President Trump sat down with Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade yesterday for an interview that aired this morning on Fox & Friends.
In an early question, Kilmeade claimed that Pres. Trump would have “the biggest audience for a State of the Union-like address ever,” and asked him how he would use the opportunity for himself and for his administration:
“All I can do is speak from the heart and say what I want to do. We have a really terrific, I believe, healthcare plan coming out. We have to understand, Obamacare has been a disaster, it’s way out of control. I’ll be talking about the military, I’ll be talking about the border, and remember this, on the border and throughout our country, we’re getting the bad ones out. The bad people, gang members, drug lords, in some cases, murderers.”
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Other topics discussed were why the president announced that he would not be going to The White House correspondents dinner in April (he claimed that he actually loved the 2011 dinner when Pres. Obama went after him), as well as jokes made at his expense by Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel.
Regarding his relationship with the press:
“Over the years you make a mistake, I fully understand when they hit you. But when they make stories up, when they create sources, cause I believe that sometimes they don’t have sources, you know, the sources don’t exist, sometimes they do exist, I’m not saying all sources, but I do believe that a lot of the sources are made up. A lot of the stories are made up. I believe a lot of, the stories are pure fiction, they just pull it out of air. Now, I do have great respect for the press and great respect for reporters, but with all of that fake news and all of the things being said right now, I just thought it would be better if I didn’t do the dinner, that doesn’t mean I’m not going to do it next year but I just thought it would be better if I didn’t do it this year.”
Kilmeade mentioned that there have been some contentious town hall meetings taking place in different parts of the country as of late. He asked Pres. Trump a rather provocative question: “Do you believe President Obama is behind the organizing of these protests, and if so is that a violation of the so-called un-said president’s code?”
“No, I think he is behind it, but I also think it’s politics,” claimed the president. “That’s the way it is. Look, I think President Obama is behind it because his people certainly are. Some of the leaks possibly come from that group. These are really very serious leaks because they’re very bad in terms of national security. But I also understand that’s politics, and in terms of him being behind things, that’s politics, and it will probably continue.”
Sort of an indirect answer to a question about protests. From the response, it’s not totally clear if Pres. Trump thinks Obama is somehow behind the organization of these contentious town halls, or if he speaking more about leaks coming from the intelligence community and that he believes Obama has a connection to leaks because they may be coming from officials left over from his administration. A bold assertion, nonetheless.