President Donald Trump contends that "the only way you survive is to be combative" in an interview with Time.
The president was asked if the White House is too combative and whether he has chosen to be combative.
"I think it is. It could be my fault," Trump told Time. "I don't want to necessarily blame but there's a great meanness out there that I'm surprised at. I'd like not to be. But the only way you survive is to be combative."
In a 100-minute interview over dinner at the White House, Trump covered off on several topics with Time, including healthcare, about which he said the only attempt Republicans took at passing the American Health Care Act was last week — when it was approved.
"There wasn't a second attempt. There was only one attempt," Trump told Time. "There was a mistake, was we set a date. Now had we not set that date, we would have had one time."
The president was referring to March 24 when House leadership was forced to cancel their initial vote on the AHCA due to lack of support from Republicans.
"And when we didn't vote, everyone said, 'Trump fails with healthcare.' The thing that surprised me is, I said, 'I'm not stopping.' And everybody, not one person said that was going to pass. Which was sort of surprising to me," Trump told Time.
The president also pressed his vision for combating ISIS.
"We have to humiliate the enemy," Trump told Time. "And if we don't humiliate them, we're going to have our kids continuing to go and fight for ISIS. We have kids leaving this country because they're so damned good at the internet, ISIS, they're better at the internet than Google. You know it's a smart enemy. Believe it or not."