Trump blames ‘corrupt journalists,’ Democrats over probe into Ukraine call

President Trump said a transcript released Wednesday shows “there is no pressure whatsoever” in his call with the president of Ukraine before reiterating his criticism of Democrats and the “fake news” media.

Speaking shortly after the White House released the five-page transcript of his phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky, Trump insisted that he had not pressured him to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.

“There is no pressure whatsoever. The president himself just came out with a statement saying there was absolutely no pressure put on him, and there wasn’t,” Trump told reporters in his first public comments since Democrats announced Tuesday that they would launch an impeachment inquiry.

He called the probe into the call “the single greatest witch hunt in American history, probably in [all of] history, but in American history. It is a disgraceful thing.

“The way you had it built up, that call, it was going to be the call from hell. It turned out to be a nothing call other than a lot of people said: ‘I never knew you could be so nice,’” he said.

“So part of the problem you have is you have the fake news. You have a lot of corrupt reporting. You have some very fine reporters, and journalists, but you have a lot of corrupt reporters, a lot of corrupt journalists,” he continued.

The president then asserted that Democrats were the ones who had pressured Ukraine, telling officials there to back their party and not the Republicans, which he called an impeachable offense.

“If you take a look at the Democrats, they went down to see the president of Ukraine and they asked him for all sorts of things and [said] don’t go with the Republicans and stay with us, like it is a political war,” Trump said.

“They shouldn’t have done that. That should be an impeachable event based on what you are saying. The Democrats just came out, they went down there, a group of people, some of whom I was dealing with on the gun issue, they went down, put tremendous pressure on Ukraine,” he added, without naming names or providing further details.

Trump, who took no questions after his remarks, then extolled his record, pointing to the economy, low unemployment numbers and defense spending hikes.

“We have the strongest country we have ever had. We have the best economy we have ever had. We have the best unemployment numbers we have ever had. We have the best employment numbers we have ever had,” he said.