U.S. President Donald Trump said Wednesday that "markets would crash" if he were impeached and that he would consider pardoning his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, according to a Fox News reporter who interviewed Trump.
Fox News reporter Ainsley Earhardt said Trump told her in an interview on Wednesday that "he would consider" pardoning Manafort.
Trump reportedly also said, "I don't know how you can impeach somebody who's done a great job." Trump added, "If I ever got impeached, I think the market would crash, I think everybody would be very poor. Without this thinking you would see numbers you wouldn't believe."
"I think he feels bad for Manafort. They were friends," Earhardt said in an appearance on Fox News' "Hannity" program on Wednesday night. Manafort was convicted on Tuesday of bank and tax fraud.
Earhardt was the subject of widespread ridicule after last Thursday she mistakenly stated that the U.S. defeated “communist Japan” in an impassioned criticism of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who had said America “was never that great.”
Fox News has been airing excerpts of the interview with Trump, which is scheduled to be shown in its entirety on Thursday morning. The excerpts have not included a clip of Trump saying he would consider pardoning Manafort.
Manafort was convicted on Tuesday of two counts of bank fraud, five counts of tax fraud and one charge of failing to disclose foreign bank accounts.
In a tweet on Wednesday about the verdict, Trump called Manafort a "brave man" and said, "I feel very badly for Paul Manafort and his wonderful family."
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