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- Bill Barr said Trump was not “my idea of a president” because of his “pettiness” and “obnoxious behavior.”
- Trump’s former attorney general said that he would “absolutely” work to defeat him in the 2024 GOP primary.
- The two have been publicly trading barbs in recent weeks amid an escalating feud.
Former Attorney General Bill Barr said that Donald Trump was not “my idea of a president” and criticized his temperament amid a deepening feud.
“I supported his policies. I was very conscious of his personal failings, especially his pettiness and his temper when he’s not getting his way, his disposition to…want to hear what he wants to hear,” Barr told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Friday.
Barr commented while discussing an anecdote from his upcoming memoir about Trump throwing a “tantrum” over the nationwide protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020.
In the book, the former attorney general writes that Trump flew into a rage and called his aides “fucking losers” as he blamed them for the violence around the country.
Barr said that while he had concerns about Trump in the lead-up to the 2020 election, he believed that strong cabinet secretaries could keep him in check.
However, Barr said that after the election, Trump went “off the rails” and would only listen to a “coterie of people” who supported his belief that the election was stolen.
The former attorney general has previously described the stolen election claim as “bullshit.”
Speaking with Jake Tapper on Friday, Barr disagreed with the suggestion that Trump’s temperament made him unfit to be president, but agreed that he had concerns about his behavior throughout his presidency.
“Well, he’s not my idea of a president,” Barr said. “I felt that he was going to lose the election because he was not controlling himself, he was allowing his pettiness to come through. And I feel it’s one of his great failings.”
Barr said that while many agree with Trump’s policies and admire “his strength and his directness”, they do so “despite this kind of obnoxious behavior.”
The former attorney general also said that he “absolutely” would help a candidate defeat Trump in the 2024 GOP primary, but would not name who specifically he would support.
He said that he believed that Republicans could win a decisive majority in the election, but not with Trump, who is “too divisive a candidate.”
However, Barr recently told NBC that he would still vote for Trump if he was the Republican nominee.
Barr’s latest comments come amid an escalating feud between him and the former president.
Trump has blasted Barr in recent weeks while addressing the upcoming memoir, calling him “slow” and a “big disappointment” while insulting his job performance as AG.
Barr responded by saying that the former president’s words were “childish.”
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