Trump says he's adjusting to the 'surreal' experience of being president As he prepares to deliver his first address before Congress, the president attacks his perceived enemies while conceding he should only get a C-grade for his messaging.

President Donald Trump, on the eve of his first address before Congress, presented himself as a man still adjusting to the Oval Office — coping with the “surreal” experience of being commander in chief while still nursing grudges and complaining that he’s not getting enough credit for his early moves.

In a wide-ranging interview on "Fox & Friends," Trump gave a frank assessment of one aspect of his performance, saying he would give himself only average marks for his messaging performance while saying that his overall effort during the first 40 days of his presidency was top-notch.


“I think in terms of effort, which means something, but I give myself an A-plus, okay? Effort. But that's, you know, results are more important. In terms of messaging, I would give myself a C or a C-plus,” Trump said in an interview that was taped Monday afternoon inside the White House and aired Tuesday morning.

The president claimed that his administration has already delivered on some of his campaign promises, including saving money on military contracts and luring companies into creating jobs in the U.S., despite a seemingly constant stream of negative press. He told his panel of interviewers that “I've done just about more than anybody in the first four weeks.”

But in a rare moment of self-criticism, Trump said “my messaging isn’t good,” using press reports regarding vacant executive-branch jobs as an example. Trump said those stories often portray him as being behind in appointing people for such jobs when, in reality, he has no intention of filling them at all because he sees them as unnecessary.

The president also acknowledged that protests against him have continued, spurred by his controversial executive orders on immigration and promises to undo the Affordable Care Act. He blamed the protests at least in part on leftover hurt feelings from last year’s presidential election, but he said he intends to bring the country together. “The way you do that is through success,” he said, promising to boost jobs and replace his predecessor’s controversial health care law.

Trump will address a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night, an opportunity, he said, to turn around his administration’s messaging struggles.

“In terms of achievement, I think I'd give myself an A. Because I think I've done great things,” Trump said. “I and my people, I don't think we've explained it well enough to the American public. I think I get an A in terms of what I've actually done, but in terms of messaging, I'd give myself a C or a C-plus.”

Trump, a political novice, also engaged in some self-reflection regarding his early days, speaking about his adjustment to the trappings of the West Wing.

“Well, it started off being a surreal experience. You know, you wake up and you're in the White House or you're walking through the front door and it's the White House and all of that. But you do get over that,” Trump said. “I think the one thing that hits me even more than anything else is the magnitude of everything. The numbers are so big. You buy an airplane, but here you're buying 3,500 airplanes.”

But Trump still flashed his harder edges in the interview, delivering a rebuke to his beleaguered press secretary, Sean Spicer, for demanding a surprise inspection of staff members’ personal and government-issued cellphones to search for leaks. The president also accused former President Barack Obama of being behind the protests that have plagued his fellow Republicans at constituent meetings in their home districts.

“I think [Obama] is behind it. I also think it's politics. That's the way it is,” Trump said about the town halls, in which GOP lawmakers have faced angry voters worried about losing health care coverage under Obamacare.

The president further accused supporters of Obama of being behind media leaks — leaks that Trump has vowed to crack down on.

“Some of the leaks possibly come from that [Obama supporters] group, you know, some of the leaks, which are really very serious leaks, because they're very bad ... in terms of national security,” he said.

In the interview, Trump also responded to the Academy Awards, where he served as the butt of numerous jokes delivered to the left-leaning Hollywood audience. Host Jimmy Kimmel jabbed at Trump repeatedly over the course of the telecast Sunday night, joking in his opening monologue that the president was racist and made last year’s Oscars, which were heavily criticized for nominating only white actors and actresses for major awards, look better by comparison.

Trump said he considered such jokes “a very serious violation” but that he cannot take them personally. Charges of racism, he said, have long been an attack of last resort for liberals.

“It just seems the other side, whenever they are losing badly, they always pull out the race card. And I've watched it for years. I've watched it against Ronald Reagan. I've watched it against so many other people. And they always like pulling out the race card,” Trump said. “The fact is, I did pretty well, much better than past people in the Republican Party in the recent election, having to do with Hispanics, having to do with African-Americans. I did pretty well or I wouldn't be sitting here.”

Trump called House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California “incompetent” and blamed her for the ills of her party, which finds itself in the minority in both houses of Congress and without control of the White House. The president lamented the decline of the Democratic Party and said Pelosi has “done a terrible job.”

“You know, if you look at what's going on with the Democrats and the party, it's getting smaller and smaller,” he said. “You know, in a certain way, I hate to see it, because I like a two-party system, and we're soon going to have a one-party system. I actually think a two-party system is healthy and good.”

Asked about his decision not to attend this year’s White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, Trump said he would skip the event over his long-running feud with the media and “I am not a hypocrite.” He recalled the 2011 dinner, where he was pilloried by both Obama and host Seth Meyers over rumors that he might jump into the 2012 presidential race, and said he had “loved the evening” and that it was a misconception that he had left the night angry over the jokes at his expense.

Trump also left the door open to attending the dinner in the future.

“I just thought, in light of the fact of fake news and all of the other things we're talking about now — I thought it would be inappropriate,” he said. “I have great respect for the press. I have great respect for reporters and the whole profession. Now, with all of that being said, I just thought it would be better if I didn't do the dinner. That doesn't mean I'm not going to do it next year.”