In remarks that quickly departed from the script, Trump scolded the conservative free traders who question his tariffs. He reframed the 2018 midterm elections as a victory for Republicans lucky enough to get his support. He aimed to unify his party against the radical-left Democrats, and he claimed that their Green New Deal would take away Americans’ cars and prohibit air travel. This was not a policy address; this was a rallying cry, all about making it very clear to conservatives that their political success—and their survival—depends on him. Here are seven moments of possibly record-breaking presidential oratory: About 10 minutes in, President Trump threw out his script: You know, I don’t know, maybe you know. You know, I’m totally off script, right … You know, I’m totally off script right now. And this is how I got elected, by being off script. True. And if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks. ’Cause we have to get it back. He lampooned Democratic proposals for a Green New Deal: No planes. No energy. When the wind stops blowing, that is the end of your electric. Let’s hurry up. “Darling, darling, is the wind blowing today? I would like to watch television, darling” ... Their plan would remove every gas-powered car from American roads. Oh, that’s not so bad. They want you to have one car instead of two. And it should be electric. Okay. So tell people, no more cars, no more cars ... It would end air travel. But you’ll get on a train, don’t worry about it. You just have to cross off about 95 percent of the world. And it would force the destruction or renovation of virtually every existing structure in the United States. New York City would have to rip down buildings and rebuild ’em again. I don’t think so. This is the craziest plan. And yet I see senators that are there for 20 years, white hair. See, I don’t have white hair. I don’t have white hair. I see these white hairs, longtime senators, standing behind this young woman, and she’s ranting and raving like a lunatic, and these senators: “Yes, I agree with this. Yes I agree.” The crazy female senator from the state of Ohio. [Both of Ohio’s senators are men; it appears he was instead referring to Democratic Senator Mazie Hirono of Hawaii.] The state of Hawaii. She’s like a crazy person. What she said about men is so bad. He mounted a ferocious attack on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation: Robert Mueller put 13 of the angriest Democrats in the history of our country on the commission. How do you do that? These are angry, angry people. You take a look at them. One of them was involved with the Hillary Clinton foundation, running it. Another one has perhaps the worst reputation of any human being I’ve ever seen. All killers. In fact it would have been actually better for them if they put half and half, and Mueller can do whatever he wants anyway, which he’ll probably. But we have conflicts. I had a nasty business transaction with Robert Mueller a number of years ago. I said, why wasn’t that mentioned? He wanted the job as FBI director. I did not give it to him. Why isn’t that mentioned? Jim Comey, Lyin’ James Comey, is his best friend. James Comey is his best friend. And those are a few of the conflicts. Other than that it’s wonderful. He decried immigrants and members of Congress who “hate our country”: We need workers to come in. But they need to come in legally, and they’ve got to come in through merit, merit, merit. They’ve got to come in through merit, they have to be people who can help us, they have to be people who can love our country, not hate our country. We have people in Congress right now, we have people in Congress that hate our country. And you know that. And we can name every one of them if they want. They hate our country. Sad. It’s very sad. When I see some of the things being made, the statements being made, it’s very, very sad. And find out: How did they do in their country? Just ask ’em. How did they do? Did they do well? Were they succeeding? Just ask that question. Someone would say, “Oh, that’s terrible that he brings that up,” but that’s okay, I don't mind, I’ll bring it up. How did they do in their country? Not so good. Not so good. He returned to the size of the crowd that attended his 2017 inauguration and criticized the media for misreporting how many people had come: It was raining. And it was wet, and the grass was wet. And women and men, and I consider them totally equal so I’m not going to say it’s harder—in fact it’s probably, with the men I know, it’s actually easier for the women to make the walk. But they had to walk all the way down. They had to walk in high heels in many cases. They had to walk all the way down to the Washington Monument and then back. And I looked and I made a speech, and I said, before I got on, I said to the people that were sitting next to me, “I’ve never seen anything like this. Look at that crowd.” And it was wide! Wide! We had a crowd—I’ve never seen a thing like it. And I have to live—I have to live with “crowd size.” It is all a phony deal, folks. But I saw a picture just the other night of practically no people. It was taken hours before our great day. That was a great day for us. That was a great, great day. People came from all over. People came from all over. So, “Sir, it doesn’t matter. Nobody cares.” I said, “But I care. And people care. People care.”<doc-sep>President Trump waves after speaking at the CPAC conference, March 2, 2019. (Joshua Roberts/Reuters) National Harbor — At the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday morning, President Donald Trump addressed a crowd of about 9,000 attendees, regaling them with stories about his 2016 election campaign and eventual victory over Hillary Clinton. “I’m in love, and you’re in love,” Trump told the crowd near the start of his speech. “We’re all in love together.” Advertisement The president spent much of the first half of his remarks discussing the crowd size at his rallies. “I don’t think we’ve had an empty seat since we announced,” he said. “From the day we came down the escalator, I don’t believe we’ve had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. I don’t think this has ever happened before, and that’s why I say now we have to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory.” “They always mention crowd size,” Trump said of the press. “I say to Mercedes [Schlapp] and