OXON HILL, Md. — President Trump capped a tumultuous week by reveling in the embrace of conservative activists Saturday, deriding investigations of him as “bulls—-,” repeatedly complaining about coverage of his crowd sizes and abruptly announcing an executive order to mandate protection of free speech on college campuses.
In his remarks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference, which stretched beyond two hours, Trump also mocked the “Green New Deal” promoted by liberals to address climate change, disparaged former Attorney General Jeff Sessions with a faux Southern accent, and defended his move to declare a national emergency to secure money for his U.S.-Mexico border wall that was denied by Congress.
“You know, I don’t know, maybe you know. You know, I’m totally off script right?” Trump said at the outset of his extended speech. “This is how I got elected, by being off script … and if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks.”
But the Russia probe and those leading it drew the biggest ire and even profanity from the president, as investigations ramp up in Congress and special counsel Robert Mueller continues his probe into potential collusion between Trump associates and Moscow.
“So now they go and morph into, let’s inspect every deal he’s ever done,” Trump complained. Nicknaming House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, D-Calif., as “Little Shifty Schiff,” Trump continued: “These people are sick. They’re sick.”
Noting that “you put the wrong people in a couple of positions,” Trump said: “And they leave people for a long time that shouldn’t be there and all of a sudden they are trying to take you out with bulls—-, OK?” Trump said.
“Now Robert Mueller never received a vote and neither did the person who appointed him,” the president said.
Trump’s speech zigzagging from trade to immigration, the 2016 campaign to last fall’s midterm elections, came against the backdrop of the collapse of his summit with North Korea and the extraordinary congressional testimony from his former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen.
Cohen testified in detail about how Trump manipulated financial records and learned of WikiLeaks’ efforts to dump damaging information on Hillary Clinton in advance.
Trump mentioned his call during the 2016 campaign for Russia to hack into Clinton’s emails, although he suggested that he was being sarcastic at the time and criticized the news media for coverage of those remarks.
Few targets were spared in Trump’s wide-ranging speech, which included jabs at various unnamed Republican senators – “Where do these people come from?” – his potential Democratic challengers in 2020 and a swipe at Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
“We have a gentleman who likes raising interest rates, a gentleman who likes quantitative tightening,” said Trump. “Can you imagine if we left interest rates where they were? If we didn’t do quantitative tightening, taking money out of the market?”
Trump has repeatedly slammed Powell for raising interest rates too quickly. Powell has said the rate hikes were necessary.
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