President Donald Trump was recently acquitted for both articles of impeachment by the Senate the previous week and is currently campaigning for his reelection in November. In an unusual incident, Trump appeared to be disagreeing with the prediction of his victory.
Trump is known for taking to social media a lot if he is not making a speech somewhere, and Raw Story reports that he had an opposing opinion towards the result of his own re-election campaign. Political scientist Larry Sabato recently tweeted that Trump would be winning the 2020 elections in November. However, Trump quote-tweeted Sabato’s tweet and responded that the scientist reportedly did not have an accurate prediction and that he failed to understand someone who would vote for Trump during the elections.
Sabato then retweeted one of his own previous tweets regarding the impeachment trial that said that it was a bipartisan vote to convict but not to acquit. Again, Trump quote-tweeted him and said that Sabato was better at giving the answer long after the results were revealed compared to predicting what is going to happen as he apparently does not have a clue. As to why the President would criticize Sabato for predicting something that is in his favor is unclear, or for stating what was true during the impeachment trial at the Senate.
Nevertheless, Trump appears to be determined to clean house following the verdict given to him by the predominantly-Republican Senate. The New York Times reports that several Republican Senators urged Trump not to dismiss impeachment witnesses, but much to their dismay, Trump fired them anyway. Senators Susan Collins, Thom Tillis, Martha McSally, and Ron Johnson all reached out to the White House to try and convince the President not to fire impeachment witness Gordon D. Sondland, who also served as ambassador to the European Union.
Their reasoning behind this move was that it was unnecessary and firing Sondland would mean more political backlash. Instead, they thought that Sondland should leave on his own terms and resign, as he had already considered leaving after the Senate trial. However, the announcement of his departure comes hours after another impeachment witness, Lieutenant Colonel Alexander S. Vindman was dismissed from his post, along with his twin brother, Lieutenant Colonel Yevgeny Vindman, who did not participate in the entire impeachment process.