Sarah [Huckabee Sanders], ‘Show them the pictures! Compare that to what they show on television.’” Trump also spent some time criticizing the Green New Deal. “Perhaps nothing is more extreme than the Democrats’ plan to take over American energy and destroy the economy,” he said. “I don’t want to talk them out of it. I don’t. I don’t. I swear I don’t. It’s a killer.” “Socialism is about only one thing,” Trump added. “It’s called power for the ruling class. . . . I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. America will never be a socialist country.” He said Republicans care about the American dream and don’t want a “socialist nightmare.” The president announced that he plans to sign an executive order requiring college campuses to support free speech, in the wake of an incident at the University of California, Berkeley, where conservative activist Hayden Williams was punched in the face while recruiting students to join the Leadership Institute. Trump also knocked Democrats for supporting the Reproductive Health Act in New York, which legalized abortion for any reason up to 24 weeks, and noted that 44 Democratic senators voted against the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act on Monday, which would have required doctors to provide medical care to infants born alive after attempted abortion procedures.<doc-sep>Trump talked about an encounter with an old friend, New York developer Richard LeFrak: “Richard came up [to Melania]; he said, ‘I’ve known your husband for 65 years.’ I said, ‘Don’t say that.’ I say, ‘Say 25, 30. Don’t say 65 years.’ But I said, ‘Richard — Richard, call me Donald, like you always do. Call me Don.’ ‘Okay. Okay, Don. Okay.’ He gets his breath. Uh-huh. Two minutes later — ‘Mr. President . . . ‘That’s called respect for the office, right? Maybe that’s a good thing, right? Many — many of my friends. And that wasn’t in the script either.”<doc-sep>Dana Bash: This is so telling about where the Republican party is NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 24: Trump Tower stands on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on August 24, 2018 in New York City. Following new allegations over hush money that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid to an adult-film actress, the Manhattan district attorneyÕs office in New York City may seek criminal charges against the Trump Organization in the coming days. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) Why GOP is standing in the way of Capitol riot investigation WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 08: US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) remarks on the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the US Capitol November 8, 2006 in Washington, DC. Warner said he supports President George W. Bush's nomination of former CIA Director Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense. Warner said he anticipates Gates' confirmation before the end of the year. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), joined by Senate Assistant Minority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (L) and Senate Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), speaks following a Senate Republican Policy luncheon at the Russell Senate Office Building on May 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. Trump: They try to take you out with BS (CNN) — The annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) event attracts college Republicans, populists, nationalists, some libertarians, and the occasional Revolutionary reenactor. For the past three years, it’s also attracted President Donald Trump. While waiting more than half-an-hour (much of it on their feet) for Trump’s speech to begin, the CPAC audience was treated to a video montage of CPAC’s chairman Matt Schlapp arguing against journalists and media personalities on a pro-Trump spree – as event staff closed the doors and kept anyone from leaving. When he finally showed up, Trump did not disappoint. He spoke for more than two hours, delivering the longest speech of his presidency to a wildly enthusiastic crowd. In what felt at times like a standup comedy special – “I’m in love, you’re in love and we’re all in love together,” Trump told the audience at one point – the President touched on favorite topics ranging from the Mueller investigation, North Korea, trade, and the Democrats’ Green New Deal. Here are the facts. Tariffs In talking about trade and tariffs, Trump pulled out one of his favorite lines, telling the audience, “Billions of dollars right now are pouring into our Treasury.” Facts First: Technically this is true. It’s just that the billions of dollars aren’t coming from foreign countries and companies, as Trump has suggested in the past. Instead, it’s American companies and consumers that are paying most of the cost of these tariffs. We fact checked a similar statement from Trump during his speech in El Paso last month. Here’s what we found: When Trump talks about tariffs, he often talks about the amount of money that is now pouring into the US Treasury. He tends to give the impression that money is being paid by foreign companies. But that’s not really what’s happening. Instead, most of those tariffs are being paid by US companies that import those foreign goods. The real question is who bears the cost. Often, US companies will pass it on to the consumer by raising prices, while other times a company will reduce compensation or employment internally to offset these higher costs. In some instances, the Chinese supplier might take on the burden of the tariff by reducing its prices in order to maintain its price advantage in the US. Trump is trying to realign trade so that US products become more competitive with their cheaper Chinese alternatives. That will likely require a long-term adjustment of the US industrial base. In the short term, US consumers and companies will most likely end up bearing the cost of the tariffs. The Tax Foundation said last year that it expects the tariffs to lower the gross domestic product and wages, and cost American jobs, hitting lower- and middle-income households the hardest. Mueller Trump also went after the Russia probe, claiming that “13 Democrats” work on Robert Mueller’s team. Facts First: According to several reports, 13 members of Mueller’s team have registered as Democrats in the past. The majority of