‘Almost a spy’: Democrats rip Trump’s ‘threatening’ comments on whistleblower

Someone laughed loudly during Thursday’s closed-door speech President Donald Trump gave at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations. Other voices spoke in hushed murmurs.

Trump had just demanded to know who provided information about his call with the Ukrainian president to a whistleblower, describing that person as “close to a spy” and adding, “You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right? We used to handle them a little differently than we do now.”

Trump's comments, which were included in leaked video obtained by The Washington Post and others, have sparked intense backlash, with top Democrats decrying his words as "threatening" and defending the whistleblower at the center of a new push for impeachment.

"He sounds like a criminal," Sen. Kamala D. Harris, D-Calif., a presidential hopeful, told MSNBC on Thursday night. " 'Who snitched? Who gave up the goods? Let's find out who gave up the goods on us and make sure there's a consequence and it's serious, and let that be a lesson to everybody else.'

"It sounds like it's straight out of some bad drama, but the fact is this is the president of the United States," Harris said.

Harris was joined by fellow Democratic candidates Sens. Cory Booker, of New Jersey and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke and former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julián Castro, who suggested that Trump's comments could endanger the lives of the whistleblower and anyone else who aided in the complaint. Trump was also rebuked by some Republicans, including former Illinois congressman Joe Walsh and former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, who are challenging the president for the GOP nomination, and Rep. Will Hurd, R-Texas.

In a joint statement, the chairmen of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight and Reform Committees argued that Trump's remarks amounted to "reprehensible witness intimidation and an attempt to obstruct Congress' impeachment inquiry."

"We condemn the President's attacks, and we invite our Republican counterparts to do the same because Congress must do all it can to protect this whistleblower, and all whistleblowers," said the statement from Reps. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y.; Adam Schiff, D-Calif.; and Elijah Cummings, D-Md. "Threats of violence from the leader of our country have a chilling effect on the entire whistleblower process, with grave consequences for our democracy and national security."

The White House did not respond to a request for comment early Friday.

Trump’s statements came after the House released a nine-page version of the whistleblower’s complaint. According to the complaint and a rough transcript of a July 25 phone call, Trump repeatedly urged Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate his political opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, offering assistance from the Justice Department and raising the possibility of a White House sit-down. The call took place after Trump had halted almost $400 million in military aid to Ukraine.

[Whistleblower painstakingly gathered material and almost single-handedly set impeachment in motion]

As Democrats speed up their impeachment investigation, Trump and other Republican leaders have continued to attack the credibility of the whistle-blower and the complaint, highlighting that many of the allegations rely on secondhand information from other U.S. officials.

Thursday's private event, which was closed to the press, was intended to honor the staff and families of the U.S. delegation, but Trump took it as an opportunity to grouse about his enemies. During his speech, the president again went after Biden, the "crooked" media and the whistle-blower's complaint.

"Basically that person never saw the report, never saw the call," Trump said of the whistle-blower on Thursday. "Heard something, and decided that he or she or whoever the hell it is - sort of like, almost, a spy."

Then the president appeared to suggest that the whistleblower and whoever may have supplied the person with information about the Ukraine call had behaved like spies. Trump also mentioned treason, which in the past has been punished by death.

In an interview with MSNBC on Thursday, Booker said Trump sounded "more like a threatening thug than giving forth the ideals of a statesman" and accused the president of using rhetoric that "gives license to people to do dangerous things."

"It's not surprising that Donald Trump doesn't know the difference between patriotism and treason," the New Jersey senator said. "If there's any treasonous actions here it is coming from the White House."

Castro, who also appeared MSNBC, called the president a "dictator." In Castro's view, Trump had suggested that the whistle-blower "should basically be killed."

Meanwhile, other presidential candidates took aim at Trump on Twitter, echoing criticisms that his comment constituted a threat.

"This is wrong and this is un-American," Walsh tweeted about Trump's attacks on the whistle-blower. "And Congressional Republicans say nothing. Shameful. History is watching."

Several politicians also defended the whistleblower, with some referencing federal laws protecting those who expose wrongdoing. There are specific guidelines for whistleblowers in the intelligence community, who are protected from retaliation so long as they follow proper protocol when submitting complaints.

