Trump: 'China's Taking the Shirt Off Our President's Back'
'The Donald' rips China for allegedly stealing U.S. info from helicopter in bin Laden raid, speculates over his appeal in the media
This is a rush transcript from "On the Record," August 17, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
GRETA VAN SUSTEREN, FOX NEWS HOST: If the Chinese, by the way, say something is extremely absurd, what's your first thought? Now, that is exactly how China is describing the new report that they teamed up with Pakistan behind our back and stole our technology.
Do you remember that stealth helicopter that went down during the bin Laden raid in Pakistan? The team of Navy SEALs tried to destroy the chopper before they left the scene, but a big portion of tail remained. And almost before the metal could even cool, the diabolical event went down! Chinese military scientists were given access to our helicopter at a Pakistan military base. Now, the Chinese inspected it and they even took samples. So what should the United States do now?
Earlier today, we asked Donald Trump about that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
VAN SUSTEREN: Donald, nice to talk to you again.
DONALD TRUMP, TRUMP ORGANIZATION (Via Telephone): Nice to talk to you, Greta.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, Donald, when we last talked, we talked a little bit about the fact that our stealth helicopter that we had to leave at the scene of the killing of Usama bin Laden was a stealth helicopter with that very sophisticated technology. Now I've learned from Catherine Herridge, one of my colleagues, that it was just three days later that the Chinese came in. The Pakistanis invited them in even before we were able to talk to Usama bin Laden's wives who were at the scene, but it was three -- that soon, just three days after it was down, the Chinese got in and took a look at our technology. What do you think we should do?
TRUMP: Well, just think about it. Number one, you have Pakistan. We asked them not to show this very, very expensive stealth technology, and they did, even though we give them billions and billions of dollars.
And then you have China, the worst abuser ever in this country against our country. What they're doing to us, as you know, is unbelievable. And they go in and they steal our stealth technology! They look at the helicopter. They've done the measurements. They've done everything that you have to do. And they now have our technology.
We should bill China. We should do something called an offset because we owe them money. Do an offset. But they've stolen billions of dollars of technology! They've stolen the secrets automatically in one quick little session.
So we should do something like bill China. Sue them in the World Court. As you and I discuss often, China is not our friend. They are our enemy. And we treat them as though they're our friends, and they are taking the shirt off our president's back! And that, unfortunately, relates to our back because our country is suffering.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, Secretary of Defense Panetta yesterday -- he didn't deny that the Chinese had been brought in to look at the stealth helicopter, which I thought a denial was, in essence, an admission that it happened. He also didn't say, you know, to what extent our national security has been compromised by it.
But just think about it. Less than -- I mean, three days after this event happened -- it was long enough to get the engineers, I guess, from China to Pakistan to have it happen -- we couldn't even get in to interview the witnesses. And so now we have China and Pakistan really in cahoots against us!
TRUMP: We couldn't even get to see our own helicopter first! China got there first, despite the fact that we give them billions of dollars. And by the way, China denied it. But it turned out they were lying.
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, they denied it on their website, but I mean, the Pakistani sources...
TRUMP: Well, they denied -- they denied having seen it, and it turned out that they were lying. But I'm not at all surprised. I understand China. I know China. I've made a lot of money with China. I've dealt with China. And I can tell you, I've made a lot of money on China. And I understand the Chinese. They lied and they owe us an apology. And you know what? Much more important than the apology, because they owe us many apologies, they owe us a lot of money for what they did.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let's say we lob off the debt that the -- that we have to them, you know, the billions of dollars, maybe trillions -- I don't know what this stealth technology is worth. Setting aside even the incredible issue of national security and giving away our secrets, so we lob it off. What do they say, So what?
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Look, I understand banking and banks. And I understand owing and not owing. And I understand lending better than maybe anybody. That money doesn't come due for a long period of time. They can't do anything. They have a trillion dollars up. Sounds like a lot of money. Relatively, it's not a lot of money, I mean, relative to what we're talking about with these huge economies. They have the problem, we don't have the problem. They have the problem.
VAN SUSTEREN: But if we -- if we -- but if we do just say, OK, we're taking off our debt the cost of what you just took from us in Pakistan, I mean, since the debt isn't -- I mean, since we're not paying them off soon, I mean, do they -- do they even really care if we do that because...
TRUMP: Well, I wouldn't start that way.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... there's so much money...
TRUMP: I'd just send them a bill for the value of the secrets that they've stolen. Now, of course, they're stealing them from Boeing and from General Electric and from everybody else also. If you look at what they forced General Electric to do or if you look at what they're trying to do with Boeing, it's very, very sad that the companies are succumbing to it.
But they're trying to get all of our technology so they can build their military, but so they can also build other things. And whether it's commercially or militarily, they are stealing our technology. And frankly, we have nobody -- we have the weakest leadership ever! We have nobody that has a clue as to what they're doing!
