This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," October 18, 2015. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS ANCHOR: I’m Chris Wallace.
The frontrunner in the GOP presidential race, Donald Trump, face-to-face only on "Fox News Sunday."
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Last time we talked, 24 million people watched, and sparks flew.
Is that the way that you’d run this country?
DONALD TRUMP, R-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Let me just tell you that you're living in a world of the make believe, Chris, if you want to know the truth.
WALLACE: Today round 2.
Do you blame George W. Bush for 9/11?
Are you a little thin-skinned?
We go in depth with Donald Trump on "Fox News Sunday" for the first time as a candidate.
Then, Hillary Clinton faces her moment of truth with the Benghazi committee after she declares her first debate a success.
HILLARY CLINTON, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Thanks to each and every one of you, we're going to win!
WALLACE: We'll ask our Sunday panel what she ask expect from a much less receptive audience on Capitol Hill.
And our power player for the week.
INA GARTEN, BAREFOOT CONTESSA: When you cook, everybody shows up.
WALLACE: The Barefoot Contessa, all right now on "Fox News Sunday."
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.
Well, it took a while, but Donald Trump finally agreed to an interview on "Fox News Sunday." I had asked him some tough questions in the big Fox debate, which he didn't like, and he made that very clear. Now two months later, he sat down for an in-depth interview this weekend at the Trump National Golf Club outside of Washington.
We discussed the issues, his latest dustup over with Jeb Bush over 9/11, and why he fires back at reporters like me.
It was vintage Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Mr. Trump, good to see you again.
TRUMP: Thank you.
WALLACE: It becomes almost a cliché in this political cycle that people are fed up with politicians, but back when you announced in June, most of the so-called experts, including me, thought you had no chance and that people would end up voting for somebody with political experience.
How did you know that discontent, frustration with the system, would be the prevailing mood in 2015?
TRUMP: I felt it. I mean, I felt it from within.
We have tremendous discontent in the country. We have tremendous problems in the country. And I felt it early on or I wouldn't have done this.
But I see tremendous discontent.
WALLACE: Before we dig down into some issues, I want to see how much of a disruptor you would be. And let's do a lightning rod of quick questions --
TRUMP: OK.
WALLACE: -- quick answers.
Would you be willing to use a debt limit and risk the possibility of the country going into default to get more spending cuts?
TRUMP: OK, I would use the debt limit. I don't want to say -- I want to be unpredictable, because, you know, we need unpredictability. Everything is so predictable with our country.
But I would be very, very strong on the debt limit. And I would see asking for a very big pound of flesh if I were the Republicans.
And the problem with the Republicans, they have two sides. The smaller side was very strong and the other side is always agreeing and, you know, you can't do that.
WALLACE: Would you be willing to shut down the government in order to defend Planned Parenthood or to put some other key policy goals?
TRUMP: I do not want to say that because I want to show unpredictability. You have to. You can't just go around and say that.
But Planned Parenthood should absolutely be defunded. I mean if you look at what's going on with that, it's terrible. And many of the things should be defunded and many things should be cut.
WALLACE: You said in August that you're, quote, "fine" with affirmative action.
What about conservatives who say the time for that kind of preferential treatment has come and gone.
TRUMP: I'm fine with it, but we have it, it's there. But it's coming to a time when maybe we don't need it. That would be a wonderful thing. I don't think we need it so much anymore.
You know, it has served its place, and it served its time. Some people have loved it and some people don't like it at all.
But I think there will be a time when you don't need it.
WALLACE: You are one of the few candidates who have come out with a detailed tax plan. Let's drill down into that.
You would cut the seven tax brackets to four.
TRUMP: Correct.
WALLACE: Zero, 10 percent, 20 percent, 25 percent. You'd cut the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 15 percent. You would limit deductions for higher income earners and you would eliminate carried interest, preferential tax treatment for hedge funders.
What's the thinking?
TRUMP: Well, the thinking is we have the highest tax rate in the world. In the entire world, we have the highest tax rates. We have $2.5 trillion overseas that isn't coming back into this country. We can't get it back in, which tells you, by the way, something else.
Our politicians, Republicans and Democrats, they all agree that money should come back in. There's gridlock in Washington because there's no leadership.
So what I'm doing is -- is large tax cuts, especially for the middle class. And they're going to -- we're going to have a dynamic country. We're going to have dynamic economics. And it's going to be something really special and people are going back to work.
WALLACE: But there are two concerns. The Conservative Tax Foundation, Conservative Tax Foundation, says that over 10 years, you would create -- you would add $10 trillion to the deficit. And there's also the question of who would benefit under your tax plan.
The Tax Foundation says the middle class would see after tax income increase 7.2 percent. The top 1 percent would see a spike of 21.6 percent. So between that and ending the estate tax, the Trump family and folks like you would make out great.
TRUMP: The estate tax has been a disaster.
First of all, it's double taxation. Some people could even say it's triple taxation.
WALLACE: But how about the idea that you're going to blow a hole in the deficit and that the top 1 percent is going to make out a lot better --
TRUMP: Well, they're going to make out better if the economy gets better. The economy is very sick. We're losing our jobs to China, to Japan, to every country with -- we're making horrible trade deals.
We are losing jobs in this country hundreds and hundreds of thousands of jobs are being lost.
And part of the reason is our taxes are so high in this country.
I'm also cutting. You know, they don't talk about that, and I'm doing that in a different little policy segments that were going to be announcing in three weeks.
WALLACE: Cutting spending.
