Howard Stern told CNN he truly believes Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign was a publicity stunt, citing his knowledge and past interviews with Trump.

“When you see him now in the White House as president, what do you see,” CNN’s Anderson Cooper asked.

“Well, first of all, it’s unbelievable to me. And I’ve documented my thoughts about how this whole candidacy even came about. This was a publicity stunt,” Stern said.

“You have no doubt about that,” Cooper asked.

“I have no doubt because I have some inside information. And the thing is that it started out with the Art of the Deal, the book, and it was, you know, a PR guy’s idea, said, ‘Donald, what you need to do is we will make sort of a rumor that you’re running for president,’ and Donald is like, ‘Oh.’ So all of a sudden he was being interviewed, the book goes right to number one,” Stern said.

“Then this time around in the last election ‘The Apprentice’ ratings were not what they were, NBC was not going to give him a raise and what’s a better way to get NBC’s interest, I will run for president and I will get lots of press and I think that’s what happened,” he said.

Stern said he believes Trump loves that he won the presidency, but does not like being president. Stern also defended one of Trump’s jokes that he made on his show.

“In some ways I feel like it’s been wrong the way they use my transcripts in a way to frame him, and I will give you an example. When he said the line about STDs being his Vietnam, that was a very jokey thing on my show. If you went back and listened to the tape, you would not take that seriously, he was in the spirit of the program,” he said.

WATCH:

Radio shock jock Howard Stern says he believes Trump's candidacy for president was a "publicity stunt" in order to get a raise from NBC for hosting "The Apprentice." https://t.co/b7GR1YMmLN pic.twitter.com/SWp7TWvtET

— CNN (@CNN) May 24, 2019