“I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt, ” Trump said at a news conference where he was joined by the president of Colombia.
In his first news conference since the appointment of a special counsel to look into the connections between his presidential campaign and Russian officials, President Donald Trump said he respects the decision even as he complained about it.
“I respect the move, but the entire thing has been a witch hunt, ” Trump said at a news conference where he was joined by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia.
There was, Trump said, “zero” collusion with Russia, and he wants to get back to the business of being president.
“We have a very divided country because of that and many other things, ” Trump said. “We want to bring this country together.”
Trump highlighted what he sees as recent successes in the fight against the Islamic State — “You’ ll see some incredible numbers… the numbers are staggering, how successful the military has been, ” he said, without specifics.
“I hate to see anything that divides. I’ m fine with anything anybody wants to do, but we have to get back to running this country.”
Trump also denied asking fired FBI Director James Comey to cease looking into any connections his fired national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had with Russia.
“I think it’s totally ridiculous. Everybody thinks so, ” Trump said. “There was no collusion and everybody, even my enemies, have said there is no collusion.”
And he repeated his surprise that his decision to fire Comey was met with such an uproar.
“Director Comey was very unpopular with most people, ” Trump said. “When I made that decision, I actually thought it would be a bipartisan decision.”
He criticized Comey’s testimony to Congress — “a poor, poor performance” — and said that helped seal his fate.
“We need a great director of the FBI. I cherish the FBI. It’s special, ” Trump said. “We’ re going to have a director who is going to be outstanding.”