TRUMP: But we're cutting -- we're going to be cutting tremendous amounts of -- of money and waste and fraud and abuse. You know, they had a case --
WALLACE: Would you cut serve -- would you cut departments?
TRUMP: No, I'm not cutting services, but I'm cutting spending. But I may cut Department of Education. I believe Common Core is a very bad thing. I believe that we should be no -- you know, educating our children from Iowa, from New Hampshire, from South Carolina, from California, from New York. I think that it should be local education.
If you look at a Jeb Bush and some of these others, they want them to be educated by -- by Washington, D.C. bureaucrats. So the Department of Education is one.
Environmental Protection, what they do is a disgrace. Every week they come out with new regulations. They're making it impossible --
WALLACE: Who's going to protect the environment?
TRUMP: They -- we'll be fine with the environment. We can leave a little bit, but you can't destroy businesses.
WALLACE: You brought up trade. You would end NAFTA. You would kill the Pacific Trade Agreement. You would impose tariffs on some products like 35 on Ford cars made in Mexico.
"The Wall Street Journal" says that you are running as, quote, "the most anti-trade candidate since Herbert Hoover."
TRUMP: OK, so here's the deal. First of all, "The Wall Street Journal" was bought for $5 billion. It's now worth $500 million, OK. They don't have to tell me what to do.
"The Wall Street Journal" has been wrong so many different times about so many different things.
I am all for free trade, but it's got to be fair. When Ford moves their massive plants to Mexico, we get nothing. We lose all of these jobs.
What do we get out of it? I don't want them to move their plant --
WALLACE: But I want to pick up on that because --
TRUMP: No, the -- the point is, I don't want them to move their plants. I want them to stay in Michigan. I want them to stay in all of the places where they are, or expanded to other places. But I want it to be in the United States.
I don't want them to go to Mexico. I don't want them to go to China.
WALLACE: But this brings up the point, the conservative American Enterprise Institute says, look, Donald Trump, he owns a dozen hotels, properties, all over the world. Your Trump Collection clothing line, some of it is made in Mexico --
TRUMP: It's true.
WALLACE: -- and China.
TRUMP: That's true. I want it to be made here.
WALLACE: I know. But the point they say is you're doing just what Ford is, you're taking --
TRUMP: Sure.
WALLACE: -- advantage of a global trading market.
TRUMP: I never dispute that. I put it in my speeches. I say it -- the ties are made in China and different things. I don't want that.
I just ordered 4,000 television sets. You know where they come from? South Korea.
And yet, we defend South Korea for practically nothing. We have 28,000 soldiers. They're making a fortune.
I don't want to order them from South Korea. I don't think anybody makes television sets in the United States anymore. I don't want to order from South Korea. I want to order from here. I talk about it all the time. We don’t make anything anymore.
Now you look at Boeing. Boeing’s going over to China. They’re going to build a massive plant because China’s demanding it in order to order airplanes from Boeing.
So Boeing now is going to China, building a massive plant. I don’t want that. I don’t want that.
WALLACE: You say that eminent domain is wonderful, and you --
TRUMP: First of all, I say eminent domain is something you need. Eminent domain -- if I build a highway --
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: I know exactly what you’re saying. But if I build a highway, and if something’s in the way of the highway, you’re going to have to do something with that.
WALLACE: I understand that. And that’s the idea of using -- taking private property for a public use. But --
TRUMP: And, by the way, people get paid for it. Everyone thinks they don’t get paid. They get paid a lot of money.
WALLACE: I understand. But in the Kilo case, the big Supreme Court case in 2005, they took somebody’s home and they sold it and then paid -- bought it. And then they gave it -- sold it -- to private entrepreneurs, private developers. And that’s the question --
TRUMP: That’s different.
WALLACE: But that’s the question I’m going to ask you --
TRUMP: But that’s different.
WALLACE: Do you support taking private property for private use?
TRUMP: If somebody has a property in the middle of a 7,000 job factory, as an example, that’s going to move into the town -- but they need this one corner of this property, and it’s going to provide 7,000 jobs in a community that’s dying, of which we have many in this country, OK? I am for that. That’s a big economic development.
But remember this: all of these people that we’re talking about, they’re friends of mine. They all love the Keystone Pipeline, right?
The Keystone Pipeline is all eminent domain. They’re building their pipeline without eminent domain. You wouldn’t be able to build.
WALLACE: But let me ask you since you were involved in a case like this, as you know, in the 90s --
TRUMP: That’s true. That was an economic development.
WALLACE: -- in Atlantic City.
TRUMP: Sure.
WALLACE: You had your hotels, and you wanted to build a parking lot where some woman had her house --
TRUMP: She saved me a fortune.
WALLACE: I guess the question is, why do you need to take her house for a parking lot?
TRUMP: I tell you what. Because I have a hotel, and in order to expand the hotel and add 2,000 rooms, I would have had to take her thing.
Now, the 2,000 rooms would have provided about 2,500 jobs. Ultimately offered a lot of money, she didn’t take it, I didn’t build the job. I didn’t do it. Saved me a lot of money because Atlantic City, you know, I had the good sense to leave 7 years ago. I got very lucky.
Yes, I think that would have been a good eminent domain because you would have provided thousands of jobs. And this is a woman who couldn’t have cared less about her house. All she wanted was money.
WALLACE: Something you said on Friday has stirred up some controversy about George W. Bush and the Twin Towers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: When you talk about George Bush, say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time. If you look --
INTERVIEWER: Hold on, you can't blame George Bush for that.
