Donald Trump's plan to fight terrorism

Presumptive Republican nominee joins 'The O'Reilly Factor' to discuss extremism, the transgender debate and campaign strategies

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," May 23, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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Now for the top story. Interview with Donald Trump. The candidate joins us now from his New York City headquarters. First of all, you still believe that Egyptian Airliner was blown out of the sky? There is a lot of different speculation now.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I do. In a certain way. I mean, I don't know what they used but something bad happened and we'll see. I guess they will eventually find out but I certainly do. I know that plane very well. I know that type of aircraft. And you have thousands and thousands flying millions of miles and never been anything like it. So I do and I think most people do.

O'REILLY: Okay. Now, would you support asking Congress for a declaration of war? To fight terrorism and then under that declaration it would be the groups that would be -- that the United States would declare war on, ISIS, al Qaeda, Taliban. Would you favor that because if your president, a declaration of war gives you more power to defeat these people?

TRUMP: It wouldn't bother me at all doing that. We probably should have done that in the first place. Look, we are at war with these people and they don't wear uniforms. It's not your traditional war where it's a war against Germany, Japan, or whoever. This is a war against people that are vicious, violent people, that we have no idea who they are, where they come from. We are allowing tens of thousands of them into our country now. So on top of wars on foreign land, wait until you see what happens in the future. It's probably not going to be pretty. I hope I'm wrong about that but it's probably not going to be pretty.

O'REILLY: All right. But it's speculation.

TRUMP: And we're allowing, Bill, we're allowing, well, that's not speculation. We are allowing people into our country we don't know who they are, where they come from. Some of them happen to have cellphones with the ISIS flag on them. So, I think it's something that we have to be very tough and very vigilant and very smart or we will be in big trouble.

O'REILLY: Okay. You've done very well with your national security policy. But I want to get you "ON THE RECORD." Would you ask Congress to pass a declaration of war if you are elected?

TRUMP: I would have no problem with doing it, Bill.

O'REILLY: Okay. But that doesn't mean you would do it but I will take that.

TRUMP: No. I will study the facts.

O'REILLY: Okay.

TRUMP: I will study the facts. But I would have, I think right now I would have no problem with doing it because we are at war.

O'REILLY: All right. Because it does give the President --

TRUMP: By the way, the world is at war.

O'REILLY: -- more powerful in waging the fight. Now, you and I have gone around and around on ISIS a bit.

TRUMP: That's correct.

O'REILLY: And your theory is that you take their oil away, you strangle their ability to finance themselves and that's one of the components. I say that if you do that --

TRUMP: I have said that for a long time.

O'REILLY: Right. I say if you do that, it's going to be a blood bath. They are not going to get that oil up easy. So, you're going to have to have ground troops to do it. It's going to be a blood bath. How about this? Would you support declaring that anyone buying oil from ISIS is an enemy of the state? That means an enemy of the United States? That way anybody who buys it, we can drop a drone on.

TRUMP: Well, you know, it depends who it is and everything else. I'm not sure I want to go that far because you could have -- maybe they send two barrels to England. Maybe they send two barrels to Sweden.

O'REILLY: No, no, no, you know --

TRUMP: I don't know.

O'REILLY: You know, the buyers, the guy, not the secondary market. The first guys who buy it.

TRUMP: Yes.

O'REILLY: See, I would do that. I would say enemies of the state you can buy from ISIS and I'm going to come get you. That would dry up the -- their oil. That would put them out of the oil business as they say in Texas.

TRUMP: I can tell you right now. We're not even hitting the people that are buying it on site, the trucks and the --

O'REILLY: No. No not at all. In fact they say, don't hit them that we have transmissions of the military saying, don't hit them. Blow the hell out of them. But you'd had to declare them enemies of these states. So, you'd have to do that first.

TRUMP: By the way, in that case, in that case, absolutely 100 percent. Because we're not hitting them. In fact, we are saying get out of your trucks. We're going to go after you. The whole thing is so preposterous what we're doing.

O'REILLY: I would vaporize the trucks.

TRUMP: Those people I would hit so hard so fast and so fast.

O'REILLY: Okay.

TRUMP: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: Let's turn to domestic issue that's getting a lot of people angry. Right after you, we're going to have a talk with Kirsten Powers about transgendered orders from the White House, which would basically put people who are transitioning from one sex to another but haven't done it biologically yet, in a locker room so you would have little girls, you know, eight, you know, to 11 or 12 with a boy who wants to be a girl in the same shower conceivably. That could happen. And in Charlotte observer, editorialized recently that that's fine, we need to get over that. I was a little perturbed by that editorial. What say you?

