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60 Minutes - Season 58 - Episode 06: President Trump; Guinness Book of Records
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00:07it's been five years since president trump appeared for an interview on 60 minutes
00:12so we had a lot of questions what are you doing as president to end the shutdown tonight he answers
00:19them americans have been watching videos of ice tackling a young mother tear gas being used in a
00:26chicago residential neighborhood and the smashing of car windows have some of these raids gone too far
00:33no i think they haven't gone far enough whether it's this attempt at the biggest pizza party ever
00:41or trying to eat an airplane there's a method to the madness of getting into guinness world records
00:48as many as 95 percent of submissions get rejected we do validate people that do things that others
00:55might seem about a bit weird like eating aircraft and stuff so do you not see that as weird i
01:02see it as
01:03really interesting
01:07i'm leslie stall i'm scott pelly i'm bill whitaker i'm anderson cooper i'm sharon althonsi i'm
01:14cecilia vega i'm nora o'donnell i'm john wertheim those stories and in our last minute we reveal one
01:21of the best sources for our investigations tonight on 60 minutes
01:33it's been five years since president trump appeared for an interview on 60 minutes a lot
01:39has happened since then not least of which was his political comeback and triumphant return to the
01:44white house on friday hours after he touched down from his whirlwind trip to asia mr trump agreed to
01:51sit down with us for a wide-ranging conversation it was exactly one year to the day since he sued
01:58paramount the parent company of cbs alleging that 60 minutes had deceptively edited an interview with
02:05his opponent kamala harris paramount settled that lawsuit the settlement did not include an apology or
02:12the record mission of wrongdoing in our nearly 90-minute conversation this past week we spoke with
02:18mr trump about the country and the world we met with the president at mar-a-lago his private club
02:24in
02:25florida on the 31st day of the government shutdown we are now approaching the longest shutdown in american
02:33history democrats fault under your presidency we're talking about more than a million federal workers
02:39who are not getting a paycheck including our air traffic controllers you see there's traffic snarls
02:44out at the airports now this weekend food aid for more than 42 million americans is set to expire
02:51what are you doing as president to end the shutdown well what we're doing is we keep voting i mean
02:58the
02:58republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it and the democrats keep voting against ending it you know
03:05they've never had this this has happened like 18 times before the democrats always voted for an
03:09extension always saying give us an extension we'll work it out they've lost their way they've become
03:15crazed lunatics and all they have to do nora is say let's vote so senate democrats say they will vote
03:24to
03:24reopen the government if republicans agree to extend subsidies for over 20 million americans who use obamacare for
03:32their health insurance obamacare is terrible it's bad health care at far too high a price
03:39we should fix that we should fix it and we can fix it with the democrats all they have to
03:45do is let
03:46the country open and we'll fix it they have to let the country open and i'll sit down with the
03:51democrats
03:51and we'll fix it but they have to let the country and you know what they have to do all
03:55they have to do is raise
03:56five hands we don't need all of them but so you're saying your plan is to tell the democrats to
04:02vote
04:02to end the shutdown correct very simple and that you will put forward a health care plan no we will
04:08work on fixing the bad health care that we have right now we have terrible health care at too
04:12expensive for the people not for the government for the people but mr president with all due respect
04:17you've been talking about fixing the health care insurance since 2015 but since 2015 you've said
04:23you've been talking about it for a long time we almost did it we were one vote short we would
04:27have had great health care that was in 2017 when senate republicans failed by one vote to partially
04:34repeal obamacare we can make it much less expensive for people and give them much better health care
04:41and i'd be willing to work with the democrats on it the problem is they want to give money to
04:47prisoners to drug dealers to all these millions of people that were allowed to come in with an open
04:53border from biden and nobody can do that not one republican would ever do that my understanding is
05:00if those health care subsidies are not extended premiums will double for many of the people that
05:06are on it and i was looking into it three quarters of these people will see their health care premiums
05:11double live in states where you won in the last election i mean even here in florida has the
05:17highest number of residents on obamacare in the country and i'm saying we can fix it nora you have
