Fox News "The Ingraham Angle" - Transcript: Interview with Rep. Lee Zeldin

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

INGRAHAM: Joining me now is Congressman Lee Zeldin, House Foreign Affairs Committee member, who was in the hearing room, obviously. Now, Congressman, we've said all along that this was impeachment by emotion, it was a theatrical production. It fell flat, got terrible reviews on day one. They knew they had to try to bring the drama. So it's like begging for applause. What was that moment like?

REP. LEE ZELDIN, R-N.Y.: So I was there in the hearing all day today as I was there all day Wednesday. Afterwards, by the way, we went back into the bunker in the capital basement. We went right back to the skiff for a deposition that took place this afternoon till the evening. We're back there in that bunker tomorrow. And--

INGRAHAM: Tell us about the moment with the ovation. And they were trying to milk on this for all of this work.

ZELDIN: They filled up - they filled up the crowd with all of their supporters--

INGRAHAM: Why are you all not doing that? You guys got to fill it up as well.

ZELDIN: Yes. Well, it was - there is a lot of effort on the part of Democrats over the course of the entire day to make something out of what was at best a draw for them. And the fact is that there was nothing new to learn. I mean, they are a - not only did they leak out the best of what Yovanovitch would have said when she gave her deposition in the skiff, they spun it in a way to set these higher expectations. So it was actually worse.

If you're watching at home over the course of today, not only did you not learn anything new, but you realize that the way what the media was telling you about what Yovanovitch was going to have to say wasn't actually there. Yovanovitch was out of the position. She has no firsthand--

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: But she was upset she lost her job. I mean, welcome to the world. I mean - and civil servants don't serve forever.

ZELDIN: Yes.

INGRAHAM: The President can pick his ambassador. She has a great job at Georgetown University, and not a bad deal at all.

ZELDIN: Her choice. That's exactly what she wanted, to be able to teach future foreign service officers. She got the position she wanted. And my background is the military. The Department of Defense can pick you up and move you 7,000 miles away--

INGRAHAM: Any time you want, it's - but this idea that you deserve--

ZELDIN: --salute, drive on.

INGRAHAM: --a permanent post, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer, regardless of what the President thinks. I want to play for you, Adam Schiff asks Yovanovitch about the intimidation campaign. Watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SCHIFF: As we see her testifying, the President is attacking you on Twitter. I'll read part of one of his tweets. "Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia. How did that go?" He goes on to say later in the tweet, "It is a U.S. President's absolute right to appoint ambassadors." The President in real-time is attacking you.

YOVANOVITCH: It's very intimidating.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZELDIN: Schiff is such a fraud. OK. So the President puts out this entire tweet, and Schiff gives his own rendition of the tweet. if you want to ask the witness for her feelings on the tweet - they've been asking her feelings about everything else.

INGRAHAM: You know, the feelings--

ZELDIN: Let her read the entire tweet for herself and then ask her a question. But for example, the second sentence of that tweet, which was a legitimate point that they left out, they cherry-picked out during their first 45-minute line of questioning, obviously the President noticed this.

The July 25th call transcript, the response from President Zelensky to President Trump, as you were just getting into in the last segment, President Zelensky calls Ambassador Yovanovitch a bad ambassador. President Zelensky says that he believes that Ambassador Yovanovitch had loyalty to President Poroshenko. So why don't you just allow Ambassador Yovanovitch to answer that question? But--

INGRAHAM: And more importantly, if he's worried that it's intimidating, why is he reading it for her?

ZELDIN: OK. So - obviously, she--

INGRAHAM: I'd say he is intimidating the witness.

ZELDIN: Yovanovitch had - Yovanovitch had no idea - exactly. He loves leading questions. Yovanovitch had no idea the tweet had even existed.

INGRAHAM: Yes.

ZELDIN: Talk about witness gagging, not allowing several Republican witnesses or witness coaching, as we saw with Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, Adam Schiff needs to look in the mirror. He's - he does everything he accuses others of. He's--

(CROSSTALK)

INGRAHAM: What did you feel about the way he treated Stefanik?

ZELDIN: Gosh. I mean, he does not like Elise Stefanik. And Elise Stefanik has been a strong woman, she does her homework.

INGRAHAM: She's pretty good.

ZELDIN: She's been working hard. She's preparing for all of these - all these - all those testimony. She's been fantastic. And Adam Schiff hates that.

INGRAHAM: Mark Sandy, are you going to hear anything from him tomorrow, OMB official who's going to testify or give a deposition even though the White House says no?

ZELDIN: He's expected to come, and he would be answering questions with regards to the hold on aid, but keep in mind, Ukraine did not know about the hold on aid until the end of August. The aid gets released shortly thereafter. And guess what Ukraine had to do in order to get that aid release.

INGRAHAM: Not a--

ZELDIN: Absolutely nothing.

INGRAHAM: Congressman, thanks for stopping by. You had a long day, my friend. Back to the dungeon for you tomorrow.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source