President Donald Trump smiles as he arrives for rally at the Rivertowne Marina, Wednesday, June 7, 2017, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/John Minchillo) (Associated Press) 
 
 CINCINNATI (AP) — Dogged by allegations in Washington, President Donald Trump traveled to friendlier territory Wednesday and promised to create a "first-class" system of roads, bridges and waterways by using $200 billion in public funds to generate $1 trillion in investment to pay for construction projects that most public officials agree are badly needed and long overdue. 
 
 "America must have the best, fastest and most reliable infrastructure anywhere in the world," Trump said, pushing his infrastructure plan in middle America as Washington geared up for Thursday's appearance before Congress by fired FBI Director James Comey. 
 
 "We will fix it," said Trump, standing along the Ohio River. "We will create the first-class infrastructure our country and our people deserve." 
 
 But the controversies and distractions in Washington continued to dog the president throughout the day. As he was speaking, the Senate Intelligence committee released the prepared testimony Comey is expected to deliver Thursday. It includes detailed descriptions of meetings and phone conversations between Trump and Comey. 
 
 In the speech, the president also pressed the Senate to send him a health care bill, criticized congressional Democrats as "obstructionists" and revisited his controversial decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. 
 
 Trump said that as he campaigned across the country last year, people often asked him why the U.S. was spending money to rebuild other countries when the roads and bridges they travel on needed rebuilding, too. 
 
 Trump declared the days of spending on other nations are over: "It's time to rebuild our country" and to "put America first," he said. 
 
 While infrastructure initially was seen as an area where Republican and Democrats could work together, Democrats have balked at Trump's plan for using tax incentives and public-private partnerships to finance improvements. Many argue such a plan would result in taxpayer-funded profits for corporations with the cost loaded onto consumers. 
 
 Before the speech, Trump met aboard Air Force One with a pair of families the White House said were "victims" of the Obama-era health care law that the president and congressional Republicans want to repeal and replace. 
 
 Trump said the families — one from Ohio and another from Kentucky — are going through "turmoil" along with millions of other consumers who are facing rising premiums and limited choices for health coverage under the 2010 law. 
 
 "Now it's time for the Senate to act and save Americans from this catastrophic event because Obamacare is dead," Trump said. "Obamacare was one of the biggest broken promises in the history of politics. Remember 'you can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan?' Didn't work out that way." 
 
 The Republican-controlled House has passed a health care bill that no Democrats supported. Senate Republicans are working on their own version. 
 
 Trump also mentioned his announcement last week that he was pulling the U.S. out of what he dismissively referred to as the "so-called" Paris climate accord. Trump has said the pact that nearly 200 nations agreed to in 2015 was unfair to the United States. 
 
 Trump said as long as he is president "we will never have outside forces telling us what to do and how to do it." 
 
 The White House has yet to outline specifics of the infrastructure plan, which it hopes to achieve largely through public-private partnerships. It has proposed funding improvements with $200 billion in public funds over nine years that would theoretically leverage $1 trillion worth of construction. 
 
 Trump's speech came the day before Comey's highly anticipated testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday as the White House faced fresh allegations about possible efforts by the president to influence the investigation into potential ties between his campaign and Russia. 
 
 Trump has denied the allegations and called the Russia story "fake news." 
 
 White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters aboard Air Force One that the president was "very focused on his agenda" in spite of the distractions. 
 
 "He's going to continue moving forward with exactly what the people of this country elected him to do. And he's not letting the distractions get in the way of that," she said. 
 
 In a tweet early Wednesday, Trump also announced Christopher Wray as his pick to succeed Comey as FBI director. Wray is a former Justice Department official who was New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's personal lawyer during the George Washington Bridge lane-closing investigation. 
 
 Trump spoke in Cincinnati at a marina, with a barge carrying West Virginia coal behind him. 
 
 U.S. inland waterways are critical routes for transporting goods, including coal and agricultural products, but officials say they've grown old and run down. 
 
 The White House has billed this week as "infrastructure week" and planned a series of events, beginning with Trump's push Monday to privatize the nation's air traffic control system, separating it from the Federal Aviation Administration. That idea, which isn't new, quickly drew bipartisan opposition. 
 
 Trump also planned to discuss infrastructure spending with governors and mayors at the White House on Thursday. 
 
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 Superville contributed from Washington. 
 
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 Follow Colvin and Superville on Twitter at https://twitter.com/colvinj and https://twitter.com/dsupervilleap ||||| The project was included in a leaked list of Mr. Trump’s budget priorities, but the mayor — who accused the president of a “bait and switch” — and his staff say proposed cuts to the Highway Trust Fund in the president’s outline could delay the project. 
 
 “The weekend before the election, he literally promised to build the Brent Spence that carries I-75 over the Ohio River,” Mr. Cranley said. “He’s got to follow through on his commitments.” 
 
