Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy on Friday predicted the House impeachment of President Donald Trump will prove to be “a stain on the Democrats.”
In an interview with CNN’s Chris Cuomo, Ruddy, a longtime friend of Trump, said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., is “embarrassed” by the impeachment.
“I think it’s a stain on the Democrats,” he said, arguing that Pelosi, in a talk earlier in the week to some top CEOs in the country who asked her about impeachment, “made it clear she doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“I think [the president] is right. She’s running away from it,” he said.
Ruddy said the impeachment inquiry has uncovered no crime.
“You should only be impeached on the basis of a crime, not because Nancy Pelosi likes you, doesn't like you, was upset you didn't treat her right when she showed up at the White House or that you have a Democratic base that's hysterical,” he lamented.
“She announced an impeachment process without looking at the White House statement, without looking at the complaint, without interviewing anyone,” he said.
The process has brought Congress now to “the verge of impeaching the 45th president of the United States and we have no evidence of a crime,” Ruddy said.
Ruddy said he disagreed with Trump that his July 25 conversation with Ukraine President Voldymyr Zelenskiy was “perfect.”
“The question is did he break any law?” Ruddy said, “Did he break the constitutionally accepted standards of the United States. And there's absolutely no evidence that he has broken any of those.”
But, Ruddy conceded, “I agree it would have been better had he not raised Biden’s name in the call.
“I agree with Alan Dershowitz's statement that it was a political sin,” he said.
According to Ruddy, an underlying animus toward Trump is at the root of the impeachment.
“I think that … many in the establishment media aren’t happy with Trump” despite the president’s “tremendous record” that he attained “as a non-politician.”
Ruddy noted Trump’s impeachment is strictly one-sided.
“Since he arrived [he] has been under seige,” Ruddy said. “We are about ready to go into a historic vote… why doesn’t [impeachment] have bipartisan support?”
Ruddy cited a February 11, 2018 interview given by Rep. Jerry Nadler in which he said it was inappropriate to impeach a president without bipartisan support.