In an interview with 'Fox & Friends' the morning of President Donald Trump’s much-anticipated address to a joint sitting of Congress, the US leader blamed his predecessor for the high number of leaks against his administration.
“I think that President Obama’s behind it because his people are certainly behind it,” Trump said.
“And some of the leaks possibly come from that group, you know, some of the leaks – which are very serious leaks, because they’re very bad in terms of national security.
“Don’t forget, we have people from other campaigns, we have people from other governments – we have a lot of people.”
Trump has previously said that leaks about intelligence investigations and phone calls with foreign leaders undermined his ability to deal with other countries and communicate in confidence.
Trump said that in his speech to Congress – to be held early afternoon on Wednesday Australian time – he would urge Congress to commit to an increase in military spending and the repeal, and replace Obamacare.
“All I can do is speak from the heart and say what I wanna do,” he said.
Mr Trump plans to boost military spending by over $50 billion and cut spending on environmental regulation and foreign aid.
“We’re going to spend a lot more money on military – we really have to, we have no choice – and a lot of people think it’s a tremendous amount of money,” he said.
“We’re going to get involved in negotiating, we’re going to get - I think - a lot more product for our buck.”
He said the US would see extra money flowing in from payments from other countries in return for protection.
“We have countries where we’re taking care of their military and we’re not being reimbursed,” he said.
Trump said the government would also see more money as a result of the economic growth his administration would generate.
“I think the money’s going to come from a revved up economy,” he said.
The president said he wanted to boost GDP growth from its current level of 1 per cent to 3 per cent or more – growth currently sits between 1.6 per cent and 1.9 per cent.
He claimed that gains for investors in the stock market since his election would translate into more jobs.
“Trillions of dollars of value have been created since I was elected,” he said.
The president also forecast that the repeal of environmental regulations would generate economic activity.
“We have right now hundreds and hundreds of massive deals that are tied up with environmental regulations.”
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President Trump said that healthcare reform would also be a focus of his speech, blasting Obamacare and advocating an as yet unconfirmed replacement which would be “inclusive” and “terrific”.
Republicans in Congress have struggled to settle on a replacement for the divisive healthcare law, with increasing pressure from constituents to keep popular elements of the historic reform.
On immigration measures which have expanded the scope of deportable offences, the president said he was only following through on campaign promises to remove “bad people”.
“When they show people that are being taken out, these are the bad ones,” he said.
“We’re getting the bad ones out – the bad people.”
Trump also took aim at the media in the appearance, brushing off suggestions that he was avoiding the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner because he couldn’t take criticism.
“I have great respect for the press, I have great respect for reporters,” he said, while also accusing outlets of fabricating sources and stories.
“I believe a lot of stories are full of fiction, they just pull it out of [the] air,” he said.
Mr Trump also denied he was racist, a suggestion made in a joke by Jimmy Kimmel, host of the Oscars.
“I just seems the other side, whenever they are losing badly, they just pull out the race card.”