TRUMP: He was president, OK? Don't blame him or don’t blame him, but he was president. The World Trade Center came down during his reign.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Jeb Bush responded to your comments with a tweet. He said, "How pathetic."
Question: do you blame George W. Bush for 9/11?
TRUMP: Look, look, Jeb said we were safe with my brother. We were safe. Well, the World Trade Center just fell down.
Now, am I trying to blame him? I’m not blaming anybody. But the World Trade Center came down. So when he said, we were safe, that’s not safe. We lost 3,000 people, it was one of the greatest -- probably the greatest catastrophe ever in this country if you think about it, right?
WALLACE: What would you have done?
TRUMP: Well, I would have been much different, I must tell you. Somebody said, well, it wouldn’t have been any different. Well, it would have been.
I am extremely, extremely tough on illegal immigration. I’m extremely tough on people coming into this country. I believe that if I were running things, I doubt those families would have -- I doubt that those people would have been in the country.
So there’s a good chance that those people would not have been in our country.
With that being said, I’m not blaming George Bush. But I don’t want Jeb Bush to say my brother kept us safe because September 11th was one of the worst days in the history of this country.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: There's much more to come of our interview with Donald Trump. We asked him about where he stands in the polls, the shots he takes at politicians and reporters, and if he's the Republican nominee, how he will take on Hillary Clinton. You don't want to miss it.
But, first, our Sunday group on Hillary Clinton's testimony this week before the House Benghazi Committee.
Plus, if you were on the committee, what would you ask Clinton? Just go to Facebook or Twitter @FoxNewsSunday and we may use your question on the air.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Let’s just take a minute here and point out that this committee is basically an arm of the Republican National Committee.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Hillary Clinton at the Democratic debate, setting the stage for her testimony on Thursday before the House Benghazi Committee.
And it is time now for our Sunday group: Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Lisa Lerer who covers politics for "The Associated Press", syndicated columnist George Will, and Charles Lane from "The Washington Post".
Brit, I don't think that there's any doubt that Hillary has been helped and she’s been nuking, if you will, by comments by a couple of House Republicans who seemed basically said the committee was all about trying to hurt her poll numbers, but he has to testify before them all day. They're going to be asking her questions on the basis of their 17-months investigation.
Given that, what do you expect from the committee? What do you expect from her?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: A long experience has taught me that most congressional hearings, particularly those that are sort of publicized, do not live up to expectations. We can look back to the Watergate committee and the revelations that came out there. But that was a very different circumstance in a couple of days.
One of them was that the Watergate committee was really quite a bit bipartisan. A number of Republicans on that committee decided to join the posse to pursue Richard Nixon and his admiration. That's not true here at all. This committee is divided totally along partisan lines and, of course, the questions always ping-ponged back and fourth among the members as you go, which breaks up lines of questioning and you don’t get back to the original question for quite a long time.
So, it's a format that favors the witness. As we saw in the debate, Hillary is a capable advocate, especially for herself. So, they may do great. They may produce things we haven't seen before, but I wouldn't be certain that that's going to happen.
WALLACE: Of course. That's really the point. We don't know what we don't know. The committee has been going on for 17 months. They have talked to dozens of witnesses, read thousands and thousands of e-mails -- we're getting ahead of ourselves here, guys, that haven't been come into evidence before, but we asked you for questions for the committee.
Suzanne Pierson said this on Facebook, "Why did she lie and say it was a video when she knew it was a terror attack?"
And we got this tweet from Ellen Klage, "Will she be hooked up for a lie detector?"
Lisa, what do you hear from the Clinton campaign? How worried are they about what the committee may have come up with it?
LISA LERER, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Well, the Clinton campaign certainly publicly is putting on a strong face that they think this is a committee that's a purely partisan exercise, they're going to overreach. They're going to be unable to delve into things like the emails and go beyond the scope of just Benghazi.
They argue that Hillary Clinton has been testifying before Congress for a very long time. It's a forum she's comfortable with, but I will point out that her schedule is awfully clear for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, which leads one to believe that she's spending a lot of time prepping for this committee, this hearing.
They know it's a very important moment for her. They say that October is the point for her to right the ship. Her first test was the debate. They’re very happy with her performance. They’re hoping she can do the similar thing.
WALLACE: But this is basically -- if it's a question of rhetoric, she's going to win. The question is, are there facts? Do you get any sense from them that they worry the committee may have come up with a new fact?
LERER: I mean, they're slightly worried about surprises, but I don't think that's a major concern. This is a slow drip of the e-mails right until there's a court-ordered mandate that every month there's a tranche of these e-mails is released to the public, that’s right up into three days before the Iowa caucuses.
So her campaign that is reconciled themselves to the fact that they are going to be living with this issue for the duration of this campaign, certainly for the primary, probably through the general election. So even if there are new facts that come out, they've sort of made their peace with it, and they're ready and engage to spin them in whatever way is necessary.
WALLACE: Then there's President Obama, who reportedly angered the FBI agents who have been investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mails and whether they were some classified information on them, by declaring on "60 Minutes" that there was no wrongdoing. Here’s the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I can tell you that this is not a situation in which America's national security was endangered.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: George, is the FBI being too sensitive about that comment? Or do you think the president was trying to put his thumb on the scales of justice, and basically sending a message lay off of Hillary Clinton?
