Donald Trump on Thursday, 23 August warned that the “market would crash” if he is impeached, amid increasing trouble for the US President after his former lawyer Micheal Cohen implicated him by pleading guilty to campaign finance laws.
In a stunning admission that implicates Trump, Cohen, 51, pleaded guilty to buying the silence of two women about their alleged affairs with Trump.
The admission to paying hush money to porn star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 US election potentially leaves the US president in legal jeopardy.
In an interview to ‘Fox & Friends’, Trump said, “I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job.”
If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor, because without this thinking, you would see — you would see numbers that you wouldn’t believe in reverseDonald Trump, US President
Trump asserted that he has done a great job in office, despite the critical coverage in connection with the guilty plea of his long-time attorney Cohen. Listing his economic accomplishments, Trump claimed that the economy was going to be "down" if he hadn't been elected.
"I freed up, I got rid of regulations, the tax cut was a tremendous thing," the President said.
"Had Hillary and the Democrats gotten in, had she been president, you would have had negative growth. We picked up $10 trillion worth," he said.
“No Collusion with Russia”
In a series of tweets, Trump maintained that there was no collusion between his campaign and Russia in the 2016 presidential elections.
"The only thing that I have done wrong is to win an election that was expected to be won by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. The problem is, they forgot to campaign in numerous states!" he tweeted.
"NO COLLUSION - RIGGED WITCH HUNT!" he said in another tweet.
Cohen's extraordinary admission came the same day as Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort was convicted of five counts of tax fraud, two counts of bank fraud and one count of failure to disclose a foreign bank account.
In the interview with Fox & Friends, Trump also spoke about immigration, saying "we're doing a record-breaking job, but we have bad laws".
"You know when you have bad laws you can do good. But you can do a lot better if you had good laws. So they'll all get changed, but we have to elect more Republicans," Trump said.
“Work on Mexico Wall has Begun”
On the issue of building a wall along the border with Mexico to contain illegal migration of people, the President said that the work has already started.
We’re building the wall. It’s already started. We’ve spent $3.2 billion on it. We’re asking for $5 billion for this year’s funding. The wall is going up. A lot of people don’t know it.Donald Trump
He said that he would "like to build it even faster," but working with the Democrats is "very tough".
"We're doing an incredible job," Trump said.
The president said he would give himself and his presidency, thus far, an 'A plus'.
"I don't think any president has ever done what I've done in this short (term), we haven't even been two years, biggest tax cuts in history...," Trump said.
"You look at all of the things we've done with regulations, the economy is the best it's ever been in history," he said.
“Media is Unfair to Me”
Trump said the one area where he was not succeeding was with the media.
"The only thing I'm doing badly on is the press doesn't cover me fairly. I thought after I won, you know, they killed me during the campaign. Just killed me. I said well, one good thing about winning, I've showed them, so now I'm going to get fair press," Trump said.
He also criticized the media coverage of his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, last month.
"My meeting with Putin was a tremendous success, I got killed by the fake news. They wanted me to go up and punch him in the face. I said I want to get along with Russia. I want to get along with everybody," the President said.
"They said I was too rough on North Korea, remember that, too rough. But with Putin, they said I was too soft. I've always won. It was controversial when I ran, and I won, and now the country's doing better than it's ever done," Trump added.
‘If It’s a Crime for Cohen, It’s a Crime for Trump,’ Say Netizens
Here’s how people on social media reacted to Trump’s claim about the market crashing if he is impeached.
(With inputs from PTI)
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