go ahead
go ahead

By Brooke Singman | Fox News

President Trump, during a wide-ranging interview Friday morning with “Fox & Friends,” called for a Senate trial should the House impeach him and pressed for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, the whistleblower and others to be called as witnesses.

Calling into “Fox & Friends” after a packed week of hearings where a parade of witnesses alleged high-level involvement in efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Democrats while aid was withheld, Trump blasted the inquiry as “a continuation of the witch hunt” and downplayed the impact of the testimony.

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“There’s nothing there,” Trump declared, claiming “there should never be an impeachment” and he “doesn’t know” the majority of the witnesses.

But following a meeting with senators a day earlier, the president announced on the show that if the House impeaches, “Frankly, I want a trial.”

He stressed that Senate trial would provide the opportunity to call other witnesses — including Hunter Biden, whose dealings in Ukraine were at the heart of what he wanted investigated out of Kiev, and especially Schiff.

“There’s only one person I want more than, where’s Hunter, and that is Adam Schiff,” Trump said.

Blasting Schiff’s dramatized reading (later described as a parody) of the now-infamous phone call with Ukraine’s president and challenging his claims not to know the whistleblower, Trump said: “I want to see Adam Schiff testify about the whistleblower.”

He went on to say he also wants to hear from the “fake whistleblower,” saying he and “everybody” know the identity and alleging they filed a “false report” on his July 25 with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I want the whistleblower, who put in a false report, to testify,” Trump said, adding that he believes the individual “is a political operative.”

At the center of the impeachment inquiry, which began in September, is Trump’s July 25 phone call with Kiev. That call prompted the whistleblower complaint to the intelligence community inspector general, and in turn, the impeachment inquiry in the House.

The president’s request came after millions in U.S. military aid to Ukraine had been frozen, which Democrats and witnesses have claimed shows a “quid pro quo” arrangement. Trump denies that.

Schiff, D-Calif., is leading impeachment inquiry proceedings in the House, and concluded five days of public hearings late Thursday.

This week, the House Intelligence Committee heard testimony from aide to Vice President Mike Pence, Jennifer Williams; National Security Council official Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman; former U.S. Special Envoy to Ukraine Amb. Kurt Volker; former National Security Council aide Tim Morrison; ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland; Pentagon official Laura Cooper, State Department official David Hale; State Department official David Holmes and former National Security Council senior director Dr. Fiona Hill.

The president claimed Friday that he “hardly knows” Sondland, who testified for hours on Wednesday. Sondland said that there was, in fact, a “quid pro quo” tying a White House meeting to the push for investigations — concerning former Vice President Joe Biden’s role ousting a prosecutor who had been looking into Ukrainian natural gas firm Burisma, where his son Hunter worked on the board. Sondland described a potential quid pro quo linked to the military aid, but said he never heard that directly from Trump.

Trump also said he did not know Volker, while saying he “only had a couple of conversations with [Sondland].”

“He was really the ambassador to the E.U., and all of a sudden, he’s working on this,” Trump said.

But Sondland and Hill testified this week that the president tasked Sondland with Ukraine efforts.

Trump also went on to blast Holmes, who testified on Thursday that he overheard a conversation between Trump and Sondland on July 26.

“How about that guy with the telephone? I guarantee that never took place,” Trump said. “I have really good hearing and I’ve watched guys for 40 years making phone calls and I can’t hear the other side.”

Trump also went on to blast fired U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, who testified before the committee last week, calling her “an Obama person,” and saying she was “rude.”

“This was not an angel, this woman, and okay, there were a lot of things she did that I didn’t like, but I just want you to know, this is not a baby we’re dealing with,” Trump said.

During Yovanovitch’s hearing last week, the president criticized her record via Twitter—a move which Schiff, Yovanovitch and others characterized as witness intimidation.

Meanwhile, Trump maintained that there was “no quid pro quo” and that he wanted “nothing” from Ukraine.

Should the House introduce articles of impeachment, all that is needed to impeach Trump is a simple majority vote by those lawmakers present and voting. But at that point, removal from the Oval Office is hardly a certainty. The Senate would have to hold a trial.

While some Senate Republicans have voiced concerns about Trump’s actions, impeachment does not at this stage appear to have enough support in the Senate to threaten Trump in the long run. Most GOP senators have stopped short of condemning the president for his controversial phone call, while others have outright defended him.

The president, though, touted the GOP’s unity on Friday.

“The Republican Party has never been more unified,” Trump said. “In the Senate and the House, Mitch [McConnell], Lindsey [Graham], I could name 20 names up there.”

He added: “The Republicans, I have never seen anything like it, they’re sticking together.”Brooke Singman is a Politics Reporter for Fox News.

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