CNBC Transcript: President-elect Donald Trump Speaks with Jim Cramer on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” Today
WHEN: Today, Thursday, December 12, 2024
WHERE: CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”
Following is the unofficial transcript of a CNBC interview with President-elect Donald Trump on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” (M-F, 9AM-11AM ET) today, Thursday, December 12. Following is a link to video on CNBC.com: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/12/12/president-elect-trump-to-jim-cramer-this-is-going-to-be-a-country-like-no-other-long-term.html.
All references must be sourced to CNBC.
JIM CRAMER: What do you have to say the American investor in this country?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think you’re going to see some very good days ahead. A lot of incentives are going to be given. You saw yesterday a billion dollar investment that we give you very fast approvals, nobody’s come up with that one yet, although it seems pretty simple. I think you’re going to have some great days ahead. We have to conclude a couple of bad wars that are going on. A lot of bad things are going on, but we’ll get them done.
JIM CRAMER: Do you think that we are in a situation where business will be far more embraced under you than currently?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to really knock current, but I will tell you more than at any time anywhere in the history of our country.
JIM CRAMER: Now, we used to speak together about the idea that the averages mattered and we’re a good barometer of your performance. Is that still the case? We go beyond Dow Jones, made it to NASDAQ.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think I’ve always said, to me stock market is very – all of it, you know, all of it together, it’s very important. It’s an honor to be here, New York Stock Exchange. I sort of joked that I actually bought the building across the street because the Stock Exchange was here. It’s a big deal.
JIM CRAMER: 40, it’s nice building.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: 40 Wall Street. So look, we’re going to do things, I think, that haven’t been really done before. We’re going to be cutting taxes still further. As you know, we got it down to 21%, we’re going to bring it down even below that. You pay 21 if you don’t build here, and meaning your product, or whatever it is you’re building, and if you do, we’re going to try getting it down to 15% but you have to build your product, make your product in the USA.
JIM CRAMER: And how about every working person who’s watching? Would love to be able to see dividend tax, maybe much lower, capital gains, much lower.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we’re going to be talking about that, and we’re really talking about lowering taxes. Last time, as you know, we took it probably from close to 44, 45% down to 21. Everyone said that was impossible. Now it was always my – I really wanted to get it down to 15, and we’ll be able to do that. And if you remember, we had the best three years in the history of our country from the standpoint of the economy, and you’ve been so professional and so good. I haven’t seen you so much since I’ve been a politician.
JIM CRAMER: Well, thank you, sir. We were together. I was grateful to be a judge on The Apprentice. We had had a great time.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: That’s right. He was, he was a tough judge. He was a tough judge.
JIM CRAMER: Well, we had to eliminate some people who didn’t cut it… I respect that.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we, we’re going to be doing the same thing. I can tell you this. Unfortunately, there’s too many of them, but I think we’re going to really incentivize the country to go back and work, and they will be incentivized. They’re going to do well, people going to be very happy. JD is very much involved. And I have a great partner right over here, our First Lady, people love our First Lady, and we’re going to do something very special. We have some great people up there. You saw some of the people on the cabinet, and we have some of the most successful people in the country, and we’re dealing with the most successful people, and those are the people that put others to work. And we’re going to be hitting job numbers. And as you probably heard me say, we picked up since just the election, $3 trillion in you call it worth or value, but $3 trillion was picked up since November 5, so that’s pretty good.
JIM CRAMER: When President Reagan was here, he talked about putting the bear into hibernation, letting the bull run free. Sound like a good model?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Sounds perfect. I can’t do any better than that. That’s what we’re going to do.
JIM CRAMER: Alright. Now I do – I know we’ve got some other people here, but I don’t see Elon Musk. I was hoping, because he’s been a good aid to you and a lot of different things, whether it be Crypto or whether it be GOP… a lot of different ideas.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: He’s got a lot of ideas. He’s a great guy. He’s a really good guy. And I guess his stock has done pretty well. He’s been, everybody’s stock has done well since the election, and even before. And Scott Bessent has done a fantastic job. And one of the things I liked about Scott is that he said, long before I even know who he was, that the markets only doing well – this is before the election – it’s only doing well because they think Trump is going to win. So we made Scott the Treasury Secretary, which everybody, frankly wanted, and he’s going to do a fantastic job.
JIM CRAMER: Meantime, how about a Crypto – really, we do need, I think, to some your embrace in Crypto, very different from the previous administration, Strategic Petroleum Reserve like for Crypto?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I think so. We’re going to do something great with Crypto, because we don’t want China, or anybody else, not just China, but others are embracing it, and we want to be the head. We’re going to be ahead of AI. We’re going to be way ahead of AI, and we’ve got to produce tremendous amounts of electricity. It’s unbelievable when you think that we need more than twice what we already have. If you think, that’s for a specific industry, but we’ll be able to do it. We have Lee Zeldin in charge of the environment. He’s going to be giving us very strong approvals, I think, and he’s going to make sure everything’s good and clean and proper, but he’s going to give us very fast approvals.
JIM CRAMER: Natural gas makes it so that we should be able to afford it and be able to handle the 5% per year grid. But obviously you think that we need to be able to be the king of AI, which means that we also have to, some people would say, protect Taiwan, because China would like very much to be able to have that technology.
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, we’re going to be having a lot of talks with China. We have a good relationship with China. I have a surprising relationship. Now, when the COVID came in, I sort of cut it off. That was a step too far. That was, as they say, a bridge too far. But we’ve been talking and discussing with President Xi, some things, and others, other world leaders, and I think we’re going to do very well all around and we are, we’ve been abused as a country. We’ve been badly abused from an economic standpoint, I think, and even militarily, you know, we put up all the money, they put up nothing, and then they abuse us on the economy. And we just can’t let that happen. We’re not going to be abused anymore. We put America first, but we’re also going to help other countries.
JIM CRAMER: I know you’ve got a ton of things to do, but what can you say to the working person who owns stocks, should they buy more stock?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to get into a situation where they do and we have a dip or something, because that can always happen. You know that better than anybody in the world, probably, I think you’re the leading authority in going up and going down, but you always end up. He always ends up. That’s the good news. But we have like Doug Burgum standing right over here, he’s done a fantastic job. He’s been on your show many times. And we have just tremendous people. I would say this, I think long term, this is going to be a country like no other. We had the three best years ever, until COVID came in, and then we did a good job getting rid of it. The stock market, if you look at the markets, were higher than just previous to COVID coming in, when we handed it over. And now we know, I know the people. I know the players. When I came in, it was very interesting, Jim. I came in, and I was not a Washington guy. I didn’t know too many people in Washington. I had to rely, now I do. I know people. I know people. I know people so much they’re coming out of my ears. So we have great people.
JIM CRAMER: Mark Zuckerberg?
PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, Mark Zuckerberg has been over to see me, and I can tell you, Elon is another and Jeff Bezos is coming up next week. And I want to get ideas from them. Look, we want them to do well. We want everybody. And we want great jobs, fantastic salaries. We want people to love and you know, when they wake up in the morning, like, get up and I love to go to work. I want to go to work. We want people working. and we want them working for a lot of money.
JIM CRAMER: Alright Mr. President-elect, thank you so much.
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