President Trump on Friday morning observed that Fox & Friends was filming on the White House lawn and announced that he would make an “unannounced visit” down to speak with his favorite morning cable show.
During the resulting chat with host Steve Doocy, the president repeatedly and lavishly praised North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, with whom he met earlier this week, remarking: “He’s the head of a country—and I mean he’s the strong head. He speaks and his people sit up in attention. I want my people to do the same.”
At other parts of the interview, Trump referred to FBI leadership as “scum,” denied rumors his wife Melania underwent facelift surgery, and suggested former FBI chief James Comey should go to prison.
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“Wow, the highest rated (by far) morning show, @foxandfriends, is on the Front Lawn of the White House,” Trump tweeted an hour before his TV appearance. (F&F is actually just the highest-rated cable morning show: ABC, CBS, and NBC’s network morning broadcasts draw much higher numbers.) “Maybe I’ll have to take an unannounced trip down to see them?”
Early on in the conversation, Trump emphasized that dictator Kim simply “wants to make his country great,” a reference to the president’s own “Make America Great Again” slogan.
“I don’t know if it’s politically correct… [but we] really did hit it off,” the president added of his meeting with the infamously ruthless dictator who—per The New York Times—oversees forced labor camps, mass executions, and indoctrination programs.
The freewheeling, at-times-rambling discussion tackled other subjects, such as the inspector general’s report released Thursday finding that former FBI Director James Comey “deviated” from departmental procedures while conducting the Hillary Clinton email probe.
The report specifically found no criminal wrongdoing, but nevertheless, Doocy asked: “From what you’ve seen so far: Should James Comey be locked up?”
“Certainly, they just seem like very criminal acts to me,” Trump replied. “What he did was criminal, a terrible thing to the people.”
Additionally, Trump was asked about the report’s uncovering of an anti-Trump text exchange between FBI investigator Peter Strzok (who was removed from the Clinton probe last year by special counsel Robert Mueller) and FBI lawyer Lisa Page.
“I have the [support of the] FBI. You go into the FBI and take a poll of the real FBI—not the scum on top, not Comey and that group of people who were total thieves,” the president said.
“Mr. President, this is your FBI,” a seemingly baffled Doocy responded.
Trump then pivoted to praise his new secretary of state and his “fantastic” relationship with North Korea. At another point, he clarified, “I bet if you took a poll in the FBI, I would win that poll by more than anybody’s ever won a poll—but the top people were horrible.”
Later in the chat, Trump claimed that he gave Kim “a very direct number” so the dictator can “call me if he has any difficulties.”
And when asked about Kim’s legacy of brutality and killing of his own people, Trump simply said: “I can’t speak to that.”
He also repeated the impossible claim that “fathers” of Korean War veterans asked him to help return their sons’ remains. Any parents of men who served in the Korean War would now be well into their 100s.
