In a Friday Axios interview with Marc Caputo, President Donald Trump revealed why he told world leaders, “I’m the boss,” at this week’s G7 Leaders’ Summit.

On Wednesday, at the 52nd Group of 7 (G7) Summit at Evian-le-Bains in France, Trump was late to a working session with G7 leaders and International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) officials, titled “Promoting balanced, shared and sustainable economic growth.”

After French President Emmanuel Macron acknowledged his tardiness, Trump arrived and declared, “I’m the boss!” to laughter from the crowd.

Calling the summit “tremendous” and “very dominant,” Trump told Axios’ Caputo that he “got what I wanted.”

When questioned about his “I’m the boss!” declaration and “how many [G7 leaders] believe that,” the president said, “All of ’em. But I was just being funny. What happened is they were all sitting, and then I walked into the room, and it was just sort of funny because there was a very long table, but there was only seven of ’em. The table was meant for, like, 30 people.”

He continued:

So, the whole end of the table looked like, almost, the perfect podium-type set-up, right? And I saw them all sitting, and they’re all well-known figures, right? The heads of countries — we had a couple of others in there too, as you know. Some like, as an example, [Prime Minister Narendra] Modi of India — great guy. A lot of people came. They’re allowed to come if they want and sit.

But I walked in there, these leaders, and I just looked at ’em. I said, “I’m the boss and you remember.” And you know that was done as a joke. This thing got carried all over the world. I can’t believe it. I was just being cute, funny. I wasn’t trying to be the boss.

Watch the full clip above via @axios on YouTube.

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!