Donald Trump's plan to keep America safe

GOP frontrunner responds to criticism of his national security strategy on 'The O'Reilly Factor'

This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," March 28, 2016. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
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ERIC BOLLING, FOX NEWS HOST: Hi, I'm Eric Bolling in for Bill O'Reilly. Thanks for watching us. Let's get right to our lead guest tonight.

Donald Trump who joins you us now by phone from Palm Beach. Mr. Trump, we want to get your reaction to these comments from Hillary Clinton and President Obama.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HILLARY CLINTON (D), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: When other candidates talk about building walls around America, I want to ask them, how high does the wall have to be to keep the internet out? Slogans aren't a strategy. Loose cannons tend to misfire.

PRES. BARACK OBAMA (D), UNITED STATES: We have to reject any attempt to stigmatize Muslim-Americans and their enormous contributions to our country and our way of life. Such attempts are contrary to our character, to our values, and to our history as a nation built around the idea of religious freedom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: So, Donald, how do you respond to those comments, specifically with President Obama right there clearly pointing towards you?

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (on the phone): We need protection in our country. Our country is not protected, Eric, at all. People are flowing in to our country. They are crossing the border. They are coming in many different ways. One of the big ways happens to be on the southern border and it's really gotten worse and it can be now worse than ever. We have wonderful security but they are not allowed to be security. The border patrol people are really wanting to do their jobs. They can't do their jobs.

Everybody wants the wall. Every time I mention it at big, big rallies, everybody stands up and give me cheering ovations. And it's amazing to watch. Standing ovations all the time. And, frankly, Mexico will pay for the wall. And the reason is, we have such a trade imbalance it's unbelievable. You look at the trade deficit we have with Mexico, that is so much greater than the cost of this wall and I'm talking about on a yearly basis that Mexico will pay for the wall.

BOLLING: So, let me ask you, Hillary Clinton say how tall this wall have to be to stop the internet from coming in. What was she alluding to? I'm trying to figure that out. Clearly your wall means keeping the illegals from crossing the border. Where is she going with this?

TRUMP: She is trying to be cute. She is mentioning something which is a very different subject. And frankly, that's something probably that should also be discussed. But she is mentioning something that is a totally different subject. We need it. We have drugs pouring into our country. It's poisoning the blood of our youth. We have people coming in and the people coming in you see what's happening. You look at the crime statistics. And we need the wall. We also need to let our border patrol do their job. They want to do the job. They are not allowed to do the job.

BOLLING: Donald, Hillary Clinton, you have donate to Hillary Clinton in the past and she has been trashing you fairly heavily lately. A, do you regret donating to her prior campaigns? Number one, and number two, do you want her to give the money back or donate the money somewhere?

TRUMP: Well, you know, they call me a world class businessman. I built a great, great company. I filed my papers and everybody is amazed how big, how strong, how good it is, how little debt, the cash flow, the quality of the assets, iconic assets and this is what our country needs. I need this thinking. But as a businessman that deals all over the world, you give. I mean, this is very standard. You help people from Republicans to Democrats. And I think it's very well accepted even within the Republican Party. That's why I'm leading by so much.

BOLLING: Do you regret donating to her campaign though?

TRUMP: I don't regret anything. That's the way it is. I mean, when I was a businessman you give to everybody. You are friends with everybody. You get along with everybody. And that's the way it is. And when you are running for office or when you are not in the world of business, where you don't have to go all over the world and you don't need recommendations and other things, I mean, it's different. But when you are a businessman, many businessmen they give to everybody. They keep everybody happy. Everybody loves them. And maybe it's a good system and maybe it's not a good system. But that's the system in which I was under. And I thrived.

BOLLING: All right. Someone who may not love you -- someone who may not love you is Ted Cruz, the Senator had this to say and he says you are running scared. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX), PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Sadly, what Donald has done, when he gets scared, listen, particularly on foreign policy, Donald is out of his depth. He doesn't know. He doesn't understand these issues. One of the by reasons he was so scared this week is this past week donald called publicly for effectively withdrawing America from NATO. Now, that is a catastrophically foolish proposition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLLING: Now, Donald, I heard you say something about NATO, the NATO allies need to pony up more money or troops. Where are you? Let's clear this stuff up. Where are you on NATO?

TRUMP: Well, just so you understand today on the "New York Times" on the front-page, I had an amazing story and yesterday on NATO, and people are giving me tremendous credit, Republicans and everybody is giving me tremendous credit. Ted is a very concerned puppy, because he is losing big. I have got hundreds of delegates more than him. I have got millions of votes more than him. The system is a strange system. And some people would say it's not a very honest system. But the system is the system and that's the way it works. And he reacts very badly under pressure. I have watched this guy. I have watched him choke under pressure. And that's what is he doing right now.

And he will bring up a thing, NATO. He only wished he thought of it, the question to me was asked about NATO. NATO was formed many years ago, many decades ago. It's obsolete. It's got to be either rejiggered or changed. But it's got to be changed. It doesn't take into account terrorism. And we are spending for a big majority of the cost. So, why is the United States putting up a lot of the money, a very, very disproportional amount of the money, Eric? We are putting up all of this money for something that benefits many other nations.

