‘It’s Extremely Unfair, and That’s a Mild Word, to the President. So He Recuses Himself.’

Wednesday evening The New York Times published a bombshell interview with President Donald Trump in which he, totally uninhibited, strongly suggested he believes the Attorney General’s job is to protect the president, not the Constitution. The free-wheeling, stream of consciousness interview covered a wide range of issues, including Jeff Sessions, Russia, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, Vladimir Putin, Hillary Clinton, and much more. 

The New York Times late Wednesday evening then released a partial transcript, and a selected collection of audio clips from the interview, which is embedded above. The interview was conducted Wednesday afternoon in the Oval Office by Times reporters Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt and Maggie Haberman.

Listen as the President of the United States freely admits his anger over Jeff Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigation and anything campaign related, revealing his contempt for the rule of law. 

Listen as the President of the United States threatens Special Counsel Robert Mueller, saying “yes” when reporters ask him if Mueller investigates his family finances would that cross a red line.

Listen as the President of the United States freely admits he talked with President Vladimir Putin about Russian adoptions — which is actually all about U.S. sanctions on Russia — during his second, and previously undisclosed meeting with Putin at the G-20. Listen as he tries to make it sound entirely innocent, and is “surprised” that Russian adoptions also came up during his son’s meeting with the Russians last year. (Putin banned Americans from adopting Russian children over the Magnitsky Act.) 

Listen as the President of the United States calls obtaining “dirt” from a hostile foreign power “standard political stuff,” and try to minimize the importance of the meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and the Russians.

Here, via The New York Times:

TRUMP: Look, Sessions gets the job. Right after he gets the job, he recuses himself.

BAKER: Was that a mistake?

TRUMP: Well, Sessions should have never recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job, and I would have picked somebody else.

HABERMAN: He gave you no heads up at all, in any sense?

TRUMP: Zero. So Jeff Sessions takes the job, gets into the job, recuses himself. I then have — which, frankly, I think is very unfair to the president. How do you take a job and then recuse yourself? If he would have recused himself before the job, I would have said, “Thanks, Jeff, but I can’t, you know, I’m not going to take you.” It’s extremely unfair, and that’s a mild word, to the president. So he recuses himself. I then end up with a second man, who’s a deputy.

* * *

SCHMIDT: Last thing, if Mueller was looking at your finances and your family finances, unrelated to Russia — is that a red line?

HABERMAN: Would that be a breach of what his actual charge is?

TRUMP: I would say yeah. I would say yes. By the way, I would say, I don’t — I don’t — I mean, it’s possible there’s a condo or something, so, you know, I sell a lot of condo units, and somebody from Russia buys a condo, who knows? I don’t make money from Russia. In fact, I put out a letter saying that I don’t make — from one of the most highly respected law firms, accounting firms. I don’t have buildings in Russia. They said I own buildings in Russia. I don’t. They said I made money from Russia. I don’t. It’s not my thing. I don’t, I don’t do that. Over the years, I’ve looked at maybe doing a deal in Russia, but I never did one. Other than I held the Miss Universe pageant there eight, nine years [crosstalk].

SCHMIDT: But if he was outside that lane, would that mean he’d have to go?

[crosstalk]

HABERMAN: Would you consider——

TRUMP: No, I think that’s a violation. Look, this is about Russia. So I think if he wants to go, my finances are extremely good, my company is an unbelievably successful company. And actually, when I do my filings, peoples say, “Man.” People have no idea how successful this is. It’s a great company. But I don’t even think about the company anymore. I think about this. ’Cause one thing, when you do this, companies seem very trivial. O.K.? I really mean that. They seem very trivial. But I have no income from Russia. I don’t do business with Russia. The gentleman that you mentioned, with his son, two nice people. But basically, they brought the Miss Universe pageant to Russia to open up, you know, one of their jobs. Perhaps the convention center where it was held. It was a nice evening, and I left. I left, you know, I left Moscow. It wasn’t Moscow, it was outside of Moscow.

HABERMAN: Would you fire Mueller if he went outside of certain parameters of what his charge is? [crosstalk]

SCHMIDT: What would you do?

[crosstalk]

TRUMP: I can’t, I can’t answer that question because I don’t think it’s going to happen.

* * *

She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, I don’t know. She was sitting next to Putin.

HABERMAN: She had been the whole time?

TRUMP: Yes. She was sitting next to Putin.

BAKER: Does she speak Russian at all?

TRUMP: No. She speaks other languages.

TRUMP: She was sitting next to Putin and somebody else, and that’s the way it is. So the meal was going, and toward dessert I went down just to say hello to Melania, and while I was there I said hello to Putin. Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about — things. Actually, it was very interesting, we talked about adoption.

HABERMAN: You did?

TRUMP: We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr., Mr. Trump’s son] had in that meeting. As I’ve said — most other people, you know, when they call up and say, “By the way, we have information on your opponent,” I think most politicians — I was just with a lot of people, they said [inaudible], “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?” They just said——

HABERMAN: The senators downstairs?

TRUMP: A lot of them. They said, “Who wouldn’t have taken a meeting like that?”

BAKER: You asked them about it at lunch?

TRUMP: Nah, a couple of them. They — now, that was before Russia was hot, don’t forget. You know, Russia wasn’t hot then. That was almost a year and a half ago. It wasn’t like it is, like it is radioactive, then. Russia was Russia.

HABERMAN: Then can I ask you——

BAKER: Sorry to interrupt. The email, though, said something I thought was really interesting, and I wonder what you thought of it. It said this “is part of Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump.” So whatever actually happened at the meeting——

TRUMP: Well, I never saw the email. I never saw the email until, you know——

BAKER: Right, but now you have. So, what do you interpret that to mean, now that you have seen it?

* * *

TRUMP: You know, Peter, I didn’t look into it very closely, to be honest with you.

BAKER: O.K.

TRUMP: I just heard there was an email requesting a meeting or something — yeah, requesting a meeting. That they have information on Hillary Clinton, and I said — I mean, this was standard political stuff.

SCHMIDT: Did you know at the time that they had the meeting?

TRUMP: No, I didn’t know anything about the meeting.

SCHMIDT: But you didn’t——

TRUMP: It must have been a very important — must have been a very unimportant meeting, because I never even heard about it.

HABERMAN: No one told you a word, nothing? I know we talked about this on the plane a little bit.

TRUMP: No, nobody told me. I didn’t know noth—— It’s a very unimportant — sounded like a very unimportant meeting.

BAKER: But on the date you clinched the nominations with New Jersey and California and the primaries, when you give the speech that night, saying you’re going to give a speech about Hillary Clinton’s corrupt dealings with Russia and other countries, and that comes just three hours after Don Jr. —

TRUMP: Number one, remember, I made many of those speeches.

BAKER: People wondered about the timing.

TRUMP: Many of those speeches. I’d go after her all the time.

BAKER: Yeah, I know, but——

TRUMP: But there was something about the book, “Clinton Cash,” came out.

BAKER: Yeah, a year earlier, though. But you were talking about——

TRUMP: But we were developing a whole thing. There was something about “Clinton Cash.”

* * *

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