Former President Donald Trump said if there was anything he regretted from his first term, it was some of the people he put in his cabinet, including Attorney General Bill Barr.
Trump, who has a wide lead among 2024 Republican presidential candidates, spoke with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo during an interview broadcast Sunday and was asked what he would have done differently.
"The mistake would be people," Trump said. "I wouldn't have put a guy like Bill Barr in. He was weak and pathetic. I wouldn't have put Jeff Sessions in [as attorney general]. You know, most people were good, but I had some people, we had [Defense Secretary Mark] Esper, I didn't like him. He was incompetent, I thought. We had other people I didn't like."
Trump was then asked why he appointed them in the first place.
"Every president, you put somebody in, you think they're good," Trump said, adding he wasn't familiar with the people in Washington like he was in New York, where he grew his real estate empire.
"I was there 17 times in Washington, D.C., in my whole life, OK?" Trump said. "I never stayed overnight. The press actually reported 17. I don't know if it's right, but it's probably pretty right. I never stayed overnight, ever. And then, all of a sudden, I'm the president of the United States, and it's like a different society.
"I was in New York, and, you know, it was a different thing," he said. "I didn't know the people. I know the people now better than anybody has ever known the people. I know the good ones, the bad ones, the dumb ones, the smart ones."
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