Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. The US presidential election is less than a month away, and most major polls, including surveys conducted by Bloomberg and Morning Consults, indicate the race is incredibly close. Most importantly in the seven Swing States, the persistent number one issue for voters is the economy.
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are putting it front and center as they crisscross the country in the final weeks of the campaign, and on Tuesday, Trump sat down for an interview at the Economic Club of Chicago with Bloomberg editor in chief John micklethway.
We're going to focus on business and the economy, and that's partly because this is a business audience. It is also because voters insist that the economy is the main issue that matters when they vote.
For about an hour, asked Trump about his platform. They talked about tariffs and immigration and the so called Trump Trade. John also noted that Bloomberg and the Economic Club of Chicago have invited Harris to participate in a similar event and that invitation remains open.
So on that note, let me invite on stage President Trump.
This is the big take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gera. On today's episode, Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite's interview with former President Donald Trump. It's been condensed for this podcast. You can hear the full conversation at Bloomberg dot com and on the Bloomberg terminal. Former President Trump has proposed a series of changes to the tax code. He said
the US should eliminate taxes on tips, for instance. He said interest on car loan should be tax deductible like mortgage interest, and Trump is said he's in favor of removing a ten thousand dollars cap on the state and local tax deduction, a limit by the way he put in place when he was the president. He's offered limited detail on how he'd pay for these tax cuts, which Congress would have to approve. John started the interview by asking the former president how he plans to cover the cost.
The Committee for Responsible Federal Budget, which is a bipartisan outfit, put some predictions the other day. If you add up all the promises you've made and your plans would add seven point five trillion dollars to the debt. That's more than twice the total for Vice President Harris, you're on course to push up debts up to one hundred and fifty percent of GDP. This is a very business like audience. Why should they trust you with that?
Because we're about growth. She's got no growth whatsoever, and we're all about growth. We're going to bring companies back to our country. You look at even today as I was driving over, I see these empty, old, beautiful like steel mills and factories that are empty and falling down. Some have been converted to senior citizens' homes. But that's not going to do the trick. And we're going to
bring the companies back. We're going to lower taxes still further for companies that are going to make their product in the USA. We're going to protect those companies with strong tariffs. Because I'm a believer in tariffs. I'm not sure that you are. I don't think you are, but I congratulate you in your career. But to me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is tariff, and it's my favorite word. It needs a public relations firm just to help, but it's the most beautiful word in the tariffs.
Do you think that will bring in the revenues to use another bipartisan group. Yeah, I said, I only bring in two hundred billion dollars that is only that's barely the cost of two of your promises.
Yeah, but that's like for what company you're talking about. Okay, look, I've I've brought in with tariffs and I was just getting started. Then COVID came and we had a which you know, because I tell you what, I did a very good job in COVID. Nobody knew what the hell it was. I call it the China virus because I like being a little more accurate. But when that came, but we got hundreds of billions of dollars just from China alone, and I hadn't even started yet. But tarif's
are two two things if you look at it. Number one is for protection of the companies that we have here and the new companies that will move in, because we're going to have thousands of companies coming into this country. We're going to grow it like it's never grown before. And we're going to protect them when they come in because we're not going to have somebody undercut them.
Here from shared and anecdotes. To illustrate his point, he described a friend who builds car factories. That story, which we weren't able to verify, went on for several minutes.
I let you give your example. Yeah, you talked a lot about tariff's. You look at the American economy. Forty million jobs rely on trade. It counts for twenty seven percent of g If you cut that off, that's also going to effect on many many business people here. Tariffs also have another side. Isn't that something that you have to acknowledge? You could be plunging America into the biggest trade war since Smooththall you're going to stop, You're going to there are tariffs already.
There are terriffs. All you have to do is build your plant in the United States and you don't have any tariffs.
People, there's a lot of places, a lot of places like this, they rely There are a lot of jobs that rely on foreigners coming here. You're going to basically stop trade with China. You're talking about sixty percent trade on that, sixty plent tariffs on that. You're talking, as you said, one hundred two hundred percent of things you don't really like. You're also talking about twenty ten, twenty
percent tariffs on the rest of the world. That is going to have a serious effect on the overall economy. And yes, you're going to find some people who were gained from individual tariffs. The overall effect could be massive.
