President Donald Trump defended his use of the power that comes with the presidential office, denying that he is “expanding” it while maintaining that he is “using it properly” in an interview on his first 100 days as the 47th president with TIME.
Trump, who will have served 100 days of his second term on April 30, gave the extensive, bombshell interview to the outlet from the White House on Wednesday.
The interview started off with a pointed question from TIME senior political correspondent Eric Cortellessa and editor-in-chief Sam Jacobs, who asked, “Why do you think you need more power?”
“Well, I don’t feel I’m expanding it. I think I’m using it as it was meant to be used,” Trump replied. “I feel that we’ve had a very successful presidency in 100 days. We’ve had people writing it was the best first month and best second month, and really the best third month. But that you won’t know about for a little while, because it takes a little time in transition.”
Going on to bring up his widely-publicized actions to impact international trade with tariffs, the president said he has used his power to reset the “table”:
You know, we’re resetting a table. We were losing $2 trillion a year on trade, and you can’t do that. I mean, at some point somebody has to come along and stop it, because it’s not sustainable. We were carrying other countries on our back with, you know, with trade numbers, with horrible numbers, and we’ve changed it. You see the market fluctuates quite a bit.
The journalists then asked him to directly answer about “tak[ing] congressional authority on trade and appropriations.”
“You fired the heads of independent agencies. You’re challenging the courts right now, as you know. You’re using the levers of government to weaken private institutions like law firms and universities,” the interviewers said. “Isn’t this seizing power away from institutions and concentrating them inside the presidency?”
Trump responded, “No, I think that what I’m doing is exactly what I’ve campaigned on.”
The president went on to tout his control over the immigration system that was left broken by the previous Biden administration:
If you look at what I campaigned on, for instance, you can talk about removing people from the country. We have to do it because Biden allowed people to come in through his open border crazy, insanity. He allowed people to come into our country that we can’t have in our country. Many criminals—they emptied their prisons, many countries, almost every country, but not a complete emptying, but some countries a complete emptying of their prison system. But you look all over the world, and I’m not just talking about South America, we’re talking about all over the world. People have been led into our country that are very dangerous. If you were walking down the street, and if you happen to be near one of these people, they could, they would kill you, and they wouldn’t even think about it. And we can’t have that in our country.
The interviewers asked, “So you’re not concentrating more power in the presidency?”
“I don’t think so. I think I’m using it properly, and I’m also using it as per my election,” Trump answered. “You know, everything that I’m doing—this is what I talked about doing. I said that I’m going to move the criminals out.”
Referring to Trump’s recent order for an investigation into former Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Christopher Krebs — whom he fired for releasing a statement claiming the 2020 presidential election “was the most secure in American history,” and denouncing “unfounded claims” that Joe Biden was not the true winner — the TIME reporters asked, “Isn’t that, though, what you accused Biden of doing to you?”
Trump responded plainly, “I think Chris Krebs was a disgrace to our country… I think he was terrible.”
“By the way, I don’t know him. I’m not—I don’t think I ever met him. I probably saw him around,” he added.
Trump also called Krebs a “fraud” and “disgrace” when he ordered the investigation and removed any remaining security clearances the former CISA director may have had earlier this month.
“I think he said this is the safest election we’ve ever had and yet every day you read in the papers about more and more fraud that’s discovered,” he said from the Oval Office as he signed the memo. “He’s the fraud. He’s a disgrace. So we’ll find out whether or not it was a safe election and, if it wasn’t, he’s got a big price to pay, and he’s a bad guy.”
The memo described Krebs as a “significant bad-faith actor who weaponized and abused his Government authority.”
Continuing the interview, TIME said, “You’ve used threats and lawsuits, other forms of coercion—”
“Well, I’ve gotta be doing something right, because I’ve had a lot of law firms give me a lot of money,” Trump replied.
The interviewers asked, “Why is that an appropriate use of presidential power?”
“Well, I think it is because I think they felt that the election was rigged and stolen and they didn’t want to be a part of it. You think they gave me $100 million each for nothing? You know these law firms gave me $100 million worth of work, et cetera, and other things. And do you think they gave me that because I’m a nice guy?” Trump asked.
“I don’t think so. They gave it to me because they knew what they did wrong and they didn’t want to get involved with it. And that’s okay. That’s the way it works, unfortunately,” the president stated.
The interviewers pressed on, “But that is an appropriate use of presidential power, you think?… The threats and the EOs against the law firms.”
Trump shot back with “They pay–these are the top firms in the world. These are the biggest, the best: Cravath, Milbank Tweed, Paul Weiss. These are the toughest, smartest firms. They don’t do this unless there’s a little problem or a big problem.”
Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, DC. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.