GEORGE WILL, SYNDICATED COLUMNIST: It's not being too sensitive, because we've seen this minuet before. When the IRS scandal and the IRS immediately said, yes, we did something wrong, but it was some rogue agents in Cincinnati, as the investigation or non-investigation began, the president said this terrible stuff going on.
Then he sat down with Bill O'Reilly, I believe it was on Super Bowl Sunday.
WALLACE: It was indeed.
WILL: And there was not a smidgen of evidence. Whether or not that intimidated the Department of Justice, we don't know. We don't even know if this Department of Justice needs intimidation.
We’ll learn more about this when as I suspect will happen, there are impeachment proceedings against the current director of the FBI who is continuing -- of the IRS, who is continuing the cover-up. A lot of members of the House want this to happen.
Fast forward now to what we just saw. The president says against before an investigation, or before he knows about the investigation, and he certainty shouldn't know what the FBI is doing, he prejudges what they are finding or not finding.
Now, of course they should feel if not intimidated -- I don't think they can intimidate this FBI. I guess I should say, in full disclosure, my son is an FBI agent --
WALLACE: Is he on the case?
WILL: No, he's not. But again, this takes place in the context conditioned by the David Petraeus case wherein some similarities are --
WALLACE: Just quickly pointed out David Petraeus the great military general, but he was CIA director.
Go ahead.
WILL: Now, if Mr. Obama actually knows there was no security implication of this, then presumably Mr. Biden knows that. On the other hand, if the president was firing a shot across the bow at the FBI, he's worried that perhaps Mr. Biden has information about legal jeopardy that Hillary Clinton is in.
WALLACE: Man, that is complicated. We're going to get back to Biden in a moment, but I want to pick up on Hillary Clinton and the debate.
By all accounts, she had a strong debate and steadied a campaign that seemed to be in some trouble. But there was one curious moment when she was asked about which of her enemies she was most proud of.
Here is the answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CLINTON: Well, in addition to the NRA, the health insurance companies, the drug companies, the Iranians, probably the Republicans..
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: The Iranians and the Republicans. Chuck, afterwards Clinton said she was just kidding. Was she?
CHUCK LANE, THE WASHINGTON POST: Well, I don't think so. I think she feels very much hostile to the Republicans and they feel very hostile to her. I think she -- what struck me there was the question is what's your one enemy? And she sort of hogged it and took five enemies.
And if you really think about it, she's equating the NRA with the Iranians, and the health insurance companies with the Republicans and so on and so forth.
But you know, the way that played on television, though, I think was a net plus for her because it was humor for her. She was smiling and she was relax and she was at ease. That was the nature of her performance all the way through that debate.
I think she slayed a lot of dragons that evening that have been bothering her in this campaign. She comes into this Benghazi hearing on an up note, which just to go back to the Benghazi hearing, we shot she would become hounded and harassed. I think she comes in brimming with confidence. She's been handed a couple of unforced errors by Kevin McCarthy and company.
And we've seen, another thing we’ve seen in hearings in the past, Brit, is where the witness somehow turns the tables on the committee. We’ve seen Ollie North do that, and I wouldn't be surprised if she's looking for a way to do that, you know, to turn the table by then --
WALLACE: Again, I think it comes down to the facts. I mean, either the committee has come up with something in 17 months and $5 million or they haven't, and that’s going to be the key.
All right. In the time we have left, the continuing mystery of Joe Biden and whether or not he's going to get into this race.
Lisa, this is what you do for a living. What can you tell us?
LERER: I think nobody really knows except for Joe Biden and maybe his family and a couple close advisers.
What I can say is every day he waits, it gets harder. You have Hillary Clinton with $30 million in the bank. You have Bernie Sanders with close to $30 million. They have people all over the country. She has 22 people in Nevada alone, Sanders is making inroads there. It’s hard to set up a campaign quickly.
WALLACE: But let me tell you, there are a couple of interesting things that Biden did. He had one of the his closest people, Ted Kaufman, the person who replaced him in the Senate when he became vice president, send a note out to all the supporters, keeping your powders dry, the door isn’t close, I may still get in, and I get in, I'll need you yesterday, then he's talking to the Harold Schaitberger, the head of the firefighters.
I mean, he sure is making an effort to stay in the conversation.
LERER: And he certainly wants to leave the option for him to get into the race. He's watching this Benghazi hearing just as closely as anybody else.
WALLACE: Do you think he’ll wait through the Benghazi hearing?
LERER: Yes, I think so. I mean, he’s going to want to see how she performs in that setting, whether there is, as you’re pointing out, a new fact that comes out, something very damning, that makes her untenable candidate, then he’ll jump in. But I just think, even coming in this late, it's just a tough road.
WALLACE: Thirty seconds, Brit, you're a longtime Biden watcher. I’m not asking you to predict, because I know you don’t that. Your feeling about what's going on about it?
BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, I think the post-debate, Hillary Clinton look stronger because she come out well for Democrats, and I think that has to discourage him.
I still think that the innervating effects of the grief he feels about the death of his son weigh on him, 72 years old. And this is a horribly hard slog, an uphill battle for him. So I think he has less reason to get in now than he did a week ago, which doesn't mean he isn’t going to do it anyway.
WALLACE: We have to take a break here. When we come back, we'll have part 2 of our interview with Donald Trump. Hear what he has to say about Carly Fiorina, calling him out over the fuss of that NBC debate, and his reaction to an interview with my father 30 years ago.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: Coming up, does Donald Trump have the disposition to make it through a presidential campaign and into the Oval Office? We'll talk to him about that and criticism that he's thin-skinned.