05:23helped end these government shutdowns in the past when they came about and you did it by bringing
05:27very good at it you brought members of congress i'm not going to do it by extortion i'm not going
05:32to do it by being extorted by the democrats who have lost their way there's something wrong with these
05:37people so then what happens on november 15th when the troops don't get a paycheck schumer is a basket
05:42case and he has nothing to lose he's become i just left japan he's become a kamikaze pilot sounds
05:49like it's not going to get solved the shutdown it's going to get solved yeah oh it's going to get
05:52so
05:52how we'll get it eventually they're going to have to vote you're saying the democrats will capitulate
05:57i think they have to and if they don't vote that's their problem now i happen to agree with something
06:02else i think we should do the nuclear option this is a totally different nuclear by the way
06:06it's called ending the filibuster but to do that he'd need senate majority leader john thune
06:14to change senate rules did you see john thune said today i know john doesn't well john and a few
06:21other
06:21but you know what the republicans have to get tougher if we end the filibuster we can do exactly
06:27what we want we're not going to lose power the theory is oh then we'll do it but then when
06:32they get
06:32into power someday they'll do that's true but you know what so you think we're here right now no
06:36i like john thune i think he's terrific but i disagree with him on this point he said today
06:41he wasn't going to do it well that's too bad so far the shutdown hasn't spooked the stock market
06:48which hit record highs this past week perfect timing for your show just hit an all-time high
06:55we're doing really well can i ask you mr president on that point though yeah when the stock market is
07:00doing well that doesn't affect everybody not everybody's invested in the stock market but
07:04there have been grocery prices 401ks people have 401ks their 401ks are double what they were a year
07:11ago but for people that don't have 401ks or not invested in the stock market but they've seen their
07:16grocery prices go up inflation no you're wrong they went up under biden right now they're going down
07:22other than beef which we're working on which we can sell very quickly on the economy
07:27the signature part of your economic plan is tariffs the supreme court is going to hear arguments this
07:33week on whether you have the authority to impose these sweeping tariffs without congressional approval
07:39the lower courts have ruled against you that's why it's in the supreme court right now very close
07:43rulings yeah what happens to your economic plan if the supreme court invalidates your tariffs i think our
07:50country will be immeasurably hurt i think our economy will go to hell look because of tariffs we have
07:58the highest stock market we've ever had because of tariffs 401ks at the highest level that and this
08:03is millions and millions of people that we've ever had 401ks i think it's the most important subject
08:10discussed by the supreme court in a hundred years i know your time is limited so i do want to
08:14make sure i get
08:15through more of these topics immigration you campaigned on immigration you largely won the
08:21election on a promise to close the border and you succeeded yeah on that illegal crossings at the
08:27southern border are at a 55 year low more recently americans have been watching videos of ice tackling a
08:35young mother tear gas being used in a chicago residential neighborhood and the smashing of car
08:41windows have some of these raids gone too far no i think they haven't gone far enough because we've
08:47been held back by the by the judges by the liberal judges that were put in by biden and by
08:53obama you're
08:54okay with those tactics yeah because you have to get the people out you know you have to look at
08:58the
08:58people many of them are murderers many of them are people that were thrown out of their countries
09:03because they were you know criminals well you promised in your campaign that you were going to deport
09:08the worst of the worst violent criminals rapists well that's what we're doing a lot of the people
09:13that your administration has arrested and deported aren't violent criminals landscapers nannies
09:18construction workers landscapers no look the family of the landscapers and i need farmers more than
09:25anybody okay is it your intent to deport people who do not have a criminal record uh we have to
09:31start
09:32off with a policy and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally you're going to go
09:37out
09:37however you've also seen you're going to go out we're going to work with you and you're going to
09:42come back into our country legally when will you declare mission accomplished on immigration well
09:48it takes a long time because you know probably i say 25 million people were let into our country a
09:54lot of
09:54people say it was 10 million people but whether it was 10 or i believe i'm much closer to the
09:58right
09:58number of the 25 many of them should not be here but we're cleaning up our cities you know i
10:05campaigned on
10:06crime but i've done a much better job in crime than i thought you know the crime numbers are way
