Trump had spoken out about the house vote a day after he was impeached, calling it a “hoax,” as reported by multiple news outlets.
Many reporters were present at the Oval Office on Dec. 17 as Trump talked about the impeachment. During this interview, the president said he didn’t feel that the impeachment against him feels like one, according to ABC news.
In a video from the Guardian, he told reporters, “I don’t feel like I’m being impeached because it’s a hoax, it’s a setup, it’s a horrible thing they did.”
Trump went on further to say that the Democrats only happened to have a small majority of people, but the Democrats took that small majority of people and forced people—”put their arm on everybody [and] they tried to get them to do what they had to do.”
Trump also said that this—the impeachment—was a phony deal, according to the video from the Guardian.
“It’s a phony deal. And they cheapen the word, Impeachment. It’s an ugly word, but they cheapen the word impeachment,” Trump said, during the interview with the reporters, according to the video.”[Impeachment] should never again happen to another president, and I think you’ll see some very interesting things happen over the coming few days and weeks.”
He further emphasized this in a tweet he wrote on Dec. 19, according to ABC News, writing, “Pelosi feels her phony impeachment HOAX is so pathetic she is afraid to present it to the Senate, which can set a date and put this whole SCAM into default if they refuse to show up! The Do Nothings are so bad for our country!”
ABC News reported that when asked what his strategy was during the senate trial, Trump told reporters that the Senate is very capable.
“We think that what [the Democrats] did is wrong. We think that what they did is unconstitutional, and the Senate is very, very capable,” Trump said, according to ABC News. He also said, and since they’re capable, he was going to leave the decision up to the Senate.
According to ABC News, during the interview in the Oval Office, Jeff Van Drew, the person who was in charge of New Jersey, who used to be known as a Democratic, sat alongside Trump. Drew said that he would be working with the republican when he announced that he was going to be switching affiliations onto the Republican side, according to ABC News.