I agree, it's going to have a massive effect. Positive effect. It's going to be a positive Let me just no, no, let me tell me. I know how committed you are to this, and it must be hard for you to, you know, spend twenty five years talking about tariffs has been negative and then have somebody explained to you that you're totally wrong.
It'll have a negative, it will have other course if you don't do this. Fourteen million jobs. There's a lot of jobs to rely on. They're all coming back now.
If you belong jobs, those are fourteen million jobs in America that rely on Ready.
John Deere, great company. They announced about a year ago they're going to build big plants outside of the United States. Right, They're going to build them in Mexican.
You thresh they're also going to build they still that's right.
I said, if John Deere builds those plants and not selling anything into the United States. They just announced yesterday they're probably not going to build the plants. Okay, I kept the judge jobs here, and I'll keep them. John Deere will stay here, and I'll tell John Deere if you do build outside of the United States, you can if you want.
For instance, the manufacturer responded to Trump's thread of tariffs back in September, saying that less than five percent of its US sales were manufactured in Mexico. They did not make an announcement about plans in Mexico. The day before Trump's interview, Trump went on to discuss trade deals with India and China. Then he offered his assessment of US
trade deals with European countries. He believes there's an imbalance between goods that come from other countries to the US, including cars, and how many similar US made goods are available in those countries. This interview continues in a moment We've been playing key moments from Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwaite's interview on Tuesday with former President Donald Trump. Before the break, John was asking Trump about his proposal to increase the use of tariffs.
What about consumers? People out there, They're going to be the biggest textition. Critics say, your tariffs will end up being like a national sale tax. Because the country had If you have America the moment has three trillion dollars worth of imputs. You're going to add tariffs to every single one of them. That is going to push up the cost for all those people who want to buy
foreign goods. Is just simple mathematics, present drump It's not this, Yeah, it is, but not the way you've figured that was always very good in mathematics.
Let me tell you you're saying three trainia, those company it and they don't have to pay. And if by the higher the tariff, the more likely it is to have them come into.
The higher the tariff, the more you're going to put on the value of that those goods, the higher people are get able to pay in shops.
Ready, the higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States and build a factory in the United States so it doesn't have to pay the terraff that will that.
Would take That would take many many, that would take many years.
In fact, I'll tell you you know, there's another theory is that the tariff you make it so high, so horrible, oh obnoxious, that they'll come right away. When I do the ten percent ten percent is really first of all, ten percent when you collect it is hundreds of billions of doc numbers that you're talking all reducing our deficit. But really so, there's two ways of looking at a tariff. You can do it as a money making instrument, or
you can do it as something to get the companies. Now, if you want the companies to come in, the traff has to be a lot higher than ten percent, because ten percent is not enough. They're not going to do it for ten But you make a fifty percent tariff, they're going to come in. Let me tell you the other thing about tariffs that's great are steel companies. As you know, three four years ago, they were well go. When I was in office, I saw a man from
a big steel company and he was devastated. I knew him for a long time, and it's been a tough business. It was a great business many years ago. And I would not let you are still be sold to Japanese, by the way, just psychologically, I think it.
Would be snipp on steel as you Yeah, I wouldn't have led.
Yeah, I would have let it yourself. But I would if I would stop it if it hasn't been completed by the time I'm president, because I think it's such a horrible tale. But I had a lot to do with steel. We were going to lose all our steel companies because China, as you remember, was dumping steel at levels that nobody's ever seen before. And I put a fifty percent tax on that and tariff on that all dumped steel. And it was also bad steal. It was dirty.
