LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Dave Bossie, the president of Citizens United and former Deputy Campaign Manager for U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s successful presidential campaign last year, told Breitbart News in an exclusive interview here that despite the media narrative, President Trump’s administration is looking up and moving forward.

“There is absolutely,” Bossie told Breitbart News when asked if there is a renewed sense of optimism in the American economy now that Donald Trump is president rather than Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. “Your average American once again believes in America’s future. To go back to Reagan, America’s best days are ahead of us not behind us. What the left is trying to do is trying to make our best days be behind us instead of ahead of us.”

Bossie’s comments came at the Las Vegas at the Salt Conference, an annual gathering of investors and private equity leaders led by former Trump campaign leading finance committee member Anthony Scaramucci—the founder of SkyBridge Capital. The annual bipartisan gathering brings together capitalists and industry leaders from around the United States who are interesting in furthering the interests of the U.S. economy, and serves as a sort of U.S. and capitalist version of the globalist-driven Davos summit in Switzerland. The difference between the two summits is that while Davos has come to resemble the central gathering of the world elites, this summit is much more entrepreneurial and American free market driven in nature.

“I’m excited to be here at Salt, it’s my first time,” Bossie told Breitbart News. “There’a a great vibe in this room about the optimism that they have as entrepreneurs, as business leaders, that are the key to the engine that’s going to get this economy roaring again. We cannot have stagnation, where we’ve been for the last eight years with virtually no economic growth. We need to get back to 2, 3, 4 percent growth.”

Bossie will face off on a panel against former President Barack Obama’s White House press secretary Josh Earnest, former Interim Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman Donna Brazile and GOP establishment consultant Karl Rove on Thursday morning. Bossie clearly has the upper hand since his candidate in the 2016 presidential race defied all odds to win the election, and despite the setbacks in Washington for Trump right now Bossie is optimistic for the future.

“Jobs, jobs, jobs—fixing the economy, building the economy, trying to get the biggest, best tax reform package through the Congress as possible,” Bossie says should be the focus of the Trump administration from here on forward. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, because if we make a good effort at it this year we can make a better effort at it next year. We need to have him fulfill his promises, which he’s continuing to do every day. Promises made, promises kept is going to be the mantra of this four years—whether it’s on immigration or it’s on bringing American dollars that are being kept offshore because they don’t want to come back. He killed TPP in the first week, and NAFTA is going to be renegotiated. And as soon as we get out of this horrendous Paris accord, it’ll allow our economy to grow even more.”

Bossie focused on what President Trump, his team and Congressional Republicans need to do to get refocused on the agenda that voters sent them to Washington to achieve. First, on repealing and replacing Obamacare, Bossie laid out specific instructions for the Senate: He envisions Democrats being forced to cross party lines and work to undo Obamacare’s onerous regulations that hurt the healthcare system and hindered economic opportunity. He expressed confidence in Senate Republicans’ plans to deliver President Trump a bill that repeals and replaces Obamacare, and solves the American healthcare crisis once and for all.

“The Senate needs to take the House bill and find a way that, working with people across the aisle in order to get to enough votes because in this particular instance you have a small coalition of Republicans who are potentially going to be the folks that hold up the bill, and there are several that could hold this up for any number of reasons from a public policy standpoint—but I feel like if you can get this bill to a good place, it will get back to the House and it will get through,” Bossie said. “I think the president will sign it. I’m optimistic. I think Mitch McConnell has a plan. I think the Senate has a plan. I think individual senators will look at this as an opportunity to get better known—from the Democratic side, to gain advantage to be fighting the president for the sake of fighting. It continues with what I term ‘the permanent campaign against President Trump.’”

On healthcare, Bossie added that “we’re halfway there.”

“The House has passed it,” he said. “I’m exciting about the possibility of the Senate strengthening it, the president signing it and moving on to tax reform.”

Most importantly, when it comes to the economy, Bossie said he is pleased with preliminary results and hopes the trend towards economic prosperity continues. He pointed to the 4.4 percent unemployment rate as a good first indicator as it is the lowest such percentage in over a decade, since George W. Bush was president.

“I think it’s a good beginning,” Bossie said. “I don’t know if that number is yet to take into effect those who have stopped looking. That 4.4 sounds great, but is the number really higher because of those who stopped looking during the Obama administration? So, I think that is a—if we can continue these policy changes, continue this regulatory reform effort, continue to completely destroy the permanent structure that is the bureaucracy that fights Donald Trump every minute of every day—he can’t fight back except for to cut budgets and try to eliminate people over time.”

Bossie said, too, that the President and Attorney General Jeff Sessions as well as Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly are delivering when it comes to following through on President Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration.

“Words matter and the president has made sure that people know his policies, that a strong border is a moral imperative for this country and that he’s going to stop at nothing to make sure that’s what it is,” Bossie said. “We’re seeing illegal immigration down 60, 65, 70 percent at the border across the board, and that’s strictly from unleashing the men and women of the border patrol to enforce the laws that are already on the books.”

But Bossie cautioned the Democrats, who are engaged in transparent efforts—through their “resist” campaign—to obstruct the will of the boters.

“They [the Democrats] don’t have anything to offer,” Bossie said. “They don’t have a legislative agenda. They don’t have a hope, growth and opportunity plan for America. They only have ‘we hate Donald Trump and we’re going to run a resistance campaign against him.’ That’s all there is. I’m personally not surprised. Their anger, since election night, has been totally consuming of them. They are moving rapidly left. Instead of trying to work with us, they’re trying to generate excitement in their base. They’re trying to get candidates, recruit candidates, to win because they’ve lost so many races in the last several years whether it’s U.S. Senate or state Senate or state House.”

As for the media throwing in with the politically leftist “resistance” movement—which they are doing—Bossie said they specifically feel threatened by Trump as he undercuts their bottom line.

“He [Trump] told them [the media] during the campaign that he didn’t need them,” Bossie said. “The president bypasses the entire media and speaks directly to the American people—and did during the campaign and that’s why he won. So there is an inherent resentment to him. There is an inherent resentment to his policies, which they are absolutely opposed to—so they are instead of being an independent Fourth Estate that is the media they have completely become a wholly owned operation of the Democratic Party.”