Nancy Pelosi calls Trump 'unprepared, unqualified, ethically unfit' after he calls Russia bounty reports 'hoax'
CIA Director Gina Haspel is set to brief House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other members of the congressional 'Gang of Eight' on Thursday, July 2, about reports claiming that Russia offered bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan.
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany confirmed on July 1 that the classified briefing, to be led by National Security Agency Director Paul Nakasone, will take place in a secure room in the US Capitol. The briefing comes as Pelosi said President Donald Trump was "unqualified and ethically unfit" to serve as President of the United States. "The fact is very clear. The President is intellectually unprepared, personally unqualified, and ethically unfit to serve as President of the United States," she told MSNBC on Wednesday, July 1.
"And now he has undermined any credibility he may have had as Commander-in-Chief, if he could call a possible assault on our troops, our men and women in uniform, by the Russians a hoax, without even wanting to read about it, learn more about it and make a really informed judgment about it," the speaker continued. "He'll say this is a hoax, and it's a hoax that they are 24/7 trying to disrupt our election as they did in 2016," she added. "He says the coronavirus is a hoax. The fact is the president himself is a hoax."
The Gang of Eight constitutes top congressional leaders in both parties as well as heads of intelligence committees. As of today, the body includes Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, Republican Senator Marco Rubio and Democratic Senator Mark Warner as chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff and Republican Rep. Devin Nunes as chairman and ranking member of the House intelligence committee.
That said, Pelosi and Schumer have demanded an all-House and all-Senate briefing respectively on the Russian bounties. The president said on Wednesday, July 1 that many in the intelligence community didn't believe that the Russians were paying bounties to kill American troops in Afghanistan.
Trump added that he had never been briefed on the issue, noting it didn't reach his desk, and called the report a "hoax".
"We never heard about it because intelligence never found it to be of that level, where it would rise to that," Trump told Fox Business in a recent interview. "When you bring something into a president and I see many, many things and I'm sure I don't see many things that they don't think rose to the occasion. This didn't rise to the occasion."
The president had already referred to the matter as a 'hoax' earlier in the day. "The Russia Bounty story is just another made up by Fake News tale that is told only to damage me and the Republican Party. The secret source probably does not even exist, just like the story itself. If the discredited @nytimes has a source, reveal it. Just another HOAX!" Trump tweeted.