The House vote on the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade agreement was the "silver lining" to the Democrats' push for impeachment, President Donald Trump said Tuesday afternoon before heading to Hershey, Pennsylvania, for a campaign rally.
"Without the impeachment, they would have never approved it, in my opinion," Trump told reporters on the White House South Lawn. "The impeachment is the reason they approved it, and interestingly enough, one hour after the news conference, they went out of the news conference on the big trade deal."
He added, the emphasis was put on the pact, calling it "one of the greatest trade deals ever made for our country," because House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders want to "muffle down the impeachment."
"They are embarrassed by it, and they couldn't get the votes, and that's exactly what happened," Trump said. "It's a terrible thing when they do something like that."
But now, Democrats will "probably have to vote on very weak articles [of impeachment]," the president said, but meanwhile, it is important USMCA was approved.
"That is going to be a great thing for our farmers, our manufacturers, for just about everybody, unions included," said Trump. "I spoke with [AFL-CIO leader] Richard Trumka . . . and we had good talks with the union people. I did that a few days ago and we had a very good talk and everybody is really loving the USMCA, so we are very happy about that."
Meanwhile, Trump insisted there was "nothing wrong" with his July 25 phone call with Ukraine President Volomydyr Zelenskiy, including when he asked him if he could do a favor.
"It was nothing to do with me, this has to do with the United States," Trump said. "The word was us. Can you do us a favor, then we talk about the country we are talking about seeing the attorney general . . . it's a disgrace that people can make impeachment out of nothing. That was a perfect conversation."
He added the current economic numbers and his election poll numbers also likely have something to do with the push for impeachment.
"We are ahead of everybody in every state, [in] most of the swing states, we are way ahead and you know I don't know if that's impeachment or the fact that we have the best economic numbers that we've ever had in our country," Trump said.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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