BUCK: As promised, we are joined right now by President Donald J. Trump, the 45th president of the United States. President Trump, great to have you on, sir.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it’s great to be with you, and I hear you guys are doing big numbers, and that makes me happy.

BUCK: Makes us happy too, sir. Thanks so much for joining us. Tell us about this. A lot of attention… We’ve got so many questions to ask you about politics and the Virginia race and the Democrats and the border.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yeah.

BUCK: But first, TRUTH Social. People have been waiting for this for a while. We know Big Tech is against conservatives. We know they’re against you. You’re doing something about it. Tell us about this TRUTH Social project.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I wanted to do something where we can put our voice out and that’s all voices, liberal and conservative. Because, frankly, if you look at Twitter, it’s become very boring. They’ve lost tremendous amount of audience. It’s become boring as can be because conservatives are off it.

They got me out. I had hundreds… Between Facebook and Instagram and Twitter, way over a hundred million people, way, way over, closer to the next number. And, frankly, our voice has been taken away so I wanted to do something important, something that couldn’t be taken down, and I think it’s gonna be terrific.

CLAY: Mr. President, appreciate you coming on with us. I know you got a busy weekend upcoming. I believe you’re going to be in Atlanta for the Astros-Braves game. What kind of reception do you expect to get, and do you plan on doing the tomahawk chop to support the Atlanta Braves? Evidently that’s now super controversial. Have you seen the woke universe out there is saying, “Oh, you can’t do the Atlanta Brave tomahawk chop.” They’re really upset with Braves fans for doing that.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I think it’s ridiculous when you get right down to it. The Cleveland Indians are changing their name to the Guardians. Now, that was an original franchise, I guess one of six. But they’re changing their names to the Cleveland Guardians. Now, at least the Atlanta Braves are not changing their name yet (audio drop) I think he’s a great guy, invited me, and so I’ll be going with the first lady, and we’ll have a good time, both great teams. It’s gonna be pretty interesting.

BUCK: We’re speaking to former President Donald J. Trump right now.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Tremendous, tremendous, terrible things happened in terms of that election, and the election fraud, frankly. But we did tremendously in Georgia, and I think we’ll get a great reception.

BUCK: Mr. President, gotta ask you, the border right now… I’m sure you saw the story. They’re really working hard to undo what your administration did to secure the border. That’s been from day one the Biden administration approach approximately but what are your thoughts as you see that the Biden DOJ is thinking about writing $450,000-a-person checks as some kind of a makeup for what your administration was doing some years ago?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, one of the things we were doing is separation, which was done before us, but separation. When people heard that, they didn’t come because if a parent hears they’re gonna be separated, they didn’t come. One of the reasons I was so successful at the border. When you look at what they’re doing at the border, there’s never been anything like it. The greatest we’ve ever had went to the worst — probably one of the worst in the history of the world, because no country can sustain what’s happening to our country.

And, as you know, after 2-1/2 years I won all the legal cases, 11 legal cases, and we started the wall and was almost finished, would have been finished within a month, and they didn’t finish it. Now, most of it’s built, anyway, so it has a big impact, but between the wall and Remain in Mexico, people weren’t allowed into our country. I worked it out with the Mexican government. They gave us 28,000 soldiers free.

That was because I wasn’t gonna tariff their cars. They treated us really well. And we had it stopped. And we also stopped drugs, to a large extent. I mean, we never had such good numbers on drugs and people. If you look at what’s happening now, they’re emptying their prisons into the United States. We’ve become a dumping ground, and it’s a very, very sad thing. Now, on top of everything, I understand they’re gonna give certain people $450,000.

It’s not even believable what they’re doing. It’s not even believable. And you have big caravans coming up. You have tough caravans. They went right through the Mexican police like it was butter. We better stop ’em. That’s all I can tell you. We’re taking in millions of people into our country illegally, and these people are rough people. Many of them are rough, rough people.

CLAY: Mr. President, you tweeted out inflation nation. I know you’re a fan of McDonald’s. I saw where McDonald’s is having to increase their prices 6%.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

CLAY: Joe Biden is saying that he’s not in any way raising taxes on people even though he is. What do we have to do to end this inflation onslaught which I believe is at a 30-year high? I think even Jimmy Carter’s looking around wondering what in the world’s happened.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Jimmy Carter’s looking very good right now because he was sort of used as an example of how not to do things and he’s done a lot of better than what they’re doing right now. No, it is inflation nation. And to a certain extent it starts with the energy, fuel. You take a look at what we did, we were a totally… We were free! We were free from the Middle East.

We were free from everything. We were energy independent. I think really the first time ever. They say the first time in 75 years. I would say the first time ever, and I was very proud of it. Now it’s the opposite. They’re going to OPEC, Russia. They went to Saudi Arabia individually. “We need oil, we need oil,” we’re begging. And if you saw, there are certain places in California where it start at $7.77, and we had it down to $1.87 when I left.

