We discussed venezuela. We discussed afghanistan and the middle east generally. We had some very good meetings, ideas, thoughts, and a lot of decisions were made. This is a very important day, actually. We made a lot of decisions. With that, do you have any questions . Yes . You make any decision on onistan back of afghanistan . Additional troops . Mr. Trump were getting close. That is a mess. I took over a mess. Frankly it is a decision that will be made very soon. Do you have full confidence in the National Security adviser . Mr. Trump mr. Mcmaster . Yes, he is our friend, i like him, and respect him. Why did you decide to announce the transgender ban reversal and are you betraying a community . Mr. Trump i have Great Respect for that community. I got a lot of votes. They are working on it now. It has been a difficult situation. I think i am doing a lot of people a favor by coming out and just saying, as you know, it has been a complicated issue for the military. It has been a confusing issue for the military, and i think i am doing the military a great favor. Do you have any response to the russian president expelling 755 workers from our embassy . Mr. Trump no, i want to thank him. We are trying to cut down on payroll, and i very thankful he has let go of a large number of people. Now we have a smaller payroll. There is no real reason for him to go back. I greatly appreciate the fact they have been able to cut our payroll for the united states. We will save a lot of money. Was it appropriate for the fbi to raid the home of Paul Manafort . Mr. Trump i thought it was a very, very strong signal, or whatever. I know mr. Metaphor i havent spoken to him in a long time, but i know him. He was with the campaign for a short time. I have always known him. I thought it he was a very they do that very seldom. I was surprised to see it. I was very surprised to see it. Have you spoken to the fbi director about it . Mr. Trump i have not. To do that early in the morning, whether it is appropriate, you would have to ask them, and i have found Paul Manafort to be a decent man. He is probably like a lot of people, makes consultant fees all over the place. Who knows. That is tough stuff to wake him up, perhaps his family was there. That is tough stuff. Speaking of the attorney general, how would you characterize your relationship currently with secretary sessions . Attorney general sessions . Mr. Trump it is fine. He is working hard on the border. Im very proud of what we have done on the border. I am proud of our general kelly did on the border can one of the reasons he is my chief of staff right now is because he did an outstanding job on the border. We are down 78 at the border. Nobody thought that was possible. I am proud of general kelly. He is now chief of staff. The same time, i am proud of what we have done between supreme court, tremendous amount of legislation that has been passed. We had 42 to 48 bills passed. I am not talking about just executive orders. We had massive executive orders. We got rid of recordsetting amounts of regulations, and a lot of it is statutory where it is a 90day period, you have to wait, and i believe in regulation. You have to have some regulation, but we will have a small percentage compared to what we have. That is why you see business enthusiasm is the highest it has been in 18 years why unemployment is the lowest it has been in 18 years, and the Unemployment Rate just came out. It is the lowest it has been in 18 years. With that being said, we have Companies Moving into the united states. They are negotiating. We have done a lot. I am very proud of it. I think the general kelly will be a fantastic chief of staff. Are you going to increase military presence in asia . Were looking at what is happening in asia. We are constantly looking at it. I dont like to signal what im going to be doing, but we are certainly looking at it. We are a lot of time looking at, in particular, north korea, and we are preparing for many different alternative events in north korea. North korea has disrespected our country greatly. He has said things that are horrific, and with me, he is not getting away with it. He got away with it for a long time between he and his family. It is a whole new ballgame. He is not going to be saying those things and certainly not doing those things. I read about guam by august 15. Lets see what he does with guam. He does something with guam, it will be an event the likes of which nobody has seen before what will happen in north korea. When you say that, what do you mean . Mr. Trump you will see, and he will see. Is that a dare . Mr. Trump it is not a dare. It is a statement. It has something to do with dare. He is not going to go around threatening guam, threatening the united states, not going to threaten japan, south korea. That is not a dare, as you say. That is a state of fact. Can you talk about the Nuclear Posture and what your priorities are there . Mr. Trump nuclear to me, i would like to denuke the world. I say simple one, nuclear is the biggest threat worldwide. I would like to denuke. I would like russia, china, pakistan, many other countries that have nuclear weapons, given nuclear weapons, get rid of them, but until such time that they do, we will be the most powerful Nuclear Nation on earth by far. The first order i gave to my generals, as you know, is, as you know, mike, i want our Nuclear Arsenal to be the biggest and the finest in the world. We spent a lot of money, a lot of time and a lot of effort, and ands in tiptop shape getting better. Until this scores disappears, we will be so much better and stronger than anybody else, and nobody, including north korea, is going to be threatening us with anything. What have you changed with the Nuclear Arsenal and the reason i ask is a lot of experts said in response to your tweets, modernizing cant be done in six months. Mr. Trump we have done a lot of renovation, we have it in very good shape, and it will be in much better shape over the next six months to a year. It is a very important thing. Military is very important to me, as you know. I did extremely well with the military