Trump does interview with ex-White House press secretary Spicer

Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer has snagged an interview with ex-boss President Trump.

Spicer spoke to Trump in a video posted Wednesday by Newsmax, the conservative news outlet for which Spicer now works. 

Trump discussed several of the challenges facing the nation and how he is attempting to repair the damage, rebuild the economy, and face his critics.

"We need healing, but we also need strength and toughness and law and order," said Trump when asked how he is working to heal the country as it begins to recover from a global pandemic and confront rising racial tensions in the wake of the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day.

The president continued his emphasis of the necessity of law and order, a familiar refrain to those who watched him on the 2016 presidential campaign trail. 

As protests across the country have turned to violent riots that have destroyed businesses large and small and wrought havoc upon cities just beginning to emerge from three months of coronavirus-induced lockdowns, the president has remained critical of those who are "using George Floyd" and a lot of other people to try to do "some bad things." 

Spicer was Trump's first press secretary and White House communications director. He resigned in July 2017 – amid an uneven job performance and after Trump named financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.

In this week's interview, Trump also addressing the racial divide now at the forefront of the nation's collective mind. He also discussed past efforts to support the black community. Trump brought up his permanent funding initiative for historically black colleges and universities, something he pointed out that none of his predecessors had successfully done.

"Nobody did that, I did it," he told Spicer.

He also spoke about the joint initiative between the White House and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott to expand opportunity zones in majority black areas. Prior the the pandemic, “we had the best black unemployment rate in the history of our country," said POTUS.

To quell the current unrest in American cities, President Trump does not "think we'll have to" send in the U.S. military, though, again he emphasizes "we need safety in all of our cities," and singles out New York as a "hold out" whose elected officials have not yet taken the necessary steps to ensure the safety of their citizens.

He also criticized governors and leaders of blue states who were "tough as hell on keeping people locked up in their houses … but when it comes to the looting, they’re very weak on crime.”

“The most difficult people to deal with are the Democrats, because sometimes I think they don’t love our country and that’s a very sad thing," said Trump, on his toughest negotiating partners. "I think they're more vicious in many respects than any of the leaders I deal with."

Former Vice President Joe Biden, Trump says, is an especially potent example of a Democratic politician whose record indicates how ill-equipped he is to deal with the problems in the country today.

"He's so weak on crime, he'll never stop the problem," Trump said. 

"Now he’s talking about systemic racism in the police department – why wouldn’t he have done something about it” during his four-decade career in office?" Trump asked. "I am law and order, they're not."