TRUMP: What I did is I was going to fire Comey. My decision. It was not...
HOLT: You had made the decision before they came into your office (ph).
TRUMP: I -- I was going to fire Comey. I -- there's no good time to do it, by the way.
They...
HOLT: Because in your letter, you said...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: They -- they were...
HOLT: ...I -- I accepted -- accepted their recommendations.
TRUMP: Yeah, well, they also...
HOLT: So, you had already made the decision.
TRUMP: Oh, I was going to fire regardless of recommendation.
HOLT: So, there was...
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: They -- he made a recommendation. He's highly respected. Very good guy, very smart guy.
And the Democrats like him. The Republicans like him.
He had made a recommendation. But regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey knowing there was no good time to do it
And in fact, when I decided to just do it, I said to myself -- I said, you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story. It's an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should've won.