Donald Trump claims there is no ‘war room’ at the White House to combat the Democrats’ impeachment inquiry into him.
‘No, no war room,’ the president told The New York Post. ‘I’ve got very good people, good lawyers, good White House counsel.’
Trump argued that he didn’t have a war room during special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of his campaign’s ties with Russia – which he called a ‘more complicated’ probe – so he didn’t need one for impeachment.
Donald Trump claims there is no ‘war room’ at the White House to combat impeachment
‘Russia was much more complicated and after two and half years and after they spent $42 million, there was no collusion, no obstruction, they got nothing, so I think we’re going to keep doing it the way we’re doing it,’ he said.
There have been reports the White House is planning to man such a center – similar to how advisers to President Bill Clinton set one up in the 1990s to battle his impeachment charges.
But no formal one has been established.
Trump also acts as his own spokesperson, offering an in-the-moment reaction to events on his favorite means of communication – his Twitter account.
The president keeps an active presence on the social media platform, tweeting and retweeting multiple times a day and many of them on impeachment.
On Wednesday, for example, he offered a real time response to a press conference being held by Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff.
‘Nancy Pelosi just said that she is interested in lowering prescription drug prices & working on the desperately needed USMCA. She is incapable of working on either. It is just camouflage for trying to win an election through impeachment. The Do Nothing Democrats are stuck in mud!,’ Trump wrote as the two Democrats’ talked.
He also called their inquiry ‘bull***t.’
On his Twitter feed – which has 65.2 million followers – Trump has blasted Schiff, who is leading the impeachment inquiry for the Democrats, as ‘Liddle’ Adam Schiff’ and he’s claimed the whistle-blower who revealed the details of his call with the Ukrainian president is a spy.
So Trump brushed off the need for a war room in his conversation with columnist Michael Goodwin, who spoke to the president to the president Tuesday night in an interview that posted online Wednesday evening.
The president argued the impeachment fight has energized him.
‘It sounds strange to say I’m energized, but I love it, I love it,’ Trump told him. ‘These people are so corrupt. They’re cons, all they want to do is win the election.
But Pelosi has claimed the president ‘scared’ of the battle ahead.
‘I think the president knows the argument that can be made against him, and he’s scared,’ she told ABC News on Wednesday during an interview in her ceremonial office in the U.S. Capitol. ‘And so he’s trying to divert attention from that to where [he’s] standing in the way of legislation.’
The president, in his interview with The New York Post, repeated several of the arguments he’s made about his call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, claiming he was the victim of a witch hunt and a hoax.
Trump acts as his own spokesperson, using his Twitter account to go on the attack such as his blasts against House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff
Speaker Nancy Pelosi has claimed Trump is ‘scared’ of impeachment
‘It’s not a crime, nothing I said was wrong,’ Trump said. ‘The whistleblower was totally inaccurate about the call, and it’s all second and third hand. It’s a fraud, a hoax, it’s a witch hunt.’
The president also bragged about his fundraising numbers.
The joint fundraising effort between his campaign and the Republican National Committee for the 2020 election brought in $125 million for the third quarter – a record amount.
‘I see the fundraising, it’s the biggest ever,’ Trump said.
The president did not sound optimistic about working with Pelosi on a legislative agenda, which would include lowering prescription drug prices, gun legislation, and his USMCA trade agreement.
‘It’s always hard to work with somebody that’s fraudulently doing things,’ he said. ‘The whole thing is a fraud.’
Pelosi said it was up to the president as to the legislation that gets signed into law.
‘It’s up to him,’ she told ABC’s ‘Good Morning America’ in an interview that aired Thursday.