CNBC Transcript: President Donald Trump Speaks with CNBC’s Joe Kernen in Davos, Switzerland Today

Published Wed, Jan 21 20264:16 PM EST

WHEN: Today, Wednesday, January 21, 2026

WHERE: CNBC's "Closing Bell"

MANDATORY CREDIT: "CNBC"

All references must be sourced to CNBC.

JOE KERNEN: Mr. President, it's great to see you. Thanks for the time.

U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Nice seeing you again too.

KERNEN: I threw away all my questions. One question I had. We did this five years ago. I don't think you reflect too much, because you're looking forward, but can you believe what's happened in the world and what's happened to you over the past five years? I just can't help but think that it's been something—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well—

KERNEN: To reflect. It's incredible, the five years—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, thank you very much. It's been a great ride. We have had a lot of fun. And nothing's easy in life, but you keep at it. We have a tremendous economy going right now, and we have a country that's the hottest country anywhere in the world. And this took place over one year. We just celebrated the first year, as you know.

KERNEN: Here's how I was going to start. And so you gave this very compelling, in terms of talking about what you have done in the first year domestically, but also very compelling in the case you made about Greenland.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Right.

KERNEN: So, I was going to ask you, did you see any of your European cohorts nodding? But I guess I don't have to ask that now, because of the news that breaks very quickly. Can you go into what you just talked about at the NATO meeting?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we have a concept of a deal. I think it's going to be a very good deal for the United States, also for them. And we're going to work together on something having to do with the Arctic as a whole, but also Greenland. And it has to do with the security, great security, strong security, and other things.

KERNEN: The market, 600 points, getting back a lot of—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

KERNEN: Some of the nervousness we had in the last couple of days. The tariffs are off? Nothing happens on February 1?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, we took that off because it looks like we have pretty much a concept of a deal.

KERNEN: A deal of ownership, a deal—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's a little bit complex, but we will explain it down the line. But the Secretary General of NATO and I and some other people were talking, and it's kind of a deal that I wanted to be able to make.

KERNEN: Where does Denmark, did they weigh in on what they want, what they would agree to?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I assume they did because he very much represents, he's a strong leader, Mark. You know Mark Rutte.

KERNEN: Yes.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And he, I assume he's been speaking to them. He's been speaking to all of them.

KERNEN: Are mineral rights involved? Is ownership involved? The Golden Dome—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I don't want to say. I don't want to say yet, but—

KERNEN: The Golden Dome was very compelling today, when you talked about that.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, yes, the Golden Dome. And they're going to be involved in the Golden Dome, and they're going to be involved in mineral rights. And so are we.

KERNEN: Is, you can't, it's not specific enough to know at this point how long this lasts, how, whether it's—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Forever.

KERNEN: Forever?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It'll be forever.

KERNEN: For Greenland at this point?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, forever.

KERNEN: That's staggering that—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That's better than a 99-year—

KERNEN: This is, what, two hours after—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It's better than the Obama deal with the famous Iran nuclear deal with a nine-year deal. No, this is forever. This is a long term.

KERNEN: I mentioned that you, you could have come over here and just talked about what you wanted to. But before you left, I think you wanted to talk about where the progress that you have made in terms domestically with the economy and everything else in the United States.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

KERNEN: And you didn't have to talk, I didn't think you had to talk about Greenland, but you're always moving on to the next thing.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I did. In the speech I gave, I talked a lot about Greenland, because we need it for security, and now we're going to have even better security, I think, than I would have had before.

KERNEN: And it, I know how you operate. I know that you didn't take force off of the table, but all along, I think, if there was going to be a war, it was going to be a trade war. Is that fair to say?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think so, yes. I don't think, I don't see us fighting with Denmark—

KERNEN: That NATO, NATO—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Fighting with NATO.

KERNEN: You have done so much that to try to strengthen NATO. I'm sure you don't want to see the dissolution of something you worked—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No. No. It's, I'm proud of NATO from the same point. Look, I brought them up from 2 percent to 5 percent of GDP. They're paying a lot of money. They pay us a lot of money, because they buy missiles and they buy a lot of things. Unfortunately, Obama gave them $350 billion for Ukraine, which was just terrible. I mean, it was, the whole thing was terrible. It should have never happened. That's a war that should have never happened.

KERNEN: Yes.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: But they paid a lot of money. And I don't know if you know, but I signed a rare earth deal with Ukraine to probably get most of that back, maybe more back than we're having. But what they did, they were just giving out money like cookies to a child.

KERNEN: Right. I know how much you have done. So I'm going to bounce from thing to thing.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sure.

KERNEN: When we talked about geopolitical concerns today, we also mentioned Iran. And I made the point that I never thought that Greenland, that geopolitical events would include an actual shooting war. Iran's a different case. It could, could be tariffs, which you have already announced for Iran. Could be further action than what we have already seen in Iran.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Could be.

KERNEN: Most people think that you probably prevented the loss of I don't know how many lives for some of the—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thousands, thousands, more than that.

