Incoming Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is denying he and President-elect Donald Trump had a close relationship in the past.
{mosads}“He was not my friend. We never went golfing together, even had a meal together,” Schumer said in an interview with Politico published Saturday.
“He’s called me, we’ve had civil conversations a couple of times. But I’ve got to see what he does.”
Schumer is set to be the Senate Democratic caucus’s lead negotiator with Trump’s administration.
During the campaign, Trump claimed that his relationship with Schumer would help him reach bipartisan deals as president.
“Hey look, I think I’ll be able to get along well with Chuck Schumer,” Trump said in an interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in January. “I was always very good with Schumer. I was close to Schumer in many ways.”
Schumer on Saturday also predicted that Republicans would run into difficulty if they follow through on their promises to repeal ObamaCare, which has recently received some praise from Trump.
The president-elect has said that he wants to keep certain parts of the health law, but Schumer and other Democrats say the aspects of the law that appeal to Trump are inextricable from the rest.
“They’re stuck,” Schumer said. “The only way to keep the good things is to keep the bill. The reason they haven’t had an alternative is ’cause there isn’t an alternative if you want to keep all the things it does.”