http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/po ... .html?_r=1
"But Trump lost the popular vote!" Of course he did, he knew that his path to victory was through the Electoral College, so his campaign was built around flipping key states red. If popular vote was what decided things he'd run a very different campaign. Key takeaway, he knows what the victory conditions are, had plans for getting there, and acted on those plans.TRUMP: So we won that by a lot of votes and, you know, we had a great victory. We had a great victory. I think it would have been easier because I see every once in awhile somebody says, ‘Well, the popular vote.’ Well, the popular vote would have been a lot easier, but it’s a whole different campaign. I would have been in California, I would have been in Texas, Florida and New York, and we wouldn’t have gone anywhere else. Which is, I mean I’d rather do the popular vote from the standpoint — I’d think we’d do actually as well or better — it’s a whole different campaign. It’s like, if you’re a golfer, it’s like match play versus stroke play. It’s a whole different game.
Formal rejection of the alt-right groups.DEAN BAQUET, executive editor of The New York Times: As you describe it, you did do something really remarkable. You energized a lot of people in the country who really wanted change in Washington. But along with that — and this is going to create a tricky thing for you — you also energized presumably a smaller number of people who were evidenced at the alt-right convention in Washington this weekend. Who have a very …
TRUMP: I just saw that today.
BAQUET: So, I’d love to hear you talk about how you’re going to manage that group of people who actually may not be the larger group but who have an expectation for you and are angry about the country and its — along racial lines. My first question is, do you feel like you said things that energized them in particular, and how are you going to manage that?
TRUMP: I don’t think so, Dean. First of all, I don’t want to energize the group. I’m not looking to energize them. I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group. They, again, I don’t know if it’s reporting or whatever. I don’t know where they were four years ago, and where they were for Romney and McCain and all of the other people that ran, so I just don’t know, I had nothing to compare it to.
But it’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized I want to look into it and find out why.
What we do want to do is we want to bring the country together, because the country is very, very divided, and that’s one thing I did see, big league. It’s very, very divided, and I’m going to work very hard to bring the country together.
Skeptical on climate change, but will keep an open mind and investigate. Could be better, but not a total disaster, it's not full speed ahead on coal & oil and polluting the shit out of everything like some people fear.FRIEDMAN: But it’s really important to me, and I think to a lot of our readers, to know where you’re going to go with this. I don’t think anyone objects to, you know, doing all forms of energy. But are you going to take America out of the world’s lead of confronting climate change?
TRUMP: I’m looking at it very closely, Tom. I’ll tell you what. I have an open mind to it. We’re going to look very carefully. It’s one issue that’s interesting because there are few things where there’s more division than climate change. You don’t tend to hear this, but there are people on the other side of that issue who are, think, don’t even …
SULZBERGER: We do hear it.
FRIEDMAN: I was on ‘Squawk Box’ with Joe Kernen this morning, so I got an earful of it.
[laughter]
TRUMP: Joe is one of them. But a lot of smart people disagree with you. I have a very open mind. And I’m going to study a lot of the things that happened on it and we’re going to look at it very carefully. But I have an open mind.
There's gonna be infrastructure spending, a lot of it, and unlike Obama stimulus packages where most of the money probably ended up bailing out banks, the money will be spent properly this time. Allegedly.SULZBERGER: We’ll go with that. I’d like to move to infrastructure, apologies, and then we’ll go back. Because a lot of the investment you are talking about, a lot of the jobs you are talking about — is infrastructure going to be the core of your first few years?
TRUMP: No, it’s not the core, but it’s an important factor. We’re going for a lot of things, between taxes, between regulations, between health care replacement, we’re going to talk repeal and replace. ’Cause health care is — you know people are paying a 100 percent increase and they’re not even getting anything, the deductibles are so high, you have deductibles $16,000. So they’re paying all of this money and they don’t even get health care. So it’s very important. So there are a lot of things. But infrastructure, Arthur, is going to be a part of it.
SULZBERGER: It’s part of jobs, isn’t it?
TRUMP: I don’t even think it’s a big part of it. It’s going to be a big number but I think I am doing things that are more important than infrastructure, but infrastructure is still a part of it, and we’re talking about a very large-scale infrastructure bill. And that’s not a very Republican thing — I didn’t even know that, frankly.
SULZBERGER: It worked for Franklin Roosevelt.
TRUMP: It didn’t work for Obama because unfortunately they didn’t spend the money last time on infrastructure. They spent it on a lot of other things. You know, nobody can find out where that last — you know, from a few years ago — where that money went. And we’re going to make sure it is spent on infrastructure and roads and highways.
He's not going to punch the red button and start WW3 with Russia. He understands the value of good foreign relations.FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?
TRUMP: I wouldn’t use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think — I would love to be able to get along with Russia and I think they’d like to be able to get along with us. It’s in our mutual interest. And I don’t go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would say — when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump, I said, huh, wouldn’t it be nice, I’d say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn’t it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn’t it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it’s very expensive, and ISIS shouldn’t have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that’s a positive thing. It is a great thing that we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.
Overall, not bad at all. Y'all can stop your hysterics. He knows what the key issues are in America and is working on plans to fix them. He's not going to start dumping non-whites into internment camps, start pointless wars in 3rd world countries, and a bunch of the other shit that people keep screaming about. There's going to be a bunch of infrastructure spending and he's working to bring a ton of manufacturing jobs back to America. As a sidenote, he's effectively killed the TPP and TiPP trade proposals and is planning to renegotiate NAFTA, which is a good thing. All hail God Emperor Trump!