TRUMP: Well, it's not fine. And I have to tell you that I would generally speaking leave it to the states to decide. You know, Obama is getting into a very tricky territory. And that amazing thing is so many people are talking about this now and we have to protect everybody, even if it's one personal. But this is such a tiny part of our population. Now, with that being said, protect everybody, but I would really leave it up to the states in this case.

O'REILLY: Do you have -- in your facilities, your hotels, do you have separate facilities for transgendered? Are you going to put those in?

TRUMP: No, we don't. No, we don't have that.

O'REILLY: Are you going to put them in?

TRUMP: I hope not because, frankly, it would be unbelievably expensive nationwide. It would be, you know --

O'REILLY: But it's human rights -- it's human rights.

TRUMP: Hundreds of billions of dollars. It would be -- well, I don't know about human rights. I can tell you that it would be unbelievably expensive thing to do. And I think our country really wants to be spending money in other things in terms of let's build more buildings, let's create more jobs or something. But that would be unbelievably expensive situation to do. Unbelievably. And, frankly, the number of people we're talking about is really a small number.

O'REILLY: Yes.

TRUMP: Again, protect them but it's a very, very small number.

O'REILLY: Okay. I think it was today on the internet you put up some stuff about Hillary Clinton and Bill Clintons. Kind of tawdry stuff. And I'm not sure that this is a good thing to do that.

TRUMP: Are you talking about what I'm doing? Well, I'm only responding to what they do. They have been -- she has been very nasty and I said I would like it to be on policy, Bill. I would like it to be a straight right down the middle and by the way the one thing you didn't mention about the polls, number one, I think I am popular with people. I really do. And I think a lot of people that maybe say I'm not, they are going to still vote for me. But you didn't explain that I was winning in most of the polls now, I'm winning into tracking polls and I'm winning in most of the polls against Hillary.

O'REILLY: Well, we did that on Thursday.

(CROSSTALK)

We reported it first on Thursday.

TRUMP: Maybe they didn't see that show.

O'REILLY: No. Everybody watches every night.

TRUMP: Some people might not have seen that.

O'REILLY: No. They all saw it.

TRUMP: Okay.

O'REILLY: Every human being on earth knows and saw that because it goes on the internet.

TRUMP: Okay.

O'REILLY: And you tweeted about it and everybody reads your tweets. So that's been out. But I understand what you are trying to do here is inhibit Mrs. Clinton from attacking you personally by saying if you play that game, then can I come back 10 times harder. I understand that. But it is -- you know that it makes the country look bad abroad and things like that. That's what worries me. I mean, I understand the Clinton attack machine. I got it. And I think it has to be dealt with someone. But I think maybe caution.

TRUMP: Bill, I don't like doing that. I don't like doing that. But I have no choice. When she hits me on things, I just have no choice. So, you have to do it. It's unfair. And you know they are dirty players. They have been dirty players. Historically. And I have to fight back the way I have to fight back.

O'REILLY: All right. And voters will make up their mind. As I said, if it's in context everybody I think will understand it, but I hope you guys both just -- you are right, I mean, it should be issues, right? You and her, on the issues?

TRUMP: I would rather have policy and issues. Much rather have policy and issues. Absolutely.

O'REILLY: And you come on this show and you come on other shows that are not as prestigious as this. We understand why you come here. You are a standup guy. But she doesn't do that. And I think she should, I think she should answer the same kind of questions you answer, you know?

TRUMP: Well, she doesn't. And she goes on very few shows and I notice the other night she was on a show and they gave her setup questions and they negotiate their questions. And I don't think you can ever say that I negotiate my questions with you.

O'REILLY: Do you think that would work by the way -- do you think that would work if you came to my people and said I want O'Reilly to ask me these questions? Do you think that would work?

TRUMP: Yes. I actually told my people don't waste your time it's not going to happen. But I will say this. I will say, if you look at her questions, they are negotiated questions.

O'REILLY: Yes.

TRUMP: And I'm not saying that's a dumb thing to do, Bill. I'm not saying it's so bad if she can get away with it.

O'REILLY: He can't get away with it.

TRUMP: But I believe, whatever it is.

O'REILLY: I mean, we always give you credit for coming on. We always give you credit for coming on.

All right, Donald. Thanks again. We appreciate it. We'll see you soon.

TRUMP: Thank you.

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