Inside the Trump Situation Room

This week, Morning Joe's Mika Brzezinski asked Donald Trump whom he regularly consults for advice on foreign policy. "I'm speaking with myself, number one, because I have a very good brain," he answered. "My primary consultant is myself and I have a good instinct for this stuff."

With this window into President Trump’s situation room, here’s a transcript of a future gathering of his core foreign policy team. Every point on foreign policy comes directly from something Mr. Trump has said or written publicly.

***

President Trump: OK, guys. It’s spectacular to sit down with you guys. Thanks for coming down to Mar-A-Lago. The situation room in the White House is first class, but this one is truly amazing, right?

Defense Secretary Trump: Absolutely incredible. Mr. President.

Secretary of State Trump: It really is just amazing.

President Trump: China. OK? I mean, our nation is in serious trouble. We’re getting absolutely schlonged by these guys. I have great respect for China, but we need a plan.

Defense Secretary Trump: Chinese leaders are not our friends, Mr. President. They’re destroying our children's and grandchildren's future. They’re very, very hell bent on bankrupting our nation, stealing our jobs, stealing our technology, undermining our currency, and ruining our way of life. If we're going to make America number one again, we've got to get tough with China to keep them from screwing us at every turn.

President Trump: You’re so right about that, you know. You really are.

Secretary of State Trump: I love China. The biggest bank in the world is from China. I love that their US headquarters is in Trump Tower. That’s just amazing. The Great Wall of China, built 2,000 years ago, is 13,000 miles, Mr. President, and they didn’t have Caterpillar tractors.

President Trump: It really is absolutely amazing. OK, Syria, Middle East, ISIS. These are not good people.

Secretary of State Trump: I would love not to be over there — that’s not our fight. That’s other people’s fights, that’s revolutions, that’s whatever you want to call it … religious wars.

Defense Secretary Trump: Let’s bomb the holy crap out of ISIS. I'd blow up every single inch. There would be nothing left. And you know what, you'll get Exxon to come in there and in two months, you ever see these guys, how very, very good they are, the great oil companies? They’ll rebuild that sucker, brand new — it'll be very, very beautiful.

President Trump: I do not like the migration. I do not like the people coming. What they should do is, the countries should all get together, including the Gulf states, who have nothing but money, they should take a big swath of land and they do a safe zone for people, where they could go to live, and then ultimately go back to where they came from…I would help them economically, even though we owe $19 trillion.

Secretary of State Trump: I’ll tell you very honestly that we are going to get bogged down in Syria if we’re not very, very careful. If you look at what happened with the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, that's when they went bankrupt. If Putin wants to go and knock the hell out of ISIS, I am all for it, 100%.

President Trump: Guys, it’s break time. We’ll talk Mexico and Putin after lunch. You guys really are fantastic employees. Just amazing. Wait ‘til you see the lunch we have. Top people working on this lunch. Just incredible.    

Ian Bremmer is president of Eurasia Group, foreign affairs columnist at TIME and Global Research Professor at New York University. Register here for his upcoming course on Global Political Risk at NYU Stern. You can also follow him on Twitter and Facebook.