Read Donald Trump’s Interview With TIME on Being President – TIME

President Trump hosted correspondents from TIME for a nearly 100-minute wide-ranging discussion on Monday, May 8 over a four-course dinner in the Blue Room of the White House. Joined by Vice President Mike Pence and two senior Administration officials, Trump weaved between topics and frequently went off the record. Excerpts from his conversation with TIME Editor Nancy Gibbs, Washington Bureau Chief Michael Scherer and White House Correspondent Zeke Miller are below:

I find the job very natural for me. I findits a very big job obviously, theres no job big like this. No job is important like this. But I think some of theI just think its something that works for me, it feels very natural to me.

And all I said, the job, it is, its a difficult job but its a job that I find to beI love doing it. I love helping people. Mike [Pence] is doing a fantastic job. He fits it so well. I mean we have a great team, he and I guess, they say were somewhat opposite and that works to be a very good combination.

MORE: Read TIME's cover story "Donald Trump After Hours"

Its never different. I think its never different. Its always the same. You have to know your subject. And that would be the misconception of misconceptions for that. I mean, its not that Ilook, I always had health care for my company. But its not that Iit was just something that wasnt high on my list. I had people that negotiated for my company.

But in a short period of time I understood everything there was to know about health care. And we did the right negotiating, and actually its a very interesting subject.

I think it is. It could be my fault. I dont want to necessarily blame but theres a great meanness out there that Im surprised at. I mean Im surprised.

No, Id like not to be. But the only way you survive is to be combative. Ill read stories in the New York Times that are so one sided. Hey, I know when Im successful. I know victory, okay.

I dont quite get it if Im going to do a job with the lowering taxes, better health care , take care of people, take care of hospitalization, all the things were doing, because theres no plan now. You would think that people would like that. And they dont. I used to get the credit in business but they want to belittle everything you do. Business is easier because you put something up, its good, whatever.

But the politics is tough.

When [Japanese Prime Minister Shinz] Abe came from Japan, first thing he said to me when I first met him. He walked out. "Thank you, thank you." I said, "For what?" F-35. You bought, you saved us one hundred million dollars. Because theyre part of the group that buy the ninety planes. Its a lot. We get, they get, different allies.

But I saved Japan a hundred million bucks. Took me probably an hour if I added up all the time. But I will be saving, when we put that out over two, the two thousand five hundred planes, billions of dollars. Nobody ever wrote a story about that.

But they said the F-35 program is now straightened out and the costs are way down. Theyre down because of me. Then Boeing when the F-18, I mean I must have got thirty-five million of each plane off. . . . You know they had the F-35s, they had thirty-five of them fly over Japan when [Defense Secretary] General [James] Mattis was there , and they were not detected by the radar. They flew over and everyone said where the hell did they come from? Thats stealth. Its pretty cool, right. Thirty-five of them flying at a high speed, low, and they were not detected. They flew right over the top of the deal, nobody knew they were coming. Pretty cool, right?

You know the catapult is quite important. So I said what is this? Sir, this is our digital catapult system. He said well, were going to this because we wanted to keep up with modern [technology]. I said you dont use steam anymore for catapult? No sir. I said, "Ah, how is it working?" "Sir, not good. Not good. Doesnt have the power. You know the steam is just brutal. You see that sucker going and steams going all over the place, theres planes thrown in the air."

It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And its very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out. And I saidand now they want to buy more aircraft carriers. I said what system are you going to be"Sir, were staying with digital." I said no youre not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and its no good.

Ive done a lot with [Vice President] Mike [Pence] where we have a meeting in the [Roosevelt Room], well have a lot of different people , labor unions, workers. ... We had Harley Davidson up. Ill say anybody ever see the Oval Office? Nobodys ever said theyve seen the Oval Office. President Obama was different. He didnt, not a lot of people invited in. Me, I invite people in. ... And it means something, the Oval Office. It means something to them. Im telling you Ive had big people, some of the biggest business people, youve seen it. They go in theyre like, they cant believe it. And Ive seen them cry. Its weird.

Ill tell you, I used to watch sports. I dont watchIm now consumed by news. And business, I like the business stuff.

See, there wasnt a second attempt. There was only one attempt. There was a mistake, was we set a date . Now had we not set that date, we would have had one time. What we did was we started off and it changed until three or four days ago when it got passed. But we set a date. And when we didnt vote, everyone said Trump fails with health care. The thing that surprised me is, I said, Im not stopping. And everybody, not one person said that was going to pass. Which was sort of surprising to me. Nobody thought it was going to pass. Everyone saidand Id go to [Vice President] Mike [Pence], I said remember I said, theyre talking like we dont have a chance of passing. Ill tell you, it was a great thing. It was a great process because those two hundred plus people in congress I got to know almost every one of them. And I developed a bond with many of them that you can only develop under fire. And it was a great thing. And again, somebody wrote an article where they said this is one of the greatest learning experiences, because Donald Trump has gotten to know everyyou know I was with them for eighteen hours a day, calling.

You know whats interesting, Im getting very good marks in foreign policy. People would not think of me in that light. Im just saying, and you read the same things I read. Im getting As and A+s on foreign policy. And nobody thought about it.