10:10down even though we have a lot more people in our country that really shouldn't be here and many of
10:15them are stone cold hard criminals the president has ordered the national guard to five cities
10:23los angeles washington dc portland chicago and memphis this past tuesday while speaking to american
10:31troops in japan you talked about u.s cities they're having trouble with crime and you said if we need
10:37more than the national guard we'll send more than the national guard what does that mean send more than
10:43the national guard well if you had to send in the army or if you had to send in the
10:47marines i'd do that
10:48in a heartbeat you know you have a thing called the insurrection act you know that right do you know
10:52that i could use that immediately and no judge can even challenge you on that but i haven't chosen to
10:59do it because i haven't felt we need it so you're going to send the military into american cities
11:03well if i wanted to i could if i wanted to use the insurrection act the insurrection act has been
11:08used routinely by precedents and if i needed it that would mean i could bring in the army the marines
11:13i
11:13could bring in whoever i want but i haven't chosen to use it i hope you give me credit for
11:17that
11:17i want to ask you about another matter james comey john bolton letitia james were all recently
11:24indicted there's a pattern to these names they're all public figures who have publicly denounced you
11:31is it political retribution you know what you know who got indicted the man you're looking at i got
11:36indicted and i was innocent and here i am because i was able to beat all of the nonsense that
11:42was
11:43thrown at me and yet when you go after a dirty cop like comey or a guy like bolton who
11:48i hear has
11:49i don't know anything about it i hear he took records all over the place who knows
11:53letitia james is a terrible dishonest person in my opinion did you instruct the department of
11:58justice to go out and not in any way shape or form no you don't have to instruct them because
12:02they
12:03were so dirty they were so crooked they were so corrupt that the honest people we have pam
12:08bondi's doing a very good job cash patel's doing a very good job the honest people that we have go
12:13after him automatically but in a true social post from september addressed to attorney general pam
12:19bondi president trump endorsed the idea that former fbi director james comey and new york attorney
12:26general letitia james were quote guilty as hell and wrote quote justice must be served now five days
12:34later james comey was indicted he pled not guilty and so did letitia james and president trump's former
12:41national security advisor john bolton is this retribution no it's the opposite i think i've been very
12:49mild-mannered you're looking at a man who was indicted many times and i had to beat the rap otherwise
12:54i couldn't run for president they tried to get me not to run for president by going after me and
13:00by
13:00indicting me so far this year the president has pardoned or shortened the sentences of more than
13:061600 people the latest pardon was for a cryptocurrency tycoon who is known as cz the company cz founded
13:16binance helped boost the profile of the trump family's crypto firm world liberty financial
13:23he pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws the government at the time said
13:29that cz had caused significant harm to u.s national security essentially by allowing terrorist groups
13:35like hamas to move millions of dollars around why did you pardon him okay are you ready i don't know
13:41who
13:41he is i know he got a four-month sentence or something like that and i heard it was a
13:46biden
13:46witch hunt in 2025 his crypto exchange binance helped facilitate a two billion dollar purchase of world
13:55liberty financials stable coin and then you pardoned cz how do you address the appearance of pay for play
14:04well here's the thing i know nothing about it because i'm too busy doing the other but i can only
14:08tell you
14:09but i can only tell you this um my sons are into it i'm glad they are because it's probably
14:15a
14:16great industry crypto i think it's good you know they're running a business they're not in government
14:20because world liberty financial has denied any involvement in the pardon with state and local
14:26elections coming up tuesday we asked the president about the highly anticipated mayoral race that includes
14:33former new york governor andrew cuomo and zorhan mandami 34 year old democratic socialist he's the
14:41communist not socialist communist he's far he's far worse than a social some people have compared him
14:47to a left-wing version of you charismatic breaking the old rules what do you think about that
14:52well i think i'm a much better looking person than him right but what if mandami becomes mayor it's
14:57going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to new york uh because
15:03if you have a
15:04communist running new york all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there so i don't
15:10know that he's one and i'm not a fan of cuomo one way the other but if it's going to
15:13be between
