ROANOKE (WSLS 10) -Â After Donald Trump's town hall on Monday, John Carlin had the chance to talk one-on-one with the Republican presidential nominee.
Carlin: You obviously feel that Virginia is in play, can you tell me why?
Trump: "Well I think we're doing really well here. We're leading in some of the polls. We're gonna open up the mines, we're gonna put the miners back to work. The steel workers are gonna get back into business. I have a lot of property in Virginia as you know in Charlottesville and in Sterling, the Sterling-area and we have tremendous properties there. I employ a lot of people in Virginia. I know a lot about Virginia, it's a place that I love, I've been here all my life. I've always been around so many friends. Virginia's got a lot of difficulties, it has a lot of problems, so we're gonna get those problems solved very quickly. We're gonna bring jobs back to our country."
When asked about his thoughts on Kaine being on the Democratic ticket.
Trump: "Well he's not very popular according to the polls and I can see why. He raised taxes, $4 billion tax increase, jobs did very poorly under him, I mean his unemployment did very very poorly. He didn't do a very good job when he was governor of Virginia, but he raised taxes to a point that very few places have seen."
Carlin: A lot of our viewers are asking when are we going to hear plans to go behind the promises that came out of the convention, could you comment on that at all.
Trump: "Well many of the plans are out. For instance, we're taking care of our vets and those plans have been filed and they've been very popular. But we have a lot of plans coming out as far as trade is concerned we're gonna have a lot of trade, but we're gonna have trade that benefits the United States and the companies and people and workers in Virginia and other states. Right now the United States is getting ripped off so badly in every way from other countries because they're just smarter than we are. They're just, we have people that don't know what they're doing. So we're gonna have great trade deals, we're gonna bring back a lot of jobs to this country and we're gonna start manufacturing things again, making things. If you look at Virginia, look at all of the manufacturing jobs you've lost, it's terrible."
Carlin: How are you going to fix that?
Trump: "We're gonna fix it by good deals. We have to negotiate good deals, we have to negotiate proper deals. Right now we're not negotiating deals, we have people that are political hacks doing our negotiating for us. They have absolutely no idea what they're doing. We had a trade deficit this year of $800 billion. United States, a deficit of $800 billion, and that's not gonna happen when I'm president.
When asked if his campaign is dark and divisive and if he has plans to brighten it:
Trump: "No. I think it's very hopeful because we have a lot of problems. You look at what's going on with the radical Islamic terrorism. You look at what's happening in other countries. Â You look at what's going along with police violence, with the violence where they're shooting up police. People are killing our police. I mean not a week goes by where you don't see something. The percentages, the numbers are way up, like I guess just about the highest they've ever been. We have tremendous violence and tremendous crime, look at what's going on at the border. People are pouring in to our country. So we have, we're gonna fix it. We're gonna be law and order and we're gonna have a country again that's gonna have great compassion, great heart, but we're still gonna have law and order."
Carlin: You mentioned that Hillary made bad decisions numerous times during your speech. Is that gonna be a theme that we will continue to see throughout this campaign?
Trump: "Well she's got bad judgement. She shouldn't have appointed Kaine. He did a bad job in Virginia. You look at his policies and in all fairness to Bernie Sanders, I don't agree with Bernie Sanders except on trade because he knows the trade deals are so bad. But I don't agree with him, but they should have picked somebody that was more in line with his thinking, he did get 50 percent of the vote almost. And they have to pick somebody more in line. So she has bad judgement. She's always had. Whether it's Benghazi or whether it's just about anything that you look. I mean you look at what happened in Libya and Syria and so many different places. She has bad judgement, Bernie Sanders said it about her and all I do is state the obvious, but she made a terrible pick with Kaine and frankly he's not popular in Virginia because he raised taxes so much.