Trump With Dobbs [FULL TRANSCRIPT]

October 25, 2017

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By VWArticles. Originally published at ValueWalk.

Readers can see below for the full transcript of FOX Business Network’s Lou Dobbs interview with President Donald Trump airing tonight on FOX Business Network’s Lou Dobbs Tonight (7-8p/ET).

LOU DOBBS, FBN HOST: In nine months in office, you’ve already accomplished more in the way of job creation. The move in the equities markets has been extraordinary and record setting. All of the indexes, at or near record levels. You have accomplished so much in that nine months. And yet, as you say, we need tax reform. You’re meeting resistance from within your own party. You’re meeting resistance from the Democrats. How do you move from here?

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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, I think we’re going to get it. I think these Senators are going to come together. I think the House is looking really good, you know, they’re passing this bill along very rapidly. In fact, that’s going to happen hopefully today. And I did make a couple of calls. I said — fellas, please, no changes. Just pass it along. We have to get tax cuts. And just pass it along.

We have to get tax cuts. And just pass it along. Now normally, they want to make their 15 points or their 20 points and then it has to go back and it has to be re-voted and everything else. I said just pass it along. And they said think we’re going to do that. And let’s see what happens.

But I think they’re going to do that. And so look, we have actually in the Republican Party, in a true sense, we have great unity. Look at the Democrats with Bernie Sanders who got absolutely taken advantage of by the DNC. And now see it, you know, all the stuff coming out. You see worse happening.

But you look at Hillary and Bernie, that’s big league stuff. We have very, very minor — we have great unity. I was with the Senate yesterday, the entire Republican Senate. And other than two people, I tell you, there was a lot of love in that room.

DOBBS: A lot of love and a lot to get done.

TRUMP: A lot to get done. Yes.

DOBBS: And — and the — and tax reform is critical because of what you have established as the standard now for economic growth under the Trump presidency, tax reform is going to be absolutely critical to driving that growth, job creation and bringing capital back, which you’ve been talking about for two years before you were elected —

TRUMP: For many years.

DOBBS: Absolutely.

TRUMP: Many years before.

DOBBS: So where do we go, in terms of capital repatriation for corporate America, how do you incentivize corporations to get back to America with all of that money for investment in jobs, plant equipment, research and development?

TRUMP: So we have many things. Number one, we’re bringing the corporate rate down to 20 percent from 35 percent. That’s a massive — this will be the biggest tax —

DOBBS: Right.

TRUMP — cut in history. In the history of our country. And that’s great. And we need it. Because right now, our country’s about the highest taxed or certainly one of the highest taxed in the world. And we can’t have that. So we’re going to have a country that’s toward the lower end. I can’t say it’s the lowest. You know, Ireland is going now lower and others are going lower.

They played the game a lot better than our people have played the game, I can tell you that. But we’re going to have a country that’s going to have tax incentive now. And we are going to bring back — you know, I’ve been talking and I even heard you say it not so long ago — two and a half trillion.

But you and I have both been using that number for years.

DOBBS: A conservative number

TRUMP: That number is much higher now, because it’s, you know, built up over the years. And I would be surprised if it weren’t close to $4 trillion. That money’s coming back. And nobody would bring it back now because the tax is so astronomical, they’d have to be desperate to bring it back.

I mean any company that would bring it back and pay the tax that they have to pay, which probably ends up being close to 40 percent, who’s going to pay that to bring money back in? So what they do is they leave their money in these other places and other countries and they spend it there and they create a lot of additional wealth there.

We want the money coming back here. But it could be $4 trillion. And what we’re doing is substantially lowering the tax. And we’re also getting rid of all the bureaucratic hurdles. It wasn’t just the tax. I have friends that want to bring money back. The amount of work they have to do to get the approval to bring the money back is absolutely ridiculous.

So that’s going away also.

DOBBS: And the middle class — you say this is for the middle class and small business and the pass-through rates are all very attractive. What do you expect the impact to be for working men and women, the middle class, those who aspire to be in the middle class?

TRUMP: You know, we’ve done so well. Pretty much record setting, certainly record setting for nine months in so many different ways. Nine months of a presidency. But you look at the market, how well it’s doing, so you’d say well why do you have to do anything. We can actually do better.

And I think we will do better. We are going to have so many jobs created by what we’re doing. And you know, we’re going to have companies that aren’t going to be leaving our country anymore. You look at what’s happened over the last 25 years, you go down and take a look at Mexico —

DOBBS: Right.

TRUMP: — and see how many car companies have built these massive factories in Mexico. Not here. We want them built in Michigan, and Ohio, and our places. And they just leave, and they fire everybody, and they go and open up plants. That’s not going to be happening anymore, plus they’re going to be penalized in many different ways if they do it.