BUCK: I just want to know, we had Kamala just barely beat you to the border. Now, she’s the border czar. You’re not the border czar right now. We want to know how you think the border situation is unfolding. Is it the worst it’s ever been? Is that fair to say?

PRESIDENT TRUMP: In history, absolutely. You know, they were saying it’s the worst in 20 years. I say (laughing), “What are you talking about, 20 years? It’s by far the worst in history.” And seven months ago, it was the best in history. It was the best we’ve ever had. That included drugs. That included human trafficking where we had it very strongly stopped.

You know, you’re never gonna make it perfect. It’s a big, long border. But we had it stopped. The wall. We built, you know, almost 500 miles of it and this guy stopped the final little portion of it, and, “You can’t do that!” And now they want to build it, I understand.

They want to build it and they’re having a hard time with the contractors ’cause the contractors say, “Well, you told us to stop. So give us five times more money than we would have gotten had we just completed it.” So, it was — and, you know, the reason that frankly it took 2-1/2 years is because I had to win all these court cases.

We won, I think, 11 court cases to build it, many of them brought on by Congress. So, you know, we had the best border we’d ever had, as you know. I mean, you just look at those numbers. We had the best border we ever had, and we now have by far, by far the worst border. And giving up “stay in Mexico” is catastrophic. Catch-and-release!

Giving that up… You know, you catch the people… They can be murderers, they could be anything. You catch ’em, you take their name and you release ’em into our country never to be seen again. They’re supposed to come back. But they never do come back. They’re supposed to come back for a trial. But they never come back.