"This person is not a spy," Hurd said at an event in Austin on Thursday night, according to the Dallas Morning News. "Let me say that very clearly. This is clearly somebody who knew the consequences of what he or she was doing . . . and they shared it through the right mechanism."

Harris expressed concerns that Trump was failing to uphold the law and respect the system created for whistle-blowers.

"It should be the president of the United States, above all, who says that we welcome and will always protect people who are fighting for the integrity of our democracy," she said on MSNBC.

In a video shared on Twitter, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., thanked the whistle-blower for "an extraordinary act of courage."

"Trump has used the word treasonous to describe this whistle-blower," Sanders said. "Well, let me tell you what I think treasonous activity is. It is a president who is trying to undermine the Constitution of the United States and a president who thinks he is above the law."

Trump did not address the backlash Thursday night over his leaked remarks. Instead, the president appeared to be watching Fox News’s coverage of the Ukraine scandal, going on Twitter to share several clips from host Sean Hannity’s Thursday show.

Below is a transcript from a 9-minute video of Trump's remarks obtained by The Washington Post. The video begins as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Kelly Craft leaves the stage and Trump takes the podium:

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"They tell you you're going to be a star, the only way you're going to be a star, no matter how you look or feel or talk is when you make good deals. I found that out over the years, you've got to make good deals otherwise it's over. And [Craft] is going to make great deals.

I was with her now for three days and she's developed incredible relationships in a very short period of time and we appreciate it. (Looks at her) You'll be out there. You'll be in the firing line today for us. For instance, today I just heard while I'm coming up here, you know they have a whistleblower (laughter) he turned out to be a fake, he's a fake, a highly partisan whistleblower. The lawyer contributed to Biden, they contributed to - the whole thing is - but more importantly, you know what the whistleblower [complaint] is? The same letter that we announced yesterday, which was perfect, I couldn't have written it better if I wrote it myself. I could not have said or had a better conversation.

And we had a really nice gentleman in the president of Ukraine yesterday. And he was, he was good. They said, 'Was he pressuring you?' You know, these animals in the press. They're animals. Some of the worst human beings you'll ever meet. (An audience member yells: "Fake news!") They're scum, many of them are scum. You have some good reporters, but not many I'll be honest with you. And that's one of the things we battle. (Looks at Craft) You'll find out, but they'll probably like you better than they like me, but I had to get us here right?

They are total, just terrible dishonest people. And they were crazy - they couldn't figure out, 'what do we say bad about this conversation?' Then it turns out they had senators, Democrat senators who went over there and strong-armed the guy: "You better damn well do this or you're not going to get any money from Congress." Oh I see, that's OK? And then you have Sleepy Joe Biden, who's dumb as a rock. (laughter)

This guy was dumb on his best day, and he's not having his best day right now. He's dumb as a rock. So you have Sleepy Joe, and he goes up, and his kid, who's got a lot of problems, he got thrown out of the Navy for problems. I mean, look, I'm not going to - it's a problem, that's a problem, so we won't get into why and all that. But he got thrown out of the Navy, and now this kid goes into Ukraine, walks away with millions of dollars, and he becomes a consultant for $50,000 a month. And he doesn't know anything compared to anybody in this room. OK? He's a stiff, he knows nothing. He's walking away with $50,000, or as you would say in the old days 50K a month. Not bad. Would anybody else in this room like to represent Ukraine for $50,000?

That's on top (points to the audience and says, you got the job) that's on top of hundreds of thousands and millions of dollars. But that's not the best one. The best one was China. This came up. So now he goes to China, and I was with the head of Blackstone which is the big deal. Steve Schwarzman. I said, "Steve, is that possible?" "No, why? Why? Who got that? Who got that?" I said. "Biden's son." "Ooh," Well, then, you know, he says, "Maybe I shouldn't get involved, you know it's very political." I say, "Steve, what happens when you come off a vice presidential plane, it's called Air Force Two, your father's with you, you walk into a room in China and they give you a fund of $1.5 billion, billion, you make hundreds of thousands of dollars and millions of dollars off that. And that's probably not all they gave him. They gave him plenty more, I'm sure. We might never find out.