Great relationship with [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel, one of the best. In fact so good she invited my daughter over. She loves Ivanka. Ivanka was over there and did great. But no I have a very good relationship with all of them, including Australia. You saw that the other night, right. You know they all said I hung up and I slammed the phone on him. I didnt do that. I mean, it was a little testy for a while because Obama made a ridiculous deal. But that wasnt [Australian Prime Minister] Malcolm [Turnbull]s fault. But we have a very good relationship with Australia and him. Which I think the other night showed.

I get back [former Egyptian prisoner] Aya [Hijazi] . Nobody could have done that. Nobody else could have done that. They could have negotiated how tough is [Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah] el Sisi, right? Nobody else could have doneand hes a great guy. Nobody else could have gotten her back. She would have been in jail for twenty-eight years. And thats not twenty-eight years youre going away for one. Thats twenty-eight years meaning twenty-eight years.

Ive been doing this, in all fairness, when I first came into the office, the first night. You werent here.

But they say sir, were ready to go. I said where? They had some people in a certain country, Yemen , where they had them [surveilled] and they needed the go ahead to kill, to kill them.

But in other words they wanted the right to go. So theyre telling me this. And this happened for two or three weeks, four weeks. And they keep coming to me, at weird times too. I dont care about that.

And theyre in parts of the world that most people have never even heard about. They were in cities that nobody every heard about or towns. And in some cases theyre ISIS or al-Qaeda. And so they say sir, we have a situation wed like to be able to go and they tell me what.

Then after about four or five weeks I said wait a minute. By the time they get to me, and I get back to them, usually its over anyway, its gone, theyre gone. They couldnt fire. You know under the Obama Administration they get back to them three or four weeks later and say its okay to go. They say okay to go, they left three weeks ago.

So I said to myself, Im a believer in professionals, these people over there, whether its in Iraq or in Yemen or anywhere, Libya, they went to West Point, or wherever. Annapolis, they went to Air Force Academy.

I said to the general, I said how good. The lieutenants, the captains, their majors, their colonels, theyre professionals. They love doing it, they know every inch of the territory, right. I say why am I telling them? So I authorized the generals to do the fighting. You know.

You know I have a lot of respect for President Xi [Jinping]. I have great respect for him. I think we have a very good mutual liking of each other. And I told you we had tremendous dialogue at Mar-a-Lago.

And Mar-a-Lago is a great place for the dialogue because theres a warmth to Mar-a-Lago that you just dont find anywhere else. You can sit down in a chair and just talk for hours. Where in some places you dont have that.

And this is great. I mean its very different. But you dont have that here. Its not the same. Its great in a different way.

Weve never had the relationship that we have now. Now, in all fairness to President Xi, he loves China, he loves his people, and he is representing the people of China. Hes not representing the people of the United States. So well see how that all turns out.

I think we have to be a strong nation. I think we were being laughed at by the world. Theyre not laughing anymore. When I saw that, I thought it was incredible. And then he called them child actors, and that was even, that was just a terrible disrespect.

I mean when he actually said they were child actors, who would even think of that? But I felt something had to be done. And the interesting thing is, a friend of mine whos very much a warrior and a person over there, a general, said you know when they hit a barrel bomb right in the middle of a town, the kids are more brutally damaged, and people.

You have arms and legs and everything else laying all over the town where it is. A real problem too. But you know, it just seemed, when they start using gases, its something that is just terrible. But honestly barrel bombs are incredible when you see the damage done by these.

My friend said to me that, he said you know its interesting, he said you hit them because of the gases but the barrel bombs are worse. He said what they do to people is unbelievable. You have arms and legs laying two hundred yards away.

And despite that there was something about the gases. Its just terrible. And I guess it was also that he violated the deal that was done with Obama. Hes got gas all over the place. Hes got gas all over the place.

We have to humiliate the enemy. And if we dont humiliate them, were going to have our kids continuing to go and fight for ISIS. We have kids leaving this country because theyre so damned good at the internet, ISIS, theyre better at the internet than Google . You know its a smart enemy. Believe it or not. And these kids are going over and fighting.

You know weve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than hat were getting. All because of me. I mean its not like a bragging thing, Im just saying. If Hillary Clinton would have gotten in, she wouldnt even know that were getting screwed by everybody.

But we have gotten billions of dollars more coming in. and coming in. I asked one simple question, I says is everybody paid up? An they bring their chart, and these countries havent paid for years. Havent paid a fair amount for years. Billions, and billions, and billions and billions of dollars. And were paying. Were paying for it.

And they pay 2% and we pay close to 4%. And in all fairness its better for them than it is for us. Its wonderful. But its better for them. And I get along great with Merkel. I got along great with all of them. I said folks, you gotta pay. You gotta pay.

Terrible. Incredible and terrible. Theyre so brave. I mean their legs are blown off, their arms are blown off, their faces Their spirits amazing. Its incredible. One guy had his leg blown off in Afghanistan. Handsome guy, really good looking guy. And he was with his girlfriend. His leg was blown off high, you know.

All he can do, because now they let them go back, was with the prosthetic, if you can, it works out okay. All he wants to do is go back. Its amazing. The spirit is so incredible.

I always say the president has a gift for hospitalityI think people sense when theyre around the president an open door, a hospitality, a graciousness. I think itsI've had more people tell me that it was the memory of a lifetime.

And its just because of the kindness that hes shown large and small groups with his time and attention.

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Read Donald Trump's Interview With TIME on Being President - TIME