Interview with Sean Hannity of Fox News

HANNITY: Let me ask you, we have a lot of ground to cover and very little time to do it, there's an election in 33 days. I went through a lot of things, and I don't know. We always say the words, this is the land of the free and the home of the brave, and Mark is right.

If you look at the debate with Paul Ryan years ago, Joe Biden interrupted a lot, fought a lot, but from all my interviews with you, you don't apologize for fighting to take out the Caliphate or Soleimani or al-Baghdadi or the Al Qaeda leader in Yemen.

You don't seem to mind to fight to get the money for the wall or fight for lower taxes or to go out and fight for energy independence, or fight for the justices you promised you'd put on the Supreme Court. Some people say, "Well, maybe the president shouldn't have fought so hard in the debate." How do you respond to them?

THE PRESIDENT: If you look at what he did, he was probably, or possibly losing that coherence that everybody talks about, because he's a mess. Let's face it. He's a mess. Now I could have waited, but he was saying so many lies that I figured it was just better to bring it up as he's saying them, because it was just lie after lie, after lie.

And so I'd do it as he said it, I would criticize him. And I think it was effective. If you look at the polls, I mean, almost all the polls, the poll people, the polls say that I won. The Hispanics, they had me close to 70% at 28 because they're strong people, smart people.

HANNITY: That was the Telemundo poll. There was a WGM poll that had you at 61%. But by the way, I want to just-

THE PRESIDENT: I mean, I would have preferred letting him catch himself because he can't issue a full statement practically, but at the same time, on the assumption that he does, he's going on and on with lie after lie, so I had to correct those lies as they came up. Too many to go back and get. We didn't have enough paper. Too many to go and get. And I don't know. I think it was very effective. Frankly, I'd like to leave the same format. I like the format.

HANNITY: What if they change, talking about the debate commission, talking about changing the rules. There are already rules agreed to. What is your reaction if they try to do that?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, this is the rules that were agreed to, but I think it would be very bad. Do you remember with Hillary Clinton, they had modulated my mic, and they actually apologized for it, but they modulated my mic. So when I looked at her, they had my mic turned off or way down, and I said, "What's going on over here?" They actually issued an apology. So we're dealing with very tricky people here, but I think you remember that very well.

They modulated my mic and they say I won all of the debates. So I was in 16, 17 debates. They say I won all of the debates. I like this format, but at the same time, he's got got to be truthful. And by the way, a number of people brought up today, Sean, that he was the one that interrupted me. He started off with three major interruptions long before I started doing it to him.

HANNITY: By the way, I want to point out tonight, I know the first lady, Melania Trump, the White House is pink tonight in honor of breast cancer awareness month, and she wrote that, "As one nation, we remember the precious lives lost. Pray to bring comfort and strength to those battling the disease." By the way, my mom in life had very advanced stage breast cancer, double mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiation. She survived it, but barely. So it is an important thing. One in seven women can get this. It's very scary.

Let me ask you about Joe Biden will not answer the question about packing the Court. Chuck Schumer said last night that everything is on the table. That means statehood for D.C., statehood for Puerto Rico, ending the legislative filibuster, and some Democrats have even talked about moving for a constitutional amendment to end the electoral college. Joe Biden says that it's a trick, a Donald Trump trick, to tell the American people if he'll stack the courts or do any of these things. Your response?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I went after him on that and I said, "Are you going to stack the Court?" I also said, "Are you going to say the words law and order?" He wouldn't say them. He then said, "Law and order with safety and justice," or something. But I said to him that, but we need law and order in our country. And the Democrats cities are falling to pieces with these people running them.

But stacking the courts. They can have many justices. They want to put many because we've been beating them, and we have the nine justices and we have a great new one going on. But now what they want to do is they want to put many additional justices on the Supreme Court. It's sort of like you're losing the game and you start cheating.

They are. I mean, they're doing it with the ballots, they're doing it with the Supreme Court, and it's a very sad thing. But they are, they are looking to stack the court. And they are also going to add two or three new states. I heard Guam and two others that you mentioned, as you know. That would give them six automatic Senate seats, automatic, no chance. It would be very unfair. And 20 something congressional seats. So that's what they want to do.

So if you give them what they want, we really have a one-party system. We can never catch up. So they'll be talking about anywhere from four to six senators. Republicans can't win those states, although I've been better to Puerto Rico than any other president. I've given them a lot of help. But if you take a look at what's happening, they're not good to Puerto Rico, but I've been good to Puerto Rico. I have a great relationship to Puerto Rico.

