President Donald Trump said that recent revelations are pointing to a victory by him in his fight to “expose the swamp” and defeat the “deep state.”

“If it keeps going the way it’s going, I have a chance to break the deep state. It’s a vicious group of people. It’s very bad for our country,” Trump said in a May 24 interview on Sinclair Broadcast’s Full Measure With Sharyl Attkisson.

While savaging “deep state” actors such as James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, Trump praised former acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell and new DNI John Ratcliffe.

“Richard Grenell is a super star. He had guts, he had courage to do what he did,” Trump said, referencing Grenell’s recent declassification of a list of Obama officials who received information in response to “unmasking” requests that disclosed Michael Flynn’s identity in surveillance intercepts of foreigners.

“We have another superstar going in as you know, John Ratcliffe,” Trump said. “He just got approved yesterday and he’ll be taking over as of Tuesday. Richard Grenell has done one of the best jobs I’ve ever seen. I mean, in a short period of time, he exposed them as being corrupt. Look, they were trying to do a takedown of the president of the United States illegally. It’s all illegal. Now, I don’t know what happens. We hope Bill Barr is going to be as good as we think because Bill, he’s a great gentleman, a great man. He’s got to hopefully use that information and do what’s right. And he’ll do what’s right. Bill Barr will do what’s right, but what Richard Grenell has done for this country is incredible.”

Attkisson asked Trump: “But why did it take Richard Grenell? You had other people who work, serve this administration.”

Trump responded: “I did. Because they didn’t do their job. ... Dan Coats should have never let that happen. Dan Coats sat there for two years, didn’t do his job. He then had a replacement. There was a nice gentleman from the military, but he was only there for a short period of time. But I’m so disappointed that Dan Coats didn’t do his job.

“Jeff Sessions was a disaster as attorney general. Should have never been attorney general. ... He’s not mentally qualified to be attorney general. He was the biggest problem. I mean, look Jeff Sessions put people in place that were a disaster. They took over. They’ve always had the Department of Justice, but they kept it under Jeff Sessions. And the whole thing, the Russian thing is a total hoax. Think of it. They spent 40, 45 million dollars investigating. We took two and a half years. They found nothing. No collusion.

“Friend of mine called – very smart, great businessman. He said, you must be the most honest person in the world. You went through years and years. They interviewed people that I haven’t seen in many years, millions of phone calls, not one to Russia. ...

I came to Washington. I was only here 17 times in my whole life. I came, the 18th time... as President of the United States, but I didn’t know people in Washington ...

“When you look at what Richard Grenell has done in eight weeks, these people didn’t do anything for two and a half years. ...

“I think if it keeps going the way I’m going, ... I have a chance to break the deep state. It’s a vicious group of people. It’s very bad for our country. And that’s never happened before. You happen to be a victim of the deep state. I hate to tell you, whether you know it or not, but they’ve treated you horribly over the years. And so have they treated many other people. They never thought I was going to win, and then I won. And then they tried to get me out. That was the insurance policy. She’s going to win, but just in case she doesn’t win we have an insurance policy. And now I beat them on the insurance policy, and now they’re being exposed.

“Comey is a dirty cop, McCabe, bad guy. These are all bad guys. Lisa Page and Strzok. ... I don’t need any more information. I know, and I purposely stayed out of it. Other than I appoint people. I purposely stayed out of it. ...

“Other things are going to come out too. And a lot of other things are going to come out, but you don’t even need other things. What they’ve done is so corrupt, they’ve tried to take down a duly elected president of the United States, happens to be in this case, me, but we can never allow it to happen again.”