Key moments from Trump's first press conference since firing Comey

President Donald Trump on Thursday faced the Washington press for the first time publicly since abruptly firing FBI Director James Comey last week.

Here are the highlights from the president’s joint news conference Thursday alongside Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos:


“I respect the move” of the appointment of a special counsel to investigate Russia's involvement in the 2016 election, the president said. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced Wednesday that former FBI Director Robert Mueller would lead the probe into potential collusion between Trump associates and Russian officials.

“But the entire thing has been a witch hunt,” Trump claimed, echoing an earlier tweet. “There is no collusion between certainly myself and my campaign, but I can always speak for myself and the Russians, zero,” he added. “I think it divides the country. I think we have a very divided country because of that and many other things.”

“No. No. Next question,” Trump said, quickly dismissing a reporter’s inquiry about whether he had urged Comey to shut down an investigation into ex-national security adviser Michael Flynn, as The New York Times reported this week.

Trump summarized the Russia probe in two words: “totally ridiculous.” “Everybody thinks so,” he added in his characteristic hyperbole.

“There is no collusion,” Trump reiterated, this time pointing to Democrats and Obama-era officials to back up his assertion. “Everybody — even my enemies have said there is no collusion,” he said.

Comey’s “very poor performance” during a congressional hearing led to Rosenstein’s memo, the president surmised. “He had the very poor performance on [a] Wednesday. That was a poor, poor performance,” Trump said. “So poor, in fact, that I believe — and you’d have to ask him because I don’t like to speak for other people — but I believe that’s why the deputy attorney general went out and wrote his very, very strong letter.”

Trump alleged that Comey was “very unpopular with most people.” He said he thought his decision to fire the FBI chief would draw “bipartisan” praise because Democrats and Republicans “were saying such terrible things about Director Comey.”

Trump suggested that his border wall is still going up. Trump in his opening statement affirmed the United States' willingness to aid Colombia in targeting and eliminating drug trafficking networks, illicit financing and cocaine production. “The drug epidemic is poisoning too many American lives, and we’re going to stop it,” Trump pledged. “Many different ways — one of them will be the wall.”