And then they talk about me, and I didn't do anything. I don't know if I'm the most innocent person in the world. But, you know, you look at that - most presidential, I'm the most presidential, except for possibly Abe Lincoln when he wore the hat - that was tough to beat.

Remember we used to do that during the campaign. They used to say, when I speak, the crowd would be crazy, I'd go crazy - we would all go crazy. We're going to have a lot of fun together . . . We've never had an empty seat. From the day I came down the escalator, with a potential unbelievable woman who became our first lady [applause] . . . the crowds love her, the people love her. But we've never had an empty seat - not one. I really believe that.

There was one case where we had a tremendous snowstorm and it was just about frozen, it was a monster storm. I don't even remember how we got there. I said, 'How's the crowd?' 'It's just about full, sir.' I said, 'What does that mean, like there are about two seats on top. Thousands and thousands could get there. So they show pictures of the empty seats. They don't say this is the worst storm they've had in years. They show pictures of like nine empty seats and it could've been people who just went to the bathroom.

I always say, just get the biggest arena. Good location if you can, but get the biggest arena. We did it the other night. Tuesday night we had two congressmen. One was possibly going to win. He was up by two. He won by about 27, I think, or something like that - a lot. The other one was down by 17. And they said, 'Sir, don't campaign for him please.' Why? 'Because if he loses they're going to kill you in the press.' I said they're going to kill me whether I campaign or not. It's not going to matter. It'll make it a little bit worse. They'll say, he worked and he failed. Trump failed. The guy was down 17 points and he ended up winning by a lot. He ended up winning by a lot.

In fact the whole night, CNN built the most beautiful, $2 billion maybe they spent, no wonder they're losing . . . they have no ratings and they're building studios all over the place, but they had a studio. The studio was going to stay up for weeks. And toward the end of the night they were taking it down. The so called stars were leaving. They're not really stars, I'll tell you. The stars were leaving and they didn't want to report it.

The candidate Dan Bishop won by a lot. He was down by 17, and they had lines a mile long. I mean the lines going into those voting booths were unbelievable. And without the rally speech, and a couple of tweets, and Twitter stuff is good. We have, like, way over 100 million people on six or seven different platforms. It's actually much higher than that, even, higher than just about everybody. And it helps. It helps. They have signs oftentimes when I speak. It said, please keep .... This woman the other night, beautiful woman, she's got a son: "Please keep tweeting sir, it matters." And it does matter, because we get our voice out. If we don't do that, we don't get the voice out.

I can't say what a great job Kelly [Craft] is doing, and I can't say what a wonderful husband he is [pointing to Joe Craft]. Look at how devoted he is. He's a rich man, too. He's loaded. What are you doing here? Why aren't you working? He's so proud of his wife he can't leave his office. That's really great though, huh? Are you all proud of her? He said very much. And he's really a fantastic guy, he's been a friend of mine for a long time. Before I met Kelly, I met Joe. And Joe impressed me because of his knowledge of energy. Now he could be paid. OK, you're going to pay a guy 50 . . . for him that's not quite good enough, although he might. He might. It's easy money, Joe, you have to say. But he would be an expert on energy, he would be a real expert. He would be somebody you would pay a lot of money to, but not Joe Biden's son.

So the whistleblower came out and said nothing. Said, “a couple of people told me he had a conversation with Ukraine.” We’re at war. These people are sick. They’re sick. And nobody’s called it out like I do. I don’t understand. People are afraid to call it out. They’re afraid to say that the press is crooked. We have a crooked press. We have a dishonest media. So now they’re devastated, but they’ll always find something. I’m sure there’ll be something they’ll find in this report that will suit their lie. But basically that person never saw the report, never saw the call. Never saw the call. Heard something, and decided that he or she or whoever the hell it is - sort of like almost a spy. I want to know who’s the person that gave the whistle-blower, who’s the person that gave the whistleblower the information, because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? With spies and treason, right?

...

(He then said, “We used to handle them a little differently than we do now,” according to a recording of the remarks obtained by the Los Angeles Times.)