Interview with Reporters on Testifying Under Oath to Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III

Reporter: Are you going to talk to Mueller?

The President: I'm looking forward to it, actually.

Reporter: Do you have a date set? Do you have a date set, Mr. President?

The President: There's been no collusion whatsoever. There's no obstruction whatsoever. And I'm looking forward to it. I do worry when I look at all of the things that you people don't report about, with what's happening. If you take a look at, you know, the five months' worth of missing texts — that's a lot of missing texts. And as I said yesterday, that's prime time.

So you do sort of look at that and say, "What's going on?" You do look at certain texts where they talk about insurance policies or insurance where they say the kinds of things they're saying, you gotta be concerned. But I would love to do that, and I'd like to do it as soon as possible.

Reporter: When will you do it, Mr. President? Do you have a date set?

The President: So here's the story…

Reporter: Do you have a date set, Mr. President?

The President: I don't know, no. I guess you're talking about two or three weeks, but I would love to do it.

Reporter: In person?

The President: You know, again, it's — I have to say — subject to my lawyers and all of that — but I would love to do it.

Reporter: Would you do it under oath, Mr. President?

The President: You mean like Hillary did it under — who said that?

Reporter: I said that.

The President: Oh.

Reporter: Would you do it under oath?

The President: Oh you said it. You did say it. You say a lot. Did Hillary do it under oath?

Reporter: I have no idea, but I'm not asking about —

The President: I think you have an idea. Don't you have an idea?

Reporters: [crosstalk]

The President: Wait, wait, wait. Do you not have an idea? Do you really not have an idea? I'll give you an idea. She didn't do it under oath. But I would do it under oath. Listen, but I would do it. And you know she didn't do it under oath, right?

Reporter: She would do it under oath.

The President: If you didn't know about Hillary, then you're not much of a reporter.

Reporter: Mr. President, you are going to do it under oath?

Reporter: To reach a higher standard, you would do it under oath?

The President: Oh, I would do it under oath.

Reporter: You would?

The President: Absolutely.

Reporter: Do you trust the FBI?

The President: Well, what am I going to say? I am very disturbed, as is the general, as is everybody else that is intelligent. When you look at — five months? This is the late great Rose Mary Woods, right? [inaudible] This is a large-scale version of this. That was 18 minutes, this is five months. They say it's 50,000 texts and it's prime time. That's disturbing.

Reporter: Should McCabe go? Should McCabe go, Mr. President?

The President: Well, McCabe got more than $500,000 from essentially Hillary Clinton. And is he investigating Hillary Clinton?

Reporter: So should he go?

The President: Do you remember, did anybody hear many of my speeches when I talked about McCabe? He was the star of my speech. This isn't now. And I said a man who was more or less in charge of her — the wife got $500,000 from Terry. Now Terry is Hillary. And, yeah, I mean —

Reporter: Do you regret having him as your acting FBI director, then?

The President: You know what, I keep out of it. You'd find that hard to believe. I keep out of it. That's the way it fell. He's been there. It's one of those things. But he was the star of many of my speeches. Because he got from $500,000 to $700,000, whatever the number was. Got that money for the wife. And, you know, in Virginia—

Reporter: Did you ask him who he voted for?

The President: It's very interesting.

Reporters: [crosstalk]

The President: Wait. In Virginia, you don't have to spend the money. So I never checked as to whether or not they spent the money on the campaign. How much of the money did he spend on the campaign, do you know — she — how much was it?

Reporters: [crosstalk]

The President: Wait, how much of the money was spent?

Reporter: Did you ask who he voted for?

The President: You know.

Reporter: Did you ask McCabe who he voted for? Did you ask him that?

The President: I don't think so.

Reporter: You don't think you did?

The President: No, I don't think I did.

Reporter: You did not?

Reporter: Is it possible you did?

The President: I don't know what's the big deal with that. Because I would ask you, "Who did you vote for?"

[laughter]

The President: I don't think that's a big deal. But I don't remember that. I saw that this morning. I don't remember asking him that question.

Reporter: Is it possible you did? Is it a possibility?

The President: I don't remember asking him the question. I think it's also a very unimportant question, but I don't remember asking him that.

[crosstalk]

The President: Hey, chief, would you do me a favor? When we come back, when we come back, I want you to have a deal, OK? See if you could have a deal.

[crosstalk]

Reporter: Thank you, Mr. President.

Reporter: We can use all the audio?

The President: Nice — and, not — you don't repeat, and this and that, just one nice piece. OK?

Reporter: One more quick one. Do you believe Robert Mueller will be fair to you?

The President: I only repeat for the purposes of making sure you understand.

Reporter: One more quick one — do you think Robert Mueller will be fair to you in this larger investigation?

The President: We're going to find out.

Reporter: Are you concerned about it?

The President: Because here's what we'll say, and everybody says: No collusion. There's no collusion. Now they're saying, "Oh, well, 'Did he fight back? Did he fight back?' You fight back, 'Oh, it's obstruction.' So, here's the thing: I hope so.

Reporter: How do you define collusion? Maggie asked this earlier during the briefing to Sarah —

The President: You're going to define it for me, OK? But I can tell you, there's no collusion. I couldn't have cared less about Russians having to do with my campaign. The fact is — you people won't say this, but I'll say it: I was a much better candidate than her. You always say she was a bad candidate. You never say I was a good candidate. I was one of the greatest candidates. Nobody else would have beaten the Clinton machine, as crooked as it was. But I was a great candidate. Someday you're going to say that. Goodbye, everybody.