Also for a behind the scenes look at our interview at Trump the salesman, go to our Website, FoxNewsSunday.com.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: A look just outside Washington at Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, where we spoke with GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
In part two of our sit-down, we switch from policy to personality, why does Trump take shots at the other candidates? Why does he stay up at night sending out tweets? We think you'll find it revealing.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Let's look at the polls. According to the latest Real Clear Politics average, you are leading everywhere. You are leading nationally, you're leading in all the early states. Nationally, you're at 23.8 percent, leading; down 7 points in the last month. In Iowa, 22.3 percent, down 6 points. New Hampshire, 26.3 percent, down 6 points.
Let me make it clear, because I know this is important to you -
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: You are still leading. Why do you think your numbers have gone down a bit?
TRUMP: I don't think they've gone down. I think they've gone up. We just had a Reuters poll come out. I'm at 33. We just had, as you know, Nevada come out. I'm 20 points ahead of second place. We had one come out in South Carolina where I'm 18 or 20 points ahead. The polls have been now better than they've ever been. And what you're doing is a little bit obsolete information.
But that's OK. Look, I'm leading in everything.
WALLACE: Late this week, you forced, I think it's fair to say - you and Ben Carson - forced CNBC to change the ground rules for their debate. And Carly Fiorina went after you and Carson. She said, first of all, what are they scared about, standing up for three hours? And then she said this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
FIORINA: They also apparently asked for prepared statements. You know, prepared statements are what politicians do. So honestly, here are two outsiders supposedly, Donald Trump and Ben Carson, they sound a lot like politicians tonight to me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: First of all, she's going nowhere. You talk about dropping in the polls, she's dropped like a rock. I could stand there for 12 hours. I could stand there for 20 hours. But the people can't take it. Who wants to watch a debate for three hours? I couldn't watch Hillary for an hour-and-a-half. And when I heard it was a three-hour debate that was only done to make more money for the company, for the network, I said I'm not going to participate because I thought the CNN debate was ridiculous. It was too long and people were turning off - who's going to watch a debate that long?
It used to be one hour when it started. It used to also get no ratings. And both CNN and Fox broke the all-time record on cable television. So I wonder why. Do you have any idea why?
WALLACE: I think - maybe it was because of the moderators.
TRUMP: I think so.
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: I do think so. Great moderators.
WALLACE: Which brings me to the question of temperament, which I think you would agree is important --
TRUMP: I think it's very important.
WALLACE: -- in a president. First of all, what's the deal with the tweets? Why are you sitting there at night watching TV and tweeting out?
TRUMP: Well, I think it's fine. It's a great way of getting my word out. I love Twitter and tweeting, and I have - between that and Facebook, I have like 10 million followers. It's a great way. You know, now if you do something bad to me, I can tweet about Chris. And the world will be singing (ph).
WALLACE: And you have.
TRUMP: No, and you know what? Truthfully, it's an amazing way of getting the word out.
WALLACE: But does Mrs. Trump ever say, "Donald, turn off the TV? Come to bed."?
TRUMP: Oh, I don't do that much. And usually it's not too late. No, I just think it's an amazing way - you know, we're in a modern age now. We have to get with it. Twitter and Facebook and all of this stuff is, to me, I mean, for some reason - I'm probably not the youngest person using it. But for some reason, it works very well. I'm setting records.
In fact, for the debate, you know - I'm talking about the Democrat debate - and they use Democratic. It's really Democrat. You know that, OK? They called that wrong. It's really the Democrat. But the Democrat debate, I picked up more followers by many times than anybody else. And there were those that said I won the debate because I picked up all the followers.
But no, I think it's a great, modern way of getting the word out.
WALLACE: During the campaign, you have called Marco Rubio a puppet, Jeb Bush low energy, Rand Paul a lightweight. And just this week, you called Bernie Sanders a maniac.
TRUMP: And a communist.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: And a communist. Do you think that's presidential --
TRUMP: Yes.
WALLACE: Is that the way you would act in the White House?
TRUMP: I'm running against a lot of people. And they come out and attack me, very viciously, very viciously. I mean, Perry, I thought he was a nice guy. He was always a friend of mine. He had won campaign contributions. He was always very nice. All of a sudden, boom, I hit him very hard. I hit Rand Paul very hard. Look what happened then. I'm a counterpuncher. I don't have a choice. If you look what they say about me, it's terrible. I mean, they say terrible things about me. Bobby Jindal - you talk about lightweights, this guy is a real lightweight. And he hit me - I don't even know this man - and he hit me because - and they're not hitting me on fact. They're hitting me in order to try to pick up something in their polls.
The thing I'm most honored about is every single person that went after me, including Jeb Bush, who's down - boom. Every single person that went after me has gone way down. And I'm very honored by that. And that's what the country needs. The country needs a leader that when the country gets hit, we're going to come out on top, not keep going down. Because we're going down. Our country is going down.
WALLACE: Then I want to bring up the subject - hear me out - of you and me. During the debate, I asked you a question about bankruptcy.
TRUMP: Right.
WALLACE: And you - I thought gave a fine answer.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: First of all, these lenders aren't babies. These are total killers, you know, I mean, you're living in the world of the make-believe, Chris. You want to know the truth.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I thought it was my best answer.
WALLACE: Then, for about a week, you go after me. You say blood's pouring out of my eyes, you compare me unfavorably to my father. And I agree - he's one of a kind.
