President Trump defended his rhetoric and his status as a “moral leader” after a reporter asked him about the rise in anti-Semitic attacks during his presidency.

“I think I am a great moral leader and I love our country,” Trump said Wednesday at a White House news conference.

Trump had told a reporter this week that he sometimes regrets not using a “softer tone.” But at the news conference, he said he does not do so because he has to defend himself.

“I’d be very good at a low tone, but when things are done not correctly about you, written about you, said about you on television, on wherever it is, you have to defend yourself,” he said.

“I would love to have a very even, modest, boring tone. I would be very honored by that. But you know what? When you have to fight, all the time fight, because you’re being misrepresented by the media, you really can’t do that.”

Later, Trump said the news conference was an example of what he meant.

“The election’s over. Now everybody is in love,” he said. “But then I see the hostility of questions in the room. I come in here as a nice person wanting to answer questions and I have people jumping out of their seats screaming questions at me.”