TRUMP: I have two guys — I mean, I have the president of Goldman Sachs, Gary Cohn, I have Steve Mnuchin, one of the most successful guys — never made a bad deal. These are very smart guys. But I said, fellas, you keep forgetting to mention — because I’m the one that set the numbers, I’m the one that did this to a large extent — you keep forgetting to say that the biggest beneficiaries are the middle-class people who have been absolutely hurt.

MACCALLUM: But your critics are going to say, well, real estate companies like President Trump’s company will benefit along with that middle class. So is it — is it going to make it harder …

TRUMP: Well, I’ll tell you what, if I’m paying …

MACCALLUM: … for you to make that big cut in the middle, from 39.6 to 15?

TRUMP: … Okay, if I’m individually paying 35 percent …

MACCALLUM: Yeah.

TRUMP: … I will tell you, that’s more, okay? I’m going to end up paying more than I pay right now in taxes, all right? I will pay more than I pay right now. The reason I’m going to pay more is because I lose all the deductions. They have deductions on top of deductions. They have hundreds and hundreds of pages of deductions …

MACCALLUM: Right. So eliminate those, and then it will even out.

TRUMP: … things that you’ve never heard of before. I have great accounting firms. I’m sure you do. They come in, “Well, you’re entitled to a deduction for geese flying over America, you’re entitled to this, you’re entitled to” — by the time they give all these — all of that stuff goes away.

All of it goes away, other than charitable deductions, which we think is important to keep, and interest deductions, which we think is important to keep. But all of the stuff goes away.

MACCALLUM: Yes.

TRUMP: So I predict I will probably pay more than I’m paying right now.