Instead, he was in a mood to celebrate, Trump-style. And that meant buoyant, campaign-style remarks in the opulent East Room of the White House.
„This is really not a news conference, it’s not a speech. It’s not anything, it’s just — we are sort of — it’s a celebration,“ Trump told his whooping audience.
Just a day earlier, a mostly party-line vote had brought to a close House Democrats’ four-month effort to investigate and impeach Trump for allegedly withholding U.S. military aid from Ukraine to pressure its leaders to investigate Trump’s Democratic rivals.
„We went through hell, unfairly, did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong. I’ve done things wrong in my life, I will admit. Not purposely, but I’ve done things wrong. But this is what the end result is,“ he said, holding up a copy of The Washington Post, emblazoned with the headline: „Trump acquitted.“
„Honey, maybe we’ll frame it,“ he quipped to the first lady, drawing laughs from the audience. „The only good headline I’ve ever had on The Washington Post.“
He lit into his antagonizers, lobbing verbal attacks at everyone from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), and calling them „some very evil and sick people.“
He singled out Utah Sen. Mitt Romney, who was the lone Republican in either chamber of Congress to break with his party on impeachment, and Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president whose foreign business dealings were at the heart of the investigations Trump sought from international leaders.
„Failed presidential candidate,“ Trump said about Romney, as he renewed his attacks from the night before.
In the packed room, Trump and his legal team were greeted like heroes, earning standing ovations and extended applause throughout the speech.
The president cracked jokes, spurring repeated laughs from the crowd. He littered the hourlong stemwinder with anecdotes and praise for his allies, including at one point reenacting the 2017 shooting of House Minority Whip Steve Scalise and complimenting the physical appearance of GOP Reps. Jim Jordan and Elise Stefanik.
But in declaring victory on Thursday, Trump wanted to start from the very beginning.
„You have to understand, we first went through ‘Russia, Russia, Russia,'“ he explained, alluding to accusations his 2016 campaign coordinated with Russia to interfere in that year’s election.
„It was all bullshit. We then went through the Mueller report,“ he continued, referring to special counsel Robert Mueller’s two-year long probe into those allegations, in addition to whether Trump obstructed justice in the investigation.
The president hit a number of familiar characters in a speech that sounded at times like a redux of his comments in the wake of his post-Mueller victory lap last spring or his stump speech at campaign rallies, only occasionally addressing the events that brought him to the brink of removal from office.
He reprised old attacks on a former adversary, James Comey, asserting that had he not fired the „sleazebag“ former FBI director, „it’s possible I wouldn’t even be standing here right now.“
And Democrats, Trump claimed, had been determined to impeach him no matter what he did, and he predicted multiple times that they’d keep trying. He offered a backhanded compliment at congressional Democrats’ lack of defections, suggesting the caucus was so unified it could have impeached George Washington.
“If they find I happened to walk across the street and maybe go against the light or something, ‘Let’s impeach him!’” Trump predicted. “So I’ll probably have to do it again, because these people have gone stone cold crazy.”
He then pivoted to thank lawmakers there for the occasion, praising them as “great warriors.”
“I call them friends because, you know, you develop friendships and relationships when you are in battle and in war,” he noted.
While thanking the senior senator from Utah, Mike Lee, Trump swiped at Romney’s defection the day before.
“Say hello to the people of Utah, and tell them I’m sorry about Mitt Romney,” he quipped. “I’m sorry, OK?”
In an emotional speech on the Senate floor the previous day, Romney had declared Trump “guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust” in announcing he would vote to convict Trump on the first article of impeachment, abuse of power.
Trump previewed some of his attacks earlier Thursday at the National Prayer Breakfast, knocking Pelosi and Romney in an implicit, but pointed attack on their professed reliance on faith to guide them.
„I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,“ Trump said at the traditionally nonpartisan breakfast. „Nor do I like people who say, ‘I pray for you’ when they know that that’s not so. So many people have been hurt, and we can’t let that go on. And I’ll be discussing that a little bit later at the White House.“
Just as Trump teased, later at the White House, he dug in. Romney, he asserted, was merely using his faith as a “crutch,” a line that drew a relatively muted reaction from the boisterous crowd.
And he dismissed Pelosi’s insistence that she prays for him often: “She may pray, but she prays for the opposite.“
„I had Nancy Pelosi sitting four seats away, and I’m saying things that a lot of people wouldn’t have said — but I meant every word,“ he told the assembled crowd, describing Pelosi as a „horrible person.“
Of Romney’s barrier-breaking vote the day before, Trump argued that it could be considered only „half a vote“ against, because Romney had only voted to convict Trump on one of the two impeachment articles. Trump then dismissed the senator as a „failed presidential candidate.“
Trump finally got to the events at the heart of the Ukraine scandal about 20 minutes into his speech, again contending that he’d done nothing wrong.
“They took that phone call that was a totally appropriate call — I call it a perfect call, because it was — and they brought me to the final stages of impeachment,“ he said. „But now we have that gorgeous word. I never thought a word would sound so good. It’s called total acquittal. Total acquittal.”
While he acknowledged a growing consensus among some Senate Republicans who’ve said his behavior was wrong if not impeachable, the president chalked the matter up to a difference in opinion.
„I had some who said, ‘I wish you didn’t make a call,’ and that’s OK, if they need that,“ Trump explained. „It’s incorrect. It’s totally incorrect.“
Despite Trump’s fervent push to move past the matter, the Ukraine scandal has repeatedly proven itself to be far from over.
New revelations continue to dribble out even after the conclusion of the House investigation and Senate trial. And the potential for more bombshells remains, with former national security adviser John Bolton set to publish a memoir from his time in the White House.
Meanwhile, previously undiscovered White House documents have also continued to trickle out as they’re released under open records requests. Democrats have also vowed to continue their oversight investigations and litigation against the president.
It’s an inconvenient reality Trump appeared resigned to.
“I’m sure they’ll try and cook up other things that go through the state of New York, other places,” he argued. “They’ll do whatever they can. Instead of wanting to heal our country and fix our country, all they want to do, in my opinion, it’s almost like they want to destroy our country.”
Daniel Lippman contributed to this report.
Source: politico.com
See more here: news365.stream
