statement. Many of the people have said they’re false statements. It’s just another bad book, and you know he’s had a lot of credibility problems, Woodward, as you know, you’ve seen it. He’s had a lot of credibility problems. I wish I could’ve — I probably would’ve preferred to speak to him, but maybe not. I think it probably wouldn’t have made any difference in the book. He wanted to write a book a certain way.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Can we turn to culture, Mr. President?”

POTUS: “You guys do understand what I mean, though — it’s terrible what they can write. They can write anything they want. They can say anything they want. And honestly, it’s a shame. It’s really a shame. Go ahead.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “So with Nike, you know they decided to feature Colin Kaepernick in its ads for the 30 anniversary. You’ve been really tough on the NFL kneelers. What message do you think Nike is sending to the country with this?”

POTUS: “I think it’s a terrible message. I have Nike is a tenant of mine. They pay me a lot of rent. But I think it’s a terrible, horrible message that they’re sending. And the purpose of them doing it, you know, maybe there is a reason for them doing it. But I think as far as sending a message, I think it’s a terrible message and a message that shouldn’t be sent. There’s no reason for it.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sure. Did you see the news about the Neil Armstrong movie? That they won’t be showing the scenes.”

POTUS: “Yes.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Could you give us your thoughts on that? Do you think that’s upsetting?”

POTUS: “I think it’s very unfortunate. It’s almost like they’re proud of, it’s almost like they’re embarrassed at the achievement coming from America. I think it’s a terrible thing.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Hollywood’s an American industry. You would think.”

POTUS: “Well, I really believe when, ’cause when you think of Neil Armstrong and when you think about the landing on the moon, you think about the American flag. And I understand they don’t do it. So for that reason I wouldn’t even want to watch the movie.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Do you think other people should go see the movie?”

POTUS: “That’s up to them. It really is, that’s up to them. I don’t want to get into the world of boycotts. Same thing with Nike. I wouldn’t say you don’t buy Nike because of the Colin Kaepernick. I mean, look, as much as I disagree, as an example, with the Colin Kaepernick endorsement, in another way, I wouldn’t have done it. In another way, it is what this country is all about, that you have certain freedoms to do things that other people may think you shouldn’t do. So you know, I personally am on a different side of it, you guys are probably too, I’m on a different side of it.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “So you just mentioned Colin Kaepernick. I want to ask you about Kanye West. So he said last week, he did a radio show in Chicago, and he said last week, that you, the president, would like black people to like you and that you’ll do the things that are necessary to make that happen. Is that a mission of yours?”

POTUS: “I would like that to happen, and I think it has happened. You know, I did actually a lot better than people thought with African-American voters or probably I wouldn’t be sitting behind this desk. But now my numbers are much higher than they were, and Kanye West was a part of it. And so is Tiger.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “So you credit them with your approval rating there?”

POTUS: “No, I credit more, I do, I think that helped, and I also credit the fact that African-American unemployment is the lowest level in the history of this country. Homeownership is up for African-Americans — way up, every category. They’re doing better than they did with the past administration or the Democrats. And I actually think my next run because of that will be a lot easier. Don’t forget, when I used to say, when I used to read off crime statistics and education statistics, how bad education was in black communities and all of the horrible statistics, homeownerships statistics, when I used to call that out and I’d say ‘what do you have to lose by voting for me’ because they’ve always voted for Democrats. I mean essentially almost 100 percent. I say what do you have to lose? Now I go up and say ‘listen here’s what I’ve done.’ Your unemployment is the lowest it’s ever been and then I go point after point after point. I don’t know how anyone beats that message. That’s a tough message to beat. I don’t know if you guys agree. So before I went up with a promise, but it’s a promise. Now I’m going up with real stuff.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “And you’ve kept that promise?”

