Fox Business host Lisa Kennedy on Friday slammed President Trump for his tweeted attacks on former U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch during her public testimony on Capitol Hill, calling the president a “big dumb baby.”
“Should the president be tweeting at her midhearing? No. It makes him look like a big dumb baby,” Kennedy said on the air. “He makes her look like a victim, and if he’d just let it go, the last two days of hearings and testimony would’ve been a snoozefest.”
As Yovanovitch testified about a smear campaign by Trump’s allies to oust her from her post in Kyiv, the president took aim at her on Twitter, writing that “everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad.”
And in a stunning turn of events, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) interrupted his staff counsel’s questioning to read the tweet aloud to the witness and ask her for her reaction.
Yovanovitch said Trump’s tweet might have a “very intimidating” effect on future witnesses facing pressure from the White House not to testify in the impeachment inquiry, and Democrats have since alleged that the attacks were a form of witness intimidation.
Trump later defended his actions, saying that “I have the right to speak” and that he’s “allowed to speak up” if others are talking about him.
Friday’s testimony gave the Democrats’ inquiry a boost of momentum from the feud and from Yovanovitch, who described in personal terms how a shadowy smear campaign successfully led to her removal as the top U.S. diplomat to Ukraine after 33 years of public service.
However, her testimony did not advance their allegations that Trump abused his power by pressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to open an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden that would benefit him politically.