KERNEN: Was that the end of the story, though?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they had one thing specifically that really got me. They were going to hang, hang, the old-fashioned hanging. They were going to hang 837 people on Thursday. And I told them you can't do that. If you do that, it's going to be bad. I don't want to go exactly what I said, but nasty. And they canceled it, hopefully permanently.

KERNEN: But those tariffs are still on, including China. Has China responded to the—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Sanctions, sanctions.

KERNEN: Twenty-five percent for anyone who does business with Iran.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Correct.

KERNEN: And that will go forward?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, that's going forward.

KERNEN: That will go forward. There are assets moving into the Gulf, obviously carriers and other things. So, a lot of people are wondering whether that's a prelude to further action. You—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we hope there's not going to be further action, but, you know, they're shooting people indiscriminately in the streets.

KERNEN: And—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And they were going to, look, this was a big thing for me. They were going to hang 830, hang—

KERNEN: Right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: 837 mostly young people.

KERNEN: When you did successfully hit Fordow, you got a lot of grief from the Democrats were doing it. Now the grief is, oh, you promised to do something in Iran. Now they want you to do or they're at least finger-pointing and say, you said you were going to help the protesters, and now you're not. So you can't win.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we had, look, we had, of course, again, if I came up with the cure to cancer, they'd say, why didn't you do it faster?

KERNEN: If you walked on water, you can't swim.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes. It's, look, they're sick people. They really are. They are, we call it Trump derangement syndrome.

KERNEN: Should we stay tuned in Iran? I guess that's my question.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I guess. I mean, look, it's a rough place. It's a place that we hit very hard with the nuclear, ending the nuclear, they would have had a nuclear weapon long ago, actually already, they would have had a nuclear weapon probably a month after we hit, had we not hit. And we hit them hard, the B-2 bombers. We just ordered 25 additional B-2 bombers. They were unbelievable, those things, that they were totally undetectable. They were undetected. And think of it. With no moon, in the dark of night, late in the evening, every single one of those bombs, and they're giants, every single one of those bombs hit its targets and just obliterated the place. So we're going to find out where they are now about what they're going to do with nuclear. They can't do the nuclear. The one thing I have been strong on, they can't do the nuclear. Now, this attack that we did at the time, which is now a little bit older than what happened in Venezuela recently, which was equally as good, but the attack in Iran, if they do it, it's going to, it's going to happen again. They have got to stop with the nuclear. They keep experimenting with nuclear. And, at some point, they're going to get the idea that they can't do that. They're just not going to be able to do that. Can't let them have it.

KERNEN: Something else that we might find out in the near future is the replacement for Jay Powell.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That's true.

KERNEN: I just saw the, Mr. Hassett, who I have a pretty good relationship with.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: You're right. He's fantastic.

KERNEN: He comes on.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I like actually keeping him where he is, you want to know the truth. I don't want to lose him. He's so good on television.

KERNEN: On CNBC, would be a great time to give us more.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Really so good on television.

KERNEN: Are we down to two now? Are we down to, I heard Rick Rieder had a strong—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I'd say we're down to three, but we're down to two. And I probably can tell you we're down to maybe one in my mind. But, and I will say this—

KERNEN: And did Rick Rieder impress you?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Very impressive. Yes, he's been there for—

KERNEN: Because, for a while, the betting markets had Warsh in the lead.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, Rick is very good. They're all good. You know, all three are good. All three would be, I think, good. We have a problem with the man that's there now. It's, he's too late. He's always too late, except when it comes to politics for the other side, where he was actually too early.

KERNEN: Another one that, a person I know you have a great deal of admiration for is your treasury secretary.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes.

KERNEN: He made the point that—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: By the way, he only wants to stay where he is. That's one thing.

KERNEN: Right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: He's fantastic. But Scott only wants to stay where he is.

KERNEN: His point, as a real estate guy, some people say you always want lower rates, but Scott made the point that, if you have productivity gains, whether it's from AI or whether it's from the Big Beautiful Bill, whatever it is, that you need a Fed chairman that can't get too agitated about a hot GDP number. In other words, we might be at a point where we could run nominal GDP of 8 percent or, after inflation, about 5.5.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we should be doing—

KERNEN: But that doesn't mean that it's inflationary and that you need to raise rates.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: That's right.

KERNEN: So, have you considered someone that could be like a Greenspan in the '90s?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, that's what I want. I mean, right now, if you announce great numbers, the stock market goes down—

KERNEN: Right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Because they say, oh, they're going to raise the rate.

KERNEN: Right.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They're going to kill it, which really stops you from having any great runs. And we want to have a great run. So we're going to be at 5.5 or something, they're predicting. I don't know. It's much higher than they thought. But let's say we're at 5.5. We could be at 10 or we could be at 12. We could be at 15. But, immediately, when they announce good numbers, now, in the old days, you're too young. In the old days—

KERNEN: You think I am, but you know—

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, but 20, and you look good. Whatever you're doing, keep – but, look, Joe, in the old days, when you had a good run, when you had, you would announce good numbers and the stock market would go up. And now the stock market crashes every time you have good numbers, because I think everyone's going to raise rates. And growth is not a cause, a big cause of inflation. In fact, it can go the other way. So, look, we have had tremendous growth and we have almost no inflation. For the last three months, we have 1.2 percent inflation. And yet we've had tremendous growth.

