Donald Trump, who once promised to hire only the “best” people if elected president, now admits that he didn’t.
“Your critics say you made a lot of personnel mistakes,” Fox News host Maria Bartiromo said during an interview that aired Sunday.
“No, of course, but everyone does it,” he said, then steered the conversation away. “Obama did it. What about Biden? Look at the people who are in charge of this. The difference is that I fire people.”
Trump fired a lot of people during a chaotic administration that saw higher turnover in senior and Cabinet positions than under any of his predecessors. For example, during four years under Barack Obama, there were only three Cabinet secretary turnovers, compared with 14 under Trump, according to a Brookings Institute study.
“How do you know that if you go back, you won’t have a network of people around you working against you?” Bartiromo asked.
“I will,” he admitted. “And so will anyone else who runs as a Republican. These people are sick, these people are sick.”
Trump once claimed he would hire only “the best, most serious people,” but ultimately fired or attacked many of those same people, including William Barr (Attorney General), Jeff Sessions (Attorney General), Rex Tillerson (Secretary of State), James Mattis (Secretary of Defense), John Bolton (National Security Adviser), H.R. McMaster (National Security Adviser), John Kelly (Secretary of Homeland Security and White House Chief of Staff), Mike Pence (Vice President), and Kayleigh McEnany (Press Secretary), among others.
Watch more of her discussion with Bartiromo below:
