Former president Donald Trump pushed back against former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson after her explosive testimony before the select committee investigating the January 6 riot.
The former president spoke to Newsmax and disputed the story Ms Hutchinson said she heard secondhand – that Mr Trump tried to lunge at a US Secret Service agent in his presidential limousine in an attempt to take him to the US Capitol to join his supporters.
“Is there something wrong with her?” Mr Trump said. “She said I jumped from a car and I started stranging, think of this, I started strangling a Secret Service agent who I know very well?”
Mr Trump also pushed back at Ms Hutchinson’s allegation that he wanted magnetometers removed from outside the rally, even though many of his supporters were armed.
“I didn’t want guns,” he said, adding how he had to speak to the rally.
Ms Hutchinson said that Mr Trump was upset that rallygoers were being kept out of the White House Ellipse for the “Stop the Steal” rally.
“They’re not here to hurt me. Take the [f***ing] mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” Ms Hutchinson remembered the president saying.
But Mr Trump pushed back.
“The woman is living in fantasy land,” he said. “She’s a social climber, if you call that social. I think it’s just a shame that this is happening to our country. And we don’t have any Republicans up there to dispute it.”
Mr Trump has previously complained about the fact there are no opposing Republicans on the select committee. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy pulled all of his members from the committee after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to seat Representatives Jim Jordan of Ohio and Jim Banks of Indiana.
“This would have been the easiest cross-examination anywhere,” Mr Trump said.
Mr Trump’s words come after Ms Hutchinson testified to the select committee about the details about her tenure working for the Trump administration during January 6. She worked as an aide to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows.
