Christopher Ruddy Dissects the Impeachment Investigation

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: What is the president thinking — what has he been saying? Have you been talking to him in the last recent days?

CHRISTOPHER RUDDY, CEO, NEWSMAX MEDIA: We`ve talked a couple of times by phone since Pelosi announced — Nancy Pelosi announced the impeachment inquiry. I think the president agrees with my assessment — we both agree — we see this as a political act, not a legal act. Thirteen months to an election, there are some serious allegations raised – – bringing them out through the oversight process of Congress — instead they immediately, without speaking to the whistleblower — without seeing the whistleblower complaint — without interviewing anybody they immediately call for an impeachment inquiry. So it made it seem that they were more interested in the act of the impeachment rather than finding the truth. And I think the president, frankly is overreacting and the White House is overreacting by withholding testimony. The truth is going to come —

AMANPOUR: Do you think Sondland should have been allowed to testify today?

RUDDY: I do.

AMANPOUR: Was that a mistake?

RUDDY: I do. I think that the administration — this — I understand where the president and the White House is coming from, because remember as much as people say obstruction with Mueller, this president waived executive privilege. There were 500 witnesses — $50 million spent, two years of investigation. They found no evidence of Russian collusion, shocking isn`t it? No evidence —

AMANPOUR: Well —

RUDDY: And they —

AMANPOUR: They can get in to the parsing of all that —

RUDDY: And at the end of the day they accused him of obstruction. So I think he looks at this and says, why do I benefit playing the nice guy here? I believe that Congress — I`m a journalist — I believe Congress has a serious oversight role (ph), and that the president and the White House should respect that oversight role.

AMANPOUR: So basically you`re saying as his friend, as somebody who has spoken to him — you think they should not have obstructed Gordon Sondland from going to Congress?

RUDDY: Well I wouldn`t use the word obstructed —

AMANPOUR: Adam Schiff did.

RUDDY: That`s obviously — I think Adam Schiff is a hyper-rhetoric —

AMANPOUR: But you think he should have allowed him to go testify?

RUDDY: Yes, I do. I think, unless there`s some really pressing reason for privilege, the president has denied that there was ever any quid pro quo.

AMANPOUR: Now you said — and I just need to make sure that we are all on the same page, that Nancy Pelosi made her move without any knowledge of what the whistleblower was doing — that`s not quite the timeline. The transcript had been released —

RUDDY: No — no, no. She announced it before the transcript — before.

AMANPOUR: Well they had seen the transcript —

RUDDY: No — no. What we do know is that the whistleblower did speak to Adam Schiff a week or two before the complaint was first surfaced. So they had knowledge of what was in the complaint. And that could come out as — and if there were fair hearings, and maybe in the Senate trial if there`s an impeachment.

AMANPOUR: What do you think? I mean, you say that with a little bit of a twinkle in your eye — do you think this — I mean, is this a threat to the president?

RUDDY: I think it`s a mortal threat to his presidency, he certainly should treat it that way.