President Trump on Friday defended his Twitter attack on former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch as she was testifying during the House impeachment inquiry — declaring it was his “freedom of speech” to express his opinion of her.

“Nobody has ever had such horrible due process. There was no due process. I think it is considered a joke all over Washington and all over the world. The Republicans are given no due process whatsoever. We’re not allowed to do anything. It’s a disgrace what is happening,” Trump told reporters during an unrelated event Friday as Yovanovitch was still testifying before Congress.

“I have freedom of speech just as other people do but they have taken away the Republicans’ rights. I watched today as certain very talented people, who wanted to ask questions, and they weren’t even allowed to ask questions — Republicans,” he continued, apparently referring to New York GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, who was gavelled out of order for trying to speak at a time questioning was limited to the chair, ranking member and their counsels.

Trump had earlier vented on Twitter.

“Everywhere Marie Yovanovitch went turned bad. She started off in Somalia, how did that go? Then fast forward to Ukraine, where the new Ukrainian President spoke unfavorably about her in my second phone call with him. It is a US President’s absolute right to appoint ambassadors,” he tweeted.

“They call it ‘serving at the pleasure of the President.’ The US now has a very strong and powerful foreign policy, much different than proceeding administrations. It is called, quite simply, America First! With all of that, however, I have done FAR more for Ukraine than O,” he continued, referring to ex-President Obama.

Rep. Adam Schiff, who is leading the proceedings, read portions of Trump’s speech during the hearing, calling them attempts to intimidate the witness, and asked Yovanovitch how they made her feel.

“It’s very intimidating. I mean, I can’t speak to what the president is trying to do, but I think the effect is trying to be intimidating,” she replied.

Trump didn’t answer a question on whether he intended to threaten Yovanovitch with his tweets, saying: “I just want to have a total — I want freedom of speech. That is a political process. The Republicans have been treated very badly.”

Trump also lashed out at reporters , saying they weren’t reporting positively on enough on his newly released call with the Ukrainian president, in which he does not mention corruption, which the White House said in April was a topic of their discussion.

“It was a great call. It was a very nice call. Everybody said it was perfect. I always say, equally as good as the other call. I put it out today. Nobody even wants to report it because it was so good they don’t want to report it,” Trump said.

“If we had an honest press in this country, we would be so well served. You know what? When I look at your approval numbers, they’re the worst they have ever been in the history of our country, the media approval numbers. They are horrible. You ought to get yourself back and put yourself back in a position where people respect the media again,” he fumed.