Trump blasts impeachment supporters at annual prayer breakfast on morning after final Senate vote
WASHINGTON – Taking a victory lap, President Donald Trump used the National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday to attack supporters of the impeachment drive against him.
“As everybody knows, my family, our great country and your president have been put through a terrible ordeal by some very dishonest and corrupt people,” Trump said a day after the Republican-run Senate acquitted him of impeachment charges in a largely partisan vote.
Trump, who said he would expand on those thoughts at a White House speech at noon, told religious leaders that impeachment supporters “know what they are doing is wrong, but they put themselves far ahead of our great country.”
“Weeks ago and again yesterday courageous Republican politicians and leaders had the wisdom, fortitude and strength to do what everyone knows was right,” he continued.
Referring to his speech later in the day, Trump said, “so many people have been hurt and we can’t let that go on.”
Signs of the political tensions generated by impeachment dominated the prayer breakfast, an annual event designed to bring together people of different parties and religious faiths.
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As he entered the venue, Trump waved around a copy of USA TODAY with the headline “ACQUITTED” and a copy of The Washington Post with the headline “Trump Acquitted.”
One of the people on the dais at the Washington Hilton Hotel was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who led the impeachment drive. Trump refused to shake Pelosi’s hand prior to his State of the Union address on Tuesday night. later, she ripped up a paper copy of Trump’s speech.
Trump and Pelosi did not interact personally on Thursday, but Trump appeared to refer to the speaker in saying he did not like people “who say ‘I pray for you,’ when they know that is not so.”
After the event, Pelosi said it was “completely inappropriate” for Trump to criticize people for citing their faith as a basis for their decisions – “especially at a prayer breakfast.”
Several speakers cited the nation’s political polarization and prayed for the nation to get past it.
Social scientist Arthur Brooks, the event’s keynote speaker, said that “contempt is ripping our country apart.”
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In his speech, Trump later said he wasn’t sure he agreed with Brooks’ analysis.
The president’s remarks sounded like a campaign speech, as he recited a list of things he has done for his religious supporters, from support of school prayer to international efforts to prevent the persecution of Christians.
The National Prayer Breakfast is a Washington traditions that stretches back to 1953, when President Dwight Eisenhower establishment it at the suggestion of the Rev. Billy Graham.
Trump spoke less than 17 hours after the Senate finished its impeachment trial by acquitting him of charges that he abused power by trying to get Ukraine to investigate political opponent Joe Biden.
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It was a partisan vote, with one exception: Utah Republican Sen. Mitt Romney, the GOP’s nominee for president in 2012, voted to convict Trump on the first article of impeachment – abuse of power. Citing the evidence as well as his Mormon faith, Romney called Trump’s conduct “grievously wrong.”
Trump fired back in a midnight tweet that cited Romney’s loss in 2012, saying had he “devoted the same energy and anger to defeating a faltering Barack Obama as he sanctimoniously does to me, he could have won the election.”
At the prayer breakfast, Trump appeared to be referring to Romney in sating that “I don’t like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong.”
Kevin Kruse, a historian at Princeton University who has studied the National Prayer Breakfast, told USA TODAY, “I can’t say how bizarre it is for a president to use the moment – traditionally one devoted to bipartisanship and unity – to strike such a vindictive tone.”
Later in the speech, Trump returned to airing his grievances by saying he found it hard to admire people who backed impeachment: “When they impeach you for nothing, then you’re supposed to like them. It’s not easy, folks. I do my best.”
What Romney said:Utah Sen. Mitt Romney voted to convict Trump during the impeachment trial. Read his full speech on the Senate floor