Think of that. And that’s bigger than any tax. If you look at that we were talking about three, four, five dollars more, there’s no tax that you’re gonna do that’s bigger than that. But what it’s doing is everything evolves around and revolves around energy. So what they’re doing, fellas, is — whether it’s delivering a product, making a product, it all takes energy.

And the energy now, we don’t have it. They just gave up ANWR in Alaska, the biggest — probably the biggest — drilling site anywhere in the world, perhaps as big as Saudi Arabia. Reagan tried to do it, they all failed. Everybody failed for decades and decades. I got it done and they just… Lisa Murkowski did a terrible job, the senator from Alaska.

She’s absolutely terrible. She approved a person who in the first day in office wiped out ANWR. So it’s one of those things. You have to get the energy back. If you’re gonna have high energy, you’re gonna have inflation. And there are many other things. But you have to start it with energy. We had so much energy, we’ve never had it so good, and we were energy independent, and now they are begging OPEC for help. It’s not even believable.

BUCK: We’re speaking to former President Donald J. Trump right now live with all of you listening across the country. Mr. President, right now we are days away from a major deadline in New York City for first responders and members of the NYPD to get vaccinated. There have been thousands of people already across the country including nurses, doctors, first responders who have lost their jobs, who have willingly decided they would not get the shot; they would give up their careers instead of bending the knee to these mandates. What do you think of the mandates, and what do you want to say to those who either have lost or face job loss — including NYPD, other law enforcement and first responders across the country — in this situation? What do you want to say to them?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, New York City has been terribly run under de Blasio. He’s the worst mayor in the history of our city by far, probably the worst mayor. I don’t know. There’s a couple we could name, and we know ’em all, but as bad as any mayor has ever been in the history of our country. And you look at what he’s done with mandates. You know, it’s interesting.

I’m so proud of what we did, and you understand that. I’m so proud of what we did with the vaccines. It was us. It was the Trump administration. We got three of them, therapeutics with Regeneron and all of it. I’m so proud of it, but people have to have freedom! They have to be able to choose. And what they have done with the mandate, everyone’s quitting.

If you remember, if you remember what happened during, we didn’t have a mandate problem. Everybody actually rushed. They wanted to get the vaccine. And now they do have because I don’t think they trust the Biden administration. I think that’s what’s happened. They just don’t trust the Biden administration. We had…

When we came out way vaccine and we were doing over a million a day, people weren’t talking about not getting it. Everybody wants to get it. Then they did the Johnson & Johnson pause, and they did other stupid things, and they said the wrong thing, and all of a sudden you have a big mandate problem. Look, you’re gonna lose your police force in New York, a big portion of it.

Crime is rising in New York like never before, and now you’re gonna have perhaps 30% less police on the streets. It is absolutely insane. You have a mayor who’s grossly incompetent and doing this, and obviously you have other industries where it’s happening too. You’re gonna lose a lot of people. It’s a terrible thing for our nation, what they’re doing.

CLAY: Much less serious, Mr. President, but it is Halloween Eve eve. I know you’re gonna be at the Braves game against the Astros. That’s gonna be a lot of fun on Halloween eve. But we were debating, what is your go-to candy? I know you got a little bit of a sweet tooth.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I have.

CLAY: And have you given out Halloween candy, do you make a specific choice, “I’m gonna give this one to the kids,” yourself? How involved are you in the Halloween process?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I do. I do like candy of all kinds. I’m an expert on candy. And, you know, have the expensive candy and then they have the Hershey, and I like Hershey, and I like anything with caramel in it. Does that make sense to you? Anything. But I do like the candy stuff, unfortunately. I’d be much better if I didn’t.

CLAY: We need to come down. We talked the last time we had you on, Mr. President, about coming down to Mar-a-Lago. We’ve been talking to your staff. We want to come down when it starts to get cold in the part of the country where we are, but you tell us a date when you’d like to have us down. The show is doing fantastically well thanks to Rush’s loyal listeners and thanks to you and guests coming on. You tell us when you want us down. We want to do a live broadcast from Mar-a-Lago with you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Okay, good. Good. We have a good race going on in Virginia. When politics gets even hotter, you come down. I’d love to have you actually. It’d be great to have both of you. You’re both really terrific people and you’re really… Rush would be very proud of the job that you’re doing.

BUCK: Thank you so much. Former president Trump, everybody.

CLAY: Enjoy the game.

BUCK: Great to have you. Thank you so much, sir.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much.

BUCK: Dude, we’re going down to Mar-a-Lago, Clay. It’s gotta happen.

CLAY: I just can’t wait, Buck, to see the reception that he’s gonna get in Atlanta because I think that it is going to blow the mind of all the left-wing, woke journos when that Braves stadium comes undone for him.

BUCK: People miss MAGA now more than they have in a long time because we’re seeing what the absence of MAGA looks like.