POTUS: “Yeah, I mean, not only there how about with everybody? Strongest economy the country’s ever had. We have the best economy the country’s ever had and it’s getting better. I think your next numbers are going to be even better. So the 4.1 gets up to 4.2, gets re-adjusted to 4.2 and you know, when you think — I think we have tremendous potential to go upward. And the trade deals are going to be a big part of it. And military protection is going to be a big part. I mean, I’m criticized in this crazy book about military protection — well they’re right. I think it’s horrible what’s happening to the United States. We’re protecting immensely wealthy countries and they’re not paying us for the protection. I say, why are we protecting you when you’re very wealthy and you wouldn’t be here for two weeks if it wasn’t for us? Why aren’t we being reimbursed for this massive cost? Fully reimbursed — for this massive cost that we’re taking care of.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Do you feel alone in that view? Do you feel like you have support inside the administration?”

POTUS: “Amazingly alone. Amazingly. A lot of generals don’t understand it, a lot of people don’t understand it. Amazingly alone. But I’ve gotten many converts over the last period of a year. But I started off amazingly alone. Once you say it three or four times people start to say ‘wow he’s right about that.’ I mean, I could go country after country, but I won’t embarrass them. But immensely wealthy countries, where they’re paying a fraction of what it’s costing us to protect them. And without us they wouldn’t even be there.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “It seems like the theme here is that in Washington it’s not often somebody comes along and sort of rethinks what everybody already believes. In Washington, despite the bipartisan differences, everyone has the same momentum, they’re all headed in the same direction. And you feel like you’re coming in —”

POTUS: “Well, your question was so good because nobody has ever asked me that. It’s almost like you sort of understood the situation better, does everyone agree with you on that? Because you guys are probably sitting there saying, but then you’re saying but you have to go through this incredible layer of people.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “You’re challenging the conventional wisdom.”

POTUS: “Yeah, I mean and I say to myself ‘OK, you have a country, it’s immensely wealthy, we’re guarding it. We’re spending tremendous amounts, billions of dollars to guard and they’re not reimbursing us. Why? I’ll be honest, I’ve asked countries, I’ve said, you’ve got to reimburse us. First, they don’t even understand the question. Within five minutes, they agree.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Can you give us an example?”

POTUS: “They actually, no, but you’ll be seeing things come out. I’ll talk to you. They actually can’t believe they’ve gotten away with it for so long. I had one guy say ‘we knew you were going to be asking.’ Like they can’t believe it took so long. These are really wealthy — there are actually many of them. But these are really wealthy, really successful. They spend very little, I’ll give you an example, is NATO. So we’re paying anywhere from 70-90 percent the cost of NATO to guard Europe. OK? Against Russia. We’re spending — you know, mostly against Russia. So, we’re spending 70-90 percent. Now a lot of people think, ‘oh it’s great for us.’ It’s great for Europe. OK? It’s not great for us. It’s great for Europe. And that’s OK. But they got to pay their share. So, I went there and I had a very successful meeting. And I was able to get them to spend big, last year, just with a low key meeting they paid $43 billion more. OK? As Stoltenberg said. This year it’s much more than that. They’ve gone way up. But you know, I don’t know if you’ve looked, NATO spending was going this way — people weren’t paying, you know why, cause no one was really asking. Our past presidents would go in, they’d make a little speech, ‘hey we’d like you to pay your bills’ and they’d leave and that would be the last thing. Ask, you may want to call him, but ask Stoltenberg what he thinks because he’s my biggest fan in a sense cause he can’t believe what’s happened. Now these countries are paying. One of the best meetings, one of the most successful meetings I had was with President Putin. But the press, it was fake news. It was a great meeting. We had a great meeting. It’s good if we get along with Russia, not bad. And it’s good if we get along with China and now we’re in very much of a trade situation with them. But we can’t allow them to take $500 billion out of our country every year. With Russia we had a very good meeting, but if you read the papers, it’s just all fake news. You know, we talked about Syria, we talked about Ukraine, we talked about Israel and protecting Israel. We had a great meeting and then I guess they wanted me to get into a boxing match with him on the podium. It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Have you talked to Russia in the past few days about Syria?”

POTUS: “Well, you saw what I put out, right?”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Yes.”

