川普：塞申斯在涉俄調查中不應該主動規避

U.S. President Donald Trump told the New York Times that if Attorney General Jeff Sessions had indicated before being nominated to the post that he would recuse himself from the investigation of Russia's influence on last year's election then the president would have "picked someone else."

"Sessions never should have recused himself, and if he was going to recuse himself, he should have told me before he took the job," Trump said, according to a transcript of the interview released late Wednesday.

Trump added that he thinks the way Sessions proceeded was "very unfair to the president."

After Sessions recused himself, his deputy, Rod Rosenstein, appointed former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director Robert Mueller as special counsel to carry out the probe, which also includes looking into any possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Committees in the Senate and House of Representatives are conducting their own investigations as well.

Trump has repeatedly insisted there was no link.

"I have done nothing wrong. A special counsel should never have been appointed in this case," he told the Times.

Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., his son-in-law and current White House senior adviser Jared Kushner and his then-campaign advisor Paul Manafort met last year with a Russian attorney who said she had damaging information about Trump's Democratic opponent in the presidential race, Hillary Clinton.

Trump downplayed the meeting in his interview, calling it "standard political stuff" and reaffirming his stance that he believes most politicians would have taken such a meeting.

Donald Trump Jr. has said the Russian lawyer had no information of value about Clinton and that the talks ended quickly.

When asked about it by the Times, the president said it "must have been a very unimportant meeting, because I never even heard about it."

Hours after the meeting in June 2016, Trump said he would soon be giving a major speech focused on Clinton. In Wednesday's interview, he rejected the idea that the two events were linked, saying he "made many of those speeches."

While much of the interview focused on the questions about Russia and the campaign, Trump talked about other issues that have emerged during his presidency and declared that the country is "doing well."

He pledged during his run for office to overhaul the nation's healthcare system, and after the Republican-held Senate faced several setbacks in recent weeks in efforts to repeal and replace the program put in place under former President Barack Obama, Trump hosted a group of lawmakers for talks Wednesday at the White House.

"If we don’t get it done, we are going to watch Obamacare go down the tubes, and we’ll blame the Democrats. And at some point, they are going to come and say, 'You’ve got to help us,'" Trump said.

He added that under a Republican plan, Americans will see "major tax cuts, and reform," which he said is "like a windfall for the country."

On international issues, Trump criticized Obama for inaction on Ukraine, North Korea and Syria.

Trump said that when Russia annexed Crimea, Obama "allowed it to get away."

"He didn’t talk tough to North Korea. You know, we have a big problem with North Korea. Big. Big, big," Trump said.

Obama in 2013 threatened to use force against the Syrian government if it carried out a chemical weapons attack, but never did, as his administration worked with Russia to negotiate an agreement that required Syria to send its stockpiles of chemical weapons out of the country. After a chemical attack blamed on Syrian forces in April, Trump did order airstrikes on a Syrian airfield.美國總統川普告訴紐約時報說，如果司法部長塞申斯被提名前告訴自己，在涉及俄羅斯去年干預美國大選的調查中會主動規避的話，自己的司法部長人選就會是別人了。

星期三晚上公佈的採訪記錄顯示，川普說：“塞申斯根本不應該主動規避，如果他打算規避，接受提名前就該告訴我。”

川普補充說，他覺得塞申斯的做法“對總統很不公平”。

塞申斯主動規避後，司法部副部長羅森斯坦任命前聯邦調查局局長穆勒擔任特別檢察官，負責調查此事，調查也涉及川普競選團隊是否曾跟俄羅斯勾結。與此同時，國會參衆兩院委員會也在分別進行自己的獨立調查。

川普告訴紐約時報說：“我沒有做錯事。這個案子根本不該指派特別檢察官。”

川普的長子小川普、女婿兼白宮特別顧問庫什納，以及川普當時的競選顧問馬納福特去年與一位俄羅斯律師會面，這個律師自稱掌握了有損川普的競選對手，民主黨總統候選人希拉里·克林頓的信息。

川普在接受紐約時報採訪時淡化了這次會面，稱其爲“一般的政治行爲”，並重申自己的立場稱，他相信大多數政界人物都會去參加這樣的會面。

小川普說，那個俄羅斯律師沒有任何關於希拉里有價值的信息，會面很快就結束了。

在接受紐約時報採訪時，川普說：“那次會面肯定特別不重要，因爲我從來沒聽他們說起過。”

2016年6月雙方會面幾小時後，川普曾表示，他很快將針對希拉里·克林頓發表重要講話。在星期三的採訪中，川普稱這二者間沒有任何聯繫，說自己“發表過很多那樣的講話”。

雖然星期三的採訪主要針對的是俄羅斯和川普競選團隊的問題，但是川普也談到了他任期內遇到的一些問題，並宣稱，美國“現在很好”。

川普競選期間曾保證要重整美國的醫保系統。共和黨人佔多數的國會參議院最近幾個星期在推翻並替代奧巴馬醫保法案的努力上多次受挫，川普星期三爲此在白宮會見了一些議員。

針對這個問題，川普說：“如果我們不完成這件事，我們就要眼看着奧巴馬醫保的失敗，我們會責備民主黨人。到那時候，他們就會說，你得幫幫我們。”

川普補充說，按照共和黨人的計劃，美國人民會看到“重大減稅和改革”，按川普的話說，“好比是國家得到的意外收穫”。

在國際事務上，川普批評奧巴馬在烏克蘭、朝鮮和敘利亞問題上不作爲。川普說，俄羅斯入侵克里米亞，奧巴馬“就那麼放過了他們”。

川普說：“他也沒有對朝鮮放狠話。你也知道，朝鮮對我們來說是個大問題，很大很大的問題。”

奧巴馬2013年曾威脅說，如果敘利亞政府發動化學武器襲擊，就要對敘利亞動武，但是奧巴馬政府跟俄羅斯一起，談判達成協議，要求敘利亞將化學武器儲備從敘利亞運走，因此從未將威脅付諸行動。據信敘利亞部隊四月份發動化武襲擊後，川普下令對敘利亞的一個機場發動空襲。