House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) on Saturday said during an on-air interview that he would not be intimidated after the Trump campaign claimed that the lawmaker called for the president to be hanged.
“They’re bullies. They’re trying to intimidate,” Clyburn told CNN.
“My goodness. What I’ve been through in this country, what I go through every day, you aren’t going to intimidate me,” he added. “I am not going to be intimidated by anybody in this White House or by anybody out in the blogosphere. I’ve lived too long to be intimidated by anybody.”
His comment came after the campaign tweeted remarks that Clyburn had previously made to the news network and highlighted his words to imply that Clyburn had said the president should be hanged.
Clyburn did use the phrase “hang him,” but he used it to express how unfair he believed a Senate impeachment trial would be based Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) remarks that he would not be impartial.
“If you know and he’s told you what he’s going to do, he’s just — almost like let’s give him a fair trial and hang him. I mean, it’s the reverse of that,” Clyburn said at the time.
The tweet does include a clip showing a longer portion of Clyburn’s remarks.
The Hill has reached out to the Trump campaign for comment.
McConnell has said he’s “not impartial about this at all,” referring to the impending impeachment trial, and has said that he will be in “total coordination” with the White House.
Democrats thus far have not handed the articles of impeachment over to the Senate, citing these remarks.
That, in turn, has been criticized by Republicans. President Trump recently tweeted, “The Do Nothing Party want to Do Nothing with the Articles & not deliver them to the Senate, but it’s Senate’s call!”