15:15a bad democrat and a communist i'm going to pick the bad democrat all the time to be honest with
15:21you
15:23the bad democrat when we return the surprise announcement president trump made about testing
15:28nuclear weapons
15:37when we sat down with president trump on friday at mar-a-lago he had just returned from a high
15:42stakes meeting with china's president xi jinping which culminated with a temporary truce in the trade
15:49war between the two countries but before the meeting even began mr trump made news as he often
15:56does with a social media post less than an hour before your meeting with president xi you posted
16:02on social media that you instructed the quote department of war to start testing our nuclear
16:08weapons right immediately what did you mean well we have more nuclear weapons than any other country
16:14i think we should do something about denuclearization and i did actually discuss that with both president
16:21putin and president xi we have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times uh russia has
16:30a lot of nuclear weapons and china will have a lot they have some they have quite a bit so
16:34why do we need
16:35to test our nuclear weapons well because you have to see how they work you know you do have to
16:39and
16:39the reason i'm saying uh testing is because russia announced that they were going to be doing a
16:45test uh if you notice north korea is testing constantly other countries are testing we're the only
16:50country that doesn't test and i want to be i don't want to be the only country that doesn't test
16:54are you saying that after more than 30 years the united states is going to start detonating nuclear
17:00weapons i'm saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do yes but the only
17:06country that's testing nuclear weapons is north korea russia no russia's testing nuclear weapons
17:11my understanding and china's testing them too you just don't know about it that would be certainly
17:15very newsworthy my understanding is what russia did recently was test essentially the uh delivery
17:21systems for nuclear weapons essentially missiles which we can do that but what not with nuclear russia's
17:26testing and china's testing but they don't talk about it you know we're a open society we're different we
17:33talk about it we have to talk about it because otherwise you people are going to report they
17:36don't have reporters that are going to be writing about it uh we do however this week the president's
17:43own nominee to lead stratcom the admiral who would be in charge of nuclear weapons was asked about this
17:49very issue on capitol hill he said neither china nor russia were conducting nuclear explosive tests
17:57one potential flashpoint with china probably the potential flashpoint with china in the coming
18:02years is over the issue of taiwan the chinese military is encroaching on taiwan's sea lanes its airspace
18:10its cyberspace i know you have said that xi jinping wouldn't dare move militarily on taiwan while you're
18:17in office but what if he does would you order u.s forces to defend taiwan you'll find out if
18:24it happens
18:24and he understands the answer to that why not say this never even came up yesterday as a subject he
18:30never
18:30brought it up uh people were a little surprised at that he never brought it up because he understands
18:35it and he understands it very well do you mind if i ask when you say he understands why not
18:40communicate
18:41that publicly to the rest of us what does he understand i don't want to give away i can't give
18:44away my secrets i don't want to be one of these guys that tells you exactly what's going to happen
18:49if
18:49something happens the other side knows but uh i'm not somebody that tells you everything because you're
18:54asking me a question but they understand what's going to happen and uh he has openly said and his
19:00people have openly said at meetings we would never do anything while president trump is president
19:05because they know the consequences at the top of the agenda for president trump and president xi
19:11was a one-year trade deal that for now averts the escalating tension between the two economic
19:18superpowers we've already agreed to a lot of things mr trump told us that in exchange for lower tariffs
19:24china agreed to sell the u.s its valuable rare earth minerals and to resume buying american agricultural
19:31products this trade war though was hurting americans i mean our soybean farmers china had stopped buying
19:37the soybeans china was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from
19:43smartphones to build submarines what was the crucial thing i mean how tough of a negotiator it was a
19:50temporary hurt it was a hurt because uh i was taking in a lot of money from china we were
19:55doing very
19:55well against china and all of a sudden they said you know we have to fight back and so they
20:00use their
20:01powers the power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they've been accumulating it and and
20:06really taking care of it for a period of 25 30 years other countries haven't they use that against us
20:14and we used other things against them for instance airplane parts that's a big deal they have
