President Donald Trump on Tuesday predicted mass unrest if he were impeached, brushing off rumors that he is privately concerned about his political future.
Speaking with Reuters in the Oval Office, Trump's remarks were paired with his typical boasting about the economy.
Trump:
“It’s hard to impeach somebody who hasn’t done anything wrong and who’s created the greatest economy in the history of our country. I’m not concerned, no. I think that the people would revolt if that happened."
Facing a Democratic majority in the US House of Representatives come January, impeachment has become a real possibility.
Trump said he is willing to work with Democrats but only if they stop investigating him.
“We’re going to go down one of two tracks," the president declared. "We’re either going to start the campaign and they’re going to do presidential harassment. Or we’re going to get tremendous amounts of legislation passed working together. There’s not a third track."
At the notion that people would "revolt" in the event that Trump is impeached, many on Twitter made the same joke:
Don Cheadle had another take on the same theme:
And others shared the sentiment:
Yeah, people think Americans will be doing other things...
And who exactly is he talking about?
Some had an idea:
The president was implicated in campaign finance violations last month when his former lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen admitted that Trump had instructed him to pay hush money to two women shortly before the 2016 election.
Cohen is set to be sentenced today for his role in those federal felonies. Still, Trump maintains his innocence, pinning any illegal activity on Cohen.
“Michael Cohen is a lawyer. I assume he would know what he’s doing,” Trump said. The president denied that the payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy playmate Karen McDougal were related to the campaign.
“Number one, it wasn’t a campaign contribution," Trump insisted. "If it were, it’s only civil, and even if it’s only civil, there was no violation based on what we did. OK?”
Cohen also confessed to lying to investigators over his and Trump's role in a secret project to construct a Trump property in Moscow during the presidential campaign.
When pressed on connections between his campaign associates' ties to Russia, Trump said it was "peanut stuff" before deflecting the blame to Hillary Clinton. But Trump acknowledged he had no evidence to support what he was saying.
“I haven’t heard this," Trump charged, "but I can only tell you this: Hillary Clinton — her husband got money, she got money, she paid money, why doesn’t somebody talk about that?”
As for Special Counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Trump's ties to Russia and obstruction of justice, Trump maintains his stance that there was "no collusion" and that Mueller is conducting a "witch hunt."
“Look, they’ve been looking for two years about collusion," the president said. "There’s no collusion."
Given all of this, what if Trump is not impeached? Twitter has its own prediction.
Back in August, Trump's TV lawyer Rudi Giuliani also foresaw riots if Trump were to be removed from office.
The “American people would revolt” against impeachment, Giuliani said. He dismissed all of the connections the president has to sketchy Russian dealings, insisting that "Trump is completely cleared.... you’d only impeach him for political reasons.”
