Appearing Wednesday on ABC News, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said President Donald Trump is “scared” of an impeachment inquiry prompted by a partisan CIA officer’s so-called “whistleblower” complaint accusing the president of wrongdoing during a phone call with the leader of Ukraine.
A transcript is as follows:
INTERVIEWER GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: The president was watching your press conference. He says he heard you talk about wanting to do prescription drugs, wanting to do [the] U.S.-Mexico-Canada agreement, but now he’s calling you the do-nothing Democrats, says you can’t do it.
HOUSE SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI: Why can’t we do it? It’s up to him. That was our pledge during the campaign for the people we would lower the cost of prescription drugs. I think that the president wants to do that, so I hope that he would cooperate. He does want the United States-Canada-Mexico free trade agreement. So do we when we have assurances that there will be enforceability for America’s workers and America’s farmers. And we’re close, we’re on a path to “yes.” So, I think the president knows the argument that could be made against him and he’s scared. And so he’s trying to divert attention from that to where it’s standing in the way of legislation.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You say “he’s scared.” You know, he had another tweet right after the one I just talked to you about where he used a word I’m not going to repeat right here. Did you hear the fear in his voice when you spoke to him on the phone last week?
PELOSI: I saw the surprise in his voice that he didn’t understand that I thought what he did was wrong, that he was undermining our national security, that he was undermining our constitution by his actions, and he was undermining the integrity of our elections. He just didn’t see it.