Donald Trump criticizes impeachment, says its ridiculous

President Donald Trump criticized the new impeachment drive against him on Tuesday and denied responsibility for last week’s violence by defending his pre-riot remarks to protesters at a rally near the White House.

“It’s ridiculous,” Trump told reporters as he left the White House en route to an immigration speech in Alamo, Texas.

“This impeachment is causing tremendous anger and they’re doing it, and it’s really a terrible thing that they’re doing,” Trump said. He added that the move to impeach him, on a charge of inciting insurrection over the Capitol attack, was a continuation of the “witch hunt” against him.

As he boarded Air Force One, House Democrats and some Republicans prepared to impeach him for whipping up supporters on Jan. 6 before they invaded the U.S. Capitol in a violent riot that left multiple people dead.

In his brief comments, Trump said “we want no violence” from supporters, but ignored questions about last week’s insurrection.

While members of Congress counted Electoral College votes at the Capitol Jan. 6, Trump held a rally in Washington in which he repeated false claims of election fraud.

“We will never give up, we will never concede,” Trump told supporters at a campaign-style protest rally near the White House.

“After this, we’re going to walk down there, and I’ll be there with you, we’re going to walk down… to the Capitol and we are going to cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women,” he said.

He criticized impeachment moves by Democratic lawmakers.

The article of impeachment against Trump introduced Monday charges Trump with inciting an insurrection by falsely claiming the Nov. 3 election was stolen from him. The article resolution says Trump made statements beforehand that “in context, encouraged – and foreseeably resulted in – lawless action at the Capitol.”