Story highlights Trump said his dismissal of Comey would be validated after "things calm down"

Senior White House officials appeared to have badly misjudged the impact of Trump's sudden move

Washington (CNN) President Donald Trump said Wednesday he fired FBI Director James Comey "because he wasn't doing a good job," his first in-person comments on the matter since his decision shook Washington Tuesday night.

The President made the remark while speaking to pool reporters in the Oval Office. He was meeting with former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger after having met earlier in the day with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak.

Asked if Comey's firing affected the meeting with the Russians, Trump replied, "not at all."

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Kislyak has been a central figure in the controversy over Trump's campaign ties to Russia, as then-national security adviser Michael Flynn was fired after it emerged that he had misrepresented conversations with Kislyak to others in the White House.

Trump also spoke about Syria during his Oval Office comments: "We're talking about Syria and I think we're going to do very well with respect to Syria. I think things are happening that are really, really, really positive. We're going to stop the killing and the death."