Hours after his lawyers began his impeachment trial with a blizzard of lies, President Trump held a news conference at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in which he repeated many of those falsehoods and struggled to reconcile inconsistent statements he’s made about whether his aides should testify.

In so doing, the president offered yet another illustration of how he and his team intend to not only to bluster their way through the impeachment trial, but even go as far as taunting Democrats who have so far been stymied in their efforts to compel testimony and document production.

Continuing a strategy his lawyers used on Tuesday, Trump largely declined to defend his dealings with Ukraine on the merits during his news conference, but instead twisted facts to portray Democrats as obsessed with taking him down.

The most notable egregious example of this came in the context of Trump’s comments about House Intelligence Committee chair and impeachment manager Adam Schiff. To hear Trump tell it, Schiff intentionally falsified comments Trump made to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during their July phone call, only to be subsequently corrected when the president took the bold step of releasing a call summary.

“When somebody will make up a statement that I made ... and he didn’t say he made it up. Now, ultimately, he had to in a sense apologize, [because] fortunately we had a tape, we had the transcripts,” Trump said. “I am so happy that I had the transcripts, because it showed he’s a liar and he’s a fraud.”

Trump, however, is lying about the timeline and about the lawmaker making up a statement. Schiff did paraphrase parts of Trump’s call during a House hearing that took place after the White House released the call transcript. But Schiff made it clear during that hearing that he was paraphrasing, saying his remarks about the call were “shorn of its rambling character and in not so many words.”

Ironically, this makes Trump guilty of exactly what he’s accusing Schiff of doing — making things up to smear a political foe.

Trump pushes Orwellian lies about Schiff paraphrasing his fateful Ukraine call, which happened during a hearing *after* the White House released the call summary. (Trump wants people to believe that the summary corrected Schiff, but that's not the case.) pic.twitter.com/dJdnUMOMal — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020

Another part of the news conference showed how invested Trump is in this lie about the Ukraine call timeline.

“When we released that conversation [of the Ukraine call], all hell broke out with the Democrats because they said, ‘Wait a minute, this is much different than Schiff told us,’” Trump claimed — turning reality on its head, since the call summary corroborated the core allegations made by a government whistleblower who first sounded the alarm about Trump’s Ukraine phone call.

"When we released that conversation [of the Ukraine call], all hell broke out with the Democrats because they said, 'wait a minute, this is much different than Schiff told us'" -- this is a total lie. The White House call summary totally corroborated the whistleblower complaint pic.twitter.com/SPXsMuAc2S — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020

Those weren’t the only easily fact-checkable lies Trump told about the Zelensky call. At another point during the news conference, he claimed that both Zelensky and the Ukrainian foreign minister publicly “said the call was perfect.” But neither said any such thing. In fact, Zelensky’s most recent public comments about the call indicated he was annoyed that Trump made his country “look like beggars,” adding that “if you’re our strategic partner, then you can’t go blocking anything for us.”

"The president of Ukraine said the call [in July] was perfect. The foreign minister of Ukraine said it was perfect" -- these are lies. Neither of them ever said that. pic.twitter.com/gweoBCE2Cs — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020

Propagating falsehoods about the Zelensky call has become a standard part of the president’s defense, something he reminded the public of just as the impeachment hearing began, tweeting everyone ought to “READ THE TRANSCRIPTS!”

He has long argued that a close read of records of his calls with Zelensky exonerate him, a claim that is completely at odds with reality. Despite this lie being easily disproven, Trump insists on telling it.

Perhaps that is because even in a news conference setting, Trump didn’t get any pushback for telling easily refutable lies. And instead of debunking Trump, Fox News credulously covered his remarks with chyrons like “TRUMP BLASTS IMPEACHMENT TRIAL AS ‘HOAX’ WHILE IN DAVOS” — framing that may lead people who aren’t actually watching the hearing to buy what Trump is selling.

Trump is trying to have it both ways on witnesses

Throughout the day and into the night on Tuesday, Senate Republicans blocked every attempt Democrats made to compel the White House to provide documents or witness testimony during the trial. But that approach is in tension with what Trump said just last month, when he told reporters that “when it’s fair, and it will be fair in the Senate, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, I would like to have Mick [Mulvaney], I would love to have Rick Perry, and many other people testify.”

Just last month, Trump said "when it's fair, & it will be fair in the Senate, I would love to have Mike Pompeo, I would like to have Mick [Mulvaney], I would love to have Rick Perry, and many other people testify."



He's now stonewalling all witness testimony during Senate trial. pic.twitter.com/UxnxSVPYT7 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 15, 2020

The impeachment managers pointed out this discrepancy during their remarks Tuesday, even showing the above video on the Senate floor.

During Wednesday’s news conference, the president was asked about the daylight between this position and the position the White House and Senate Republicans have taken since, which is to deny witness request. He responded not by explaining himself but by complaining about Schiff.

Asked to resolve his inconsistent statements about witness testimony during the Senate trial, Trump starts ranting about Adam Schiff and the "total hoax" Russia and Ukraine investigations pic.twitter.com/wTtammPVW6 — Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 22, 2020

Later, Trump muddled his position, saying that while he “would rather interview a lot of people” during a “long trial,” the “problem” with people like Bolton testifying is that “it’s a national security problem.”

In short, Trump seemed to be trying to have it both ways. He’s posturing as an advocate for a long, thorough trial that includes witness testimony, but is not objecting to Senate Republicans stonewalling Democratic efforts to make it happen.

In a particularly galling moment during Wednesday’s news conference, Trump seemed to taunt Democrats who are trying to subpoena documents from the White House.

“Honestly, we have all the material. They don’t have the material,” he said, in comments that are an affront to the idea that the Senate trial should be a fair one.

The second article of impeachment was for obstruction of Congress: covering up witnesses and documents from the American people.



This morning the President not only confessed to it, he bragged about it:



"Honestly, we have all the material. They don't have the material." pic.twitter.com/DPAEFHIDjS — Rep. Val Demings (@RepValDemings) January 22, 2020

None of this makes Trump look particularly good. But neither did his lawyers lying their way through Tuesday’s marathon day of testimony, only to in many instances be immediately fact-checked by Democrats.

The question, however, is how many people are paying attention to what’s really going on instead consuming Fox News-style gaslighting. And it’s worth noting that one Republican senator, Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, actually appeared on Fox News during the hearing on Tuesday evening, blatantly violating the impeachment trial rules. Trump supporters, however, have gotten used to there being no consequences for that sort of thing.

The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.