Trump misquotes Pelosi, hits impeachment in tweet

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump lashed out at House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., in a tweet early on Tuesday morning, misquoting her while characterizing the ongoing impeachment inquiry as a ploy to skirt the 2020 election because “she thinks I will win.”

Trump weighed in on whether voters, rather than Congress, should decide his fate after Pelosi addressed that same argument against impeachment — a favorite among Republican lawmakers — in a statement earlier Monday.

Stressing the importance of the impeachment hearings, Pelosi had written in a “Dear Colleague” memo, “The weak response to these hearings has been, ‘Let the election decide.’ That dangerous position only adds to the urgency of our action, because the President is jeopardizing the integrity of the 2020 elections.”

Tweeting after midnight Tuesday, Trump attributed a quote about the 2020 election to the House speaker — but it appears the quote actually came from a Fox News reporter in a broadcast an hour earlier.

Alluding to Fox, Trump wrote: “Nancy Pelosi just stated that ‘it is dangerous to let the voters decide Trump’s fate.’ Fox News In other words, she thinks I’m going to win and doesn’t want to take a chance on letting the voters decide. Like Al Green, she wants to change our voting system. Wow, she’s CRAZY!”

Trump was referring to Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who was among the first Democrats to push for impeachment.

White House spokespeople did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Tuesday morning about Trump’s attribution or how impeachment could change the voting system. Media watchdogs such as CNN’s Brian Stelter and other political reporters pointed out the president’s apparent misquote.

Trump appeared to be taking his quote not from Pelosi but Fox News chief congressional correspondent Mike Emanuel. Just after 11 p.m. Monday, Emanuel said, “House Speaker Nancy Pelosi circulated a memo to Democrats tonight telling them it would be dangerous to let voters decide President Trump’s fate when it comes to the Ukraine investigation.”

“Letting voters decide” has emerged as one of the loudest arguments against impeachment as public hearings take center stage on the cusp of an election year. Democrats are investigating whether Trump abused his power in allegedly pressuring the Ukrainian president to pursue investigations of Trump’s political rivals at the expense of national security.

Republicans, however, have argued that voters should be the ones to decide at the polls whether Trump did anything wrong. “To my colleagues on the other side, I say this: Give the people back their power,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said just before the House voted to formalize the impeachment inquiry last month. “Let them choose the next leader of the free world.”

Some Democrats had opposed the impeachment inquiry in favor of allowing voters to determine Trump’s fate at the ballot box — but changed their minds as more evidence of Trump’s dealings with Ukraine emerged. Presidential candidate Rep. Tulsi

Gabbard, D-Hawaii, for example, said she changed her mind after the whistleblower complaint and other documents were released.

Trump also claimed on Tuesday that Pelosi is using negotiations over a new North America trade deal to try to get votes for impeachment. The president offered no evidence for making this claim.

“The woman is grossly incompetent,” Trump said at a Cabinet meeting, referring to the House speaker. “All she wants to do is focus on impeachment, which is just a little pipe dream she’s got, and she can keep playing that game.

“And I’ve been told, and who knows if this is so but I think it’s so, I have pretty good authority on it, that she’s using USMCA because she doesn’t have the impeachment votes, so she’s using USMCA to get the impeachment vote,” Trump said.

USMCA is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, as the new trade deal is known. It is a rewrite of the 25-year-old North American Free Trade Agreement. Pelosi last week called a deal on the new North American Free Trade Agreement “imminent” and said that she would like to pass it this year.

Pelosi’s spokesman, Drew Hammill, rejected Trump’s remarks.

“As the president well knows, the speaker has been working diligently with his trade representative to advance Democrats further down a path to yes on the USMCA,” Hammill said. “The president’s desperate attacks aside, this issue is totally separate from the ongoing impeachment inquiry.”