President Trump spoke to Fox Business and the Associated Press in two separate interviews Tuesday and discussed Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation during both.
Towards the end of the interview [with Fox Business], Trump was back to playing his greatest hits of “no collusion!” and “witch hunt” in reference to the Russia investigation. The president pointedly would not say whether he would keep Attorney General Jeff Sessions around after the midterms. “I'm not going to tell you that, we’ll see what happens. But I think it was a disgrace,” he said of Sessions’ recusal.
In one of her more critical moments, Regan told Trump, “I wondered why you weren’t tougher on Putin,” referring to the Helsinki summit back in July.
Trump said it would have been “easier” for him to be tough on Putin, asking, “They want me to go up and have a boxing match with him on stage?” He admitted he was “nice” to Putin, but insisted everyone thought the performance was great before he got on the plane home and started hearing the “fake news” report that he wasn’t tough enough.
In fact, the terrible reviews for Trump’s performance on that stage in Helsinki were swift and brutal, from all sides of the political media spectrum. In addition to Regan, who called it “horrible,” several other typically fawning Fox News personalities pilloried the press conference as a “disgusting” display.
“I think they are laughing at us,” Trump said of Russia. “This stupid investigation hurts us from having a great relationship.” He repeatedly disputed the suggestion that Russia has tried to “sow chaos” in America and seemed bemused at that phrase, which he said came from “Old English.” As for his closed-door meeting with Vladimir Putin, Trump said he told him “no more meddling,” undercutting his own point in his next breath by adding, “if you did meddle.”
Trump also repeated the lie Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-NC) said his investigation turned up no collusion, an assertion Burr himself had to correct last week, and claimed even Democrats wink at him knowing the Mueller investigation is a con job.
If Democrats take the House and pursue impeachment or investigations — including seeking his long-hidden tax returns— Trump said he will “handle it very well.”
The president declared he was unconcerned about other potential threats to his presidency. He accused [Michael] Cohen of lying when testifying under oath that the president coordinated on a hush-money scheme to buy Daniels’ silence.
Trump on Tuesday declared the allegation “totally false.” But in entering a plea deal with Cohen in August, federal prosecutors signaled that they accepted his recitation of facts and account of what occurred.
Trump said that Washington lawyer Pat Cipollone will serve as his next White House counsel and that he hoped to announce a replacement for U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley in the next week or two. He again repeated his frustration with Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the special counsel investigation, saying, “I could fire him whenever I want to fire him, but I haven’t said that I was going to.”
On the ongoing Russia investigation, Trump defended his son Donald Trump Jr. for a Trump Tower meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer offering damaging information about Democrat Hillary Clinton. Trump called his son a “good young guy” and said he did what any political aide would have done.
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The president engaged on several other topics, including:
— He said he has given no consideration to pardoning Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman who was convicted of numerous financial crimes.
Trump Defends Saudi Arabia, Vladimir Putin in Flattery-Filled Fox Business Interview (Daily Beast)
Trump tells AP he won’t accept blame if GOP loses House (AP)