What they called dirty steel was a good steal, which is a bad thing for structural components of buildings and planes and things like that. They were dumping crap into our country. And I put a fifty percent tariff. I started at twenty five. I raised it to fifty because the twenty five didn't quite do it. I raised it to fifty, and that did it. They stopped dumping steel, and I saved our steel by having that, We saved it. We saved our steel. Now what was left because we've
lost so much. But there are certain companies you have to have. There are certain things you have to have. Still, you have to have if you go to war. You know there's a possibility you go to war.
Trump then repeated a version of a claim he's made often, saying he's the only president in eighty two years who's kept the US out of war, which is inaccurate. He also claimed that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East wouldn't have happened if he were the president.
I was asking about tariffs. You've gone off by that. Seeing you've brought up tariffs and foreign policy, many people would say the biggest problem with your tariffs is actually geopolitics. You in your first term, you've got some credit for effectively saying that there was a Cold War against China. That's what America was in You look at the last Cold War against the Soviet Union. America won it in part because it rallied allies to it. You're talking about
slamming allies with thir tariffs. Isn't this time you're going to end up trying to rally the West and you're dividing it instead. Isn't that the real problem with tariffs, even beyond all the problems to the economy, where you keep won't bring out these individual examples, but the overall effect is going to be dramatic. The answer first about foreign policies, I'll do that. How does it help you take on China? Turning all your allies again.
Tremendously because China thinks we're stupid country, a very stupid country. They can't believe that somebody finally got wise to them. Not one president Bush Obama, Barack Husain Obama. Have you heard of him? Not one president, not think of it, Not one president charge China anything. They said, Oh, they are third world nation, they're developing. Well, we're a developing nation too. Take a look at Detroit. Take a look at our cities. We're a developing nation. We we have
to develop more than they do. That we're way behind them. You take a look at what's happened to our cities. So one of my.
Question is about your allies, not about China. You aren't going to annoy our allies behind you.
But our allies have taken advantage of us more so than our our enemies. Our allies are the European Union.
Trump's answer went on to cover trade with Japan and a conversation he said he had with former Prime Minister Shinzo Abbe on the topic of world leaders. John also asked if Trump has spoken with Russian President Vladimir Putin since leaving office. In his newest book, Reporter Bob Woodward cites an unnamed aid who says Trump and Putin have spoken several times.
Can you say yes or no whether you have talked to Vladimir Putin since you stopped being president.
Well, I don't comment on that, but I will tell you that if I did, it's a smart thing. If I'm friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that's a good thing, not a bit. I think in terms of a country, He's got two thousand nuclear weapons, and so do we. China has a lot less, but they'll catch us within five years. I have a relationships very much. I don't talk about I don't talk about No, I don't talk about that. I talk about it.
I can tell you what these people Russia.
Has never had a president that they respect so much. But more importantly or less importantly, I guess.
Coming up former President Trump's comments on Jerome Powell and why he thinks the chair of the Federal Reserve has, as he put it, the greatest job in government. Bloomberg editor in chief John Mickelthwaite's interview on Tuesday with former President Donald Trump lasted just over an hour, and while the stated focus was on business in the economy, there were some digressions. Trump said, this is his rhetorical stock in trade. He described his lengthy, meandering speeches as doing the weave and.
By the way, by the way, and I think it's very important. You can go, you know, I call it the weave. You can call it. You have the weave, as long as you end up in the right location at the end.
But there were a few questions that yielded answers that didn't quite get there. A question about whether he'd be in favor of breaking up Google, for instance, led to Trump talking about a lawsuit brought by federal prosecutors in Virginia against that state, accusing it of removing voters from
the rules too close to election day. But on several occasions, John referenced the audience in the room, made up in part of business leaders, noting many of them care about the strength of the US economy, and brought his questions back to that topic.
So, the New York Economic Club, you said that if you lost the dollar as a reserve currency, it would be like America losing a war. You look at what you're going to do in terms of protectionism, drive countries to use the other currencies and all that debt is also going to lessen the dollar's statuses of the world's reserve currency.
If you worry about the dollars, so secure your reserve currency is the strongest it'll ever be.
