President Donald Trump ranted about Democrats in a phone interview with “Fox & Friends” on Election Day morning, claiming that negotiations with foreign countries have been a breeze compared with working with his political opponents at home.
“Well, it’s been mean, you’ve dealt with horrible people,” Trump said in response to a question from host Ainsley Earhardt about whether he’d enjoyed four years in the White House.
“Friends of mine from the past ... they’ll go, ‘Mr. President, tell me. Who is the country that’s most difficult to deal with? Is it Russia? Is it China? Is it North Korea? Sir, is it North Korea?’ And I go, ‘No, well, by far the most difficult country to deal with is the U.S. It’s not even close.’ And they all say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’ And I say, ‘No I’m actually probably not kidding.’”
The president, who earlier in the interview had already mentioned the likes of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) as “very deceptive” people, went on to target Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who has been vocally anti-Trump and asked Republicans working for the president to abandon his administration.
“I think Adam Schiff is a sick person. And we deal with them, we just deal with them,” the president said. “But it’s a shame; it’s a shame. But you know, the inner workings of the U.S. are very difficult. Unless you want to sit there and do nothing or unless you want to accede to doing everything they want to do, and we don’t want to do that.”
In other parts of the interview, which ran for about a half-hour, Trump repeatedly played up the size and quantity of his recent campaign rallies, said he would only declare victory “if there’s victory,” and even criticized Fox News, claiming the network was giving too much screen time to Joe Biden ― an allegation that the “Fox & Friends” hosts said was an effort to “show both sides.”
This is not the first time Trump has said foreign negotiations are easier than working with Democrats. At a Wisconsin rally in June, the president described a supposed conversation he had with a friend who “used to call me Donald, but now calls me ‘sir.’”
“The toughest nation to deal with are the Democrats in the USA,” Trump said at the time, overlooking the fact that “Democrats” are not a nation.
See Trump’s remarks below. The full interview is available to watch here.