Trump says Schiff has “not but paid the value” for his impeachment position

In a Sunday morning tweet, President Trump mentioned Home Intelligence Committee Chair Rep. Adam Schiff must pay a “value” for his main position within the impeachment trial.

“Shifty Adam Schiff is a CORRUPT POLITICIAN, and possibly a really sick man,” the president wrote. “He has not paid the value, but, for what he has carried out to our Nation!”

The president didn’t instantly make clear whether or not he meant the tweet to be a risk, because it seems to be, however Schiff definitely took it as one.

The lawmaker was fast to reply — by way of his personal Twitter account, and on NBC’s Meet the Press, the place he referred to as Trump a “wrathful and vindictive” president. Schiff additionally instructed NBC’s Chuck Todd he thought the tweet was “meant to be” a risk towards him.

The president appeared to concentrate on what Schiff mentioned on this system, attacking its host and Schiff shortly after the section aired, calling Todd “a fraud and corrupt” and Schiff a “conman.”

Trump typically targets Todd and Schiff on Twitter

Sunday’s tweets are merely the newest in a protracted line of Twitter assaults the president has launched towards Schiff and Todd.

The president typically makes use of the press as a foil, having branded it the “enemy of the folks,” and appears to have explicit disdain for Todd, who he has accused of making an attempt “to make me look as unhealthy as attainable.” This has led to tweets like Sunday’s, in addition to bare antagonism, like a 2015 tweet during which the president wrote, “Sleep eyes [Chuck Todd] is killing Meet The Press. Isn’t he pathetic? Love watching him fail!”

Trump’s anger towards Schiff stems from the Congress member’s essential involvement within the impeachment trial; Schiff helped oversee the impeachment inquiry and has led the arguments for the president’s elimination within the Senate trial.

The president typically assaults the lawmaker, as he did in his Sunday tweet, over Schiff’s resolution to paraphrase a memo of Trump’s name transcript with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which the president requested for an investigation into the Biden household. Though Schiff clearly famous that he was merely stating “the essence of what the president communicates,” Trump claimed Schiff incorrectly represented the decision — and has used the incident to insult Schiff ever since.

Schiff’s fellow impeachment supervisor, Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), appeared on CNN’s State of the Union to criticize Trump’s Sunday tweet as “unlucky,” and in addition mentioned that he had a “tendency to say issues that appear threatening to folks.”

Trump has despatched numerous threatening tweets earlier than, accusing Schiff of treason, attacking the whistleblower as a “shame to our nation,” and calling for that person’s identity to be revealed (anonymity is granted by legislation to authorities whistleblowers). He has additionally attacked those that gave data to the whistleblower, referring to them as “spies,” and appeared to counsel the US ought to as soon as once more start to execute spies, or these branded as such.

“He actually must get a grip and be just a little extra presidential,” Lofgren mentioned Sunday.

Republican Sen. James Lankford mentioned in an interview with State of the Union that he wasn’t bothered by the tweets, saying, “I don’t suppose it’s a dying risk. I don’t suppose he’s encouraging a dying risk.”

However as State of the Union host Jake Tapper famous in response, “People who find themselves supporters of the president have heard his rhetoric after which truly tried to bomb and kill politicians and the media.”

And that is true, as Vox’s Sean Collins famous after Trump started to threaten the whistleblower with investigations:

Democrat and frequent Trump foil Rep. Ilhan Omar has spoken of a number of deaths threats she has acquired, for example, and Cesar Sayoc was sentenced to 20 years in jail for mailing pipe bombs to a few of Trump’s critics.

All this implies for a president who has a platform of 71.6 million followers is {that a} tweet is rarely only a tweet — every message is an official assertion from the president of america, and is handled as such by the press, lawmakers, and Trump’s passionate base.

Trump’s Twitter exercise has elevated for the reason that impeachment trial started

Whereas the Trump presidency and Twitter have lengthy been inseparable, his social media exercise has lately elevated in quantity and aggressiveness — all to set a counter-narrative to the Senate impeachment trial.

As Vox’s Aaron Rupar has documented, Trump made a single-day posting report with greater than 140 tweets and retweets on Thursday, many which have been inaccurate and arguably tasteless. And whereas many have grown numb to Trump’s social media presence, Rupar famous how Trump’s latest tweets level to a “broader toxicity” inside the presidency — and why we should always care:

So it’s not simply Trump’s tweets which have turn out to be more and more normalized as we get additional and additional away from having a president who’s held to any form of requirements. It’s Trump’s conduct on the whole. And one wonders how unhealthy issues will get within the doubtless occasion that Trump is acquitted by the Senate and heads into his reelection marketing campaign feeling even much less constrained by any form of oversight.

These newest tweets are of a form with these the president despatched final week. And they might appear to solely bolster considerations about Trump’s conduct that Schiff and his fellow impeachment managers expressed of their arguments before the Senate final week.