“Look,” he said last Wednesday, “politicians are all talk, they’re no action. They don’t do the job, they don’t know what they’re doing. I know them better than anybody, Howie. I deal with all of them. And, you know, I make contributions to many of them. They’re friends, they’re this. It’s smart. It’s called being an intelligent person and a great business person.

“But the truth is that, you have to be able to get along with—if you’re gonna be a business person, even in the United States, you wanna get along with all sides because you’re gonna need things from everybody. And you wanna get along with all sides, it’s very important.”

Trump said that a lack of Republicans in New York also explains his contributions to Democrats over the years.

“I am a businessman,” Trump said. “And when, you know, a Speaker of the House or head of the Senate or, you know, people call, you know, I generally speak. As a businessman, you wanna be friendly with everybody.”