Trump basks in post-acquittal campaign rally

President Donald Trump on Monday energetically mocked his Democratic adversaries during a campaign rally, his first since the Senate acquitted him on two articles of impeachment less than a week earlier.

Speaking in Manchester, N.H., only hours before the state kicks off the first primary in the country, the president delivered a familiar performance in which he derided congressional Democrats for their unsuccessful attempt to remove him from office. From Senate Democrats to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Trump threw names out to a crowd that, in return, booed and repeated derisive chants against his foes.

The rally was also the first since the president’s State of the Union address at the Capitol, where Trump and Pelosi displayed a theatrical tête-à-tête with handshake snubs, scoffs and a torn-up speech last Tuesday. The address before Congress was one seemingly made for television, featuring many of Trump’s regular boasts and a dash of showmanship — a display that Democrats derided as cheapening a sanctified ceremony.

Though Pelosi largely sat through the address with a stoic expression, the president claimed during his rally on Monday that she distracted him by muttering angrily in the background.

“I had somebody behind me who was mumbling terribly. Mumbling! Wa! Wa! Ho! Ha! She was mumbling, very distracting. Very distracting,” Trump said, prompting jeers of “Lock her up!” from the crowd in the SNHU Arena.

He added that he and his supporters should be the ones who are angry after undergoing the Democrats’ impeachment efforts. He praised Senate Republicans for their loyalty, and touted the “full, complete and absolute and total acquittal“ as evidence for his frequent claims that he was the subject of partisan “witch hunts.”

“We got 52 to nothing,” he declared to the crowd, referring to the Senate vote acquitting him on the first article of impeachment. Forty-eight senators voted to convict the president on that count.

Mitt Romney of Utah was the lone Republican senator to vote to convict Trump on the first article — abuse of office — and Trump made a point to remind the crowd. On mention of Romney’s name, the crowd erupted into loud boos — a stark contrast to 2012, when Romney was running for president and won the state’s Republican primary.

The president also mocked Democrats for last week’s chaotic Iowa caucuses, which left their party in disarray after glitches, breakdowns in communication and poor oversight led to doubts over who won the state. Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Bernie Sanders were neck and neck, with both campaigns calling for a recanvass of certain precincts.

“They don’t know what they’re doing,” Trump said. “They can’t even count their votes.”

“The Democrats want to run your health care, but they can’t even run a caucus in Iowa,” he said later in the rally. “By the way, it’s been a week! Does anybody know who won Iowa? ... Actually, I think they’re trying to take it away from Bernie again.”

New Hampshire’s primary is partially open, allowing voters not registered with a party to pick a primary to vote in. Trump joked about his supporters voting in the Democratic primary to weaken the competition.

“I hear a lot of Republicans will vote for the weakest candidate possible for the Democrats,” Trump said. “You wouldn’t do that.”

He later added: “But if you want to vote for a weak candidate tomorrow, go ahead. Pick the weakest one. I don’t know who it is.”

Registered Republicans are barred from voting in the New Hampshire Democratic primary.

Trump repeated unfounded claims that Democrats bused voters from Massachusetts to flood New Hampshire with blue votes in 2016 (PolitiFact deemed this claim “ridiculous”), and he praised the state’s governor, Chris Sununu, for cracking down on alleged voter fraud.

The president also touted some of his staple rally issues, including health care, job growth, killing the leader of ISIS, gun rights and trade.

But he leaned most heavily into his tough-on-immigration message, floating a general-election cornerstone issue. He bragged about heightened deportations, derided sanctuary cities and recited the lyrics to the song “The Snake,” comparing undocumented immigrants to a venomous snake that bites a woman who helps it.

Trump kicked off his 7 p.m.-scheduled event at 7:03 and finished at 8:02 — a rare display of brevity and punctuality for a president who often keeps crowds waiting as long as 40 minutes after the scheduled start time for his rallies, which can sometimes stretch more than an hour and a half.

The president left shortly after the rally for a previously unannounced appearance at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware for the dignified transfer of two U.S. servicemen killed overseas. Vice President Mike Pence, who had made introductory remarks at the rally, headed to the ceremony ahead of Trump.