Donald Trump called into Fox News this week and spent a fair amount of time lashing out at House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calf.). “He’s a sick man. He is so sick,” the president argued, adding, “This guy, he ought to be put away, or he ought to be, you know, something should happen with him.”
A day later, Trump headlined his latest North Carolina rally, where the Republican incumbent took the next predictable step:
“Honestly, that guy [Schiff] should be locked up. No, it’s true. You know, because he’s — remember what he said. I had this perfect phone call with the president of Ukraine. I’m the only one that could get impeached over a phone call that was perfect…. Fortunately, we had beautiful transcribers that transcribed the call. Can you imagine if we didn’t have [the official White House call summary]?”
The president added that his opponents “died” when they discovered that the White House had a rough transcription of his comments to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
None of this reflects reality in any way. In fact, Trump was impeached for launching an illegal extortion scheme — it’s a curious thing for the president to bring up at this point in the campaign — and the official White House call summary was deeply incriminating. Indeed, it played a key role in securing the president’s impeachment.








