Trump, Musk give a glimpse at how long they'll continue to work together

So people ask me like, what's your biggest surprise in D.C.? And I'm like, the sheer scale. So you love the challenge? Well, to the president's point... That's the only thing you can say. He'll never do anything. I mean, you do something slightly better and you save billions of dollars for the American taxpayer. Just slightly better. When you say... You get 1% better and it's like, well, you know, tens of billions of dollars saved for the American taxpayer. Now, if I may address the point, the question you asked earlier, which is, you know, how do we assure people... They want to know. Yeah, how do we assure people that we're going to do the right thing, that their social security benefits will be there, that their medical care will be good? And in fact, how do we make sure that there's better medical care in the future? How do we improve their benefits? How do we make sure that their social security check goes further than it did in the past and it doesn't get weakened by inflation? So, if we address the massive deficit spending, the waste in the government, then we can actually address inflation. So, provided the economy grows faster than the money supply, which means you stop the government overspending and the waste and the output of real useful goods and services exceeds the increase in money supply, you have no inflation. And you also drop the interest payments that people pay. Because if the government... Keeps too high. Yes. The reason the interest payments are so high is because the national debt keeps increasing. So, the government is competing to sell debt with the private citizens. This drives up the interest rate. So, if you cut back on the deficit, you actually have an amazing situation for people because you get rid of inflation and you drop the interest rates. And that means people's mortgage payments go down, their credit card payments go down, their car payments go down, their student loans go down, everything. Their life becomes more affordable and their standard of living improves. How quickly? Because I think people are suffering now. We're still living under the Biden administration. John, you have states right now. You have some states that operate that way. They operate as well as any corporation. They really operate well. Yeah. They have surpluses. Texas has a surplus, for example. When they look at New York and California and some of these places that should have an advantage. I mean, there's a big advantage. Or Pritzker does such a bad job in Illinois, it's horrible how bad he is. And they don't have that advantage. You know, New York has stock exchange and a lot of things. And California has the weather and the beautiful weather. California has great weather. The most expensive weather on Earth. Yeah. I like Florida. But some states operate the way he's talking about. Efficiently. When you go into some of these states, you're going to find very little. You're going to find almost nothing. They really operate well. Big surpluses, low taxes. My taxes went up the first time you were president because you took away the salt deduction. Which, by the way, I thought was the right decision. It was the right decision. In fact, Reagan tried to do it because it rewards badly run states. But at the same time, it's tough for the states. I mean, it really is tough for the states. The sad part is it rewards really badly run states. And Reagan tried to do it. He was unable to do it. I got it done. You got it done. And now we're going to give some back. How quickly do you balance the budget? And when do we start paying down that? Well, potentially very quickly. Between what he's doing and with income coming in from tariffs and other things. I mean, I hope we can. I don't want to give a date because then these people are going to say, oh, well, he didn't make the date. But I think we can do it very quickly. We would have never done it if this didn't happen. Never. It would have never been. It would only get worse and worse. And ultimately, it would have exploded. This country was headed down a very bad track. And the whole DEI thing, that was a trap. That was a sick trap. And, you know, we've destroyed that. That's gone. That's pretty much gone. I agree. We're not funding it. I really want to emphasize to people that this is a very important point. If we don't solve the deficit, there won't be money for medical care. There won't be money for Social Security. We either solve the deficit or all we'll be doing is paying debt. And so it's got to be solved or there's no medical care. There's no Social Security. There's no nothing. It's got to be solved. It's not optional. America will go bankrupt if this is not done. That's why I'm here. Europe takes advantage of this. I'd like to also just send a message because, as the President said, there's a lot of rich people out there. They should be caring more about the country. Because the reason they should be caring more about the country is if America falls, what do you think is going to happen to your business? Do you think we're going to be okay if the ship of America sinks? Of course not. What I'm doing here, what the President's doing, is it's just long-term thinking. The ship of America must be strong. The ship of America cannot sink. If it sinks, we all sink with it. John, Europe is what drives you. Yes. This is important. It says tech support. So you're not trying to be President, as the media suggests. You are really here because your heart and your passion is this. And the President described you as being, this is the biggest thing you've ever done. Now you're trying to bring sight to it. There could be nothing bigger. You're sending ships up to Mars, you know, spaceships up in the sky all the time and saving astronauts. That's pretty big. That's peanuts compared to what you're talking about. You agree with that? Well, it's essential that America be