Donald Trump invited wealthy members of one of his golf clubs to help interview candidates for posts in his administration, leaked audio recordings have revealed.
The Republican was taped telling guests to “come round” and help interview potential “generals and dictators”, claiming it would be “fun”.
Audio recordings from a party hosted by Trump at his Bedminster golf club in New Jersey in November – just two weeks after his election win – reveal comments he made to members.
“We’re doing a lot of interviews tomorrow — generals, dictators, we have everything”, Trump can be heard saying in the recording, which was leaked to Politico.
“You may wanna come around. It’ll be fun. We’re really working tomorrow. We have meetings every 15, 20 minutes with different people that will form our government.
“We’re going to be interviewing everybody — Treasury, we’re going to be interviewing Secretary of State. We have everybody coming in — if you want to come around, it’s going to be unbelievable… so you might want to come along.”
Trump can also be heard declaring the members of his golf club to be his true friends, referring to them “the special people”.
“So, this is my real group,” he said. “These are the people that came here in the beginning, when nobody knew what this monster was gonna turn out to be, right?”
“I see all of you. I recognise, like 100 per cent of you, just about. You are the special people.”
In the tape from the party, held on November 18, the Republican can be heard asking one golf club member for advice on who he should appoint to lead the Federal Communications Commission 9FCC).
“We were just talking about who we [are] going to pick for the FCC, who [are] we going to pick for this, who we gonna accept — boy, can you give me some recommendations?” he said.
The US President is said by friends to be most comfortable when passing time at the clubs he owns. He is currently spending the third consecutive weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida.
Concerns have repeatedly been raised about the access guests at Trump’s clubs are given to the President.