"The president said this in front of eight or nine members and staffers at [Trump] Bedminster"

ALAN SHIPNUCK: Yeah, I had a conversation with Ms. Hicks as well, which was quite enlightening — the confrontational and rude tone of the phone call. They definitely don’t waste any time trying to be charming or friendly, these people in the White House communications department. She tried the same line on me, “That’s a lie and needs to be retracted.” I explained to her: It’s not a lie. The president said this in front of eight or nine members and staffers at [Trump] Bedminster. It was his first visit to the club after he had been residing in the White House. It was a moment of candor. Someone who was a part of that conversation relayed it to me. I found this person to be an extremely credible source on any number of topics…

BAMBERGER: I was just going to say very quickly that it’s a very illustrative story because it deals with a lot of things that relate to Trump. Trump has a sense of humor; he’s got a sort of wise-guy, New York sense of humor. He doesn’t really think the White House is a dump. The White house is not a dump. He’s comparing it to the gilded greatness of Bedminster, which is his idea of beauty. He’s sort of trying to be funny, but whether he’s trying to be funny or not, he’s the President of the United States and people have such passionate feelings about the White House and the presidency. It’s almost like he doesn’t realize that everything he says now gets seen through a completely different prism. That’s why two words like that, which would normally just be “Trump being Trump” now takes on a completely different meaning and results with the conversations that you and I had with Ms. Hicks.