POTUS: “I better not, I won’t say. I won’t say. But I don’t like it. You know, it was very interesting, I was at a meeting in Indiana, and a woman was there, we had a one closed room meeting with people from the state. And a woman was telling me about this happening, this was a couple of weeks ago, and said we have a chance, she was Syrian, she was from Syria, and she said ‘I think they’re going to kill millions of people.’ And I said, ‘no, that won’t happen because the world is watching. And she explained, she was from the area, she said she thinks her family is going to be killed. I went out and then yesterday I read a big story about it, and I said, you know that woman is potentially right. But by my putting out that message I think maybe it’s going to send a signal. I mean we’re going to see, but it’s a terrible thing. There are a lot of bad things going on in the world, that I can say.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sir, can we ask you –?”

BILL SHINE: “Last question.”

POTUS: “Let them have it, these guys have been great. Let them have a few more.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sir, do you think you’re going to be declassifying the FISA documents that have been targeting your campaign?”

POTUS: “Will I declassify them?”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Will you be declassifying them?”

POTUS: “Well, we’re looking at it very seriously right now because the things that have gone on are so bad, so bad. I mean they were surveilling my campaign. If that happened on the other foot, they would’ve considered that treasonous. They would’ve considered that spying at the highest level. Can you imagine if we were doing that to Obama instead of Obama and his people doing that to us? Everybody would’ve been in jail for the next 500 years. OK? Can you believe it, where they paid this guy millions of dollars, it turned out? If you look at all of the things that are happening.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sir, do you think, since Mueller has passed the Sept. 1 deadline now, do you think he’s interfering in the election?”

POTUS: “Well, I view it as an illegal investigation. It should’ve never been started. It should’ve never been allowed to start. You know, I’m not the target of this investigation, just in case you don’t realize. But I view it as being illegal for many reasons. Some of which are that, number one there was no crime and number two everybody was conflicted, including Mueller. There were, I mean tremendous conflicts here, you know the conflicts, you’ve heard the conflicts.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Speaking of one which you cited, I’d like to know, you said you interviewed Mueller for FBI director.”

POTUS: “Sitting right in that chair.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “What did you think during the interview?”

POTUS: “I liked him, but I didn’t give him the job?”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Why?”

POTUS: “But I had a business dispute with Mueller before that. I had a real business dispute. And he’s Comey’s best friend. And I could give you 100 pictures of him and Comey hugging and kissing each other. You know, he’s Comey’s best friend. How can you possibly have a man who is that, and then somebody from his law firm came out and said, ‘I can’t believe they picked Mueller. He hates the president. He hates the president.’ So that’s four things, that’s four, then you have the conflicts of the people — you know I call them the 17 angry Democrats, I guess they’re being lowered down now. It’s incredible when you look at Weissman and all these people. Some of the people work for the Hillary Clinton foundation. It’s an incredible thing. Honestly, people are very angry about it. People that love our country are very angry about it. So, I consider it to be an illegal investigation. It should’ve never been allowed to have happened.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “I want to ask you about social media companies ’cause you’ve expressed a lot of concern about censorship by social media companies to the point that you were defending CNN’s right to have a place to speak on these social media companies because you were defending the principle of it. Are you worried that these companies will interfere in the election?”

POTUS: “Well, I think they already have. I mean, the true interference in the last election was that — if you look at all, virtually all of those companies are super liberal companies. They were in favor of Hillary Clinton. Now maybe I did a better job because I’m good with the Twitter and I’m good at social media, but the truth is they were all on Hillary Clinton side, and if you look at what was going on with Facebook and with Google and all of it, they were very much on her side. And that’s a real situation. When I say, though, when you start, when you start getting into it, it can also reverberate that the others, it could switch the other way some day, I don’t know, maybe someday it will. That’s why I use the CNN situation. I’d rather have CNN’s voice, as fake news as it is, I’d rather have the CNN voice, like for instance I watched this thing play out today on NBC, which I consider to be worse than CNN in a certain way. Even though I made them a lot of money with ‘The Apprentice’ — a lot of money. But I consider it to be probably worse than CNN with Harvey Weinstein and what’s going on there.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “So you think their license should be pulled because of the Weinstein story?”