They should also have to pony up. And that's the problem whether it's NATO or the United Nations or so many other things that we do. We're like the dummies that get led down the line. We don't know what we're doing. We have no leadership. We have no business people. We have no business lines. And a guy like Ted Cruz, he doesn't have a clue. He doesn't have a clue.

BOLLING: All right. Let me try to focus one of the other things you gave 100 minute presentation, I believe that's what it was on foreign policy. And you talked a little bit about China. Now we all know where you stand on China. We're concerned about the trade imbalance with China, I understand that. China is expanding into South China Sea. They are building islands and they're basically declaring their ownership of the area. Sovereign to China. How would President Trump stop that spread of China into the South China Sea without alienating one of our biggest trading partners?

TRUMP: Well, first of all, you don't want to really give all your cards. You are running for office. You may be in a position I'm leading by a lot, and you may be in a position where you want to be negotiating with them. You don't like giving your cards. But I will tell you this. We have tremendous power over China because they are ripping us like nobody has ever ripped us monetarily before. China is taking advantage of us because we have leaders that don't know what they're doing. We don't use our best business minds. We use political hacks to negotiate deals. And we have rebuilt China with the money they have sucked out of our country, including the jobs and the manufacturing that they have taken out of our country. We have tremendous power over China economically. And we have tremendous power --

BOLLING: How? How do we do it? How do we do it? The trade imbalance is because we are buying their stuff and we're sending cash over. So how do we fix the trade imbalance?

TRUMP: Very simple. If we stop doing such easy business. When they send their stuff over, no tax. Just keep sending it over. When we want to do business, when our companies want to do business with China, it's almost impossible for them to do business. Number one many of them are force to do pay taxes not supposed to happen that way. And many of them, of course they can't even get their product into China. China doesn't want their product. Even though the product is just as good or better. I have friends that are in the manufacturing business they can't even deal with China and, yet, China rips us left and right.

So, all I'm just saying we have tremendous power. They have taken tremendous amounts of dollars out of our country. They have manipulate their currency, they devalue their currency. They make it very hard for our companies to compete. We have tremendous power economically over China. What they did in the South China Sea is absolutely horrendous. It's a total lack.

BOLLING: Had you do you tell them to stop the spread?

TRUMP: You are not going to start World --

BOLLING: How do you say, hey, you just can't take --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You are not going to start World War III -- You are not going to start World War III over it. But I will tell you this. We have tremendous power economically over China except we don't have the people that understand how to play that game.

BOLLING: Right.

TRUMP: We don't use our people. We don't use our -- we don't use our best and our smartest. We have tremendous power over China. And, frankly, we have tremendous power over many people economically, we just don't know how to use that power and we haven't used it we just don't have the talent in the top positions.

BOLLING: Donald, you mentioned using some of that economic power over Japan and South Korea saying, hey, look, we have put troops there, we have protected you, now it's time for you to pay back through either cash or some other methods? What are your thoughts there and --

TRUMP: Well, we are not reimbursed.

BOLLING: -- specifically to North Korea?

TRUMP: We are not reimbursed. You know, $19 trillion going up to 21 trillion because of the horrible budget deal that was recently made. The omnibus budget. So we're going to be at $21 trillion very soon. And we are not reimbursed properly for what we do. I mean, we have 28,000 soldiers on the line between North and South Korea. Every time the north raises its head with their young dictator, every time we send our ships, we send our planes, now, South Korea, and I do business with them. They are wonderful people. We have good relationships, but they know themselves what they are getting.

BOLLING: Right. But don't we get something out of there too though, Donald? Don't we get when we have a true presidents in this foreign countries, allies on their land. We can keep an eye on maybe some unfriendly companies that they're adjacent to.

TRUMP: We get nothing out of it. In my opinion, we get very, very little out of it. What they should do is at least reimburse us or reimburse us properly in a proper amount. We can't -- this isn't 30 or 40 years ago where we were a rich nation. We are a debtor nation right now. We owe China $1.7 trillion. We owe Japan $1.5 trillion. And here we are doing deals with Japan since it's -- by the millions. We can't do business that way anymore. We need strength and we have to make ourselves solid again financially. We are a country that is on the brink. And we are sitting on top of a big, beautiful bubble. And if it pops, it's going to be a very ugly situation.

BOLLING: All right. I have to get this question in, I've been thinking about it for months now. Donald, one word, is it better to be loved or feared?

TRUMP: Well, I'd rather be respected than both. You want to be respected. And I think that's what's happened. And that's why I'm by far the number one frontrunner.

BOLLING: Okay.

TRUMP: And we have Cruz left but by far the number one. I think the word respect is maybe the best of all in terms of leadership.

BOLLING: Right. Donald, I am going to have to say thank you very much. And by the way, congratulations on your grand baby. We really appreciate your time. Thank you very much.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you, Eric.

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