Here's the question: You're running for president. I mean, we talked to Chris Christie about Bridgegate. We talked to Carly Fiorina about --
TRUMP: Destroying the company.
WALLACE: -- about (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: She destroyed her company.
WALLACE: OK. So I guess the question is...
TRUMP: No, it's not personal.
WALLACE: -- are you a little thin-skinned?
TRUMP: No, I'm only thin-skinned when somebody says bad things that are false. For instance, if you hit me about something that's true, all right, the bankruptcy -- I used that as a tool. I didn't ever file for bankruptcy. Out of hundreds and hundreds of...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: -- four times -- I've used it four times. But...
WALLACE: But it was just a question.
TRUMP: No, no, I know, but the way it was phrased, the way it was phrased. I could see the eyes, OK.
(CROSSTALK)
WALLACE: -- like I don't even know blood coming out of my eyes?
TRUMP: I used it as a tool brilliantly.
And it was phrased incorrectly in my opinion, the question. And you wouldn't have asked these people about bankruptcy, but you asked me about it. And I've used it brilliantly...
WALLACE: I asked Carly Fiorina about Hewlett Packard.
TRUMP: And I -- well, that's easy. She destroyed the company, OK. That one is an easy one.
I am not thin-skinned when something is truthful. If I did something wrong and you said I did something -- I can handle that, and if the press is bad, I -- it's when people hit me when I didn't do anything wrong. You know, it's like then -- then it's not a question of thin-skinned, I will fight back.
WALLACE: You say my father covered you in a much fairer manner. So I decided to go back and look at your first profile on "60 Minutes." He talked a lot about your successes, but he also talked about the fact that you were in a controversy then. The allegation was that you were trying to throw middle-class people out of the rent-controlled building so you could create condos for rich people.
Here's a clip.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: They call you arrogant and cruel, those tenants over there. Does that get under your skin?
TRUMP: No, because you see, I think I'm right, and when I think I'm right, nothing bothers me.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: First of all...
TRUMP: I've been doing this for a long time.
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: First of all, whatever happened to that nice soft-spoken young man?
TRUMP: I know. I know. I know.
WALLACE: But was that a fair question for him to ask you?
TRUMP: I thought it was fair, because it was very controversial at the time and I thought it was fair.
WALLACE: Not to press my luck, but true or false, you, at one point, considered and tried to put homeless people in some of those apartments to force the tenants to move out.
TRUMP: No, I talked about doing it, and I talked about doing it as a charity. That's right. We have a thing called...
WALLACE: A charity?
TRUMP: No, I was thinking about doing that, and, you know, I would have done that and it would have been nice and it would have been charitable.
You have wealthy people living and paying like $200 rent on Fifth Avenue or Central Park South, I think it's unfair, and it's been proven to be unfair.
WALLACE: Finally, Hillary Clinton testifies before the House Benghazi Committee this week.
What is it you would like to find out about both her role in Benghazi and about her e-mails?
TRUMP: I think things will be revealed. Personally, I think that Hillary was one of the worst, if not the worst, I mean if you look at the record, secretary of States ever, ever in this country. I think that's the bigger problem that she's got.
I don't think Benghazi is as big a problem for her as her past and what's happened.
The world blew up around her. You look at the world, it just blew up around her. Everything went bad, whether it's Libya, whether it's her tenure in Iraq. And there's been plenty of bad tenures having to do with Iraq because of the length.
Things that happened during her tenure were a disaster. I think she's...
WALLACE: (INAUDIBLE).
TRUMP: -- probably going to go down as the worst secretary of state in the history of this country. And I think that will be -- what I will tell you, that will be what I will be campaigning on.
Now, what's going to happen with Benghazi? It will be very interesting. I look forward to it.
WALLACE: If you end up as the Republican nominee and she's the Democratic nominee, how would you take her on?
TRUMP: I'd take her on tough. I'd just take her on on her record. I'd discuss her record. I think her record is abysmal. And I would take her on on her record.
WALLACE: Mr. Trump...
TRUMP: Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chris.
A great honor.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Up next, our Sunday group reacts to the interview with Donald Trump, and we'll discuss President Obama's bit shift, announcing he'll keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan beyond his time in the White House.
Plus, what do you think? Did Mr. Obama make the right decision in Afghanistan? Should he have sent in more troops? Or pulled them all out? Let me know on Facebook or Twitter, @foxnewssunday, and use the hashtag fns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm not blaming George Bush, but I don't want Jeb Bush to say my brother kept us safe, because September 11 was one of the worst days in the history of this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Donald Trump in our interview standing firm on his statement that President Bush did not keep this country safe. We're back now with the panel. Brit, your reaction to the Trump interview, his comments about Bush and 9/11, the whole thing.
HUME: You did fine, he did fine. And I say that meaning to his supporters, who are pretty stable 20 to 25, 27 percent of the Republican electorate, he did everything we're accustomed to see him doing that they love. Blunt, outrageous at times in certain ways, but highly entertaining. I could see, as you were doing the interview, you were cracking up yourself. You can't help it. It's what makes him so compelling, which is the core I think of his standing in the polls right now.
WALLACE: I have got to tell you, Lisa, I know all of us dismissed Trump early on, all of us, the so-called experts, the summer fling, momentary amusement. As I watched that interview, and I heard what he had to say about the country and about trade and about losing, and just the sheer force of his personality, I am beginning to believe he could be elected president of the United States.
LERER: Well, I'm not going to take that bet, but I will say by the conventional rules --
WALLACE: You would take that bet? You think I'm wrong?
