Disjointed appearances are normal...

Trump gets vindictive at rally after House slaps him with impeachment

The president, in a disjointed appearance in Michigan, went after political enemies, touted accomplishments and complained about dim light bulbs.

By GABBY ORR and MATTHEW CHOI

Six hundred miles away from the epicenter of his own impeachment, President Donald Trump took the stage at a rally here on Wednesday night and offered one of his longest, most frenetic appearances to date.

During an appearance stretching over two hours, Trump mocked the Democrats vying to replace him, while also dwelling on his accomplishments. The regular rallying cries of victimhood at the hands of the “deep state” made their usual appearance — but so, too, did seemingly unrelated tangents on infrastructure that included complaints about dim light bulbs and toilet water pressure.

And all the while, the specter of the historic impeachment vote hung over the rally.

As Trump spoke, the House voted 230 to 197 to impeach him for abuse of power, and 229 to 198 for obstruction of Congress. The president praised Republicans for toeing the line and voting against the articles of impeachment and accused Democrats of being “the ones interfering with America’s elections. You are the ones subverting democracy.”

Trump found out about the votes when campaign spokeswoman Kayleigh McEnany walked in front of the stage UFC-style with a sign that had the final tallies on it.

Bracing for an unpredictable evening, campaign aides and White House officials had warned reporters before the president arrived that it could be a long evening, suggesting that most of his speech would involve live commentary on the historic House vote.

But it took a while for him to get to that point. Trump spent much of the rally opting to focus on his accomplishments, from a robust economy to the passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement.

“And now the Democrats are trying to take credit for this great deal, and that’s OK,” Trump said to searing boos but with a weary expression. “Whatever it takes.”

It wasn’t until 40 minutes into the rally, after the House approved both articles, that Trump began to dig into impeachment. He recycled accusations of Democrats trying to undo the results of the 2016 election rather than introduce colorful new attacks, as he often does when he is under fire.

“The do-nothing Democrats,” Trump said, “are declaring their deep hatred and disdain for the American voter.”

He proceeded to call the impeachment a “political suicide march for the Democratic Party.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m having a good time,” Trump said. “I’m not worried.”

Trump tried to discredit the basis of the impeachment by using a common Republican defense of diverting attention to former Vice President Joe Biden and his family. He raised an unsubstantiated accusation that they were involved in corrupt dealings with Ukraine, and bemoaned what he called a “double standard“ by the media.

The president also pulled out some of his favorite jeers against the 2020 Democrats. At one point, he said his son Barron could rally a larger crowd than “crazy Pocahontas,” a derisive reference to Sen. Elizabeth Warren.

Some of his comments demonstrated a vindictiveness he has used in the past. At one point, he went after Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) and her vote for impeachment by mocking her husband, the late Rep. John Dingell.

Trump accused her of ingratitude in her impeachment vote, after he had called for flags to be flown at half-staff following her husband‘s death. He said that after he had offered the late congressman the “treatment,” Debbie Dingell called to say her husband was “thrilled“ looking down from heaven.

“Maybe he’s looking up,” Trump said of the congressman, drawing groans from the crowd.

Debbie Dingell was quick to respond.

“Mr. President, let’s set politics aside,” she wrote on Twitter. “My husband earned all his accolades after a lifetime of service. I’m preparing for the first holiday season without the man I love. You brought me down in a way you can never imagine and your hurtful words just made my healing much harder.

All in all, Trump ran the gamut of his favorite targets, from former President Barack Obama and former presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke to the former FBI officials Lisa Page and Peter Strzok.

Trump was due to greet the thousands of supporters gathered here at 7 p.m., according to his public schedule, but didn’t start till an hour after that — partly because of a delayed departure from Washington, but mostly due to the timing of the action in the House. He walked onstage just a few minutes before the vote on the first article of impeachment got underway.

The president wanted to “see that strong, unified Republican vote on the floor of the Congress tonight,” Vice President Mike Pence told the audience here.

“It doesn’t really feel like we’re being impeached,” the president told the crowd as soon as he arrived. “The country is doing better than ever before, we did nothing wrong, and we have tremendous support in the Republican Party.”

Some Make America Great Again superfans who traveled several hours to be here said they were eager to have a front-row seat to history, believing that this rally was likely to be different from the hundreds that came before it.

“I think he’s going to be on fire tonight,” said Bermie M. from Clio, Mich. “This is more intense than anything else that has happened in his presidency.”

Trump was charged with two articles of impeachment by the House Democratic majority — abusing his executive power and obstructing Congress — for his effort to persuade Ukraine to investigate one of his political rivals. Now that the House has passed the articles, the Senate will begin its own impeachment trial shortly after the New Year.

Though Trump comparatively held back on the attacks, Pence lay into the House Democrats before introducing the president to the stage.

“Nancy Pelosi and the House Democrats are having their say tonight, but the Republican Senate is going to have their say in January,” Pence told rally attendees.

For weeks, the president and his aides have decried the impeachment inquiry as both a partisan “witch hunt” and an insult to the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for him in 2016.

“Truthfully, friends, what’s happening on Capitol Hill today is a disgrace,” Pence said earlier Wednesday at an event with union workers during a bus tour in central Michigan. The only “bipartisan” vote happening in Washington, Pence claimed, was the vote against impeachment, alluding to the few Democratic lawmakers who were expected to join Republicans in their opposition to one or both articles.

“The truth is, men and women, they’re trying to impeach this president because they know they can’t defeat this president,” he told rally attendees later in the evening. “They’re trying to run down this president because they can’t run against our record.”