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, the White House response the other day when this first came out was something like, Well, we're not happy about it, which I -- you know, I -- I might say that sort of tongue in cheek when I'm really mad about something. But of course, the way it reads in print, it looks rather like -- you know, almost feckless, like we're not -- you know, that we're not lodging a complaint and taking some sort of diplomatic response.
TRUMP: Greta, our president is grossly incompetent! He doesn't know what he's doing. The world is laughing at us. It's very, very sad.
VAN SUSTEREN: All right, let me go to another question. The president is on a bus tour. He's going to three states that have reasonably good unemployment numbers compared to the national average. And he's been speaking about -- he has this plan, but he's not going to release the plan until after Labor Day. And in between that time, he's going on vacation while Americans wait. Your thoughts on whether -- I mean, should Americans be patient for two more weeks, or should they be enraged that he's taking his vacation first when he says he has a plan and not even telling them about it?
TRUMP: Well, first of all, he's traveling on a brand-new $1.1 million bus that was made in Canada, which is hard to believe that he could allow that one to happen because it looks so bad. Just cosmetically, it looks terrible. He shouldn't be on vacation. He should be in Washington with other people working.
And frankly, he should call Congress back. He should get rid of the committees, which are an insult, and they should work out some kind of a deal. With proper leadership, they could. Get rid of the committees. They should work out a deal. They should all be back in Washington, everybody, the congressmen, the senators and the president.
VAN SUSTEREN: My thought is I -- that bus that's made in Canada, my guess is -- as bad as that sounds, my guess is that he had nothing to do with the order on that. I mean, he may be riding around, but he had nothing to do -- I realize the PR aspect. It looks bad.
The idea, though -- I do -- I do agree with you on this. The idea that he's going on vacation while so many Americans are desperately scrambling for money, whether it's to put food on the table, to pay rent or to pay mortgage, and he says he's got a plan, but he puts it off for another two weeks to me is the most incredible tin ear and it's -- you know, it's an insult to the American people who desperately need help right now. They don't -- they don't need him on a vacation.
TRUMP: Well, I agree with you 100 percent.
VAN SUSTEREN: He could release the report, go on vacation then.
TRUMP: He's setting a record for vacations. And frankly, as far as the bus is concerned, the only thing worse could have been (INAUDIBLE) might have been made in China, right? So I'd rather have Canada than China. But wouldn't it be nice if we could make our own products?
VAN SUSTEREN: Well, indeed. But like I say, it's, like, you know, I blame him for vacation, not for the bus.
TRUMP: OK.
VAN SUSTEREN: I read a report that says that Governor Perry is going to come calling on you. Is that true?
TRUMP: Well, he's been calling, and he's doing a good job. I mean, you look at the poll numbers. He's doing a very good job. He's got great enthusiasm. He loves the country. And I really respect what I'm seeing out of him so far. So it'll be very interesting. Yes, we have spoken a number of times. Good man.
VAN SUSTEREN: You know, there seems to be sort of a glow when you join the field. Everyone sort of, you know, likes you, like, right away, oftentimes, many candidates. And I know that he's -- there's so many jobs that have been created in Texas, and it's under his watch, so he gets credit for it.
But I read something in The Dallas Morning News just a short time ago in which it talked about the terrible education system in Texas and how so many students aren't ready for college. Is that going to be a point of vulnerability? Because the education budgets did get slashed under him.
TRUMP: Well, they'll start hitting him on lots of different things. I'm sure they'll find things that nobody ever even thought of. But look at the education system in the United States generally. It's terrible. I mean, we used to have the best and now we have -- we're very average. We're very mediocre.
One of the things that bothers me the most about our education system is people come from foreign countries, they come to Harvard and to the Wharton School of Finance and to our best schools, and then they go home. They're not even allowed to stay in this country. We send them back home so they can compete against us. So we educate them, we take up slots at our best schools, our absolutely best schools, so that our people can't go to those schools. And then they go back to China and India and they take our shirts off. Pretty sad.
VAN SUSTEREN: But you know what, Donald, is that, you know, for -- our education system down below, in the elementary and high school level, is so poor that...
TRUMP: Terrible.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... you know, people can't even get into these schools anyway. I mean, it's, like...
TRUMP: No. It's terrible.
VAN SUSTEREN: ... when you've got -- when we have such a huge drop- out rate. We push people through who can't read and write, I mean, terrible things, and we do (INAUDIBLE) even those spots that you're talking about, we couldn't fill them anyway, probably, in some instances...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Almost every aspect of our country is doing poorly. If you look at almost anything, you can talk education, you can talk about almost any aspect of our country, it's setting record lows. We've never been at this point. And throughout the world, we are no longer respected as a country, and that's pretty sad.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
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