Former Mexican President Vicente Fox says he’s willing to have lunch with Donald Trump, but only if Trump says he’s sorry.
“Now he invited me for lunch. He sends me a message saying, ‘Come and I invite you for lunch in New York,'” Fox said on CNN’s “New Day” Friday. “I will come if at first you apologize to Mexico, to Mexicans, to Mexican people. And number two, you apologize to U.S. workers, because you’re not telling them the truth.”
CNN’s Chris Cuomo then asked Fox if he actually did want to have lunch with Trump.
“No, well I could have it at San Cristóbal in my place,” Fox replied. “Yes. Because he controls media here. You know Fox News is 24 hours giving him the push. In Mexico, we used to say that Televisa, the number one station, makes presidents. In this case, Fox News is trying to make a president. That’s not the way to go.”
Fox also reiterated his strong feelings against Trump’s proposal to build a wall on the Mexico-United States border, and Trump’s calls for the Mexican government to pay.
“I’m not going to pay for that f—king wall,” Fox said in February, though he has since walked back the strongly-worded comments. Cuomo asked what Fox’s walk-back meant.
“It was the reaction to being offended. Being offended should take you to forgiveness. And asking for forgiveness. But in that case, I went to say my truth,” Fox explained.
Fox also hit Trump for what he called “creating a phantom” following his comments that the crash of EgyptAir Flight 804 was an act of terrorism. The cause of the crash has yet to be determined.
“You don’t go to war with everybody. You don’t go and hate everybody. You don’t see everybody as an enemy. We’re not enemies of this nation. The whole world is working together to build our common home for all of us. This is what compassion and leaders work about,” Fox said.
“So what he is, is creating a phantom, and now he says ‘I’m going to protect you from that phantom,'” Fox said. “There is problems in the world. There is violence in some parts of the world. And this guy seems to be looking for enemies under the stone everywhere looking for and building this phantom and telling U.S. citizens, ‘watch out, I need to build walls. I need to protect you.’ Who he is to protect this great nation?”