But they're looking for statehood. A lot of Puerto Ricans don't want statehood. They're doing better the way it has now, frankly. And you've been seeing this. This has been taking place. They want to put two or three states. So they want to have 53, right? 53. What's the flag going to look like? Right, Sean? What's the flag going to look like? They want to have 53 or 52? Depending on what they do, I guess they could probably do even more than that. We have islands all over the place. What don't they go for the whole ball game?

So it's a very, very sad thing for our country. Very, very sad thing. And in all fairness to Mitch, he did not want to do the nuclear option. And I disagreed because I said, "They're going to do it." It turned out that they are, but he's a legitimate guy. He wasn't going to do the nuclear option because he thought it was bad for our country. So I understood that. I didn't go wild.

But I did say, "It would be good to do it because they're going to do it." So it's a very sad thing. So you're going to have two or three more states added. You're going to have four or six senators added, 100% Democrat, 100%. You're going to have maybe 20 congressional candidates or districts added. And it's really a horrible thing. It's going to be very unfair. You're going to end up having a one-party system in the United States. So if people want to stop that you got to vote against the Democrats.

HANNITY: By the way, some news broke earlier this evening. Hope Hicks, who's worked for you for a long time has tested positive for coronavirus. Obviously, our prayers are with her, and by the way, everybody that has, as you call, gotten this invisible enemy. Do you have any update on her and where are we with therapeutics? Where we with the vaccine?

THE PRESIDENT: So she did test positive. I just heard about this. She tested positive. She's a hard worker, a lot of masks. So she wears masks a lot, but she tested positive, and I just went out with a test, because we spend a lot of time and the first lady just went out with a test also.

So whether we quarantine or whether we have it, I don't know. It's very hard when you're with soldiers, when you're with airman, you're with the Marines and the police officers, I'm with them so much. And when they come over to you it's very hard to say, "Stay back, stay back." It's a tough kind of a situation. It's a terrible thing.

So I just went for a test and we'll see what happens. I mean, who knows? But you know Hope very well. She's fantastic and she's done a great job. But it's very, very hard when you are with people from the military or from law enforcement and they come over to you and they want to hug you and they want to kiss you because we really have done a good job for them. And you get close and things happen.

I was surprised to hear with Hope, but she's a very warm person with them, and she knows there's a risk, but she's young. And I just went out for a test. They just do it. It'll come back later, I guess. And the first lady also, because we spend a lot of time with Hope and others. So we'll see what happens, but you have to treat our people great. You can't just say, "Stay away, stay away."

They come up to you. They have such love with what we've done for them. And there's such love and you have to treat our people great. I think the vaccines are coming quickly. I do think it's somewhat political. They'd like to do it, even the drug companies, they've dealt with these people a long time.

I think they'd like to do it after the election, even if it's a couple of days, but the fact is, the vaccines are coming out. The therapeutics are coming out, and they're coming out really good. Regeneron and others, other companies, are great, Eli Lilly.

And so, we'll have to see. The survival rate is so much better now than it was. You've seen those numbers. I guess 95% or something like that, better. So we'll have to see. I mean, I'll get my test back either tonight or tomorrow morning, but I spend a lot of time with Hope and so does the first lady, and she's tremendous.

I was a little surprised, but she's a very warm person. She has a hard time when soldiers and law enforcement comes up to her. She wants to treat them great, not say, "Stay away. I can't get near you." It's a very, very tough disease.

HANNITY: Let me ask you this question. You have talked a lot about the issue of voter fraud. And by the way, this was just breaking tonight as we're coming on the air, that the Trump campaign is suing Philadelphia over mail-in voting offices. We had 100,000 ballots in trouble. The Heritage Foundation identified 1,285 cases of recent voter fraud, including nearly 1,000 convictions on the issues.

We saw the Trump ballots, military ballots, in a wastepaper basket in Pennsylvania. We had people being mailed absentee ballots, and we had a criminal conviction in New Jersey, attempted to bribe voters with mail-in ballots. Project Veritas came out with a tape. There was a case in Florida. There's been cases all over Colorado, Florida, Texas.

THE PRESIDENT: A scam and everyone knows it, Sean. It's a scam and everyone knows it.

HANNITY: How do we have voter integrity, and this idea that Hillary Clinton talked about, you accepting the results of the election, and Hillary said under no circumstances should Joe Biden ever concede the election. Joe said the other night he would under the right circumstances. Do you really foresee a problem? And these last-minute changes that are being made, I mean, to me, it's incalculable how that then impacts the election. What are your thoughts?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, in New York they last 100,000 ballots were sent out wrong. The envelopes were wrong, the names were wrong, everything was wrong. So they said, "Oh, that's okay. We'll send out a new 100,000." Okay, let's assume they get it right. What happens to 100,000 that they sent out? They're going to be sent back by somebody and it's going to be a fraud.

