‘She hates my voters’
Prez: Pelosi will be ousted as speaker
She’s doing a tremendous disservice to the country . . . She doesn’t know what she’s doing. — President Trump on Nancy Pelosi
President Trump on Tuesday said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is doing a “disservice” to the country as the articles of impeachment remained in limbo and Republicans and Democrats squabbled over how to conduct the impending Senate trial.
“She hates the Republican Party. She hates all of the people that voted for me and the Republican Party,” Trump told reporters at his Florida Mar-a-Lago resort following a Christmas Eve teleconference with US troops overseas.
“She’s doing a tremendous disservice to the country. She’s not doing a good job,” he continued. “Some people think that she doesn’t know what she’s doing . . . They had no evidence at all [on impeachment]. They had no crime.”
He recalled that Pelosi had to give up the speakership when Democrats lost their majority in the 2010 elections, and “I think it’s going to happen again” in 2020.
The California Democrat is holding up sending the two articles of impeachment — abuse of power and obstruction of Congress — passed by the House last week to the GOP-controlled Senate in an effort to ensure that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell agrees to conduct a fair trial.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has asked McConnell to subpoena documents from the White House and call witnesses who have firsthand knowledge of Trump’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Democrats claim Trump leveraged $391 million in military assistance to Ukraine during the conversation to pressure Zelensky into announcing an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential candidate, and son Hunter Biden.
Trump said McConnell controls the process in the Senate the same way Democrats were in charge in the House.
“He has the right to do whatever he wants. He’s the head of the Senate,” the president said. “People remember they [Democrats] treated us very unfairly. They didn’t give us due process, they didn’t give us a lawyer. They didn’t give us anything. Now they come to the Senate and they want everything.”
The president said “now they get to the Senate, and now we have the majority. And it’s up to Mitch McConnell, and we have the majority, and now they want McConnell to do wonderful things for them.”
McConnell hasn’t ruled out having witnesses testify, signaling he’d want to handle the matter like the 1999 Senate trial of then-President Bill Clinton.
Then, the Senate voted unanimously on laying out the framework for conducting the trial, including the testimony of witnesses. The impeached Clinton was ultimately acquitted on two counts.