Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) continued to tout his relationship and negotiations skills with President Donald Trump in a new interview published Wednesday.
"I'm direct with him. There's no BS, and I think, in Washington, where there's so much, he does like the directness," Schumer told Politico's Ben White, describing his relationship with Trump.
Schumer said the relationship "is not founded on what I would call friendship, but transaction," noting that Trump "does like talking about mutual people we both know in New York." The New York Democrat cited multiple examples when the two men were able to have frank discussions that led to at least some agreement.
"I think he likes to talk to me because I'm a New Yorker," Schumer said. "We're both direct. We're both blunt. I tell him what I think."
The senator's comments came one month after he was caught on a hot mic saying, "He [Trump] likes us. He likes me anyway."
But Schumer says he has also criticized the president "right to his face."
When White asked Schumer about his relationship with Trump, the senator brought up a meeting last month at the White House that both he and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D., Calif.) attended.
"I said, Mr. President, you have lost the trust of our caucuses, Nancy and mine, our constituencies, and the whole country, because of the kind of things you've done in Charlottesville, the Muslim ban, in health care, the Republicans pulling out of the Paris accords," Schumer recounted. "You've got to build that back up if you want us to work together."
Schumer said he suggested that the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program—which the Obama administration established to provide certain legal protections to young illegal immigrants but the Trump administration rescinded this year—would be the best place to start.
Trump "didn't react negatively," according to Schumer, who, after the meeting, announced with Pelosi that they struck a deal with the White House to make DACA law in exchange for tighter border security—but with no wall. Trump disputed that such a deal was reached and reaffirmed his commitment to a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.
"We thought we had a deal and no wall. We'd do border security," Schumer said. "The right wing starts killing him. Laura Ingraham says impeach him. And I think Breitbart called him Amnesty Trump. So he backs right off. Same thing just happened on health care."
Schumer also described another interaction with Trump when both men agreed that Janet Yellen has done a good job as Federal Reserve chair.
"He actually, in one of our meetings, asked me what I thought of Yellen. So I didn't lobby him. I was responding," Schumer told Politico. "And I said: 'I think she's been a very good chair. I think she's kept inflation low and at the same time focused on job creation, which is, I think, where the Fed should be focusing.' And he said: 'Good. I like her, too.'"
Listen to Schumer's comments on his relationship with Trump below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=142&v=uYZ6BHe4MgA