President Donald Trump wants good relations with all world leaders, but has been clear with his desire to work with other countries to end the threat of ISIS, his former campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, said Tuesday.
"He wants to be fighting terrorists in those countries, not in our country," Lewandowski told Fox News' "Fox & Friends" program, while discussing the president's upcoming Group of Twenty summit meeting.
"If there is a way to get that done, I think it would be at the top of the agenda."
Lewandowski said he's also read that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson would like people in the United States to be able to once again adopt Russian babies, which Russia banned in late 2012.
"That's something on the agenda that the president could be talking with [Russian President' Vladimir Putin about," said Lewandowski.
Three has been speculation about whether Trump will confront Putin about the investigation into meddling in the 2016 election, and Lewandowski pointed out that if there was meddling, it occurred under former President Barack Obama's watch.
"It wasn't that long ago where 17 government agencies all agreed that it was meddling," said Lewandowski. "Now all of a sudden that didn't take place. Right? Now it it is three or four government agencies that say maybe something took place."
At any rate, he said, Trump won "fair and square" as Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton was a "terrible candidate" who "couldn't find Michigan and Pennsylvania and Ohio on the map. She couldn't find Iowa. Russia had nothing to do with her being a terrible candidate."
He also complained about media bias, saying the mainstream media doesn't "want to talk about all the pieces of legislation he has signed," Lewandowski said.
"All the good he has done to help coal workers and aluminum workers and putting people back to work with the stock market . . . the market has been through the roof, jobs, the economy. All of those things are doing great because of the president's policies. Nobody wants to talk about that. They want to talk about everything but his right policies."
Lewandowski said he is not surprised that polls show the American public supports Trump over the media, as "they know what they get with this president is the truth. Maybe they don't want to hear the truth but he always tells them the truth . . . the bottom line is the president goes to Twitter and tells the American people exactly what the truth is."
He also discussed media criticism of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's decision to spend time at a state park beach that had been closed during the state's short-lived government shutdown, which has now ended, allowing beaches and other state-funded sites to reopen.
"They are not talking about the fact that the governor held firm in not raising taxes and making sure that the money in the state was used from taxpayers to the best of his ability," said Lewandowski.
"They want to talk about a picture of him on the beach with his family."
Members of the media have also criticized Trump for his offer to help Charlie Gard, a British baby who is terminally ill with a rare genetic disease and brain damage.
The president has "such a big heart" and offered to help how he could, and the media should be praising Trump for his action, said Lewandowski.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.