 Over the past week, an angry Mr. Trump has often undercut and confounded his own aides as they try to shift the conversation toward the infrastructure plan, tweeting out new attacks on the news media and feuding with his own Justice Department over its defense of his targeted travel ban. 
 
 Just as he has shrugged off efforts by his lawyers, communications aides and Republican members of Congress to curtail his tweeting, he frequently disregarded the teleprompter here — inviting two of his old New York real estate friends, Richard LeFrak and Steven Roth, onto the dais. 
 
 The broad outlines of Mr. Trump’s $1 trillion proposal, thus far little more than a blueprint, have been public since the campaign. The plan, conceived by the commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, and Peter Navarro, an economic adviser, calls on the federal government to spend $200 billion in cash and tax credits that would, they say, result in $800 billion in additional private investment. 
 
 In congressional testimony this year, the transportation secretary, Elaine Chao, predicted that a more detailed proposal would be released by late May. But last week she would say only that it was “coming soon.” Instead, the administration on Monday unveiled with great fanfare a longstanding proposal — which one Trump aide described as “low-hanging fruit” — to privatize the nation’s air traffic control system. 
 
 The plan earned rare bipartisan praise and gave the president an opportunity to hold a celebratory announcement ceremony of the type he likes in the East Room of the White House. ||||| CINCINNATI, Ohio (Reuters) - President Donald Trump on Wednesday trumpeted plans for $1 trillion in U.S. infrastructure spending as he struggles to gain momentum for his economic agenda amid growing attention on the probe into alleged ties between his campaign and Russia. 
 
 "America wants to build," Trump said. "There is no limit to what we can achieve. All it takes is a bold and daring vision and the will to make it happen." 
 
 Speaking in Cincinnati, Ohio, Trump reviewed a proposal announced earlier this year to leverage $200 billion in his budget proposal into a $1 trillion of projects to privatize the air traffic control system, strengthen rural infrastructure and repair bridges, roads and waterways. 
 
 Trump said he would not allow the United States to become a “museum of former glory.” He spoke about backing large transformative projects but did not give specifics. 
 
 “We will construct incredible new monuments to American grit that inspire wonder for generations and generations,” he said. 
 
 Trump pointed to a government program that allows the private sector to tap into low-cost government loans called the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act as a way to leverage federal funds with state, local, and private sector funding. 
 
 U.S. President Donald Trump smiles as he arrives for rally along side the Ohio River at the Rivertown Marina in Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S. June 7, 2017. John Sommers II 
 
 Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao said at a Senate hearing on Wednesday that administration plans to unveil a detailed legislative proposal by the end of September. 
 
 Democrats want $1 trillion in new federal spending and proposed a plan that includes $200 billion in roads and bridges,$20 billion in expanding broadband Internet access, $110 billion for water systems and $75 billion for schools. 
 
 Slideshow (4 Images) 
 
 Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer said the Trump budget unveiled in May cuts $206 billion in infrastructure spending across several departments, including $96 billion in planned highway trust fund spending. 
 
 The Ohio visit was the second leg of a week-long White House focus on infrastructure. On Monday the president proposed spinning off air traffic control from the Federal Aviation Administration. 
 
 The proposal to privatize air traffic control has run into skepticism and opposition from Democratic senators and some Republicans. 
 
 The infrastructure push comes as the White House seeks to refocus attention on core promises to boost jobs and the economy that Trump made last year during his presidential campaign. 
 
 Those pledges have been eclipsed by the furor over Russia's alleged meddling in the election. That drama will come to a head on Thursday when former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James Comey, who was leading the Russia probe until Trump fired him last month, testifies before a Senate panel.
– Speaking in front of a coal barge in Cincinnati, President Trump promised Wednesday to construct a "first class" system of roads, bridges, and waterways along with "incredible new monuments to American grit," the AP reports. Trump was in Ohio talking up his infrastructure plans, which include turning $200 billion in public funds into $1 trillion in infrastructure investment. "There is no limit to what we can achieve," Reuters quotes Trump as saying. "All it takes is a bold and daring vision and the will to make it happen." Trump's plan would see the repairing of bridges and roads, the privatizing of air traffic control, and more. He told those assembled that he didn't want to see the US become a "museum of former glory." Trump's infrastructure plans remain short on details, and his speech Wednesday lacked specifics. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao says a detailed proposal is coming by the end of September. Infrastructure was originally one of the areas where Trump had the most bipartisan support, the New York Times reports. But that has eroded. The mayor of Cincinnati called Trump out for promising to rehabilitate a major bridge in the city then cutting funding to the Highway Trust Fund. And Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer says Trump's proposed budget actually cuts $206 billion from infrastructure spending. Trump's speech was quickly overshadowed by the Senate releasing a transcript of former FBI Director James Comey's planned testimony.