Trump calls Democrats' memo release "really fraudulent" on Fox News
President Trump said the "Democrats' memo was a nothing" when he called into Fox News' "Justice with Judge Jeanine" on Saturday night. Mr. Trump repeated his call for arming teachers since Parkland school shooting, saying "you wouldn't have this problem" if teachers had guns.
Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee released their rebuttal to the GOP memo that was declassified three weeks ago. The Republicans' memo, written by Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, had alleged the Justice Department and FBI acquired and executed surveillance warrants for former Trump campaign aide Carter Page, in part by allegedly using the dossier of unverified information about Mr. Trump's interactions with Russians.
Mr. Trump had previously blocked the release of the Democrats' 10-page memo. Mr. Trump sent several tweets about the Democrats' memo release Saturday before going on Jeanine Pirro's show, calling it a "BUST." He also tweeted about it several times after appearing on the show.
On the show, he appeared to suggest there should be an investigation into the Democrats' memo release.
"Somebody should look into it," Mr. Trump said. "What they did is really fraudulent and somebody should be looking -- I'm talking about you know who."
He said the GOP memo proved "there is no collusion. No phone calls, meeting, nothing, there is no collusion. I say it all the time."
Mr. Trump also referred to U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, who is the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, a "really bad guy."
"All you do is see Adam Schiff, he has a meeting, he leaves the meeting, calls up reporters and all of a sudden they have news, you are not supposed to do that," Mr. Trump said. "It's probably illegal to do it. He'll have a committee meeting and leak all sorts of information. He's a bad guy. But the memo was a nothing."
Nunes, Mr. Trump said, is "very brave in terms of what he's faced."
Mr. Trump slammed former President Obama for inaction on "all this meddling or whatever you call it ... He was president during entire period of time. A lot of the fair people and people frankly that love my administration. They bring it up all the time but Obama was the president."
Mr. Trump also spoke about the Feb. 14 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 students dead and 15 others wounded. At the conservative gathering CPAC on Friday, Mr. Trump said "a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened."
Mr. Trump repeated that position on Pirro's show, saying that Coach Aaron Fies, who died shielding students, "if he had his gun, he'd be alive today." Mr. Trump said possible school shooters "have to know that if they go into a school with bad intentions, there are bad consequences ... gun-free zones are very dangerous because the bad guys love gun-free zones."
Mr. Trump said he "explained" to the National Rifle Association that "it doesn't make any sense that you have to wait 21 to get pistol, but gun like this maniac used, doesn't make sense."
In the wake of the Parkland shooting, the NRA's Dana Loesch has accused the media and liberals of "exploiting a tragedy for an agenda."
Mr. Trump also slammed Democrats, saying they "don't care so much about people coming across the border." He also insisted "I'm the one pushing DACA," not the Democrats.
And finally, Mr. Trump said he would "like" to have a military parade, possibly on July 4 or Veterans' Day. "A lot of the generals would like to have a parade to celebrate what we're doing," he said.