vote, mike and i. My first order was we have to do the military, but before we do the military, per se, were going to do the nuclear, and we are in strong shape. We going to be increasing our budget by many billions of dollars because of north korea and other reasons having to do with the antimissile. Were going to be increasing our budget by many billions of dollars. We probably will be able to report that over the next week. As you know, we reduce that by 5 . I decided i dont want that. We will be increasing the we will be increasing the antimissiles. Can you give us your latest opinion on iran, and whether you think they are in compliance or will be in compliance . Mr. Trump i dont think iran is in compliance. We wrote them a tough letter. I personally dont think they are in compliance, but we have time. Were going to see. We put down a lot of default or potential default situations. I dont think they are living up to the spirit of the agreement. President obama, in his wisdom, gave them 150 alien dollars. 150 billion. He gave them 1. 8 billion in cash. That is a hard one to figure, but that was his decision. I think it is a horrible decision. They are not in compliance with the agreement, and they are certainly not with the spirit of the agreement in compliance. I think you will see some very strong things taking place if they dont get themselves in compliance, but i dont leave i do not believe they are in compliance right now. Host what is the what is the latest on the leak investigation . Mr. Trump you have the leaks coming out of the Intelligence Departments having to do with syria, all sorts of different frankly, north korea, and they are very serious. Then you have the leaks were people want to love me, and they are all fighting for love. Those are not very important, but certainly we dont like him. We do not like them. They are in her white house leaks, inner white house leaks, and they are not important, but i am honored by that. The leaks we are looking at strongly are the leaks coming out of intelligence, and we have to stop them for the security and the National Security of our country. You have notes for special counsel bob mueller . Mr. Trump no notes, we are working with him. Everyone said there is no collusion. You look at the councils that come in, we have senate hearing, judiciary, intelligence, everyone walks out, even the enemies, and they say there is no collusion no collusion. They are investigating something that never happened. There was no collusion between us and russia. In fact, the opposite, russia spent a lot of money fighting me, and if you think about it, i want a Strong Military. You see our budget is up by hundreds of billions of dollars soon. Our military budget. Russia doesnt like that. Hillary was going to cut the budget substantially, the military budget. Russia is very Important Oil and gas. We are now an exporter because of an incredible six months i have had and exporter of oil and gas. That is bad for russia. I always said, i dont think russia wants me because i want a Strong Military and low energy prices. Energy prices is a disaster for russia. Additionally, it seems russia spent a lot of money on that false report, and that was russian money. It was democratic money, too. You could say that was collusion. Plus the democrats colluded on the ukraine. Then when you get down to it, why isnt the fbi looking at the dnc server . You have a server that the democrats refused to give to the fbi. I dont know how the fbi can investigate something if the dnc, the democrats, refused to give the server. We have an investigation of something that never took place, and all i say is work with them because this is an event that never took place. Now, as far as somebody else where did they file the right papers, did they forget to file the paper i guarantee, if you went around and looked at everyone that made a speech, or whatever these people did. That is up to them. Did they do something wrong because it did not fire the file the right document perhaps. I guarantee this a lot of people in washington did the same thing. Given your Harsh Criticism of democrats, how you bring them in on things like infrastructure . Mr. Trump we will see. Maybe we will will them in, maybe we will not. In fact, i might have more supports from the democrats. I want a strong infrastructure bill. We have spent over 6 million on the middle east 6 trillion in the middle east. We have wasted 6 trillion, but we cannot fix our roads, bridges, schools, and our airports, and i think that is a sad situation. I am very strong on infrastructure, and i know a lot of republicans are, and democrats are also. On infrastructure, and i know a lot of democrats are also. [indiscernible] is there anything that would send you in that direction . Mr. Trump i havent given it any thought. You people say i am dismissing it. Im not dismissing anybody. I want people to get on with the task, but i also want the senate and the house to get on with their findings. Judging from people leaving the meetings leaks, they leave the meeting all the time, and they say we have not find any collusion and there is no collusion you know why, i dont speak to russia. I suppose i was a much better candidate than her. I went to wisconsin, i went to pennsylvania. I fought a smart battle. I did not win because of russia. Russia had nothing to do with me winning. We had a great team, and i guess i did a good job. You know what, honestly, they spend much more money than i did, i a lot, you know that. They spent a lot more money, and honestly they did not do a good job of campaigning. One more question about Senate Leader mcconnell. You talked about him outside a little bit earlier have you reached out to him since your phone call yesterday . Mr. Trump no. Have you given any consideration to asking his wife, your transportation secretary, to help bridge mr. Trump elaine is doing a great job. We are proud of her as secretary. She is that a very good job. Im disappointed in mitch. If he gets these bills passed, i will be very happy with him. Honestly, repeal and replace of obamacare should have taken place in it shouldve been