20:19hundreds of boeing airplanes we wouldn't give them parts we were both acting uh maybe a little bit
20:26irrationally but the big thing we had was tariffs ultimately i said look if you don't open up then
20:33what we're going to do is we're going to oppose a hundred percent tariff over and above what you're
20:37already paying mr president you just negotiated this one year trade deal with china but as you know
20:43the chinese they think in a hundred years sure they played the long game including on our own soil
20:49we play the long game too our own intelligence agencies say the chinese have infiltrated parts
20:54of the american power grid and our water systems they steal american intellectual property and americans
21:01personal information they bought american farmland how big of a threat is china it's like everybody else
21:08we're a threat to them too many of the things that you say we do to them look this is
21:13a very
21:14competitive world especially when it comes to china and the u.s and uh we're always watching them and
21:20they're always watching us in the meantime i think we get along very well and i think it's uh i
21:24think we
21:25can be bigger better and stronger by working with them as opposed to just uh knocking them out
21:30who's tougher to deal with vladimir putin or xi jinping both tough both smart both uh look
21:37they're both very strong leaders these are people not to be toyed with these are people you have to
21:42take very serious they're not they're not walking in saying oh isn't it a beautiful day look how
21:47beautiful the sun is shining it's so nice these are serious people these are people that are tough
21:52smart leaders and on that note you talk about ukraine in august i mean you rolled out the red carpet
21:58for vladimir putin in alaska but there's been well i roll out the red carpet for everybody
22:04but is but there's been no ceasefire yeah because he thinks because i inherited a country where he
22:11thinks he's winning that was a war that would have never happened if i was president so why won't
22:16putin end this war but nora that was joe biden's war not my war i inherited that stupid word
22:23as the bloodiest land war in europe since world war ii continues but i brought i mean just a little
22:29list of look at this wars president trump wanted to make sure we saw the list of eight international
22:37conflicts he says he's been able to end since returning to office and you have branded yourself
22:42the peace president well i think i did pretty good i i solved those are eight of the nine wars
22:48i
22:48solved you know how i solved them i said in many cases in sixty percent i said if you don't
22:54stop
22:54fighting i'm putting tariffs on both of your countries and you're not going to be able to do
22:58business why isn't that why isn't that working with putin uh it is working with putin i think
23:04i did different with him because we don't do very much business with russia for one thing you know it's
23:08he's not like somebody that buys a lot from us because of uh foolishness and i think he'd like to
23:14be i
23:14think he wants to come in and he wants to trade with us and he wants to make a lot
23:18of money for
23:18russia and i think that's great the commander-in-chief has directed the u.s military to destroy at least
23:24nine vessels in the waters off venezuela killing more than three dozen alleged drug smugglers
23:30u.s lawmakers including at least four republicans have questioned the strike's legality
23:37in the meantime f-35 fighter jets roughly 10 000 u.s service members
23:43and multiple warships are in the caribbean and now the uss gerald ford that is the world's
23:49largest aircraft carrier on the way to the caribbean are we going to war against venezuela
23:55i doubt it i don't think so but they've been treating us very badly not only on drugs
24:00they've dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn't want people from
24:05prisons they emptied their prisons into our company country they also uh if you take a look
24:10they emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylum into the united states of america
24:16because joe biden was the worst president in the history of our country but i just want to talk about
24:21the scale of the military operation around venezuela because it has been described to 60 minutes as using
24:27a blow torch to cook an egg is this about stopping i don't think so look is it about let
24:33me ask you
24:33though is it about stopping narcotics or is this about getting rid of president maduro no this is
24:39about many things this is a country that allowed their prisons to be emptied into our country to
24:46me that would be almost number one because we have other countries Mexico has been very bad to us in
24:52terms of drugs okay very bad we have a closed border right now you probably noticed that for five months
24:57in a row they have zero think of this zero people coming into our country through our southern border
25:04on venezuela in particular are maduro's days as president numbers i would say yeah i think so yeah
25:11and this issue of potential land strikes in venezuela is that true i don't tell you that i mean uh
25:16i'm not saying it's true or untrue but i you know i wouldn't why would i wouldn't be inclined to
