Donald Trump on 2020 election | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips

tough topic but important you said lost by a whisker I'm an independent I have a lot of friends who are independent many of whom like your policies uh like the fact that you're a dealmaker like the fact that you can end Wars but they are troubled by what happened in the 2020 election and um statements about widespread fraud and this kind of stuff fake elector scheme what can you say to those uh independent voters to help them decide who to vote for right I think the fraud was on the other side I think the election was a fraud and many people felt it was that and they wanted answers and when you can't challenge an election you have to be able to challenge it otherwise it's going to get worse not better and there are lots of ways to solve this problem go to paper ballots do it the easy way I mean the paper ballots and you uh have voter ID and you have same day voting and you have proof of citizenship which is very important because we have people voting that are not citizens they just came in and they're loading up the payrolls they're loading up everything they're putting students in schools they don't speak a word of English and they're taking the seats of people that are citizens of our country so uh look we have the worst Border in the history of the world we have coming into our country right now millions and millions of people at levels that nobody's ever seen I don't believe any country's ever seen it and they would use Sticks and Stones not to make it happen not to let it happen we don't we don't do anything and we have a person who is the bordar who now said she wasn't really the bordar but she was she was the bordar but she was in charge of the B and we have her and she's saying very strongly oh I did such a good job she was horrible horrible the the harm she's done but we have people coming in from other countries all over the world not just South America and they're coming in from prisons and jails they're coming in from mental institutions and insane asylums and they're Street criminals right off the street they take them and they're being given into our country drug dealers human traffickers we're destroying our country this is a sin what's been allowed to take place over the last four years we're destroying our country and we'll see how that all works out but it's not even believable and now you see you saw in Aurora Colorado a group of very tough Young Thugs from Venezuela taking over big areas including buildings they're taking over buildings they have their big rifles but they're taking over buildings we're not going to let this happen we're not going to let them destroy our country and you know in those countries crime is way down they're taking them out of their prisons which is good because good for them I do the same thing by the way if I ran one of those countries any country in the world I would make sure that America has every one of our prisoners every one of our criminals would be here I can't believe they're going so slowly but some aren't and but they all are doing it and we can't let that happen they're emptying out their prisons and their mental institutions into the United States of America we can't let that happen so a lot of people believe that there was some shady stuff that went on with the election whether it's uh media bias or big Tech but still the the claim of widespread fraud is the thing that bothers people well I don't focus on the past I focus on the future I mean I talk about how bad the economy is how bad inflation is how bad things like um which is important Afghanistan was in my opinion the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to our country and because of that I think Putin went in when he said how stupid we were Putin went in but it it was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country I really believe that but you know we left we left 13 dead soldiers think of it 13 dead soldiers many soldiers horrifically hurt with arms and legs and everything else gone um we left hostages behind we left Americans behind we left military equipment the likes of which nobody's ever left behind before billions and billions of dollars of equipment they're now selling the equipment they're one of the largest arms dealers in the world and um very sad very sad and and you know we were there for a long time I was going to get out we were getting ready to get out then we got interrupted by the election but we would have been out with dignity and strength um we were having very little problem with the Taliban when I was there because they knew it was going to be tough I dealt with Abdul Abdul was the leader and we got along fun understood but you know they were shooting they were killing a lot of our people before I came down and when I got there I said I spoke to them I said can't do it don't do it anymore we went 18 months before this happened this horrible day happened we went 18 months and nobody was shot at or killed what do you think that was the carrot or the stick in that case in Afghanistan the stick definitely the a threat of military force that was the stick yeah it doesn't have to be but that was the stick well let me just Linger on the election a little a little bit more for this election it might be a close one what can we do to avoid the insanity and division of the previous election whether you win or lose well I hope it's not a close one I mean you know I don't know how people can vote for somebody that has destroyed our country the inflation the bad economy but but to me in a way the worst is what they've allowed to happen at our border where they've allowed millions of people that come in here from places that you don't want to know about and I can't believe that that's going to be a close election you know we're leading in the polls but and it looks close but I think in the end it's not going to be a close election what do you think is the right way to solve the immigration crisis is mass deportation one of the solutions you would think about well you've got to get the the criminals out of here fast right you know the people from mental institutions you got to get them back into their mental institution no country can afford this you know it's just too much money you look at what's happening in New York and Chicago and la and lots of places and you take a look at what's happening there's no country can afford this we can't afford it and we've got to get the bad ones out immediately and the rest have to be worked on you know it's happened before Dwight Eisenhower was sort of a moderate president moderate type person but he hated when he saw people pouring into the country and they were nothing like now you know I probably got elected in 2016 because of the border and I told people what was happening and they understood it and I won the election and I won the election I think because of the Border our border is 25 times worse right now than it was in 2016 I had it fixed to I had it the last week of my the famous chart that I put up was exactly that you know the chart when I look to the right I said there's the chart being uh that was not a pleasant experience but the chart that I put up said and that was done by border patrol that was the lowest number that we've ever had come into our country in recorded history and we have to get it back to that again we will e