House Speaker Nancy Pelosi falsely claimed that Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s “dramatic interpretation” of President Donald Trump’s transcript with Ukraine was “the president’s own words” in an interview on ABC News Thursday.
Pelosi spoke to ABC News host George Stephanopoulos on “Good Morning America” Thursday and discussed the now-released July 25 transcript of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which sparked a formal impeachment inquiry into the president. Schiff received pushback after reading a fabricated version of the transcript during a House hearing last week.
Despite the reading being a “dramatic interpretation” of the actual transcript, as Stephanopoulos noted, Pelosi claimed Thursday that Schiff’s reading was the same as what Trump had said to the Ukrainian president.
“I want the American people to know what that phone call was about,” Pelosi said. “I want them to hear it. So, yeah, it’s fair. It’s sad but he was using the president’s own words.” (RELATED: Rachel Maddow Defends Schiff’s ‘Parody’ Opening Statement)
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Pelosi doubled down on the egregious claim after Stephanopoulos pushed back. Schiff himself said that the reading was “parody” following outrage from Republicans. (RELATED: Schiff Knew Of Whistleblower Complaint Before It Was Filed)
“He did not make it up,” Pelosi continued. “And look, I want to tell you something. When I took the oath of office to defend the constitution, as my colleagues have done, I did not say, ‘I will do this as long as the Republicans can understand the constitution.'”
“The fact they’re loyal to Trump and not to the constitution is not going to slow down or impair our ability to keep the Republic.”
Trump hit back at the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday after the fabricated reading, tweeting that he “should resign” for “fraudulently fabricating a statement of the President of the United States and reading it to Congress.”
California Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy signed onto a resolution Wednesday that aims to censor Schiff for the reading.
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“Chairman Adam Schiff has been lying to the American people for years,” McCarthy wrote in a tweet. “Now he is so desperate to damage the president that he literally made up a false version of a phone call. Enough is enough. I have signed a resolution to censure Schiff in the House of Representatives.”
The transcript is the basis of an August whistleblower complaint that accused Trump of asking Ukrainian officials to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Pelosi’s office did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
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