Donald Trump sat down with Laura Ingraham on Fox News Thursday night for an exclusive, mostly softball interview on the Trump-friendly network. At one point however, Ingraham asked the president about all of the vacancies in the state department. The question comes as tensions between Trump and State Secretary Rex Tillerson have hit an all-time high.
Are you worried that the state department doesn’t have enough Donald Trump nominees in there to push your vision through,” she asked. “Because other state departments, including Reagan’s at times, undermined his agenda, and there’s a concern that the state department currently is undermining your agenda.”
Trump’s response was more or less what we’ve come to expect from him in the nine months and some change into his presidency. “So we don’t need all the people they want,” he said. “Don’t forget, I’m a businessperson, I tell my people, you don’t need to fill slots, don’t fill ’em — but we have some people that I’m not happy with there.”
“The assistant secretary of state, you’re not getting rid of that position,” interjected Ingraham. “But let me tell you, the only one that matters is me,” Trump continued. “I’m the only one that matters, because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy’s going to be, you’ve seen that, you’ve seen it strongly. We’re filling up roles, and don’t forget, Schumer and the Democrats are just obstructing.”
At that point, anyone playing the Trump interview drinking game ostensibly had to take a shot when Trump brought up the Democrats as a scapegoat for not being able to get anything done.