LERER: I'm not going either way. I don't know. By the conventional rules of politics, this is a guy that should have been out of the race a long time ago. His numbers should have dropped after the summer, maybe even before, and we shouldn't have him being such an outsize presence, as the front-runner in this primary, but he remains so. So he's defying all these rules. We have no reason to expect he won't continue to defy all these rules. The next debate will be a really interesting moment to see how he does. He did sort of seem to fade from the stage a bit when the last debate got a little more policy oriented. He also started to look a little bored.
WALLACE: It was three hours long. I was bored too. It was a human rights abuse.
LERER: It was very long, very tiring. I mean, flying around in your jet from your various penthouses across the world is an awful lot more fun than running for president, which turns out can be kind of grueling and hard. So there is a question I think at some point, does Trump himself get tired of this process? Does it seem like it's happening now?
WALLACE: I have to tell you, in the time I've spent with him, I don't think he's the least bit tired. He flew up for an event in New Hampshire on Friday. He was down in Virginia, not just to do the interview, he was making a speech in Virginia.
George, I know you're going to just look at me and shake your head. The voters are angry, they are fed up, they want something different, they want somebody to knock down the pillars of the temple, he's their man.
WILL: I know someone who is a real political seasoned veteran, who saw a gathering of Hispanic businessmen in Virginia, half the room of Hispanic businessmen, this veteran estimated, were for Trump. Now, again, this is outrageous what he said, it's just not factual. I mean, he said you can't buy a television made in the United States. When he gets to South Carolina, the third state in the nominating process, he can go visit the factory where they're making televisions in South Carolina.
WALLACE: But wait, wait. There are a lot of people who say it, and I have to say, I agree, we don't make things in this country.
WILL: But we do. We make televisions in South Carolina.
WALLACE: OK, maybe they make TV's, but Zenith, Motorola, remember all the great American, RCO, all the great American TV companies? They're all gone.
WILL: Not all.
WALLACE: Well, most -- you don't think that's a legitimate complaint that we don't make products in this country?
WILL: I do not. I think that -- in fact, we're delighted and not complaining about the fact that the iPhone you have in your pocket says designed in California, assembled -- not manufactured -- assembled in China from parts from all over the world. The idea of where you manufacture a product in today's world makes very little sense.
WALLACE: Please direct all of your e-mails to Mr. Will. Go ahead.
LANE: Maybe in the same vein as George, I want to bring this I hope a little bit down to earth, because that Trump interview, which you did so well, affected me on two levels. Like I think everybody at the table, I found myself smiling, and laughing at times at his performance, and feeling very entertained, but when I actually read the transcript of it, right, and looked at the actual words coming out of his mouth, none of it made any sense. He said we have too much predictability in this country. I want to be unpredictable. Well, that is a new campaign slogan, right? Vote for me, who knows what I'll do in the White House.
[ LAUGHTER ]
LANE: I mean, the next minute after he says how great it is to be unpredictable, he says we absolutely must defund Planned Parenthood. Right? He waffled on affirmative action. That's an issue that has been out there many years. It's a fully digested issue in the political system. Lots of people have a position on that, one way or another. Not Donald Trump, who wants to be the leader of the conservative party in this country. So it is this incredible disconnect between the affect, and the demeanor and the show that he puts on, and the actual substance behind it, which I insist is still lacking. You're right. He's tapped into a great deal of angst, and people don't like the fact that quote/unquote, we don't make anything here in here, in this country anymore. That too is a bit of a myth for the reasons George says, but what we're really seeing is a huge demonstration of the difference between feeling and fact in politics.
WALLACE: All right, let's turn to another big subject, big news this week, and that was President Obama, who made a big reversal on Afghanistan after pledging for months that he was going to pull all U.S. troops out Afghanistan except for about 1,000 that would have been at the U.S. embassy as a contingent to safeguard that. He announced this week that he is going to keep 9,800 troops in Afghanistan, basically through next year, trending down to 5,500 by the time he leaves office. Here is the president.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: While America's combat mission in Afghanistan may be over, our commitment to Afghanistan and its people endures. As commander in chief, I will not allow Afghanistan to be used as a safe haven for terrorists to attack our nation again.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: Brit, why do you think the president changed his mind and like Goldilocks, is it too much? Is it too little? With the 9,800, or is it just right?
HUME: On point No. 1 in your question, I think he changed because he's afraid we're going to have an obvious catastrophe on our hands in Afghanistan and end up back where we started while he's still president. That is something to which he is very averse. He prefers to have his failures become manifest most clearly after he's gone.
On the second point, we are losing ground now over there, our mission, our cause, our hoped-for results is fading with about 10,000 troops present. So what he proposes to do is to continue that troop level, which isn't enough, but it may be enough to stave off an utter collapse. It's not enough. If he wanted to fix this or to change the fortunes, he would have to do more. He doesn't want to do that.
WALLACE: You talk about the fact he doesn't want to see a disaster. In a sense, wasn't it two competing legacies? On the one hand, he really wanted to be the president that brought everybody home, but on the other hand, he didn't want to be the president who saw another Iraq in Afghanistan.
HUME: Exactly. And Afghanistan has been repeatedly categorized by the Democrats as a good war. That was the one where John Kerry said we took our eyes off the ball in Afghanistan in order to go fight in Iraq. So there's a certain attachment, political attachment to the Afghanistan effort that does not exist in his mind, I think, and other Democrats, for other parts of the world.
