President Donald Trump has expressed confidence that he would beat an impeachment trial in the US Senate, where the Republican party holds a majority.
Trump said opposition Democrats in the House of Representatives “unfortunately” have the votes to impeach him.
But even if they are successful, he predicted there would not be enough votes in the Senate to convict him in a trial and remove him from office.
“They have to follow their leadership,” Trump said of House Democrats, insisting that many don’t want to support impeachment. “And then we’ll get it to the Senate, and we’re going to win. The Republicans have been very unified.”
He also expressed confidence he and the Republicans will win elections next year, adding that the impeachment inquiry will result in Democrats paying a “tremendous price” at the polls.
Trump is facing an impeachment inquiry launched by Democrats in Congress over his contacts with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The inquiry began after a whistleblower reported details of a call Trump had with Zelenskiy in July.
A reconstructed transcript of the call, released last week by the White House, showed the Republican president asking for a “favour” from Ukraine in investigating former vice-president Joe Biden, currently the Democrats’ leading candidate for the party’s nomination to run against Trump next year.
Trump argued yesterday that his concerns about Biden are focused on corruption.
“I don’t care about politics. I care about corruption,” Trump said repeatedly.
But the president could not name any instance of asking a foreign government to help with a corruption probe not focused on a domestic political rival.
Trump also would not commit to co-operating with an impeachment investigation, saying: “That’s up to the lawyers.” 
The impeachment inquiry on Thursday led Democratic leaders of three congressional committees to call Trump’s actions “unethical, unpatriotic and wrong”.
The committees have handed a subpoena to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, currently on a tour of Europe.
Trump used his time before the cameras yesterday to accuse Biden and his son of “pillaging” foreign countries and attacking him personally.
“I’ve watched Biden over the years, and Biden is not the brightest person. He got taken off of the garbage heap by Obama,” Trump said, referring to former president Barack Obama.
Trump said he does not believe Biden will win the Democratic nomination for the 2020 presidential race but said he’d be happy if he did because “he’d be an easy opponent”.