Donald Trump said he spoke by phone Wednesday with President Obama, whose remarks the president-elect complained about on Twitter earlier in the day.
“I did,” Trump told reporters at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “He called me. We had a very nice conversation.”
Added Trump: “We had a general conversation. Very, very nice.”
The president-elect elaborated on the conversation in a follow-up press conference Wednesday evening, standing next to former boxing promoter Don King.
“I actually thought we covered a lot of territory,” Trump said. “Our staffs have been getting along very well and I’m getting along very well with him other than a couple of statements that I responded to and we talked about it and smiled about it and nobody is ever going to know because we are never going to be going against each other.”
Trump’s tone towards Obama was different just hours earlier. On Wednesday morning, Trump tweeted: “Doing my best to disregard the many inflammatory President O statements and roadblocks.”
He also tweeted: “Thought it was going to be a smooth transition – NOT!”
Trump didn’t detail his specific frustrations with Obama, but he has objected to the administration’s actions toward Israel at the United Nations in recent days.
Speaking at Pearl Harbor on Tuesday, Obama called on people to “resist the urge to demonize those who are different.” Those remarks were viewed by some as a criticism of Trump.
Obama also recently said he believes he could have won the 2016 presidential race, had he been on the ballot.
“I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could’ve mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it,” Obama said.