POTUS: “No, but I know you have to get licensed, and I can tell you that CNN — that ABC, most of them, but that NBC is very dishonest in its reporting of me. Very dishonest in its reporting of me. So, if they’re dishonest of me, now I think they’re more dishonest of me than they would be of most people because most people they don’t care about, but they are very dishonest.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Well, the allegation here of course is that senior leadership was meddling in their ability to do journalism, and if other reports are to be believed, NBC leadership also leaked the Access Hollywood tape during the campaign.”

POTUS: “A lot of people say that what they did — OK, so I had a lawsuit prepared, I had a lawsuit that was prepared to be filed against NBC because they leaked that tape. First of all, that was done, that tape was, there are even questions about this tape, there’s many things going on. But it was also done in a dressing room — real questions about that whole process. And they gave it to the Washington Post because they couldn’t put it out there themselves ’cause they would’ve had tremendous liability so they gave it to the Washington Post to put out. OK. I had a lawyer hired to bring a suit right after the election ended. But one problem arose — I won the election. OK, and they were going to say, ‘what was your damages?’ The damages was I lost the election, but now I won the election. So what were the damages? I won the election. I was going to sue because what they did — that was done in the dressing room. You know those trailers are really luxury, beautiful, actually. That was done in a trailer. It ruined Billy Bush’s career. And that was done in a trailer secretly. That was illegal what they did.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “But is this part of a pattern of sort of corrupt behavior by NBC?”

POTUS: “Well, not only NBC, I think the media, large segments of the, not all, large segments of the media are corrupt. Absolutely.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “What about Andy Lack, do you think he should go?”

POTUS: “Well, he runs an organization that as far as its reporting on me is very dishonest. They’re very dishonest. I can do something good and they’ll make it as bad as possible. No matter what I do. If I do something that’s really good, they’ll make it as bad as they can make it. If I do something bad, it’s like you know, it’s like I should get the electric chair. It’s incredible.

THE DAILY CALLER: “Just this weekend, Chuck Todd wrote a piece saying that it’s time for the press to ‘Fight back against people who challenge their credibility,’ and Chuck Todd of course an MSNBC and NBC —”

POTUS: “Sleepy Eyes.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Ha, what do you think of that? The idea that they’d fight back.”

POTUS: “He’s Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd. He covers me very dishonestly, I mean you watch his show, it’s like he gets angry at people if they say I’ve done a good job. And they won’t appear on the show again. You look at these panels of people, the worst are the panels. You look at this guy Dowd on ABC, I don’t even know who the hell he is.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Matthew Dowd.”

POTUS: “He’s just horrendous, he’s supposed to be a Republican. You know, it’s always rough when they say Republican and then they go into — and my people say, ‘Geez he’s a Republican, how can he be that way?'”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Ana Navarro comes to mind.”

POTUS: “Ana Navarro, she’s sick. I mean, she’s sick. The hatred. I never met Ana Navarro. I met Dowd once, he came right into the Oval Office like about a year ago, walked in, could not have been nicer, I said ‘hello,’ just a quick — he was in the White House. You were there, I think, Sarah. We said a quick hello and that was it. And he was gone. Couldn’t have been nicer. But before that, brutal, but I watched him a week ago and the level of hatred is beyond anything normal that I can imagine.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Can I ask you about the Kavanaugh hearing today?”

POTUS: “Yeah.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Democrats have put on quite a show, have you kept up with it?”

POTUS: “A good show or a bad show?”

THE DAILY CALLER: “I’ll leave that up to you, sir.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Have you seen some of it? It’s been a lot of protests and interrrupting.”

