Trump raises specter of impeachment at Montana rally

BILLINGS, Mt. – President Trump said Thursday that he risked being indicted if Republicans lost control of Congress, imploring supporters of a campaign rally to support GOP candidates in mid-election elections. -mandate.

"You do not vote for a candidate, you vote for which party controls Congress. It's a very important thing, "said Trump. "They like to use the word impeach. 'Impeach Trump!'. . . "But he did not do anything wrong." "No matter, we will attack him!"

The president's riff came after days of increasing pressure on the White House following internal leaks to the administration that deeply embarrassed the president for questions about his skills, raised by his own staff and by his political representatives.

Following a new critical book by journalist Bob Woodward and an unnamed opinion piece in The New York Times, Trump became increasingly angry and paranoid about the feeling that his staff had betrayed him.

As he has done many times over the past two days, Trump again attacked the Times' essay as "powerless" at his rally and challenged Times reporters to find out which senior official in his administration had anonymously written.

"That would be a good scoop," Trump told the crowd.

But it was his own future that was clearly in his mind.

"I say that how to attack someone who does a good job, did nothing wrong. Our economy is good. How do you do it? Asked Trump. "It's a sacred place in Washington."

The rally – in support of the GOP Senate nominee, Montana State Auditor Matt Rosendale, who challenges outgoing Democratic President Jon Tester – was the first event of Trump's campaign after Labor Day. White House advisers said the president will hold several campaign events weeks before voters go to the polls on November 6th.

Trump spoke to the crowd, holding campaign signs and wearing "Make America Great Again" hats, for over an hour and recited his litany of complaints about what he considers like an unfair press coverage.

But Trump also seemed eager to defend his skills as a result of revelations in the book and in the newspaper essay, according to which his associates would have acted to hide information from him and ignore his instructions to put guardrails against its destructive impulses.

"Is he competent?" Trump said of a mocking tone of a news presenter. "I think I'm pretty competent!"

Referring to the editor of The New York Times, Trump said, "Look at this thing today. Is it subversion? Is it treason? The good thing about this is that even the liberals who hate me think that it is a terrible thing that they have done.

Although Trump's rallies are generally noisy, the Montana crowd has been restricted and the president, who tends to feed on his audience, has sometimes seemed to go through the motions.

He attacked Democrats and Liberal activists after he treated his Supreme Court candidate, Brett Kavanaugh, for three days of contentious confirmation hearings in the Senate.

"Do you believe anger and malice on the other side?" Said Trump. "It's embarrassing to see these people making fun of themselves by shouting and shouting at this great gentleman."

Democrats, he said: "All their campaign is resilient, resists."

Before the rally, Trump conducted a live interview with a Fox News host, with audio in the arena. The president criticized the Times for publishing the editorialist, saying it was probably a "low level" or "deep state" person.

He did not say he had an idea of ​​the author of the editorial.

Trump also said he did not intend to close the government over the border wall because Republican leaders did not want him to do it. The crowd screamed for a stop.

"If it were up to me, I would close the government on border security," he said.

Nakamura reported from Washington.