WALLACE: Chuck.
LANE: The big event recently in Afghanistan was the takeover of a large city called Kunduz by the Taliban, which then was followed by this ugly incident where in the course of trying to retake it, we accidentally bombed a hospital, and so forth. I think that may have tipped the balance. The president was not eager to do what he just did, but that huge undeniable failure of the policy forced his hand, and now it's true, as Brit says, what he's doing is just enough, he hopes, I think, to hold this thing together until the next president can inherit it and figure out what to do.
WALLACE: That's a hell of a strategy, isn't it, George? If Chuck is right, let's just sort of keep it together, keep its head above water until it's somebody else's problem?
WILL: I think the president deserves credit for changing his mind and halfway, at least, accepting the prevailing narrative in this town, which is that if we had just left 10,000 troops in Iraq, the dissolution of that country into an almost failed state would not have occurred.
The president has to make a very difficult calibration. How much do we do on behalf of the Afghan security forces is so much that they never quite step up and take full responsibility? Advisers and airpower, that's the president's recipe, and it seems to me to be worth a try.
WALLACE: Lisa, obviously, this is going to play out in the 2016 race. And I wonder, for Hillary Clinton, who's going to be tied to Obama's foreign policy, even if she left in 2013, is it good or bad to keep those 9,800 troops? What's the feeling among Democrats about our continuing commitment in Afghanistan? And I guess you have to also say, as compared to the possibility that it all goes to hell?
LERER: It's a difficult situation for Hillary Clinton. She's running in a primary with an electorate that wants out of these wars, but at the same time, she's trying to cloak herself in the legacy of a president who remains popular with Democrats. That's why she was not itching to talk about this. She talked about it in an interview when she was specifically asked. It wasn't something she was out there advertising her views on. And when she did make her comments, she reserved the right to reassess in January 2017 should she win the White House. It's not a great issue for her. I don't expect to hear a lot about it.
WALLACE: On the other hand, she did say and did differ from the president in saying that she would impose a no-fly zone in Syria. So there is always that kind of uncertain question. Is she to the left, because her natural instincts going into Iraq, Libya, seem to be for intervention.
LERER: I think that's right. You remember 2008, she's naturally more hawkish than him. We'll see some of that come out for sure in this race.
WALLACE: All right. Thank you, panel. See you next Sunday. Up next, our power player of the week, the barefoot contessa makes cooking fun and easy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
WALLACE: She says entertaining is hard. The trick is to make it easier. She's been pulling it off for more than 16 years, building an army of devoted fans along the way. Here is our power player of the week.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
INA GARTEN, BAREFOOT CONTESSA: When you cook, everything shows up. Who will turn down a home-cooked meal? They are so rare now.
WALLACE: Ina Garten is one of America's favorite home cooks. The Barefoot Contessa, as she's known, has created a food empire. There are the cookbooks.
GARTEN: I've written nine.
WALLACE: How many books do you have in print?
GARTEN: I don't know, well over 10 million.
WALLACE: And the show on the Food Network she's been doing for 14 years.
GARTEN: How good does this look? This is really like a vegetable stew.
I would say dinner's served.
WALLACE: Which is why the place was packed at an appearance in Washington last week.
GARTEN: If I want to do like a French apple tart, I have an idea of the flavor, the texture, the scale, everything about it, and then I keep making it until I get it absolutely right. Sometimes I can do it in five tries, and sometimes it takes 25 tries.
WALLACE: That is Garten's goal, create recipes for cozy meals that look the same on your table as they do in her cookbook.
GARTEN: You can make something really simple and have the same amount of fun.
WALLACE: How do you make it simpler, how do you make it more fun?
GARTEN: I always try and do three things for dinner, one that's made in the even, one on the cooktop, and one that was made in advance, so it's not kind of a balancing act, it's a really easy thing to do, so I plan it really well.
WALLACE: But Garten's path could not have been less planned. In 1978, she was working in Jimmy Carter's office on nuclear energy policy and not liking it. When she saw an ad for a food store in West Hampton, New York, its name, the Barefoot Contessa.
GARTEN: I saw this tiny store, it was like the size of these two chairs, and there was somebody baking cookies in the kitchen, and I thought this is where I belong.
Where have you been all day?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Who, me?
GARTEN: It's a mystery. Where have you been?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I was up and about.
GARTEN: Um-hmm.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I might have done a little shopping.
WALLACE: Her husband, Jeffrey, a professor and former dean of Yale Business School, has been her best friend along the way, and a featured character on her TV show.
GARTEN: I think everybody thinks he's goofy, because he always does these like crazy goofy things. He's really smart and he's just a wonderful, wonderful guy.
WALLACE: Garten built a barn next to her house in the Hamptons, where she tests her recipes and tapes her show.
GARTEN: There is a wonderful Oscar Wilde quote, work is easy, fun is hard. And I think people are really drawn to people having fun, and I love what I do, and I think it really translates.
WALLACE: How long? How long are you going to continue?
GARTEN: Until they drag me out by my feet.
It's a really nice, complex flavor.
Every recipe is like a science experiment. And when I'm done with it and there's that little thing in my head that says that's what I was looking for, it's extremely satisfying. And I love that.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WALLACE: Ina Garten has been called both a great cook and a businesswoman, but most of the time, she says no to new ventures. She says she loves what she's doing now, and anything that pulls her away would be a distraction.
And that's it for today. Have a great week, and we'll see you next "Fox News Sunday."
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