'They're trying to impeach the son of a bitch, can you believe that?' Trump tells LSU championship football team before Senate trial
- "They're trying to impeach the son of a bitch," President Trump said, days before the Senate is due to start arguments in his impeachment trial.
- Trump's comment at the White House came during a meeting with the LSU national college football championship team, which defeated Clemson in the title game earlier this week.
Days before his Senate trial is to begin in earnest, President Donald Trump told the visiting LSU football team Friday: "They're trying to impeach the son of a bitch, can you believe that?"
Trump's salty comment about himself came as he welcomed the national college football championship team at the White House's East Room
At one point, with team members behind him, Trump invited the players into the Oval Office to pose with him for photos.
"We'll take pictures behind the Resolute Desk. It's been there a long time," Trump told the team, which easily beat Clemson 42-25 in the national title game in New Orleans, which the president attended.
"A lot of presidents, some good, some not so good," Trump said of his predecessors.
"But you got a good one now, even though they're trying to impeach the son of a bitch, can you believe that?" Trump said to raucous laughter from his audience.
"Can you believe that? Got the greatest economy we've ever had, Joe. We've got the greatest military. We rebuilt it. We took out those terrorists like your football team would have taken out those terrorists, right?"
Joe Burrow is LSU's Heisman Award-winning quarterback.
Trump has fumed for months about the House impeachment inquiry, which kicked off after revelations that he had withheld congressionally approved military aid from Ukraine last summer while urging that nation's new president to announce investigations into Democrat Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Earlier Friday, news broke that Trump had named a number of lawyers to his impeachment legal defense team.
They include former Whitewater prosecutor Ken Starr, whose investigation led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton, and Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
Also joining that team are former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Robert Ray, who succeeded Starr as independent counsel in the Whitewater probe.
The legal team is being led by White House counsel Pat Cipollone and Trump's personal lawyer Jay Sekulow.
Trump is accused in impeachment articles of abusing power and obstructing Congress.
The Senate is set to begin substantive work in the trial on Tuesday.