Trump Says Congress Attempting ‘Coup’, Tells Citizens ‘Freedom’, Guns, Religion At Risk

On Tuesday evening, after another day of bad news on both the political and economic fronts, Donald Trump opened his Twitter app and proceeded to deliver a paranoid assessment of his current predicament.

“As I learn more and more each day, I am coming to the conclusion that what is taking place is not an impeachment, it is a COUP”, the president actually said, to his 65.1 million followers.

He continued. This developing “coup”, Trump assessed, is “intended to take away the Power of the People”.

Read more: Pompeo Accused Of ‘Illegal Witness Intimidation’; Mike Pence, Rick Perry Questioned

The president’s disconcerting tweets came on the heels of what must have been an exceedingly frustrating day. In addition to the vice president and the energy secretary getting dragged into the impeachment fray, Mike Pompeo was unable to stop scheduled depositions for the recently resigned special envoy to Ukraine, Kurt Volker, and Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who Trump maligned on the phone call with Volodymyr Zelensky.

When Pompeo tried to pitch the depositions as an example of “bullying” by House Democrats, Eliot Engel, Adam Schiff and Elijah Cummings turned the tables on the secretary of state. “[You] should immediately cease intimidating Department witnesses in order to protect [yourself] and the President”, the lawmakers told Pompeo, adding that “any effort to intimidate witnesses or prevent them from talking with Congress–including State Department employees–is illegal and will constitute evidence of obstruction of the impeachment inquiry”.

On top of it all, data out Tuesday showed activity in the US manufacturing sector (which Trump campaigned on resurrecting) decelerating to a 10-year low. In other words, US factory activity is now at levels last seen during the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis. That is a veritable disaster for a president whose entire economic agenda revolved around ushering in a US manufacturing renaissance.

With the walls clearly closing in, Trump has resorted to increasingly unhinged threats, including last week’s allusion to having government officials executed and Monday’s suggestion that Schiff should be “arrested” for “treason”. The president reiterated that latter point on Tuesday. “Why isn’t Congressman Adam Schiff being brought up on charges?”, Trump asked.

But it was his Tuesday evening tweets that came across as particularly unnerving. After calling the impeachment inquiry a “coup”, and telling millions of Americans that the “people” were in peril, the president said that Democrats are trying to “take away” the people’s “VOTE, their Freedoms, their Second Amendment, Religion, Military, Border Wall, and their God-given rights as a Citizen of The United States of America!”

It’s beginning to sound as though Trump, backed into a corner, may actually be so enthralled with his own narrative that he’s considering some kind of dramatic move, be it martial law or suspending Congress.

If you’re inclined to say that’s absurd, we would be inclined to agree with you, but at least based on the early coverage we’ve seen immediately following the president’s Tuesday evening “coup” tweets, there is palpable concern.

As the Daily Beast reminds you, Fox News hosts and featured guests–including Peter Navarro–have also claimed Democratic lawmakers’ efforts to investigate Trump’s apparent pressure campaign to have Ukraine investigate corruption allegations against former Vice President Joe Biden and his son are an ‘attempted coup d’etat’ and a ‘coup campaign'”.