Trump: Pelosi Is No Longer Speaker of the House

President Trump addressed the ongoing Ukraine phone call controversy during a press conference Wednesday in New York after he'd spent the day at the UN General Assembly. The news conference—his first since House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced that an impeachment inquiry would be launched following a whistleblower's complaint about the phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, CNN reports—was part of a bilateral meeting with Zelensky, USA Today reports. "Nancy Pelosi, as far as I'm concerned, is no longer the speaker of the House," he said, implying she's given over control of the chamber. "All she's thinking about is [impeachment]. She's been taken over by the radical left, the whole Democrat Party."

Trump also denied threatening or pressuring Zelensky, insisting, "There was no quid pro quo. But there was with Biden and there was with the senators." And he slammed House Democrats for launching "this hoax during the United Nations week. It was perfect, because this way it takes away from the tremendous achievements that we’re taking care of doing that we’re involved in. In New York City at the United Nations." Ahead of the presser, Trump tweeted that he "informed @GOPLeader Kevin McCarthy and all Republicans in the House that I fully support transparency on so-called whistleblower information but also insist on transparency from Joe Biden and his son Hunter, on the millions of dollars that have been quickly and easily........taken out of Ukraine and China." (More Trump impeachment stories.)