POTUS: “I’m amazed that people allow the interruption to continue. You know, there are some people that just keep screaming at the same people. In the old days we used to throw them out. Today I guess they just keep screaming. I thought Sen. Hatch was good because he was very indignant at the interruptions by a woman that was up there that just kept going on and on. I don’t know why they don’t, why they don’t take care of a situation like that because it’s terrible. I think it’s embarrassing for the country to allow protesters, you don’t even know which side the protesters were on. But to allow someone to stand up and scream from the top of their lungs and nobody does anything about it is frankly — I think it’s an embarrassment. I think, well it’s really early stages, but I think the Democrats are grasping at straws, that looks like to me. It’s incredible how bipartisan everything, when you look at how the opposite, I mean, when you look at how the level of division between the two sides, it’s sort of incredible.

THE DAILY CALLER: “Several Democrats who want to run for president, potentially in 2020 are on the Judiciary Committee, people like Cory Booker and Kamala Harris — do you think they’re sort of auditioning for the role right now?”

POTUS: “Yeah, I mean, I hope they are, ’cause I’d love to run against them. So far I don’t see anybody — I saw John Kerry is looking, I like that very much. He’s the father of the Iran deal.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Joe Biden.”

POTUS: “I’d love Joe Biden, sleepy Joe. I’d love Joe Biden to run. It looks like they’re going to have a lot of people lining up, but so far, and I’m an honest guy, I’ll let you know if there’s anybody I see that could be trouble. But so far, I’m not seeing it. I think they’re using this hearing as an audition for the presidency.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “The other big fight for Congress is the government spending because they have to handle a government spending bill in September.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Where are we on a shutdown, specifically on immigration?”

POTUS: “Well, I want to keep, I don’t like the idea of shutdowns. We’ve already started the wall. We’ve gotten $3.2 billion for the wall. We’ve done a lot of work on the wall. San Diego is completing now the whole, a big chunk of — we’re putting it in the worst areas where we really need it the most. Ultimately I can do it all in one year, I’d like to get the funding, the full funding, but we have done a lot of work. People don’t realize that. I’ve done it very quietly. The press isn’t picking it up. We’ve done a lot of work on the wall. And it’s really, really good work. Border security is a very important issue. I don’t see even myself or anybody else closing down the country right now.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Maybe after the midterms?”

POTUS: “I think that after midterms, we’re going to have a very serious discussion because we want border security, we have to have it. It’s going to be a big part of — it is a big part of this country. We have to have border security.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Are you disappointed that you had to scale back from 100 percent prosecution for border crossers because of the family separation coverage?”

POTUS: “Look, what I say is this, if you’re going to come into the country illegally, that’s why our numbers good despite horrible laws. We have horrible laws, but our numbers are good in terms of keeping our country safe. There’s gotta be a price to pay. There’s gotta be a price to pay, and there is a price to pay. You know we’re very tough on people crossing the borders illegally. And you know Obama had the same policy of separation. You know, people don’t realize half the pictures were taken of separation were taken where, most of the pictures, that pictures in ’14 of kids separated from their parents. That was all Obama. People don’t say it but Obama had the same law that I did and they separated parents from children. I think you guys understand that.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Yes, very much so.”

POTUS: “You like these people, don’t you? Do you want to give them one more question? Go ahead.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “Sir, if you could tell us a little about any of your thoughts on the allegations of sexual abuse right now within the Catholic Church? I think it’s an important issue for the country.”

POTUS: “It’s so sad to watch.”

THE DAILY CALLER: “And how do you think the Pope is handling it?”

POTUS: “It’s so sad to watch. The numbers, the length of time, you know, going back 70 years. I think it’s having a really negative impact on the Catholic Church. I think it’s very sad, to me it’s one of the sadder stories ’cause I respect so much the Catholic Church. And to me it’s a very sad story. The Pope is handling it, I guess, the best anyone can handle it. How is he going to handle it?”

THE DAILY CALLER: “What about leadership here in the U.S.? Are you disappointed in them? Do you think they should go?”

POTUS: “Well, I’m surprised at McCarrick. Everyone knew him and so incredible to see these things. It’s devastating for the Catholic Church.”

Correction: This transcript previously read “Donovan or Seth Dialin.” It has been corrected to read “Donovan on Staten Island”