Trump unleashes on Democrats, impeachment trial
President delivers defiant hourlong speech after acquittal
WASHINGTON – In a fiery, hourlong speech about his impeachment acquittal, President Donald Trump praised a room full of Republicans as “warriors” who defended him while excoriating Democrats for wanting to “destroy our country.”
During extended and apparently off-the-cuff remarks in which the president relived a litany of complaints about Democrats and members of his own administration, he attacked the impeachment effort against him as “evil” and “corrupt,” and the work of “dirty cops.”
“We’ve all been through a lot together,” he said, lumping in the impeachment process with other investigations, including the probe into Russia’s election interference by former special counsel Robert Mueller.
“And it never really stopped. We’ve been going through this now for over three years. It was evil, it was corrupt, it was dirty cops, it was leakers and liars and this should never ever happen to another president.”
“Things can happen when you fail so badly,” Trump said during the speech Thursday. “I’m sorry about Mitt Romney.”
The Utah Republican became the first senator in the nation’s history to vote to convict a president of his own party. The vote robbed Trump of the ability to say that Republicans were unified against his removal.
Before the president appeared, Pat Cipollone and Jay Sekulow, the two lawyers who defended him in his impeachment trial, drew a round of applause as they entered the room.
Trump was joined by several allies in Congress, including Reps. Jim Jordan of Ohio, John Ratcliffe of Texas, Mark Meadows of North Carolina and Doug Collins of Georgia. Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Lee of Utah and Josh Hawley of Missouri were also in the audience.
After laying out a laundry list of gripes, Trump briefly touted the stock market and the soaring economy. He discussed his State of the Union, saying he received high marks from people he spoke with after his address. But then he almost immediately returned to impeachment, retelling his version of the investigations dating back to the probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
“We went through hell, unfairly,” Trump said. “But this is what the end result is,” he said holding up the front page of The Washington Post with a headline “Trump acquitted.”
Embracing a line he often uses at his campaign rallies, Trump claimed that the investigations were “all bulls-.”
Trump was impeached by the House on Dec. 18, and then acquitted by the Senate Wednesday, over allegations he invited foreign influence in the 2020 election by pressuring Ukraine to gather dirt on former Vice President Joe Biden, and then stonewalled the investigation after getting caught.
Trump mentioned Biden and his son Hunter during his speech. Trump has long argued that Democrats have ignored Hunter Biden’s appointment to the board of a Ukrainian gas company.
“They think that’s okay,” Trump said sarcastically of Democrats’ response to Hunter Biden. “It’s corrupt. It’s just general corruption.”
The president recalled his phone call with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a conversation at the heart of the impeachment inquiry, as “a good call.”
Trump has argued he withheld military aid for Ukraine not because of his desired investigation into Biden, but because of his concern that other allied nations weren’t contributing enough to Ukraine. He called the U.S. a “bunch of suckers” and added that the impeachment made it harder for him to focus on domestic concerns like infrastructure.
Impeachment is a “very ugly word to me. It’s a dark word,” Trump said. “They brought me to the final stages of impeachment but now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought a word would sound so good. It’s called total acquittal.”