Trump: ‘I Did’ Hire the Best People and Most of My Hires Were Good, But ‘I Didn’t Know’ Washington Like I Do Now

During a portion of an interview with the Fox News Channel aired on Monday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s “Special Report,” 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump responded to questions on why he hired so many people who he has now criticized or have criticized him by stating the overwhelming majority of people he hired were good hires, he did hire the best people, and that he “didn’t know” Washington, but does now.

Trump said, [relevant remarks begin around 16:10] “When I came down to Washington, I was in Washington 17 times in my life in D.C., and I never stayed overnight. I was never there. I didn’t know the people. I didn’t know that world, other than I was involved in politics from the other side very much. And I had — I put great people in, but I put some people like Bill Barr and Bolton and a few of them that — actually, Bolton was good because everybody — every time I negotiated, people said, oh, they’ve got this maniac here. He’s going to go to war with us and they’d concede every point. It was actually pretty good in a certain way. But we put people in that were great and we put people in that weren’t. I now know Washington probably better than anybody. I know the good ones and the bad ones.”

Host Bret Baier then noted that Trump vowed to only hire the best people in 2016. Trump responded, “Well, I did do that.”

Baier then listed various people from the Trump administration who are either running against Trump in 2024, have criticized him, or who Trump has criticized like former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former National Security Adviser John Bolton, former Attorney General Bill Barr, former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, former White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, former Acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney, former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, former Secretary of Defense James Mattis, former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and former Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao and then asked Trump why he hired all of these people.

Trump responded, “Because I hired 10:1 that were fantastic.” He also maintained the ratio of hires who still praise him to critics is 20:1.

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