Former President Donald Trump called out the press for throwing “softball” questions at President Joe Biden on Monday, saying his policies are “destroying” the country.
Trump was asked about his successor’s 64-day streak avoiding a press conference in an interview on Fox News Monday with host Harris Faulkner. Biden will hold his first press conference on Thursday as his administration faces criticism from reporters who say the White House is not being transparent about the crisis at the border.
The former president predicted the press would go easy on Biden compared to the tough, accusatory questions he faced throughout his four-year term in office.
On Biden’s transparency: “There is none,” said Trump. “I guess you’re supposed to have a press conference on Thursday, but the questions will all be softballs. I’ve watched the interviews, I like George Stephanopoulos, but I watched those couple of interviews, and it was a joke.”
Trump went on to say he used to enjoy holding press conferences, during which he would often clash with reporters, because he could speak directly to the American people.
“The press is not a free press in our country, so the way you get the [word] out is with press conferences. Now, he doesn’t need them because the press protects him totally,” Trump said.
The former president suggested that were he still in office, the press would vilify him for the crisis at the border. More than 15,000 unaccompanied migrant children are now in the custody of the U.S. government, as waves of migrants attempt to enter the country at the southern border.
Trump also criticized Biden for telling reporters Sunday that he will visit the border “at some point” but felt he didn’t need to go now.
“I went to the border, and I went to the border also to learn,” Trump said, noting that after speaking with Border Patrol officials, he adjusted his plans for constructing the wall to suit the needs of agents on the ground.
“I wouldn’t have built the wall we had; I would’ve built a different wall,” Trump said.
“I learned from being there. If I didn’t talk to them, I would’ve had something that would not have worked like this one is working. You have to go there; this is a major problem,” he added.
Before the interview concluded, Faulkner noted that former presidents are usually less vocal about their criticisms of their successors and asked Trump, “Why did you feel like you needed to [weigh in] on this issue?”
“The reason I weigh in is very simple: They’re destroying our country,” he replied.
“They’re going to destroy it with tax increases the likes of which nobody has ever seen before in order to accomplish the Green New Deal nonsense.”
“They’re destroying it with woke,” Trump continued. “When China looks at ‘woke’ and they see the biggest problem we have is Dr. Seuss, in the meantime they’re building factories and trying to kill us in so many different ways, they laugh at us … frankly, they think our country is stupid.”