This is a terrible thing that's happening to our country. And the only one that knows it better than you and I and other people is the Democrats. They know it, they know it. They're smart. But I'll tell you the big hope is that we have great federal judges. And we have a lot of cases in front of these federal judges. And I think they're really talented, very smart. And I think that we're going to do very well.

How about this? The election ends on November 3rd, but they're giving certain states the right to go another week. So that means we're not going to know, because they're big states, that means we're not going to know the election for another week. Just take a look at New York. Take a look at the one city, the ballots that were thrown into a garbage can and they all had the Trump name on it.

They were military ballots. They were thrown into a garbage can. The ones that were on a tray and they were thrown into a creek or river, it's a terrible thing. And if you look at Carolyn Maloney, what they did to that guy that ran against her is a disgrace. That's in New York, and that's only for a congressional race.

They have no idea where the votes are, where the ballots are. This is going to be all over. This is in Virginia. This is in New Jersey. It's a very, very sad thing. And hopefully we can win by a lot because I have no doubt that they're going to be doing a number. I have no doubt about it.

And the press knows that too. They act so sacrosanct. They act so, "Oh, it's so terrible. He's talking about our democracy." They know what's going on. It's really a shame. If the other side did this, you would see everybody would be arrested, put in jail. You have to see what's going on.

But the good news is we just got a very good decision in Rhode Island, great decision. We have some great decisions coming down. You have to have the votes in by November 3rd. You have to have it signed. You have to have it certified. They have to guarantee the certification.

I mean, in Nevada, Sean, they don't want to have any certification of a signature, just do a signature and they don't want to have certification. I think you don't even have to sign it. And the governor is a very political person. It's a ridiculous thing. And we're going to win Nevada on a fair basis, but it's very hard when they send millions of ballots out and then they cheat.

HANNITY: Let me ask you, we learned this week, and this is something, we broke a lot of news in the last three and a half years, not really gotten a lot of credit for it, turns out we were right all along that the Obama administration knew in 2016, that they knew Hillary was attempting to tie you to Russia to get away and distract from her subpoenaed emails.

We also learned that now James Comey, along with Rod Rosenstein, along with Sally H, knowing what they know now, never would've signed the FISA applications that denied constitutional rights to Carter Page to spy on your campaign, your transition team, and your presidency. Comey had amnesia on the rest of it.

But we also learned that Christopher Steele's source, and that was the bulk of data, Andrew McCabe said, "No Christopher Steele files and Hillary dossier, there would be no FISA warrants." We now know that all of it was from a guy that our own FBI knew to be a Russian operative for 10 years. We don't have a lot of time. Your reaction to all of this new news?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, it's a scam. They spied on our campaign. They got caught. The only sad thing is nothing's happening with them and their a bunch of crooks. They spied on our campaign. They got caught. They tried to do a coup and they got caught. Now we get to see what's going to happen. It's time to move.

This is ridiculous, okay? This is ridiculous. It's so sad. We caught them spying on our campaign. Never happened before. Spied before and after, and it never happened before. And I watched Comey. He couldn't remember anything, but he's writing all these books.

They're guilty as hell. They should all be in jail, okay? You know it and I know it. They should all be in jail and it's disgraceful. It's a disgrace to our country if they don't go to jail. Hillary Clinton got caught, Comey got caught, they all got caught. And Biden, by the way, mentioned the Logan Act. That was a big part of it, and Obama too. It's a disgrace what's happened, a disgrace. And they should do something about it. They can't let this just go on ad infinitum. They should do something about it.

HANNITY: Let me ask you very quickly here. This election is in 33 days. In the 45 seconds we have left, you've gone through things you want to do, the economy, law and order, safety, security, and a vaccine. Are those your three top things that you want to accomplish?

THE PRESIDENT: already rebuilt the military, two and a half trillion dollars. It's the strongest military in the world by far. We have weapons the likes of which nobody even comes close to. And so we've done that. We've cut taxes at a record level. If you look at regulations, we've cut more regulations than any president in history by far.

HANNITY: Where will the economy be by the end of this year in your view? You have 20 seconds.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think better than that. I think you're going to see some great numbers just two days before, because you're going to have the third quarter come out just before the election, and I think you're going to be up anywhere from 22 to 35% in GDP. And if that's the case, that's bigger than any economic rebound in history. So I think that'll be good. Let's see what happens, but those numbers are coming out sometime prior to November 3rd, which is the election.

HANNITY: All right, Mr. President. 33 days, the American people, the ultimate jury. Thank you for being with us.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Sean. Thank you.