Trump: ‘I don’t trust everybody in the White House’

President Trump during an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday said he doesn’t “trust everybody” in the White House. 

His comment came in response to one made by first lady Melania Trump during an interview last week, in which she said there are people who work in the West Wing she can’t trust.

{mosads}”I feel the same way,” Trump told CBS’s Lesley Stahl on Sunday. “I don’t trust everybody in the White House. I’ll be honest with you.” 

Trump went on to say he was “guarded.”

“I’m not a baby. It’s a tough business. This is a r— this is a vicious place. Washington, D.C., is a vicious, vicious place. The attacks, the — the bad mouthing, the speaking behind your back. But, you know, and in my way, I feel very comfortable here.”

The president went on in the interview to call reports of chaos in the White House “fake news,” insisting he has “people on standby” to join the administration.

“I have people now on standby that will be phenomenal that will come into the administration,” Trump said. “They’ll be phenomenal.”

Stahl mentioned that Trump’s administration has seen record levels of turnover. 

“More people are gonna go?” she asked.

“At some point, everybody leaves,” Trump replied. “People leave. That’s Washington.” 

Trump declined to say whether Defense Secretary James Mattis is going to exit, but said he’s “sort of a Democrat.”

Multiple news outlets have reported that Trump has been weighing potential replacements for Mattis in recent weeks.

Veteran journalist Bob Woodward in his new book “Fear: Trump in the White House,” which was released in July, reported on a chaotic White House in which staffers sometimes seek to stave off Trump’s impulses and regularly bad-mouth the president behind closed doors. 

Woodward spoke to many White House staffers on background who said the Trump administration is in tumult due to the president’s recklessness.

Trump and multiple administration officials have denied the accounts in the book, though Woodward has insisted he can substantiate them with documents and hours of recorded interviews.