And President Trump at the moment, there is a thing called the Trump trade in the markets. Do you know what that is? The Trump trade is very simple. People are betting that your policies, they're going to drive up debt, They're going to drive up inflation, so they're going to drive up inflation interest rates. Are the investors wrong?
Yeah, I had four years no inflation. I had four years no inflation, but.
That was that was when you had much.
I had four years. It's better than that. And Biden, who has no idea where the hell he is? Okay, Biden went two years with no inflation because he inherited from me. And then they started spending money like drunken salers. They spent so much money. It was so ridiculous the money they were spending. They were spending on the green new scam, A green new scam, the Green New Deal. You know, it was conceived of by AOC plus three. She never even studied the environment in college. She went
to a nice college. She came out. She just said the green new scam. She just named. All these things.
Meant the markets are looking at the fact you are making all these promises. Latest one was carloans. You're flooding the thing with giving giveaways. But when I rolled, I was actually quite kind to you. I use seven trillion. The upper estimate is fifteen trillion. People like the Wall Street Journal, who's hardly a communist organization, but you don't. They have criticized you on this as well. You are running an enormous debt.
What is the Wall Street Journal? Now I'm meeting with them tomorrow. What is the Wall Street Journal?
That?
They've been wrong about everything? So have you? By the way, you've been wrong.
You're trying to turn this. You're trying to turn this you've been wrong about You're trying to turn You're trying to turn this into today's business people.
But you're wrong. You've been wrong. You've been wrong all your life on this stuff. You've been Let me tell you about currency. You're gonna you know, you're going jumping a lot of a lot of different subjects. The reserve currents, their reserve currency. That's where you're start right, the reserve currency is under threat because you have Iran, you have Russia, you have China. Once China is the one that you
have to worry about because they want it. They want to have the wand be the you know, thing of power. So here's what I'm doing again. I hate to go back to it. If somebody says, and I know countries want to get out because they don't respect our leadership, they look at this guy, they say, you've got to be kidding, And she's worse than him, by the way she's I never thought i'd say this. She is not as smart as Biden. If you can believe, this is not what we had four years of this, this lunacy,
and we can't have anymore. We're not going to have a country left. Okay. Currency very important, and if you want to go to third world, if you want to go to third world status, lose your reserve currency. We have to have that. We cannot lose it if you'll go to third world status in this country, because you take a look at the way things are running. If a country tells me, Sarah, we like you very much, but we're going to no longer adhere to being in
the reserve currency. We're not going to salute the dollar anymore. I'll say, that's okay, And you're going to pay one hundred percent tariff for everything you sell into the United States. And we love your product. I hope you sell a lot of it into the United States, but you're going to pay one hundred percent tariff. He will then follow it up by saying, sir, it would be an honor to stay with him reserve currency, I will be. That will be like just playing That's not even chess, that's checkers.
Another issue that's been front and center in this campaign is inflation, which the Federal Reserve has been fighting for years now.
Well.
Trump has not been shy about criticizing Jerome Powell, the current chair of the FED, despite the fact he nominated Powell for the job in twenty seventeen.
You say you don't want interest rates to go higher. You've gone backwards and forwards about It depends only you want to keep Whether you want to keep Jerome put Powell as Chair of the Federal Reserve. His term is chair runs on to May twenty twenty six. Would you seek to remove, remove, or demote him?
Look, I think it's the greatest job in government. You show up to the office once a month and you say, let's see Philip Acre, and everybody talks about you like you're a guy. Oh what will he do? I mean before the guy he used to walk into my office. He was like the Beg and Hull host. He was fine. You did you know?
You talked about removing him once.
I did because he was keeping the ridge too high, and I was right, and you would do that again. In fact, he actually dropped them too much when I did this, because I said I was threatening to determinate him. There was a question as to whether or not she could. And there was an article on the New York Times two half pages one page that I can do it by lawyers, one half page that I couldn't. And that was enough for him, and he dropped the hell out of the rich. He dropped them too much. He went
so paous. He dropped them actually too much. Okay, here's the story. I think that if you're a very good president with good sense, you should be able to at least talk to him. I don't say make the decision at all, but I mean I've been a very successful businessman. I've done really good much better. Now people are understand how good I've done because they're seeing it much better
than the fake news wants to give me credit. But I think I have the right to say, as a very good businessman and somebody that's used a lot of sense, I think I have the right to say that. You know, I think I'm better than he would be. I think I'm better than most people would be in that position. I think I have the right to say I think
you should go up or down a little bit. I don't think I should be allowed to order it, but I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up or down.