25:21say
25:21that i would do that but because i don't talk to a reporter about whether or not i'm going to
25:25strike
25:25let's talk about israel you got the remaining israeli hostages out of gaza did you arranged a
25:32ceasefire however fragile that may be those are major fragile it's a very solid you know i mean you
25:38hear about hamas but hamas could be taken out immediately if they don't behave they know that
25:42if they don't behave they're going to be taken out immediately how do you get hamas to disarm
25:47uh if i want them to disarm i'll get them to sound very quickly they'll be uh they'll be eliminated
25:53they know that don't forget you said i got the remaining hostages i got all the hostages out
25:59but i always said the last 10 or 20 are going to be tough you pushed the israeli prime minister
26:05to make this deal to get a ceasefire to apologize to qatar can you push bb netanyahu to recognize
26:14a palestinian state yeah he's uh he's fine he's fine look he's a wartime prime minister
26:21i worked very well with him yeah i mean i had to push him a little bit one way or
26:25the other i think i
26:26i did a great job in pushing he's a very talented guy he's a guy that uh has never been
26:32pushed before
26:32actually that's the kind of person you needed in israel at the time it was very important
26:38i don't think they treat him very well he's under trial for some things that i don't think they treat
26:42him very well i think it should you know we'll we'll be involved in that to help him out a
26:46little bit
26:46because i think it's very unfair um i did i pushed him i didn't like certain things that he did
26:52and
26:52you saw what i did about that i also stopped you know i we knocked the hell out of iran
26:58and then it
26:58was time to stop and we stopped president trump told us he expects to expand the abraham accords
27:05the historic agreement struck during mr trump's first term the normalized relations between israel and some
27:12arab states i wanted to ask you about the crown prince of saudi arabia is coming to the white
27:18house that's right this month he has said they won't join the abraham accords without a two-state
27:24solution do you believe that no i think he's going to join i think we will have a solution i
27:31don't know
27:31if it's going to be two states that's going to be up to israel and other people and me
27:35but uh look the main thing is you could have never had any kind of a deal if you had
27:41a nuclear iran
27:43and you essentially had a nuclear iran and i blasted the hell out of them and no president
27:49are you convinced they have no nuclear capability right now do you want to know do you want to know
27:53they have no nuclear capability now do you want to know that uh the pilots i invited them to the
27:58white
27:58house because they were very brave i mean i wouldn't have wanted to do it you know get in a
28:02plane and
28:02they know you're coming and you're going right into iran airspace and you know they're very experts
28:07and you're flying in with machines personally i can think of other things i'd rather do these
28:12guys are very brave people i mean they're real american heroes and they told me something i didn't
28:17know they said sir for 22 years we've been practicing this route three times a year every
28:24year for 22 years and you were the only president that let us do our job as our time with
28:30the president
28:31was winding down we asked him whether he'll try to stay in his job beyond 2028 there's been a lot
28:38of
28:38talk about 2028 and who will be at the top of the republican ticket can you set the record straight
28:45you're not going to try and run for a third term well i don't even think about it i will
28:49tell you a
28:50lot of people want me to run but the difference between us and the democrats is we really do have
28:55a
28:55strong bench i don't want to use names because it's you know inappropriate but it's too early
28:59three people do like when you start talking about whether you like jd vance or secretary
29:03i do like jd vance i like marco rubio i like us i like so many we have an unbelievable
29:08bench mr
29:09president can i also ask you we're now at the end of your first year of this second term what
29:15do you
29:15hope to accomplish in the next three years well i hope i can have the same year that we had
29:19look we have
29:20been acknowledged to have the greatest nine months you know it's nine months the greatest nine months
29:25in the history of the presidency so if i can keep that going i'll be very happy
29:33nice to see you more from our interview with president trump and watch the extended
29:38interview and read the full transcript at 60minutesovertime.com
29:50with more than 150 million copies sold in 40 languages guinness world records is one of the
29:57best-selling books in history in it you'll find the shortest tallest and fastest alongside jaw-dropping
30:04human feats and eighth grade bathroom humor some achievements are so over the top it was hard to
30:09keep a straight face during interviews for this story but behind the spectacle is a meticulous system
30:16of british auditing so strict it has crushed many more record attempts than it has certified even if
30:22what you see defies belief you can trust that if it made it into the book it is real and
30:28as guinness
30:29world records declares officially amazing are you ready how are you feeling i'm feeling pumped yeah
30:40for colin kaplan the stakes couldn't be higher not in my wildest dreams could i've ever thought that
30:46i'd be doing anything like this after a year of planning he's about to find out if his city new
30:52haven
30:52connecticut can eat its way into history by hosting the world's largest pizza party let's get some pizza
31:00kaplan a local historian and food tour guide is so obsessed with pizza last year he chartered a jet to
31:08washington and got his congresswoman to declare new haven the pizza capital of america
31:16is this a serious endeavor yeah yeah i think it is i'll tell you what it's it seems light and
31:24fun
31:25but it's it's serious in a sense of what's on the line what's on the line is the glory of
31:32a guinness
31:32world record and people will do just about anything to get one humans are such an interesting band
31:40chapman and record-breaking is an innately human thing and if that means you do strange things like
31:46swallowing sausages whole or climbing everest or running a marathon with a milk bottle on your head
31:53then that's that's fine that's great craig glenday has been the book's editor-in-chief for the past 21
32:00years i really like that so i think we want more of that in his signature scottish accent he recounts
32:07with a straight face what is often a circus of absurdity you know we get things like fastest time
32:13to run around my garden playing the banjo with a snake on my head it's like next they get a
32:19nice
32:19letter of like thank you but no thank you cutest babies and cutest dogs don't make the cut either
32:25records must meet strict criteria they have to be filmed from multiple angles verified by independent
32:33eyewitnesses and measured with precision each year guinness world records receives roughly 50 000
32:41applications but as many as 95 percent get rejected the largest number of submissions come from the
32:48united states one of my favorite days in the job was i was at the x games at the staples
32:53center in la
32:54and a dog zipped past me on a skateboard and despite the heat i chased after this dog and i
33:00found the owner
33:01and said i've never seen a dog on a skateboard he said oh this is tailman he loves skateboarding i
33:06had
33:06a tape measure we measured at 100 meters of the car park at the staples center and we set the
33:11record
33:11there and then because i was so amazed by it do you just walk through the world with a tape
33:16measure
33:16in your pocket well i do usually do you yeah i have a tape measure and a stopwatch because you
33:21never know
33:22many of the record holders you know usain bolt for the fastest 200 meters beyonce for the most
33:29grammys and many you've probably never even imagined go like serial record breaker david rush an idaho tech
33:39worker who has broken more than 350 records and counting including most bites taken from three
33:47apples while juggling for a minute it's just past the two mile mark and most t-shirts worn during a
33:54half
33:54marathon and monsieur mange too that's mr eats everything in french he held the record for the
34:02world's strangest diet the guy who'd you know he'd supposedly eaten a cessna because he could eat
34:09metal and glass a cessna plane well apparently it took him two years we couldn't quite sound very healthy
34:14well i mean he his wife wouldn't let him use the toilet at home because if he'd been eating metal
34:20it
34:20tends to come out like bullets and it would chip the porcelain so he'd have to use a hotel with
34:26metal
34:27toilets near his house this is the craziest interview i've ever done sorry i'm sorry come back to what
34:36you're saying that when you i mean for me it's every day so i don't quite get it but yeah
34:41okay he could do
34:42glass and metal he couldn't do chains but to meet him was a real honor for me because he was
34:47like a
34:47childhood hero for me you must get this question all the time why why i mean it's different for
34:53everyone everyone has a different reason some just want fame some want to be in print we do validate
34:59people that do things that others might seem about a bit weird like eating aircraft and stuff so
35:06do you not see that as weird i mean i i i see it as really interesting i gotta tell
35:14you i thought it
35:15would be a little crazier inside the company's london headquarters glenday keeps a cabinet of greatest
35:21hits it's craig's cabinet of curie oddities like the world's smallest playing cards and a giant size 29
35:30shoe i'm like the vanna white of oddities here what is this um if you have a little investigation of
35:37that it's the world oldest vomit vomit vomit you got me on that one 160 it doesn't smell and it's
35:44obviously petrified not everyone chooses to break records i'm 5 10 so what was she she's just on seven
35:51foot the tallest and shortest people often have had genetic conditions the woman with the longest
35:58fingernails 43 feet hasn't cut them since her daughter who painted her nails passed away in 1997.
