Perhaps the closest friend to President Donald Trump said that he has been "stunned" by the rhetoric from the president, telling The Washington Post that "he's better than this."
Billionaire Tom Barrack has been friends with Trump for three decades and was the president's top fundraiser for the 2016 election, but even he has been "shocked" by the rhetoric coming out of the White House, he told the Post.
And Barrack tells Trump that, which is the kind of pushback Barrack thinks Trump needs more of from his advisers.
"He thinks he has to be loyal to his base," Barrack told the Post. "I keep on saying, 'But who is your base? You don't have a natural base. Your base now is the world and America, so you have all these constituencies; show them who you really are.' In my opinion, he's better than this.
"I tell him all the time: I don't like the rhetoric," Barrack told the Post.
Barrack is the one who suggested that Trump hire Paul Manafort to run his campaign, he told the Post. Despite the turmoil that decision wrought, Trump never criticized Barrack for it, he told the Post.
"It is not always fun, and no, he doesn't come back and say, 'By the way, your idea was right or brilliant,'" Barrack told the Post.
But Trump is not the autocrat that people try to make him out to be.
"He is very good at being told he is wrong," Barrack told the Post. "People don't have the courage to do it. He pushes back hard, but the people he respects the most are the people who have the most refined and not wimpy point of view."
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