John's interview with Trump ended with what's become another hot button issue in this campaign. Immigration. Trump has proposed to porting as many as eleven million undocumented immigrants if he's reelected, and John asked him about the economic implications of that.
Just facing on the economic thing, are you prepared to say, look, it's fine to have a slightly smaller economy in exchange for having the immigration control.
A simple answer. I want a lot of people to come into our country, but I want them to come in legally. I don't want to have.
That means that means he will have That means you will have to depot You know, you are talking about deposing eleven million people. That is a lot of people.
Start out. It came out last week that four hundred and twenty five thousand people are horrible criminals at the highest level. But it came out that thirteen thousand and ninety nine were let in during their administration. They tried to say longer wrong. During the over the last three and a half years, thirteen thousand plus people came in murderers, they're in jail for murder, some were having the death penalty.
That they were all released into our country. Thirteen thousand and ninety nine people were released into our country.
Those stats are falls. Trump has been leaning on those claims and similar ones on the campaign trail.
This month.
He also ticked through other debunked talking points about immigrants being responsible for spikes in violent crime. Another major theme in this election has been age. The race changed dramatically in July when President Biden decided he would no longer seek reelection amid growing concerns about his age. He's eighty one years old. Donald Trump is seventy eight, almost two decades older than Vice President Harris. At one point, when he addressed how he picked nominees for the Supreme Court,
he talked about age as a disqualification. Toward the end of their interview, John asked about that.
You've just said it. You don't too old. You own and run businesses. Would you appoint a CEO who was seventy eight You didn't give you Oh yeah, a.
Medical Yeah, well, it depends on I'd make people like Biden, who's in bad shape. I wouldn't appoint him he's eighty one or eighty two. He's four years older. But at a point, I know some of the smartest people I know. I know man that made all of his money from the time he was eighty to ninety, and he was a fair year all his life. He was in the drink's business, the strange stranger.
You didn't bring this up when but you were running against Joe Biden.
No, I never attacked him for his age. In fact, I used to defend him on his age. I attacked him for his lack of competence.
I asked you, I've asked you all these questions either way.
Just for that, because I think it's important and I know you do too. I know so many people in their eighties that are among Bernie Marcus is ninety five, a founder of Home Deeople. You have the conversation with him. He's just as sharp as he mentally, he's just as sharp as you have was. He's ninety five. I could tell you that in the nineties. I don't want to get into the ninety stuff. But you know what, I
know many people in their eighties. I know guys in their eighties that won't leave the company, like family companies where they don't want the kids to take because they're much more competent than their kids. I know them both, right, So no, I would have no problem.
Well, you've given us a toady reason of where that country might be going to. Thank you very much for much. I appreciate you.
Former President Donald Trump in conversation with Bloomberg editor in chief John Micklethwade at an event co hosted by Bloomberg and the Economic Club of Chicago on Tuesday. You can hear the interview in its entirety at bloomberg dot com or on the Bloomberg terminal. And a quick note again that Bloomberg and the Economic Club of Chicago have invited Vice President Harris to participate in a similar event, and she is so far declined. This is the Big Take
from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gura. This episode was produced by Julia Press and David Fox. It was edited by Aaron Edwards and Wendy Benjaminson. It was mixed by Alex Sekura, fact check by Adriana Tapia. Our senior producer is Naomi Shaven, Our senior editor is Elizabeth Ponso. Our executive producer is Nicole Beemster Boor, and Sage Bauman is Bloomberg's head of Podcasts. If you liked this episode, make sure to subscribe and review The Big Take wherever you listen to podcasts. It
helps people find a show. Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow.