00:00I spoke with Donald Trump for an hour in the Oval Office about his plans for America's economy.
00:05Here's what he told me. I met with President Trump in mid-May. I sat right across from him.
00:10The conversation was very wide-ranging. It started with a conversation about the reflecting pool,
00:16tariffs, Kevin Warsh, who's the new Fed chair. And we also talked about some of the investments
00:21that the government has been making in American companies. And the most notable example of that
00:25is Intel. And as we started talking about Intel, one of his aides dropped into my lap a sheet of
00:31paper that showed Intel's stock chart, which basically goes up like this, like a hockey stick,
00:35from the time the government finagled a 10% investment in the company, which was struggling
00:40at the time, to today. While some people criticize the government's investment in companies like Intel,
00:45the president defended it to me, saying, you know, I know some people think what I'm doing is un-American.
00:49Actually, it's very American. He feels like this is just one tool the government can use in a new way
00:56to bolster the economy. One thing to keep in mind is that President Trump came up in the real estate
01:01industry. And you see that in his deal-making approach for America. In the real estate industry,
01:07there's a lot of one-to-one deals. It's face-to-face. And I think the president likes to try
01:11and do that
01:11approach in politics as well. Of course, it doesn't usually happen that way. There's a lot of red tape
01:16historically in government. But wherever he can, he likes to. And he prides himself on this quick
01:21deal-making. It's been a staple of his career. He's having some effectiveness doing that in
01:26government. But it's not a strategy where people are actually investing in America. They're not doing
01:31deals with America. They're doing deals with President Trump. So very much the context of
01:36our conversation was, if this is the right approach for America, and this quick deal-making is something
01:41that should stick, it doesn't really seem like it can stick once you're gone. And in fact, when I asked
01:45him
01:45about that, he said, I can't answer your question. It's just never going to happen again. And that really
01:50struck me because it's not an answer that any CEO of any successful company could give. You can't
01:55hinge yourself on one person because as soon as that person leaves, all the inherent value that they've
01:59created for that company goes away. So that really struck me as there is no legacy plan that's solidified,
02:05at least not one that he's willing to talk about. You can read my full exclusive interview on
02:09fortune.com.
Comments