President Donald Trump ridiculed Democrats and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for introducing articles of impeachment on Tuesday, calling it “impeachment light.”
“This is the lightest, weakest impeachment that our country’s had … everybody says this is impeachment light, this is the lightest impeachment in the history of our country by far,” Trump said.
The president was jubilant as he took the stage at a campaign rally in Hersey, Pennsylvania, mocking Democrats for failing to sell the impeachment “witch hunt” to Republicans and the American people.
House Democrats unveiled two articles of impeachment earlier in the day, accusing Trump of abuse of power and obstruction of justice by blocking Congress. But Trump argued that he had not committed any crimes.
“They’re impeaching me and there are no crimes!” Trump said. “This has to be a first in history. They’re impeaching me, and you know why, because they want to win an election.”
Trump expressed disappointment that Democrats had turned the impeachment process, a historically serious process to address high crimes and misdemeanors, into a flimsy partisan event.
“This was a big deal,” Trump said. “They’re making it like, let’s do it every six months, they’ve cheapened the process, these people are so bad.”
He taunted House Speaker Nancy Pelosi for totally losing control of the party to the radical left like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
The president also berated Democrats for falling for the Ukraine impeachment hoax, propagated by the anonymous “whistleblower” and the Trump administration “informer.”
“The whistleblower wrote something that was totally untrue,” Trump said. “And we broke up the game.”
Trump said he released the transcript of his call with Zelensky to prove that there was nothing wrong with his phone call and to clear up what was really said on the call.
“We released the conversation and that gummed it up … the whistleblower, who was going to come out strong, he disappeared,” he said. “Where’s the whistleblower? he’s disappeared! He’s gone! He flew the coop!”
Trump acknowledged that the impeachment process, like the Russia investigation, was very tough on his family, but he would keep fighting the Democrats.
“A regular president would have been under a table, thumb in the mouth, saying ‘take me, home mommy, this is too rough for me,'” he said.
Trump also celebrated the news that Pelosi and the Democrats announced their decision to move forward on the USMCA trade deal, which Trump drafted to replace NAFTA.
“She wanted to smother the impeachment crap,” Trump said, adding, “It plays down the impeachment, they’re embarrassed by impeachment, and our poll numbers are going through the roof.”