36:07so she still holds the record still has the record and i think that's the longest ever measured
36:11the idea for the book began during a hunting trip at this country estate in ireland where the manager of
36:18the guinness brewery got into an argument over who could name the fastest game bird in europe
36:24to settle future pub debates he commissioned a book of superlatives which eventually became the guinness
36:30world records the first one was published in 1955. the initial reaction from the book trade was not
36:37that positive and the first sales meeting ever the the salesperson wrote six on the slip and they said
36:43what do you mean six thousand six hundred so no six they just wanted six six for the whole cup
36:48copies yeah by the end of the week it was like ten thousand they sold that quickly and it was
36:53just it
36:53was just blew up 70 years later it's still a hit at school book fairs but today the name guinness
37:01world records is synonymous with viral stunts that become click bait gold is google your biggest
37:08competition i could pull my phone out right now and search the world's fastest bird you might as
37:12well open the window and shout your question into the street and you'll get an answer yeah but is it
37:17the right one well i can say i know sultan kosen's eight foot three because i've i was there with
37:22the
37:22tape measure i measured him he's also measured the shortest person who he learned about after a woodcutter
37:28passed through a remote village in nepal and alerted the team at guinness world records so it was
37:35confidence enough for me to then go to nepal you get on a flight and go to nepal to measure
37:39this
37:39person and we would never have known about him had that woodcutter not gone through the village that day
37:44and sent us the video footage and then there are the rules so rigid they've sparked office debates
37:52over who makes the cut for the largest gathering of people dressed as smurfs so it's like okay well
37:59what is this smurf what do they wear do they all have blue skin yes you know you might
38:05have to write guidelines for any possible topics so we've got this huge big book of experts you know
38:12from archaeologists to smurfs to smurfologists yeah i don't know if that's something but you know like
38:16we've we've got a murmurcologist which what is that murmurcologist an ant expert so if we've got
38:22a question about what's the most dangerous ant quick get the murmurcologist online like is we've just
38:27found this big ant is it the biggest for large events like the new haven pizza party i am today's
38:33official guinness world records adjudicator so i'm basically the judge guinness world records
38:39sometimes sends an adjudicator responsible for enforcing the rules from headquarters you're going
38:44to write how many people you disqualified hopefully that is a nice big round zero thomas bradford is one
38:51of 81 adjudicators the company employs across six continents his day job is as a performer at disney
38:59right but when it's go time he puts on his trademark blue jacket the largest gathering
39:04of people dressed as dinosaurs was one of my favorite events and you kind of expect people
39:09to just come in the classic you know inflatable t-rex costume what do they come in diplodocus
39:14triceratops like you name it we had it legit gear everything i had to turn away people that were
39:19dressed as godzilla because godzilla is not a dinosaur how do you break it to a dinosaur in a bad
39:24costume that they don't qualify you kind of just have to play the role i think my accent helps and
39:30there is a level of you know authority that comes from a british accent very much that the largest pizza
39:36party is probably the most competitive record that i've ever been a part of is that true i didn't think
39:41it would be as it's it's a lot yes they're stressing you out this is probably one of the most
39:45stressful
39:46record attempts i've had colin kaplan needs 3 358 people to show up in order to beat the current record
39:55and you want to be tulsa we're going to be tulsa oklahoma participants get 15 minutes to eat two
40:01slices of pizza and drink a bottle of water but here's the catch they have to stay until the party
40:07is
40:08officially over and they must eat the entire pizza no one can leave their crusts they have to eat the
40:16crust what makes a pizza party like this so difficult people yeah it's you know you don't know if they're
40:24gonna stay for 15 minutes they might wait for 14 and be like i'm fine you're disqualified if you leave
40:29after 14 minutes you know so that's the people is the the toughest thing this official guinness world
40:35record attempt has begun at first it was slow going what if not enough people show up or have you
40:44guys already accounted but then in came the pizza obsessed college students children those in their
40:53finest pepperoni attire it's 10 000 slices which is 625 pizzas in about three and a half hours
41:01kaplan's pursuit of a record didn't come cheap brands and businesses chasing titles for marketing
41:08must pay fees he said he paid nearly 30 000 and fundraised six figures to cover all the costs
41:17including eight ovens and all that cheese when thomas bradford wasn't busy being a celebrity
41:27he and a group of 100 volunteers kept the tally only two didn't finish yes one left perfect okay with
41:35an hour to go it's gonna go to the wire i think it's gonna be close kaplan was still trying
41:40to make
41:40the pie calculations add up we could actually feed 1800 people starting at six o'clock still and that means
41:48that we could 100 beat the record and almost get to 5000 so did they finally the verdict and now
41:57new haven is
41:58home to the world's largest pizza party 4525 people gathered for a new guinness world record
42:09congratulations new haven you are all officially amazing and a slice of history human beings are
42:19nearly the same everywhere they are really because they're trying to get through from birth to death
42:24and have as much fun and enjoy life and and get all the experiences that you can and we see
42:30this every
42:30day the world is full of these amazing fun things if you just look in the right place
42:42the last minute of 60 minutes is sponsored by united healthcare coverage you can count on for your
42:50whole life ahead
42:54our teams travel the world to find the stories that we share here on 60 minutes but often it's viewers
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43:14securely and confidentially i'm john wertheim we'll be back next week with another edition of 60 minutes
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