On Thursday, President Donald Trump spoke out against the House efforts to impeach him immediately following the vote by the House to officially formalize impeachment proceedings.
“The Greatest Witch Hunt In American History!” the president tweeted just after 11:30 a.m. and not long after the House vote had been finalized.
As NPR reported, the House voted Thursday morning 232 to 196 to formalize the impeachment inquiry, which was announced by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in late September and has been ongoing for weeks. The president and many of his supporters have said they viewed the impeachment inquiry as illegitimate as it began without an official vote to formalize proceedings. Trump has refused to cooperate and has reportedly ordered individuals to ignore Congressional subpoenas.
While the tweet is most likely a direct reaction to the House vote, it is not the first time Thursday that the president has blasted Democratic efforts to impeach him. About a half hour earlier, the president took to Twitter to proclaim that he believed the impeachment effort was “hurting our Stock Market.”
Trump continued, stating that the “Do Nothing Democrats” didn’t care about that.
A few hours earlier, at around 9 a.m., the president took to Twitter to urge his followers to “READ THE TRANSCRIPT!” likely referring to the summarized transcript of his July call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
While the president and his allies have claimed that the transcript exonerates him of any wrongdoing because it does not directly show a quid pro quo, many have argued that the transcript accurately portrays the whistleblower concerns.
In response to the president’s call to read the transcript on Thursday, some prominent Democrats took to Twitter to respond.
Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted that the president should “Read the Constitution!”
New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , who, along with Omar, are members of a progressive group of legislators called “the squad,” tweeted that Congress had already read the White House summary transcript.
We did. That’s why we opened an impeachment inquiry. https://t.co/KGxue9TEvZ
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 31, 2019
Even earlier this week, the president lashed out against Pelosi and California Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Both Pelosi and Schiff have been frequent targets of the president following the announcement of the inquiry last month.
“It’s a sad day because nobody comes to Congress to impeach a president of the United States. No one,” Pelosi told reporters about the vote Thursday, per NPR . “We come here to do the work, make the future better for our children, for America’s future. We take an oath to protect and defend the Constitution, and that’s what we cannot ignore and will not ignore when the president’s behavior indicates that that investigation, that inquiry, is necessary.”
