President Donald Trump told reporters on Wednesday that China supposedly respects him for his “very, very large brain,” during a news conference where he addressed wide-ranging issues including trade, North Korea and mounting allegations of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanuagh.
Trump also doubled down on his earlier accusations that Beijing was looking to meddle in the U.S. congressional elections later this year, but did not offer any specific details. He said China would like to see Trump lose an election because “they’ve never been challenged like this.”
“We have evidence,” he said. “It’ll come out, yeah, I can’t tell you now, but it came — it didn’t come out of nowhere, that I can tell you. Now they’ve actually admitted that they’re going after farmers, I mean, I think most of you can cover that.”
Trump earlier told a U.N. Security Council meeting on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction that China was trying to interfere in the upcoming mid-term elections, without providing any evidence. China immediately rejected the accusation during the same meeting, according to reports.
When pressed for details during the news conference, Trump called attention to the escalating trade tension between the two countries.
“China now put on $250 billion, and they’re paying 25 percent on that. They’re paying billions and billions — this has never happened to China, and I like China and I like President Xi a lot,” he said in response to a question posed to him by CNBC’s Eamon Javers.