Buffett willing to help Trump, says US will move forward

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said Friday the US would move forward after a bruising presidential campaign and that he would be happy to advise President-elect Donald Trump if asked.

"I would do that with any president," Buffett, a strong supporter of Trump rival Hillary Clinton, told CNN. "If any president asked me for help in any way, that's part of being a citizen."

Buffett said he was "100 percent" confident in the US, believing the country would ultimately move beyond the vitriolic campaign.

Buffett picked Clinton over Trump because he thought she had better "temperament and judgment," calling the risks of weapons of mass destruction "by far the most important thing."

"It's important that he does" have a good temperament, he said. "And nobody know for sure what does happen if you get a call in the middle of the night."

Buffett, the head of the massive Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate and the world's third wealthiest person, said he was not bothered that Trump's business record includes "some major failures" -- a reference to his multiple casino and hotel bankruptcies.

"Harry Truman went broke in a Haberdashery store near Kansas City or in Kansas City," he said. "He wasn't much of a businessman. He turned out to be a terrific president."

Buffett expressed skepticism that Trump will push forward with some controversial campaign proposals.

Talk of imposing a 35 percent tariff on imports from Mexico or China is "a very bad idea, but I'm not going to say it will cause a recession," Buffett said.

"Any time you start playing with retaliatory type trade things, it's very likely you're going to have the other side play too."

Buffett called Trump's pledge of four percent annual growth a pipe dream, saying "there may be a given year where that happens, but the math is just too extraordinary."

A better objective was to do a better job of distributing the two percent growth that is possible, said Buffett.