President Donald Trump lashed out at Democrats in an angry tirade during his campaign rally in Battle Creek, Michigan, while the House of Representatives voted to impeach him Wednesday.
“This lawless, partisan impeachment is a political suicide march for the Democrat Party,” Trump said as his supporters erupted with jeers.
Trump apparently learned of the outcome of the House impeachment vote while he was on stage, reading out the vote results to his supporters nearly an hour into his rally.
“We didn’t lose one Republican vote,” he boasted.
During his speech, Trump attacked Hillary Clinton, his 2016 Democratic presidential rival, and his 2020 opponents, as he typically does at his rallies, before going into the House’s vote to impeach him.
“This is the first impeachment where there is no crime. ... There’s no crime, there’s no crime,” Trump said. “With Richard Nixon, I see it as a very dark era, very dark.... I don’t know about you, but I’m having a good time.”
Trump also quoted from the rambling six-page letter he sent to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Tuesday, the eve of his impeachment, describing the impeachment again as an “election-nullification scheme” that showed Democrats’ “unfettered contempt for the Founding Fathers.”
“They’ve been trying to impeach me from day one,” Trump said. He also claimed that Democrats were trying to impeach him “before I even ran!”
“After three years of sinister witch hunts, hoaxes, scams, tonight House Democrats are trying to nullify the ballots of tens of millions of patriotic Americans,” he said, adding, “Crazy Nancy Pelosi’s House Democrats have branded themselves with an eternal mark of shame” because they voted to impeach him.
Trump’s speech went on for two hours, making it one of his longest campaign rally speeches ever, according to CNN’s Daniel Dale.
The House debated for hours on two articles of impeachment against Trump ― abuse of power and obstruction of Congress ― throughout Wednesday as congressional Republicans denounced the entire process.
The historic vote makes Trump the third U.S. president to be impeached by the House, though the Republican-controlled Senate is widely expected to acquit him next month.
Trump specifically mocked Democratic presidential candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who he referred to as “Pocahontas.” His attack on Clinton led to “Lock her up” chants.
On Wednesday morning, Trump accused Democrats of carrying out an “assault” on the United States and on Republicans by attempting to remove him from office, blaming “atrocious lies by the radical left.”
The articles of impeachment stem from Trump’s attempts to pressure the president of Ukraine into investigating one of his leading 2020 presidential election rivals, former Vice President Joe Biden.
Before Wednesday’s House debate, Pelosi pushed back against Trump’s persistent denials of wrongdoing, stating that the president gave the House no choice but to impeach him.
“It is tragic that the president’s reckless actions make impeachment necessary. He gave us no choice. What we are discussing today is the established fact that the president violated the Constitution,” she said.
Trump said the House’s vote to impeach made Democrats look foolish and suggested it would impact upcoming congressional elections.
“The House Democrats are surrendering their majority, their dignity. They look like a bunch of fools,” he said.
“They’re giving up their honor, they’ll receive a big backlash at the box office,” Trump said before correcting himself, “the ballot box.”
This article has been updated with the length of the speech.