KERNEN: Do you at this point have plans for what you would do – and you said you won't fire Jay Powell – let's say he decides I'm not going to be pushed around. I don't like the way I was treated. Whatever he decides, and what if he decides to stay on the Fed? He doesn't need to leave when he's no longer Chairman.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, we will see how it all works out. I mean –

KERNEN: That could create a block of four people that still –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: It's alright. We will just have to, you know, in this world, we live with the cards you're dealt. And if that happens, his life won't be very, very happy I don't think by doing it. I think he wants to get out. He has not done a good job. He's done a horrible job on buildings. You know, he took a small, little complex, the Federal Reserve complex – I could have redone it. I could have fixed it for 25 million bucks, it would have looked beautiful. I think he's up to almost $4 billion. The most expensive project ever built per square foot, and he's either incompetent or he's crooked, I guess, right? But so, we'll find out. So if he stays, he stays. If he doesn't stay, he doesn't stay.

KERNEN: Do you know what would satisfy –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thing is, he took this job, and they're up to almost $4 billion for a little, a little building. I'm building this massive ballroom. I'm way under budget. It's going to cost less than $400 million. It's going to cost maybe 300 million for this massive project. He spent – I just built, you know, recently, relatively recently, I built a hotel, the now – The Waldorf in Washington, and I spent like, $250 million. It's a much bigger complex than the Federal Reserve and much more complex. So I say, how did they spend $3 to $4 billion on this little thing. I could have done it for $25 million and it would have been nicer than what they're doing.

KERNEN: Does Thom Tillis, I know that he's not gonna be a senator much longer, but he probably could prevent someone from being voted on while the subpoena is still an issue. Are there just a couple of – do you know anything about what would be necessary for Chair Powell to answer for to where this would be withdrawn so we could move forward –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: No, I mean, I don't know about Thom Tillis, but you know he's not going to be a senator too much longer.

KERNEN: Right, but you figure whomever you nominate is going to have an easy –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Whatever. I mean, whatever it is. You know, life. Whatever.

KERNEN: Whatever happens. Because we don't have a lot of time, I was going to needle you a little bit about Senator Elizabeth Warren and a meeting of the minds. That's something that wasn't on my –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well—

KERNEN: That wasn't on my plate.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Yes, well she was very happy with this phone call I'll tell you. Now, look –

KERNEN: You won't be having a lot of policy discussions with her other than –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Probably not. But credit card companies are getting 28%, 30%. These people don't know they're paying that.

KERNEN: Right. For the one year?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: And I said one year cap of 10% and I love it. I know it's sort of like, it sounds like the mayor of New York maybe came up with that, but the people are paying – they can't make it. They can't pay 28. You know, whatever happened to usury? They can't pay 28%. And so I said, one year, I'd like to see a one year cap of 10% with the credit card companies, and they'd understand that. I've had calls from credit card companies, people that are friends of mine, actually, and I treat them good. I respect them greatly, but they make a lot of money. They got to give the people a break. 28% interest. You know, people go out, they buy something, and if they're a little bit late, they're paying 28%, they end up filing for bankruptcy. So, I would like to see that happen.

KERNEN: So there's, I guess, in getting toward the end, but there's classic conservatism, there's populism, and I guess there's common sense. Are you – is that how you would describe some of the steps that you make –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I've always –

KERNEN: I mean, people call it statism or that we're getting too involved with managing –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think I'm common sense. I'm conservative, but I think I'm common sense. You know, like people say, are you a conservative? I say, yeah, but I'm a common sense person. I mean, I do things that aren't necessarily that conservative sometimes. And like men and women's sports, okay? People think it's wonderful. I think it's a horrible thing. I think it's a ridiculous thing. Open borders for everyone, so that everybody's prisoners can pour in where they come in from the Congo, where they come in from all over the world, from Venezuela. And by the way, we picked up 50 million barrels of oil the other day from Venezuela. We're going to sell it at the market price. We're going to give some to Venezuela. We're going to keep some. That's going to be great. You know, we're getting along great with Venezuela. They have tremendous oil and oil reserves and other things too. And 20 years ago, Venezuela was a sort of a pretty hot country, and now it's going to be maybe hot again. They'll make, by the way, they'll make more money with us than they would have made in 25 years.

KERNEN: All these things that – the 10% on the credit cards, the not allowing corporations to buy single family homes. It all seems to be –

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, they were gobbling up all the homes.

KERNEN: It is aimed at affordability, I think, at this point, right?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, it's also aimed at common sense again. But they were buying up all the homes, people couldn't buy homes. You know, you have these big companies, these big corporations, buying up thousands of homes and renting them or doing whatever they do with them. Some of them are flipping them for a big profit. But it got to be too much, too many. It became – it's good investment. And we're not saying take them away, but we're saying that we don't want that. We want people to be able to buy a home.

KERNEN: Been a long day for you, I know. And energetic, more energetic than I am right now. Thank you.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: Oh, you're doing just fine.

KERNEN: Thank you for the time, Mr. President.

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