8:44 p.m. ET, January 28, 2020
Trump says Democrats are "obsessed with the impeachment hoax"
From CNN's Betsy Klein and Daniel Dale
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
President Trump kicked off his Wildwood, New Jersey, rally tonight with an optimistic economic message, but quickly moved on to hit Democrats.
He cited the New Jersey unemployment rate, the phase one China trade deal, and the USMCA deal, which he will sign tomorrow at the White House.
Trump went on to tout the US military and the deaths of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, which prompted "USA" chants from the crowd. He then slammed Democrats Bernie Sanders and Nancy Pelosi, whom, he claimed "opposed our action to saved American lives."
"While we are creating jobs and killing terrorists, the Congressional Democrats are obsessed with the impeachment hoax, crazy witch hunts, and deranged partisan crusades. That’s all they know how to do, the do-nothing Democrats," he said.
Trump cited new, high poll numbers and suggested independent-minded voters are leaving the Democratic party in swarms.
He also repeated a favorite inaccurate claim about energy — saying he ended "the war on American energy" and that the US is "now" the world's number one producer.
Facts First:
The US has not just "now" become the world's top energy producer, and it's not true that "we weren't number one": the US took the top spot in 2012, according to the US government's Energy Information Administration — under the very Obama administration Trump is accusing of perpetrating a "war" on the industry.
The US became the top producer of crude oil in particular during Trump's tenure. "The United States has been the world's top producer of natural gas since 2009, when US natural gas production surpassed that of Russia, and it has been the world's top producer of petroleum hydrocarbons since 2013, when its production exceeded Saudi Arabia's," the Energy Information Administration says.
Trump also brought up health care saying, "We are protecting people with pre-existing conditions, and we will always will, the Republican Party, pre-existing conditions. We saved it."
Trump, of course, did not "save" protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and nor did his party. The Republicans, backed by Trump, have repeatedly tried to pass bills that would have weakened these protections in Obamacare. They are currently fighting in court to get the entirety of Obamacare overturned.
Trump then told his usual story about how he had come up with the concept of the Veterans Choice health care program himself in 2016, thinking he was "so smart," but was told others had unsuccessfully tried to get such a program passed for "45 years." He claimed he managed to get it passed himself.
In fact, it was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014. Trump signed a law in 2018, the VA MISSION Act, that expanded and modified the program.