Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union,” former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) said if former President Barack Obama had acted the way President Donald Trump did at a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, he would be impeached.
Partial transcript as follows:
TAPPER: you say you don’t talk about President Trump and that’s not your message on the stump but after the president’s meeting in Helsinki you tweeted out ‘the president has violated his oath to preserve and protect and defend against all enemies foreign and domestic.’ If you think he violated oath of office, do you think he should be impeached?
MCAULIFFE: If President Clinton or President Obama had gone to Helsinki and done what President Trump had done, you would already have impeach hearings going on. This president went over with Putin, our sworn enemy, what he has done all over the globe, this is not our friend. He is not our ally.
TAPPER: Do you want to impeach?
MCAULIFFE: Russia’s economy is smaller than Italy, they are our thirtieth trading partner. Why is he over there elevating this country and this president to a level of a super power which they are not?
TAPPER: You said he violated the oath to protect and serve and protect and defend the Constitution. Do you think he should be impeached?
MCAULIFFE: I think that’s something we ought to look at. Clearly what he has done with Putin, he is a foe, he fights us every single day. We’re battling him all over the globe including what’s happening in Ukraine and what’s going on in Syria today. There has to be a reason why he’s over there acting the way he acts with Putin. This man is our enemy. He fights us. And do not forget they came into the 2016 election, they came in and tried to destroy the greatest democracy in the world, the United States of America. We cannot forget and now we’re hearing this week that they are continuing their efforts. They are undermining our country.
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