WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump said Friday he has no plans to call former President Barack Obama or other individuals who were the intended targets of pipe bombs mailed this week.
“Uhh, if they wanted me to,” Trump said when asked if he would call Obama or any of the other targets to update them on the investigation. “But I think we’ll probably pass.”
Trump’s comments came hours after Cesar Sayoc, a Florida resident and apparent Trump supporter, was arrested and charged with sending 13 explosive devices to prominent Trump critics, many of whom have been frequent targets of the President’s rhetoric.
Beyond Obama, the targets included former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s 2016 presidential rival, with a package mailed to the residence she shares with former President Bill Clinton.
The club of living former Presidents is a small one and Obama and Clinton are two of just five of its members. But while many of Trump’s predecessors reached out from time to time to their predecessors, Trump has largely not done so.
There is no indication that Trump and Obama have spoken since Trump assumed the presidency. Trump did, however, speak with former President George W. Bush this summer to inform him he had decided to nominate his former aide, Brett Kavanaugh, as a Supreme Court justice.
Trump focused his remarks on Friday on praising law enforcement for “having done an incredible job” in arresting a suspect.
And he once again rejected any blame for the role his incendiary rhetoric may have played.
“There’s no blame, there’s no anything,” Trump said. “You look at what happened to Steve Scalise. That was a supporter of a different party.”
Trump also insisted that he has toned down his rhetoric, even as he has heaved blame on the news media in the wake of the attempted bombings.
“I think I’ve been toned down if you want to know the truth. I could really tone it up because as you know the media’s been very unfair to me and the Republican Party,” he said.