President Donald Trump tried to relate to Americans on Election Day by complaining about his job, in a Tuesday morning interview with ‘Fox and Friends’ he showed up half an hour late for.
Speaking with his favorite morning show on the day that’ll decide whether he’ll get a second term, Trump struck a defeated tone as the polling consensus shows him trailing former Vice President Joe Biden in several swing states and close in formerly Republican strongholds like Georgia, Texas, and Arizona.
“It’s been a great, uh, it’s been a great run,” Trump said, before adding: “It’s been a great three weeks.” Trump was diagnosed with COVID-19 a month ago.
In recent weeks, Trump has signaled on the campaign trail that things aren’t going very well for him, mentioning in places like Erie, Pennsylvania, and Rome, Georgia that he didn’t expect to be campaigning in either place this close to the election.
“I had a nice life, I had the greatest life,” Trump said during a Monday rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “But you know what? I’m so happy. This was the greatest decision I ever made, because we have done so much good together.”
At other points of the interview Tuesday morning, Trump complained about the toll the job has taken on him. “Well, it’s been mean,” he said when asked whether the job was “worth it.”
He then complained that friends don’t call him “Don” anymore but rather “Mr. President.” And apparently, they don’t invite him to dinner anymore. “It’s hard to have friends these days,” he said.
Trump then said that the most difficult country to “deal with” is the United States. “People ask me what the hardest country to deal with is. Is it Russia, is it China, is it North Korea? And I go, ‘No, well, by far the most difficult country by far to deal with is the U.S. Not even close.”
“And they say, ‘Are you kidding?’ And I say no, actually, I’m probably not kidding,” he added.
Trump, who has denied an Axios report that he plans to prematurely declare victory on Tuesday night, claimed he would only declare himself the winner when it actually looks to be that way. “I think we’ll have victory, but only when we have victory [he’ll declare],” he said. “There’s no reason to play games.”
Before signing off, however, Trump said he’d be disappointed if Sen. Kamala Harris, Biden’s running mate, became the first woman president, saying she is “not a particularly good person.”
"If she became the first woman president, it'd be a terrible thing for our country. I think it'd be a terrible thing for women,” Trump said. “I look forward to the first woman president, but I wouldn't look forward to her being that person. I think it would be a very bad thing."