Since antiquity, illustrated manuscripts have helped bring clarity to confusing, ambiguous texts. And, like a monk toiling away in some secluded monastery, I have illustrated the transcript of Donald Trump’s July 21 interview with the New York Times. Its mysteries and occluded meanings have been brought to light, via the magic of the mechanical pencil Kate uses for crossword puzzles.
(Well, that, and the magic of resting the paper against the computer screen to trace a particularly tricky image. Yes, that’s a thing you can do when you draw! And now you’ve graduated from the JD and Kate Industries Design Institute.)
We’ve only included the relevant sections of the transcript, because we don’t want the ruthless New York Times IP attorneys to try take our house again. But you should go here and read the whole thing. You will learn a lot!
TRUMP:…these massive nations with tremendous wealth—you have the tape going on?
SANGER: We do.
HABERMAN: We both do.
TRUMP: With massive wealth. Massive wealth. We’re talking about countries that are doing very well. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.”
TRUMP: There’s no guarantee that we’ll have peace in Korea.
SANGER: Even with our troops, no, there’s no guarantee.
TRUMP: No, there’s no guarantee. We have 28,000 soldiers on the line.
SANGER: But we’ve had them there since 1953 and—
TRUMP: Sure, but that doesn’t mean that there wouldn’t be something going on right now. Maybe you would have had a unified Korea. Who knows what would have happened?
TRUMP: And we’ve got our soldiers sitting there watching missiles go up. And you say to yourself, “Oh, that’s interesting.” Now we’re protecting Japan because Japan is a natural location for North Korea. So we are protecting them, and you say to yourself, “Well, what are we getting out of this?”
SANGER: You said that they could be much more helpful with ISIS. I’m sure perhaps they can. The big difference they’ve had is that we’ve been supporting Kurdish forces that have been very effective—
TRUMP: I’m a fan of the Kurds, you understand.
SANGER: But Erdogan is not. Tell us how you would deal with that?
TRUMP: Well, it would be ideal if we could get them all together. And that would be a possibility. But I’m a big fan of the Kurdish forces. At the same time, I think we have a potentially—we could have a potentially very successful relationship with Turkey. And it would be really wonderful if we could put them somehow both together.
SANGER: And what’s your diplomatic plan for doing that?
TRUMP: Meetings. If I ever have the opportunity to do it, meaning if I win, we will have meetings, we will have meetings very early on.
SANGER: They are NATO members, and we are treaty-obligated—
TRUMP: We have many NATO members that aren’t paying their bills.
SANGER: That’s true, but we are treaty-obligated under NATO, forget the bills part.
TRUMP: You can’t forget the bills. They have an obligation to make payments. Many NATO nations are not making payments…
SANGER: Would you support the United States’ not only developing as we are but fielding cyberweapons as an alternative?
TRUMP: Yes. I am a fan of the future, and cyber is the future.
TRUMP: I understand. I will do everything within my power never to be in a position where we have to use nuclear power because that’s a whole different ballgame. That’s very important to me. I will do everything in my power never to be in a position where we will have to use nuclear power. It’s very important to me.
TRUMP: I don’t want to be specific because I don’t want ISIS to know what I’m planning. I do have ideas, very strong ideas on ISIS.
SANGER: Do any of them involve diplomacy, as opposed to—in other words, diplomacy in terms of getting Russia and others to help cut them off?
TRUMP: Oh, I would love to have a good relationship where Russia and I, instead of, and us, and the U.S., instead of fighting each other we got along. It would be wonderful if we had good relationships with Russia so that we don’t have to go through all of the drama.
