A crowd of some 15,000 supporters cheered and chanted “U-S-A!” during a Tupelo, Mississippi, rally Friday night, as President Trump boasted of US forces killing ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
American military forces “punched his ticket to hell!” Trump told the capacity crowd at the BancorpSouth arena in the hometown of Elvis.
In town to stump for Lieutenant Gov. Tate Reeves — who is locked in a tight race to replace term-limited GOP Gov. Phil Bryant next week, Trump spent much of his address railing against the “witch hunt” impeachment inquiry currently gaining steam against him.
But he saved some choice taunts for Beto O’Rourke, who announced earlier Friday that he is dropping out of the 2020 presidential race. O’Rourke had once told Vanity Fair of pursuing the presidency, “Man, I’m just born to be in it.”
Teased Trump: “Beto was nasty, and he said he was born for it. Like he was born from Heaven, he came down and if that’s the case, some really bad things happened because he made a total fool out of himself.”
Trump called O’Rourke “that poor bastard.”
“Poor pathetic guy. He was pathetic,” he said.
The president also repeatedly referred to his White House predecessor by all three names: “Barack Hussein Obama,” emphasizing the middle name.
On impeachment, Trump said:
“The media and the Democrats have been engaged in a corrupt partnership trying to impose their will and to thwart American democracy. And shifty, Adam Schiff and the media are continuing with the deranged impeachment witch hunt, this is one I never thought I’d be involved in, the word impeachment.
“Yesterday, the Democrats voted to potentially nullify the votes of 63 million Americans disgracing themselves and bringing shame upon the House of Representatives.
“They’ve been plotting to overthrow the election. Yesterday’s vote by the radical Democrats is an attack on democracy itself. But I’ll tell you, the Republicans are really strong, the strongest I’ve ever seen and the most unified.
“Make no mistake. They are coming after the Republican Party and me because I’m fighting for you, they don’t like it. This is different. They’ve never had anything like this. And they know they can’t win.”