This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

Donald Trump attacked Democrats as “un-American” and “treasonous” for failing to applaud him on Monday, only hours after attacking a laundry list of senior figures in the intelligence community as “liars and leakers”.

During a speech at an Ohio factory, the president denounced Democrats who did not clap at his state of the union address, even though partisan applause – and the lack thereof – has become a commonplace ritual of the speech. Republicans rarely clapped for Barack Obama, for instance, as was the case for Democrats listening to George W Bush.

But Trump nonetheless said that Democrats were not patriotic for failing to credit him. “They certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much,” he said.

Nunes memo 'a political hit job on FBI' in service of Trump, top Democrat says Read more

Earlier on Monday, the president targeted in particular Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee. A prominent critic of the administration, Schiff opposed the release last week of a controversial memo, written by Republicans on the panel, about investigations into ties between Trump aides and Russia.

“Little Adam Schiff,” the president tweeted, “who is desperate to run for higher office, is one of the biggest liars and leakers in Washington, right up there with Comey, Warner, Brennan and Clapper!

“Adam leaves closed committee hearings to illegally leak confidential information. Must be stopped!”

Schiff responded, tweeting: “Mr President, I see you’ve had a busy morning of ‘Executive Time’. Instead of tweeting false smears, the American people would appreciate it if you turned off the TV and helped solve the funding crisis, protected Dreamers or … really anything else.”

Trump had earlier tweeted an erroneous claim about the British National Health Service and praise of the Fox News morning show Fox and Friends, which had aired an interview with former UK Independence Party leader Nigel Farage.

The other figures Trump derided as “liars and leakers” have all either taken part in the investigation or criticised Trump, including James Comey, the FBI director whom Trump fired in May 2017, a key part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation; Mark Warner, the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee; John Brennan, the former CIA director under Barack Obama; and James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence.

On Saturday, Trump claimed the four-page memo produced by Devin Nunes, the Republican chair of the House committee, and approved for release by the White House, “totally” vindicated him in the investigation into Russian election meddling, links between Trump aides and Russia, and potential obstruction of justice.

Observers from both parties said that it did not. The FBI had urged against the memo’s release, suggesting it was inaccurate and misleading.

On Monday, Nunes also spoke to Fox and Friends. Trump praised the California representative on Twitter, calling him “a man of tremendous courage and grit” who “may someday be recognized as a Great American Hero for what he has exposed and what he has had to endure!”

Nunes told Fox and Friends there had been “almost 100 leaks that we believe have come from Democrats on the House intelligence committee”.

Who is Devin Nunes and why is he sowing confusion in the Russia inquiry? Read more

Last year, Nunes stood aside from his own panel’s Russia investigation, after he received classified information from staffers at the White House and then spoke to the press, prompting an ethics investigation. He was eventually cleared to return to the intelligence committee.

On Monday he told Fox and Friends that Democrats “advocated for my removal from the committee”.

“Why is that? It’s because we’ve been successful at getting to the bottom of a lot of real problems with the institutions within our government,” he said.

Nunes also claimed falsely that there was no evidence Trump had ever met George Papadopoulos, the campaign adviser who has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI regarding his contacts with Russians during the election. The FBI began its investigation after a tip about Papadopoulos, who knew that the Kremlin possessed hacked emails from the Democratic party before those emails’ release.

In March 2016, the Trump campaign posted to Instagram a picture of Trump meeting advisers including Papadopoulos.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest George Papadopoulos, third left, in a photograph released on Donald Trump’s Instagram account. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Schiff is among Democrats pushing for the release of a counter-memo which they say provides a more complete picture of how the FBI’s investigation unfolded in its early stages in 2016, including why agents grew suspicious of Trump campaign aides and to what extent they relied a dossier compiled by a former British spy, Christopher Steele, regarding links between Trump and Russia.

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A spokeswoman for Paul Ryan said on Friday the Republican House speaker supported the release of the Democratic memo “if it is scrubbed to ensure it does not reveal sources and methods of our intelligence gathering”.

Democrats, the FBI and the Department of Justice opposed the release of the Nunes memo on those grounds, saying it could compromise intelligence-gathering capabilities.

The release of the Nunes memo – which Schiff told ABC on Sunday was “a political hit job on the FBI in the service of the president” – contributed to speculation that Trump might now fire Mueller or the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, who oversees the special counsel’s work.

On Friday, a White House spokesman told CNN “no changes are going to be made at the Department of Justice”.

On Sunday, former Trump chief of staff Reince Priebus, who left the White House last July, told NBC’s Meet the Press: “I never felt that the president was going to fire the special counsel. I never heard that.”

The New York Times reported last month that Trump ordered Mueller fired in June 2017, only to be thwarted when the White House counsel threatened to resign.

Trump denied that story, saying it was “fake news, folks, fake news”.