The Washington Post somehow got its hand on remarks Donald Trump made at an off the record GOP donor conference.
President Trump publicly praised Canada’s leaders this week after announcing a new trade deal, sending them his “highest regards.â€Â But only three days before the deal was announced, Trump privately railed against Canada’s foreign minister, saying that “she hates America.†It was just one moment in a stunning performance the president gave to donors at an off-the-record fundraising event last week.
Trump held court for more than an hour during an appearance at a Sept. 27 Protect the House PAC event at Trump International Hotel in Washington, speaking on a wide range of topics, two attendees told me after the event. Fresh off his 80-minute news conference following meetings at the United Nations the day before, the president gave the donor crowd a show that they said took Trump’s increasingly freewheeling, no-holds-barred public speaking style to a new level.
Trump was roasting people inside the room, telling stories about his private interactions with world leaders, discussing sensitive military operations and bragging about his accomplishments. At one point, he began criticizing Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who was leading Canada’s negotiations with the United States on the trade deal that both allies announced three days later.
“She hates America,†Trump said, referring to Canada’s negotiator without using Freeland’s name. He was in the midst of a 10-minute riff on Canada and the then-ongoing trade negotiations, not dissimilar to remarks he gave at the previous day’s news conference in New York. In those public remarks, Trump said, “We don’t like their representative very much,†again without saying Freeland’s name but referring to her directly.
Inside the Trump hotel fundraising event, Trump also asserted that the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, “hates America.†Trump then said this was a shame because female leaders are often better than male leaders; all the more the pity, he declared, that these two women hate America.
This is another instance of GOP donors leaking out remarks that were made in private by Donald Trump.
It is clear that these Republican donors are trying to delegitimize Trump by leaking bits and pieces of what seems to have been a speech that lasted at least an hour.
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