By Morgan Phillips | Fox News
President Trump took the stage in Sunrise, Fla. Tuesday night to address supporters at what his reelection campaign rally had dubbed a “homecoming rally” before the start of his Thanksgiving break at Mar-a-Lago, his new primary residence.
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Tuesday’s rally marked his first official campaign visit to the Sunshine State since he changed his permanent state of residence from New York.
Trump claimed the move was motivated by the poor treatment he was receiving from New York politicians investigating him. However, Florida’s far more attractive tax rates could have played some part in the decision as well.
Winning Florida will be crucial for the president’s reelection. Trump won the state over Hillary Clinton by 110,000 votes, but Tuesday’s rally took place in one of the most Democratic areas of the state. Clinton overwhelmingly won Broward County, where Sunrise is located, in 2016.
About 200 anti-Trump protesters rallied on a street outside the BB&T Center before the president arrived. They raised a helium-filled “Baby Trump” balloon, and some chanted, “Lock him up.”
However thousands inside the stadium broke out in chants such as “4 more years,” and “USA, USA” throughout the rally.
Trump told Florida voters he would head to the ballot box right alongside them in less than a year, promising to keep control of the House and win back the Senate, and of course to “keep that beautiful White House.”
He noted that the stock market just reached another all-time high. “Everybody’s getting rich and I’m working my ass off.” He touted the 6.7 million new jobs created under his adminstration and the almost 600,000 jobs created in Florida since 2016.
Trump told supporters that U.S. veterans under his administration were being taken care of like “has never happened in our country before.”
“$2.5 trillion and everything is made right here in the U.S.A.,” he said of beefed-up military spending under his administration. He mentioned U.S. special forces had killed “the world’s number one terrorist” weeks ago.
Trump told Floridians he pardoned Army 1st Lt. Clint Lorance who was six years into a 19 year sentence for second-degree murder after he ordered his soldiers to open fire and kill three men in Afghanistan. Lorance’s supporters said the men were Taliban fighters.
“We’re going to take care of our warriors. I will always stick up for our fighters, people can sit in their air-conditioned offices and complain,” said Trump.
He then pivoted to impeachment, saying “the radical left Democrats are trying to rip our nation apart.” “First it was the Russia hoax, total hoax, a failed overthrow attempt and the biggest fraud in the history of our country… now the same maniacs are pushing the deranged impeachment, a witch hunt the same as before.”
“A lot of bad things are happening to them. You see what happening in the polls everybody said thats real bull shit,” Trump added.
This is a developing story, check back for more updates. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
