Mr. Trump talks about his post-election phone call with Hillary Clinton, his meeting with President Obama as well as his stance on abortion rights.
- Nov 14, 2016
AceShowbiz - Donald Trump sat down with Lesley Stahl on "60 Minutes" for his first post-election interview. In the interview that was taped on Friday and aired on Sunday, November 13 on CBS, the president-elect talked about his surprise victory, gay marriage, foreign policy and many other things.
"You know, I'll conduct myself-- in a very good manner, but depends on what the situation is, sometimes you have to be rougher," he said of why he won the election. "When I look at-- when I look at the world and you look at how various places are taking advantage of our country, and I say it, and I say it very proudly, it's going to be America first. It's not going to be what we're doing-we, we've lost-- we're losing this country. We're losing this country. That's why I won the election. And by the way, won it easily, I mean I won easily. That was big, big."
Hillary Clinton called Mr. Trump after the election. While he said nasty things about his competitor during the campaign, he described their phone conversation as "lovely." He added, "She is very strong and very smart."
Mr. Trump also talked about his meeting with President Obama. The 70-year-old revealed they talked about the Middle East, North Korea, Obamacare, which he said "is tough." Asked by Stahl if President Obama told him not to undo it, Trump shared, "Well, he didn't ask me, no, he told me-- you know, the merits and the difficulties. And we understand that."
Stahl thought Mr. Trump "looked pretty sober sitting there in the Oval Office." Trump responded to this, "I think I'm a sober person. I think the press tries to make you into something a little bit different. In my case, a little bit of a wild man. I'm not. I'm actually not. I'm a very sober person. But it was respect for the office, it was respect for the president. Again, I never met him before, but we had-- we had a very good chemistry going. And-- and I really found-it might not be that I agree with him, but I really found the conversation unbelievably interesting."
Mr. Trump also claimed that the conversation with President Obama wasn't awkward at all although he once said Obama was not born in this country and the President said Trump's unqualified. "We never discussed what was said about each other," Trump said. "I'll be honest, from my standpoint zero, zero. And that's strange. I'm actually surprised to tell you that. It's-- you know, a little bit strange."
During the interview, Stahl didn't miss the chance to ask Mr. Trump about his pledge to build a wall. The president-elect sticks with his plan to build a wall, though in certain areas it could be fence.
Stahl also asked Mr. Trump about his pledge to deport millions and millions of undocumented immigrants. He elaborated his plans. "What we are going to do is get the people that are criminal and have criminal records, gang members, drug dealers, we have a lot of these people, probably two million, it could be even three million, we are getting them out of our country or we are going to incarcerate. But we're getting them out of our country, they're here illegally. After the border is secured and after everything gets normalized, we're going to make a determination on the people that you're talking about who are terrific people, they're terrific people but we are gonna make a determination at that-- But before we make that determination-- Lesley, it's very important, we want to secure our border."
Of gay marriage, Mr. Trump said, "These cases have gone to the Supreme Court. They've been settled. And, I'm fine with that." Asked about abortion rights, he said he planned to appoint a Supreme Court Justice who leans pro-life as he does. When Stahl pointed out that some states could ban abortions entirely, Mr. Trump responded, "Yeah, well, they'll perhaps have to go, they'll have to go to another state."
Melania Trump later joined her husband in the interview. Asked about her cause to stop bullying on social media and her husband's nasty tweets, she said, "Well, sometimes he-- it got him in trouble. But it helped a lot as well. He had unbelievable following." Mrs. Trump said she did tell her husband if he cross a line, but in Mr. Trump's defense, he said, "I'm not a big tweeter. I mean, I don't do too many, but they hit home. And they have to get a point across."
Stahl said after the interview with the president-elect that he seemed to have changed his demeanor since winning the election. He's "more subdued, more serious," according to the "60 Minutes" correspondent.
The full transcript of Obama's interview on "60 Minutes" can be read here.
