This is a rush transcript from "Your World," September 19, 2013. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: You know whose comments I thought were the most profound there over the years? Donald Trump, his view that we were just dragging it out, dragging it out.
The real estate mogul joining me right now.
I really think you got that right, Don. I think that that is what was the problem. And with all the best intentions, as is always the case in the middle of a crisis, we poured good money after bad when we should have just let things follow their natural course.
DONALD TRUMP, CHAIRMAN & CEO, TRUMP HOTELS & CASINO RESORTS: Well, it's so nice you remember. It's nice to make right predictions. I have made many right predictions on your show.
And we're in a very interesting position right now.
CAVUTO: Now, what happens now? Because now many people are saying, well, we still need more mortgage rework programs. We still need more sort of housing backstops. And obviously what the Federal Reserve just did, to keep buying treasury notes and mortgage securities, is they were getting concerned that housing was hiccuping.
Are you?
TRUMP: Well, they're really concerned that the economy is no good, and they're probably right in that, because if you look at real unemployment you're at about 18 percent. You're not at 7.3. You're at about 18 and it could be higher.
So, they're right about that. The economy is actually very weak, and people don't really see it. The stock market is doing pretty well, and to a large extent that's because many of these companies are making money outside of the United States. You look at some of these -- the big multinationals, they're making money outside of the United States so their stock price is good. And I guess we're getting credit for that, but we shouldn't be given credit.
So, it's a real disaster going on out there.
CAVUTO: So, what happens to real estate? I mean, we have had this pickup, as you and I have chatted over the years, off the mat, but certainly not off to the races. But you fear that it doesn't take much to have us right back down again.
TRUMP: Well, I have to speak two ways.
Selfishly, as a developer, I love cheap money, and I have always loved cheap money, and who wouldn't. Now, I'm not speaking as somebody that is a great citizen of this country -- and I hope I am and I love this country very dearly -- but as a developer, I love cheap money. They're giving me cheap money.
They -- I will say this, that the only people that get money are people like me that don't need it. If I don't -- if I want to make a deal on buying something, I get very, very inexpensive money. If somebody wants to put together a deal that does -- that is very qualified, and very good, but doesn't have a lot of money, it's impossible for that person to borrow, even at higher rates, because the regulators -- you mentioned Dodd-Frank just a minute ago. The regulators under Dodd-Frank have made it virtually impossible for the banks to lend money to those people, which is a very bad situation to be in.
CAVUTO: Nevertheless, in some of the once hot real estate markets that really suffered, they're getting hot again, in Florida, and in certainly New York, which really -- in New York City, which never really felt the pinch. You could argue it's getting frothy again.
Are you worried that this is another bubble?
TRUMP: Well, you can always have bubbles. And you're always going to have them even if you don't think you're going to have them. Even if you shouldn't have them, you're going to have them. Bubbles are bubbles.
And you look every 20 years and every seven-and-a-half years and you have all sorts of statistics. You look at the wave charts and you are going to have bubbles. So it depends. But it's very artificial out there. Lots of things are happening that are artificial. And time will tell whether or not this will be yet another bubble.
But in all fairness to everybody, you're always going to have big ups and big downs, and sometimes, like we had a number of years ago, it would be calamitous.
CAVUTO: You know, my only issue in all of this to date is how the government, again, with the best of intentions, can just make things work, that the fix puts us in a greater fix.
Do you think, with all the rescues and the stimulus upon stimulus, and the bailouts upon bailouts, and this started in the Bush years, that it just prolonged, to your point, the agony and then that there is something to be said with just ripping the Band-Aid off? I'm oversimplifying it here, but that the government has significantly dragged this out, and, worse, and set up expectations and a backstop that every -- when anything hits the fan, Uncle Sam has got our back?
TRUMP: Well, at some point, Neil, the price is going to have to be paid, and you don't know what that point is. Is it going to be now? Is it going to be in five years or 10 years? Is it going to be our children?
I mean, where is it going to be paid? But I got a great kick out of watching Bernanke the other day. It was going to stop, everything was going to stop, and then yesterday and the day before, signals started coming out that we're going to continue, and the stock market went through the roof because basically that means...
CAVUTO: What did that tell you? What did that tell you that he's going to continue this? Obviously, he is privy to a lot more data than you and are I, so obviously he feels now is not the time to be taking the punchbowl away.
TRUMP: Well, and perhaps he is very political. It also could be that he is very political. And he is going to be getting out and he wants to make sure that when he gets out things are not going in the wrong direction.
Now, maybe they are going in the wrong direction, but the indicators don't -- you don't see that because of the stock market. The stock market went up because essentially what he was saying is interest rates are going to be low, there's going to be a big money supply.
So, it's a real -- it's a quagmire, and it depends on what side you're on. But the fact is the economy is not good. The economy -- I mean, he is right about that. The economy is not good. And unemployment is pretty close to getting to record territory.
CAVUTO: All right. You going to run for president?
TRUMP: Oh, we have such a long ways to go, Neil. But you will be certainly one of the first, maybe even the first, to know. OK?
CAVUTO: Oh, don't give me this nonsense one of the first. No, no, no, that won't fly.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: OK.
CAVUTO: All right, we will watch closely, Donald Trump.
TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you, Neil.
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