healthy, that America's economy be strong. And if that, basically, my concern is like, if America is the central pillar holding up Western civilization, that pillar must be strong. If that pillar falls, the whole roof comes crashing down. Including his ships. There's no place to hide. Including his ships going up. There's no place to run. Nothing. There's nothing left. Why, if this is your goal, your motivation, you're losing money in the process, you do all these nice things for people for free. You're trying to solve blindness. You're going to rescue astronauts. You help the people of North Carolina, California. You're cutting money that was sent abroad that's not helping the American people. Then why the rage? Actually, I think it was not helping the American people and hurting people overseas, to be clear. Why this rage against you now? First they hated him, now they hate both of you. Well, I think we're seeing an antibody reaction from those who are receiving the wasteful and fraudulent money. They're being exposed. Yes. Nobody wants to be exposed. I'll tell you a lesson I learned at PayPal. You know who complained the loudest, the quickest and the loudest and with the most amount of righteous indignation? The fraudsters. That's who complained first, loudest, and they would generally have this immense overreaction. That's how we knew they were the fraudsters. That's how we knew. They have to tell. I've never met you before today. It's nice to meet you, by the way. Ben, thank you for doing this. You guys are really friends. I could see you kicking up your shoes. He doesn't do this kind of thing. The way I figured that you'd get to know him is if I did it with him. I said, come on, let's do it together. He doesn't do this. I think he's smart in not doing it overall because he's done very well without doing it. But he doesn't feel it's really worthwhile. He wants the product to speak for itself or whatever he does speak for itself. But he views it as, you know, does it matter? And I'm doing this with you today because I wanted to have people understand him. And I think it's very important. I disagree with him. I think it's very important that they do understand him. He doesn't need this. He doesn't need it. Now, I happen to think it's made him very popular. I think he's more popular now because there are so many people. You know, you're talking about the radical left. They have the lowest ratings. MSNBC is dying. CNN is dying. They're all dying. The New York Times is doing lousy. The Washington Post is doing horribly. They're all doing badly because people don't buy it anymore. But I think it was important that he do this one interview. You've been a very fair guy. I think you were the right guy to do it. We could get some radical left guy, and he'd do just as well, frankly, because it's all about common sense. They would attack him as being unconstitutional, not a fascist. Sean, to me, this was important for people to understand. He's doing a big job. He's doing a very thankless job. It's truly a thankless job. But he's helping us to save our country. Our country is in serious trouble. And I had to get that best guy, somebody with credibility, because if he were just a regular good, very good, solid businessman, he wouldn't have the credibility. He's got the best credibility for this. And people also know he's an honest guy. He's an honest guy. He's just a very, very smart guy who's done amazing things. And this will be the biggest thing he's ever done because, you know, his companies are all great. But if this country goes bad, I guess where he is a little selfish is this. He knows one thing and probably doesn't think. But if this country goes bad, his stuff is not going to be worth very much, I can tell you. Like I say, if the ship of America sinks, we're all going down with it. You know, this idea that people can escape to New Zealand or some other place is false. If the central pillar of Western civilization, that is America, falls, the whole roof comes crashing down and there is no escape. Do you anticipate you'll be here four years, my last question? I'll be as helpful as long as I can be helpful. That's a good question. I mean, I was thinking about that just now and I wonder how long he's going to be doing it. You can't get somebody like this. He cares and he's brilliant and he's got energy. You need energy also in addition to those other things. You know, I have a lot of guys that are very smart, but they have no energy. They want to sleep all day long. You need a lot of energy. He's got a lot of energy. He's doing a great job. If there's any conflict, he will stop it. But if he didn't, I'd stop it. I'd see if there's a conflict. I mean, we're talking about big stuff. But he's under a pretty big microscope. I mean, everybody's watching him. If there's a conflict, you're going to be reading about it within about two minutes after the conflict. Exactly. The possibility of me getting away with something is 0%, 0.0. I've scrutinized to a ridiculous degree. And the other thing is that, you know, what's better than saying, trust me, is just full transparency. So what we're doing with the Doge, just go to doge.gov. You can see every single action that's been taken. And I want to be clear. We are going to make some mistakes. We're not going to be perfect. Nobody bats a thousand. But we're going to fix the mistakes very quickly. That's what matters. Not that you don't make mistakes, but that you fix the mistakes very fast. All right. They gave us so much extra time. You can watch the full, unedited, start to finish, no interruptions at all, version of this interview with President Trump and Elon Musk. Just go to foxnation.com. When we come back, reaction to the interview. We'll check in with Reince Priebus, Mike Huckabee. They will join us. Also, Kristi Noem might be using a polygraph to get to the bottom of who may be tipping off some of the gangs about pending ICE rates. Straight ahead.