“Right now they’re in love with me. Four weeks ago, they weren’t in love with me,” Times White House reporter Julie Davis quoted Trump as saying about Ryan and McConnell. | AP Photo Trump: Ryan and McConnell 'in love with me'

Donald Trump told New York Times journalists on Tuesday that Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell are “in love” with him, according to reporters live tweeting the president-elect’s visit to the newspaper.

“Right now they’re in love with me. Four weeks ago, they weren’t in love with me,” Times White House reporter Julie Davis quoted Trump as saying about Ryan and McConnell.

Maggie Haberman, the campaign correspondent now covering Trump’s presidential transition, also wrote that Trump told reporters, “Paul Ryan, right now, loves me. Mitch McConnell loves me.”

Ryan and McConnell will be key to passing the Trump's agenda on Capitol Hill, including his proposal for $1 trillion in new infrastructure spending -- an idea that makes many conservative members of Congress uneasy.

Trump also said that he has “liked Chuck Schumer for a long time,” Haberman reported, referencing the Democratic senator from New York and incoming Senate minority leader. Trump is a past donor to Schumer's campaigns.

After initially canceling it and then backtracking, Trump went to the Times’ main New York office on Tuesday to meet off-the-record with the newspaper’s publisher and then take on-the-record questions from its reporters and opinion section staffers. Since winning the election two weeks ago in a stunning upset, he has taken to Twitter to repeatedly complain about the paper and its coverage, as he did throughout his campaign.