Media

Chris Wallace on Yovanovitch testimony: ‘If you’re not moved, you don’t have a pulse’

by Joe Concha - 11/15/19 11:46 AM ET

“Fox News Sunday” anchor Chris Wallace said Friday that if viewers weren’t moved by the impeachment testimony of former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch, they “don’t have a pulse,” during commentary on “America’s Newsroom.”

Chris on the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch. The hearing is currently in break. Tune-in for live analysis of everything we’ve heard so far. #FoxNews #FNC #ImpeachmentHearing #Politics #CapitolHill pic.twitter.com/aR0d6Edo4B

— FoxNewsSunday (@FoxNewsSunday) November 15, 2019

The comments from Wallace came as Yovanovitch testified Friday that she felt threatened when she saw President Trump had brought up her service in Ukraine on a July call with the country’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“I was shocked and devastated,” she told the House Intelligence Committee. “It was a terrible moment.”

Wallace reacted to Yovanovitch’s testimony during an interview with anchors Bill Hemmer and Sandra Smith on Friday morning.

“I think that if you are not moved, and we’ll see what happens in the cross-examination, but if you are not moved by the testimony of Marie Yovanovitch today, you don’t have a pulse,” said Wallace.

“The really dramatic moment is that this wasn’t just testimony about the past, this played out in real time with the president attacking her. He said every place that she served went bad,” he continued. “Adam Schiff said do you see this as an effort to intimidate you and other witnesses, and she said ‘I feel that is quite intimidating.’ That does raise the possibility of witness intimidation as new charge here.”

“We’ll have to wait and see what happens when the Republicans start to question her, but it seems to me that this has been very powerful testimony so far on the part of Marie Yovanovitch,” Wallace added.

Trump’s tweet to his more than 65 million followers asserted, during the former ambassador’s public testimony, that Yovanovitch had performed poorly during her career as a U.S. ambassador.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a U.S. President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors,” Trump wrote.

Impeachment proceedings will continue into Friday afternoon, with ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, Fox News, C-SPAN and PBS all pre-empting regular programming to cover the historic event.

More than 13 million people tuned in on Wednesday, according to Nielsen Media Research. The number is on par with former special counsel Robert Mueller’s Capitol Hill testimony in July, but 32 percent less than former FBI Director James Comey’s testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2017.

Tags Adam Schiff Chris Wallace Donald Trump James Comey Marie Yovanovitch Robert Mueller