Trump says he wouldn't call the FBI about foreign help because 'life doesn't work that way'

Donald Trump.
(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

President Trump has gone 72 years without ever calling the FBI, and he doesn't plan on picking up the phone any time soon.

During an interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos, Trump was asked about his son Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with Russian officials in June 2016 at Trump Tower. Trump Jr. accepted their overture after being promised damaging information on his father's opponent, Hillary Clinton, and Stephanopoulos asked Trump if this should have been shared with the FBI.

"Somebody comes up and says, 'Hey, I have information on your opponent,' do you call the FBI?" Trump said. "I'll tell you what, I've seen a lot of things over my life. I don't think in my whole life I've ever called the FBI. In my whole life. You don't call the FBI. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do. Oh, give me a break — life doesn't work that way."

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Stephanopoulos pointed out that FBI Director Christopher Wray told Congress last month that the "FBI would want to know about" foreign election meddling. "The FBI director is wrong, because frankly it doesn't happen like that in life," Trump replied. "Now maybe it will start happening, maybe today you'd think differently."

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.