Trump tells supporters Democrats are 'embarrassed' by impeachment
President Donald Trump had a challenge for Democrats on Tuesday: Impeach me at your own risk.
Speaking at a rally in Hershey, Penn., only hours after the House released two articles of impeachment, Trump tried to spin his woes as more detrimental to his political opponents than to him.
“Any Democrat that votes for this sham will be voting to sacrifice the House majority, their dignity and their career,” Trump told thousands of cheering supporters at Giant Center in Hershey.
It was a news-packed Tuesday. The House announced it would charge the president with abusing his office and obstructing Congress in its investigation. And just moments later, Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced a deal to soon pass the Trump administration’s long-awaited NAFTA replacement.
Speaking at the rally, Trump claimed that the timing of the two watershed announcements was intentional so that Democrats could bury the fact that they were “embarrassed” by the supposed political harm done by their impeachment efforts.
“It plays down the impeachment, and they’re embarrassed by the impeachment,” Trump said of the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. “And our polls have gone through the roof because of [Pelosi’s] stupid impeachment.”
In reality, the impeachment investigations have not substantially boosted Trump’s standing, though some members of Congress in vulnerable Democratic House districts are facing constituencies hostile to impeachment. Still, a poll last month found about half of voters favored impeaching the president.
The president went on to claim that Pelosi had lost control of her party, insinuating that she didn’t want to advance impeachment because she thought it would be politically disastrous.
“She knew what was going to happen,” Trump said of the speaker.
He characterized Democrats as beholden to more-leftist members, naming specifically Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, who have called for impeachment for months.
Though Pelosi was initially reluctant to back impeachment during former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, she has since firmly backed the House inquiry over Trump’s dealings with Ukraine. Pelosi has since said that Trump’s efforts to pressure Ukraine to dig up dirt on a domestic political rival, in addition to the president’s efforts to stonewall the House’s investigation, were clear, digestible violations of his oath of office.
During the rally, Trump also praised and largely mischaracterized a recent inspector general report on the FBI investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s campaign in 2016. Trump claimed the report proved that politically motivated FBI agents spied on his campaign in “scandalous abuses of power.” He also said the FBI hid information revealing the political nature of the investigation.
In reality, the watchdog report revealed that the FBI investigation was not politically motivated and that there were even some agents who expressed positive views toward Trump. And while the FBI did have informants in the Trump campaign, they were not involved in the Russia probe.
Throughout the Tuesday rally, Trump went through many of his greatest hits, from hailing the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to denigrating old political rivals such as Beto O’Rourke and Hillary Clinton.
Trump touched on the 2020 election, repeating old insults against Democratic rivals Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden. He went after Warren — whom he called “crazy“ — for her health care plan, calling it unrealistically expensive. He also mocked Biden for wanting to reduce dependency on fossil fuels in Pennsylvania, while repeating one of his favorite monikers, “Sleepy Joe Biden.“
He also continued to portray the day’s articles of impeachment as merely the latest development in the long “witch hunt” Democrats have subjected him to since taking office in 2017.
It was all, Trump said to the boisterous crowd, a ploy to “erase your votes, nullify the election and overthrow our democracy.”
“It’s not going to happen," he said with a smirk. “I wouldn’t lose too much sleep over it.”
