“Look, if you see what I’ve done with North Korea, and with the State Department — Mike Pompeo — it’s running so well, I have this running so well. I have purposely, because of this ridiculous witch hunt, I have said, ‘I’m going to stay away from the Justice Department until it’s completed.’ So I wanted to stay away, now that doesn’t mean I have to — because I don’t have to — I can get involved. But I don’t want you people to say that I’m interfering, that I’m doing anything. I think that the report yesterday maybe, more importantly than anything, it totally exonerates me. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction. And if you read the report, you’ll see that the —” “But sir, the report” “What would you do with that?” “Why sir?” “Excuse me, wait, wait, wait. What you’ll really see, is you’ll see bias against me and millions, and tens of millions of my followers, that is really a disgrace.” “Mr President!” “And yet, if you, and yet, if you look at the F.B.I. and you went in and you polled the F.B.I. — the real F.B.I. — those guys love me and I love them.” “Mr President!” “Sir! Are you —” “You have spoken so passionately about the circumstances that led to Otto Warmbier’s death. In the same breath, you’re defending now Kim Jong-un’s human rights record. How can you do that?” “You know why? Because I don’t want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family.” “And, by the way, you declared the nuclear threat from North Korea is over.” “I don’t want to see a nuclear weapon destroy you and your family. I want to have a good relationship with North Korea. I want to have a good relationship with many other countries. And what I’ve done if you remember, if you’re fair, which most of you aren’t, but if you’re fair, when I came in, people thought we were probably going to war with North Korea. If we did —” “You said the threat is over, is it over?” “Quiet. Quiet. If we did, millions of people would have been killed. I don’t mean like, a — you know, people were saying a hundred thousand — Seoul has 28 million people, 30 miles off the border. You would have had 30, 40, 50 million people killed. Who knows what would have happened? I came in, that was what I inherited. I should have never inherited — that should have been solved long before I got there. I did a great job this weekend. The fake news said, ‘Oh, you met.’ The only thing they saw that I gave up. One broadcast said, ‘He gave up so much.’ You know what I gave up? I met. I met, we had great chemistry. He gave us a lot: You haven’t had a missile test in seven months. You haven’t had a firing, you haven’t had a nuclear test in eight and a half months. You haven’t had missiles flying over Japan. He gave us the remains of our great heroes. I have had so many people begging me, parents and fathers, mothers, daughters, sons, wherever I went, ‘Could you please get the remains of my boy back?’ They’re giving them back. Nobody thought that was possible.” “Sir!” “Wait. Wait. Excuse me, wait. They are doing so much for us. And now we’re well on our way to get denuclearization and the agreement says there will be total denuclearization — nobody wants to report that. So the only thing I did, was I met, I got along with him great. He is great. We have a great chemistry together. That’s a good thing, not a bad thing.” “Mr. President, how can Kim love his people if he’s killing them?” “I can’t speak to that. I can only speak to the fact that we signed an incredible agreement. It’s great. And it’s going to be great for them, too, because now, North Korea can develop and North Korea can become a great country, economically, it can become whatever they want. But there won’t be nuclear weapons and they won’t be aimed at you and your family. We now have a very good relationship with North Korea. When I came into this job it looked like war. Not because of me, but because — if you remember the sitdown with Barack Obama — I think he will admit this, he said the biggest problem that the United States has, and by far the most dangerous problem, and he said to me, that we’ve ever had, because of nuclear, is North Korea. Now that was shortly before I entered office. I have solved that problem. Now we’re getting it memorialized and all and that problem is largely solved — and part of the reason is we signed number one a very good document. You know what? More importantly than the document, I have a good relationship with Kim Jong-un. That’s a very important thing. I can now, wait, I can now call him. I can now say, ‘Well, we have a problem.’ I told him, I gave him a very direct number. He can now call me if he has any difficulty. I can call him. We have communications — it’s a very good thing. People are shocked that this is the kind of, you know they thought Trump was going to get in, and he was going to start throwing bombs all over the place. It’s actually the opposite. But we’re building a military so strong — $716 billion next year. 700 this year — we’re building a military so strong, nobody’s going to mess with us. But you know what, I never want to have to use it.” “Mr. President, do you agree with children being taken away from their family?” “No, I hate it. I hate the children being taken away. The Democrats have to change their law. That’s their law.” “Sir, that’s your —” “They were forced —” “Mr President!” “Mr President!” “Quiet. Quiet. That’s the Democrats’ law. We can change it tonight. We can change it right now.” “You’re the president, you can change it —” “I will leave here. No, no. You need their votes. You need their votes. The Democrats, all they have to do —” “You control both chambers of Congress, the Republicans do.” “The Democrats, excuse me, by one vote. We don’t need it. You need 60 votes. We have a one vote — excuse me — we need a one vote, We have a one-vote edge, we need 60. So we need 10 votes. We can’t get it from the Democrats.”