House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) took to Fox News Tuesday morning to attempt to discredit the impeachment inquiry testimony of ousted U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch.
When asked about his thoughts on the transcript of Yovanovitch’s closed door interview that was released Monday, Scalise was quick to point out that she was an Obama holdover.
“First of all, what you see, and by the way other people that testified gave different kind of backgrounds. It depends on who you voted for in the election,” Scalise said. “She was an Obama holdover. Somebody who didn’t necessarily support President Trump’s agenda. She wasn’t elected to be the commander-in-chief to set our foreign policy — Donald Trump was.”
Yovanovitch’s congressional testimony, which laid out the early stages of the Ukraine pressure campaign, addressed how she initially learned about the smears that were peddled against her and how her requests for the State Department to publicly express their support for her were not met.
Scalise went on that lavish President Trump with extended praise.
“President Obama did not support Ukraine standing up to Russia, for example. Donald Trump did,” Scalise said. “Donald Trump actually sold the javelin missiles to Ukraine so they could push back on the tanks that were coming in from Russia. In fact, [Ukrainian President Volodymyr] Zelensky thanked Trump for selling those javelin missiles, which Barack Obama would not sell.”
Scalise then argued “one more key difference in foreign policy,” which he again hung on Yovanovitch’s Obama holdover status.
“I would argue very much more improved foreign policy by President Trump than the failed approach by Barack Obama. But she was a holdover from Obama,” Scalise said.
Watch Scalise’s remarks below:
Scalise criticizes Yovanovitch's impeachment testimony pic.twitter.com/hmH7de4edy
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) November 5, 2019
