美国总统川普告诉纽约时报说，如果司法部长塞申斯被提名前告诉自己，在涉及俄罗斯去年干预美国大选的调查中会主动规避的话，自己的司法部长人选就会是别人了。
星期三晚上公布的采访记录显示，川普说：“塞申斯根本不应该主动规避，如果他打算规避，接受提名前就该告诉我。”
川普补充说，他觉得塞申斯的做法“对总统很不公平”。
塞申斯主动规避后，司法部副部长罗森斯坦任命前联邦调查局局长穆勒担任特别检察官，负责调查此事，调查也涉及川普竞选团队是否曾跟俄罗斯勾结。与此同时，国会参众两院委员会也在分别进行自己的独立调查。
川普告诉纽约时报说：“我没有做错事。这个案子根本不该指派特别检察官。”
川普的长子小川普、女婿兼白宫特别顾问库什纳，以及川普当时的竞选顾问马纳福特去年与一位俄罗斯律师会面，这个律师自称掌握了有损川普的竞选对手，民主党总统候选人希拉里·克林顿的信息。
川普在接受纽约时报采访时淡化了这次会面，称其为“一般的政治行为”，并重申自己的立场称，他相信大多数政界人物都会去参加这样的会面。
小川普说，那个俄罗斯律师没有任何关于希拉里有价值的信息，会面很快就结束了。
在接受纽约时报采访时，川普说：“那次会面肯定特别不重要，因为我从来没听他们说起过。”
2016年6月双方会面几小时后，川普曾表示，他很快将针对希拉里·克林顿发表重要讲话。在星期三的采访中，川普称这二者间没有任何联系，说自己“发表过很多那样的讲话”。
虽然星期三的采访主要针对的是俄罗斯和川普竞选团队的问题，但是川普也谈到了他任期内遇到的一些问题，并宣称，美国“现在很好”。
川普竞选期间曾保证要重整美国的医保系统。共和党人占多数的国会参议院最近几个星期在推翻并替代奥巴马医保法案的努力上多次受挫，川普星期三为此在白宫会见了一些议员。
针对这个问题，川普说：“如果我们不完成这件事，我们就要眼看着奥巴马医保的失败，我们会责备民主党人。到那时候，他们就会说，你得帮帮我们。”
川普补充说，按照共和党人的计划，美国人民会看到“重大减税和改革”，按川普的话说，“好比是国家得到的意外收获”。
在国际事务上，川普批评奥巴马在乌克兰、朝鲜和叙利亚问题上不作为。川普说，俄罗斯入侵克里米亚，奥巴马“就那么放过了他们”。
川普说：“他也没有对朝鲜放狠话。你也知道，朝鲜对我们来说是个大问题，很大很大的问题。”
奥巴马2013年曾威胁说，如果叙利亚政府发动化学武器袭击，就要对叙利亚动武，但是奥巴马政府跟俄罗斯一起，谈判达成协议，要求叙利亚将化学武器储备从叙利亚运走，因此从未将威胁付诸行动。据信叙利亚部队四月份发动化武袭击后，川普下令对叙利亚的一个机场发动空袭。
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.