on my desk virtually the first week i was there, the first day i was there. I have been hearing about it for seven years. The tax bill, tax cuts, tax reforms hopefully they get that done. I hope they get it done, and the other thing would be the infrastructure bill. In addition to that, we passed a lot of things we passed accountability with the v. A. We passed a lot. Were doing a lot of great work at the va. Get what is happening in the atl industry you look what is happening in the coal industry. I was in West Virginia making a speech, and they are doing great as a state. The great governor of West Virginia, jim, who you saw, he just became a republican. The first time in many many years Something Like that has happened. He left the Democratic Party and became a republican, which was a great moment. It hasnt happened in many years. We are very happy with what has happened. We think it has been an incredible six months. We have done a lot of recordsetting business. You look at what is going on with the economy, and to me, very important you look at the enthusiasm of businesses, Companies Moving you saw friday the Car Companies coming in. Last week, foxconn, then it the apple iphones, the desktops they are the biggest in the world. They are coming into wisconsin with an unbelievable plan like we have never seen before, and i actually said to tim cook of apple, i said you know, tim, i wont consider myself successful as president unless i see you building those beautiful plants you have all over china you Start Building them in the united states, and he is going to start doing that. You are critical in the intelligence in the runup to the iraq war should we trust intelligence on north korea . Mr. Trump well, it is different intelligence. I have mike pompeo. I have great confidence in him. That does not mean i have confidence in his predecessor, which i didnt, actually. Although he did say good things about me. He did say he had no information or know anything on collusion, so i shouldnt, maybe, say that, but i should say i have tremendous confidence in mike pompeo. Dan coats, fantastic. I think your new head of the fbi i think i have done a Great Service for this country. I think christopher will do a fantastic job as the head of the fbi. Look, nobody has greater respect for intelligence than donald trump, but you have to have the right leaders. I think we have great leaders right now. You can look at the intelligence over the years. It was intelligence that got people to make one of the worst decisions ever made in the history of our country, going into iraq, because they said there were no weapons. It ended up being there were no weapons of mass destruction. They said if you listen to them, weapons of mass destruction were all over the place, but they were not there. That was intelligence. I have Great Respect for intelligence as led by the people i have in charge now. We have great people. I think it is going to lead us to tremendous victories, and that is what we need. What is that intelligence telling you about north korea . Mr. Trump telling you about north korea . Mr. Trump it is telling me a lot of things, but you will probably find out about it before anyone else with the leaks, right . We have to stop the leaks. The leaks are very dangerous for our country. With the leadership we have right now, hopefully it will be a very, very successful eight years for this country, and after that we will continue onward. We have a lot of things we have to straighten out. You have the middle east, north korea. You have a lot of places of tremendous conflict and tremendous danger for this country. I will say getting a 150 vote of the United Nations from the Security Council the other day that is something very few president s would have been able to get, and i have Great Respect for the fact that china and russia went along with it. That was a tremendous day for the united states. I think youll have a strong impact on north korea. I dont know that it will be the endall, but i think it will have a big impact on north korea and what they are doing. Thank you all very much. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2017] all this month, members of the house and senate are back in their home state and districts. Heres a look at what they are up to during the recess. Senator rand paul took a tour of a hemp farm in kentucky that is working on a Research Project with murray state university. Posted pictures to facebook calling the owners great examples of the entrepreneurial nature of the kentucky farmer. In texas, congressman will heard is visiting local dairy queens, Holding Town Halls to meet constituents throughout south and west texas. He has been chronicling the journey he calls the sea to dq on social media he calls d. C. To dq on social media. Live on our second day of d. C. To dq. If you have been following us, this is 20 stops in six days, a meeting with constituents in the 23rd Congressional District of texas. Border. S of the Congress Returns september 5 with a busy fall ahead. On their list of issues include passing a federal spending bill by the september 30 deadline to fund the federal government. Floor votes are expected by the end of the year on reforming the tax code and raising the debt ceiling. Expected worke is on health care reform, Holding Hearings next month. Watch coverage on the house on cspan and the senate on cspan2. Coming up live on the cspan network, it is discussion about diversity and Cyber Security with professionals looking at ways to broaden the workforce. Live from new america and 9 30 a. M. On cspan3. In the afternoon, a discussion about u. S. Taiwan relations. Our live coverage begins at the Heritage Foundation at 1 30 p. M. Eastern on cspan2. You can follow both events online at cspan. Org or with the cspan radio app. Fifthline from the bcs than swill mayor sentenced over protest. The court finding the mayor guilty of failing to provide prevent antigovernment protests. For other mayors have been found guilty of similar charges. Up next we hear from two venezuelan democracy activists at a discussion hosted by the council on the americas