Jones: He was very nice. He called me after the election. His daughter called me after the election. After we voted to reopen the government, he called me and Senator Manchin to come over and we had a wonderful chat. I was probably in the Oval Office for about 45 minutes, just talking. It wasn’t a negotiation or anything like that. It was just a talk. “This is where I think we need to go, this is what I think I need to do.”

I talked about some of the water bills in Alabama, the water infrastructure, where we’ve got unsanitary conditions that are causing hookworm problems in Alabama. They didn’t know that. (Trump Chief of Staff) John Kelly was very interested in that. I don’t know, we’ll see how that goes. I think it remains to be seen.

Look, to be honest with you, the president is really kind of unpredictable with his relationships, and I’m going to do what I feel like is in the best interests of Alabamians. I’ve said all along, if the president has proposals that I feel like help this state, I’m going to be right there with him. That’s not political, that is what’s best for the state. On the other hand, some of his budget proposals are not going to be good for the state. He wants to roll back Medicaid and Medicare… I’ve got some problems with that. I’ve got some problems with the education stuff.

But there are some other things that I think can be positive. I like what he’s doing with military spending. It’s good for Alabama, whether it’s NASA, the Army Missile Command and Army Materiel command up in Huntsville, and also shipbuilding in Mobile. There are some good things that he’s put in that budget, but there are some others that just made me cringe.

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