them though have been longstanding Department of Justice employees. As CNN has previously reported: Mueller assembled a team that at its peak consisted of at least 17 lawyers and “dozens” of FBI agents to help with his investigation. Nine of the lawyers donated to Democratic candidates before 2017, according to federal records. Eight of those lawyers gave only to Democrats, while one has donated to Democrats and Republicans before. It’s worth noting that making political donations is within the rules and is not itself a disqualification, as Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein (who appointed Mueller as special counsel) told Congress in 2017. Asked by Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham whether political donations should prevent attorneys from working on the investigation, Rosenstein replied, “No, senator, it is not a disqualification. It is not.” The Washington Post has reported that “13 of the 17 members of Mueller’s team have previously registered as Democrats.” Mueller was a registered Republican as recently as 2017 and was appointed as FBI director under George W. Bush. Rosenstein is also a registered Republican. Trump also claimed that one of the lawyers on Mueller’s team has been “involved with the Hillary Clinton Foundation, running it.” Facts First: This is false. No one on Mueller’s team ever ran the Clinton Foundation. Trump may be referring to one of Mueller’s lawyers, Jeannie Rhee, who previously represented the Clinton Foundation in a civil racketeering lawsuit that was eventually dismissed. Manufacturing Trump claimed that he brought back “600,000 beautiful manufacturing jobs that were never going to come back to our country.” Facts First: While the pace of manufacturing job creation has increased since Trump took office in 2017, he is overstating the number by nearly 150,000. It’s also unclear how much credit any president deserves for the decisions made by manufacturing companies to hire more workers.<doc-sep>
The off-script, expletive-dropping Donald Trump that we first met on the campaign trail in 2015 is back in front of cameras. Trump took to the stage at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) conference this weekend for a long-winded and very quotable rant against the many perceived villains weighing down his presidency: namely the media, federal investigators and “socialist” challengers in the 2020 election. He started off the event by bear-hugging a pole with the American flag, setting the tone for the rest of his appearance — reportedly the longest speech of his presidency. It was his first public address since his trip to Vietnam this week to meet with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ended abruptly without a deal on denuclearization. But it was nearly two hours into his speech Saturday before he made a single mention of the historic summit. Instead, he launched into a history lesson on the 1888 tariff debate, went into a bizarre aside referencing an (unnamed) friend in New York who is “a stone-cold killer” financier, and mocked both past members of his own administration as well as “white-haired” members of Congress. His speech, clocking in at just over two hours, dragged out for so long he had to check in repeatedly with the audience to make sure they hadn’t dozed off. But there were plenty of moments from the annual conservative confab to keep the attendees’ attention. Here are the seven most absurd soundbites from the speech. Trump delighted in going off script — and cussing a bunch, too Reverting back to his performances on the campaign trail, where speeches would often unravel into winding rants of word association, Trump proudly made clear he wasn’t following some prewritten speech on a teleprompter. “You know I’m totally off script right now. This is how I got elected: by being off script,” he said to a roar of cheers. “If we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks.” Trump has repeatedly been criticized for using strong or explicit language during campaign rallies. On Saturday, he fell into the old routine. He called the investigations into him “bullshit.” He said John Podesta, the former chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, “hasn’t gotten over getting his ass kicked.” He mocked the “New Green Deal” — “whatever the hell they call it.” After a while, it was hard to count the number of times he said “damn.” Trump's argument is that Democrats will do Democratic things regardless, if he loses, and "it won't have a damn thing to do with whether or not we approve our national emergency." — Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 2, 2019 Trump mocked Jeff Sessions’ southern drawl and other “white-haired” politicians The president spent a significant amount of time criticizing members of his own administration. From former FBI Director James Comey, to special counsel Robert Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who is expected to leave the Department of Justice in coming weeks, Trump complained how, unlike him, they were not elected to office. He failed to mention, however, how many were appointed by himself. Jeff Sessions received the brunt of hate from Trump, who called him “weak and ineffective” as attorney general. Trump went as far as deriding his former Cabinet member by mocking his Southern accent and his decision to bow out of overseeing the investigation. “I’m going to recuse mahself,” Trump said. The president also made fun of old “white-haired” politicians, adding quickly: “I don’t have white hair.” (Crowd) size still matters, apparently By the time the president took the stage, Trump was rearing for a fight with the press. Trump went into an extended rant about disputed crowd sizes of attendees for his speeches and inauguration. “I saw pictures that there were no people. Those pictures were taken hours before,” he said. He name-checked individual reporters, namely Washington Post reporter Dave Weigel, who once apologized for tweeting a picture of a mostly empty arena hours before Trump was scheduled to speak, suggesting the president had few fans show up. Thousands of supporters actually attended the event. And though it was held more than two years ago, Trump still hasn’t let the slight go. “He got there four or five hours early,” Trump continued. “He took pictures and you know who really got even? Our people, because they were incensed.