Maria Bartiromo tells Donald Trump he didn't drain the swamp. He blames 'weak' and 'pathetic' Cabinet
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WASHINGTON — In seeking to regain the White House, former President Donald Trump is playing defense over his longtime target of "the swamp," a nickname he has used to allege a so-called "rigged" system in Washington.
Trump acknowledged over the weekend he made mistakes with personnel appointments during his term in office, saying they were insufficiently loyal to him. GOP primary opponents and commentators, meanwhile, said he simply failed to follow through on his pledge to "drain the swamp" of the federal bureaucracy.
"The mistake would be people," Trump told host Maria Bartiromo during an interview on Fox News' "Sunday Morning Futures."
While Trump bragged about firing FBI Director James Comey in 2017, he said others served for too long. His list of mistakes included his first two attorneys general, Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, and Defense Secretary Mark Esper. The officials all defied Trump's wishes on certain contentious issues.
While Trump described some of his his hires as "weak," "pathetic," and "incompetent," Bartiromo asked why he hired these people in the first place.
Trump said he lacked Washington experience when he was elected in 2016 and did not know how the government worked.
This time around, he said: "I know the people now better than anybody's ever known the people. I know the good ones, the bad ones, the dumb ones, the smart ones, I think the loyal ones."
Bartiromo pressed Trump by saying: "Well, you didn't drain the swamp, like you said you would. You didn't drain the swamp."
His reply: "I did. I fired Comey. I fired a lot of people."
Opponents like Florida Gov Ron DeSantis say Trump failed to control the federal bureaucracy seeking to thwart Republican proposals.
"He promised to drain the swamp," DeSantis said in an interview with the Fox News program "MediaBuzz" broadcast Sunday. "It got worse."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Maria Bartiromo says Trump didn't drain the swamp as he blames Cabinet
