Trump: Feuding helps my agenda

President Trump denied on Friday that feuding with lawmakers hurts his agenda, saying that if anything it helps move it along.

“Sometimes it helps, to be honest with you,” Trump told Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo when asked if he worried about such feuding getting in the way of his agenda.

“We’ll see what happens in the end. But I think, actually sometimes it helps. Sometimes it gets people to do what they’re supposed to be doing. And you know, that’s the way it is,” he added.

{mosads}

The Fox Business host mentioned Trump’s feuding with a pair of GOP senators, John McCain (Ariz.) and Bob Corker (Tenn.), amid the push for agenda items such as health care and tax reform.

The president has in recent days been locked in a war of words with Corker, the chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Affairs Committee.

Trump ripped Corker in tweets earlier this month after the GOP chairman said that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Defense Secretary James Mattis and White House chief of staff John Kelly were protecting the country from “chaos.”

Senator Bob Corker “begged” me to endorse him for re-election in Tennessee. I said “NO” and he dropped out (said he could not win without…

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

..my endorsement). He also wanted to be Secretary of State, I said “NO THANKS.” He is also largely responsible for the horrendous Iran Deal!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

…Hence, I would fully expect Corker to be a negative voice and stand in the way of our great agenda. Didn’t have the guts to run!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 8, 2017

Trump has also exchanged barbs with McCain, who has broken with the administration on a number of issues and cast a deciding vote in July to kill a scaled-down GOP bill to repeal ObamaCare. Trump has raised the vote several times in criticizing Republicans for not repealing the health-care law.

McCain took also aim at the state of the U.S. under the Trump administration in a speech earlier this month, to which Trump responded by telling WMAL radio host Chris Plante that “at some point, I fight back and it won’t be pretty.”

Trump is currently engaged in a words with Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.), who earlier this week accused the president of being insensitive during a call to the widow of a soldier killed in Niger earlier this month.

Wilson said that Trump told the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson that the fallen soldier “knew what he signed up for … but when it happens it hurts anyway.”

The president in turn called the congresswoman “crazy” and “wacky” on Twitter.

The Fake News is going crazy with wacky Congresswoman Wilson(D), who was SECRETLY on a very personal call, and gave a total lie on content!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 20, 2017