Our live coverage of President Trump’s campaign kickoff rally has ended. Scroll through the posts below to see how it unfolded or follow CNN Politics.
President Trump’s Orlando rally has wrapped up after more than 75 minutes.
Though it was billed as the official kickoff rally to his 2020 campaign, it was short on fresh material, the President repeatedly slammed 2016 rival Hillary Clinton.
President Trump accused the Democrats of having an agenda of “open borders.”
Facts first: No prominent Democrat is campaigning on an agenda of literally open borders. (Trump deploys this claim with varying degrees of literalism, sometimes making clear he means it literally and sometimes not.)
While Democrats have roundly opposed Trump’s border wall, many have supported increased spending for border security that would fund technology and more border patrol agents.
Though he has repeatedly slammed Hillary Clinton tonight, President Trump made two brief references to 2020 rival Joe Biden in Orlando at his 2020 kickoff rally.
While touting the economy under his administration, Trump referenced former President Barack Obama’s “magic wand” comments regarding the GDP.
“We’ll tell Sleepy Joe that we found the magic wand. Sleepy guy,” he said, quickly moving on to the next portion of his speech.
He also made a passing reference to Biden earlier when he was talking about China.
“We have never taken in 10 cents from China. We would lose $500 billion a year with China. We rebuilt China. They have done a great job, but they took us for suckers. And that includes Obama and Biden. They took us for suckers,” Trump said.
He did not mention any of the other Democratic contenders by name.
President Trump appeared to again break from prepared remarks to recognize outgoing press secretary Sarah Sanders, who tweeted earlier today that this was her last trip aboard Air Force One as a member of the White House staff.
“My only special interest is you — I don’t have a special interest, I don’t care. And by the way, by the way, a woman who has been so good so talented so wonderful and we’re sort of going to be losing, I have a feeling she’s going to be running for a certain gubernatorial position,” Trump said
He continued: “But a woman who’s a special woman, and her father, by the way, he’s out there fighting for us all the time, Sarah Huckabee Sanders.”
Trump then beckoned her to the stage for brief remarks, where she appeared to receive the biggest applause of the evening.
Her voice appearing to crack, Sanders called it the “honor of a lifetime” and said she had the opportunity to sit on “front row of history and watch you drastically change our country for the better.”
She told the crowd she will spend time with her kids but will continue to be a strong voice for the administration.
“We’re gonna miss her,” he said as he re-took the podium, calling Sanders a “warrior.”
President Trump’s campaign branded tonight’s rally as a blockbuster re-election launch. They jazzed it up with new signs, a live band outside the venue and even trotted out the First Family and Vice President on stage for show.
But the minute President Trump took the stage, the crowd at the Amway Center heard the same message that Trump supporters have gotten for the last four years.
Immigration. Fake news. Democrats. Hillary Clinton. Even shot at the Academy Awards. The President is relying on his old playbook and continuing to air his grievances, just like he did before.
President Trump took credit for the US being the “No. 1 producer of energy in the world — because of what we’ve done, right now.”
Facts first: The US Energy Information Administration said in 2017 that 2016 was the fifth straight year the US had been the “world’s top producer of petroleum and natural gas hydrocarbons.” Under Trump, the US has become the world leader in crude oil production.
President Trump spent several minutes during his rally tonight musing about which slogan to pick for his 2020 campaign: Make America Great or Keep America Great.
So, in Trump fashion, he decided to poll the crowd — and Keep America Great was the clear winner, based on cheers.
But before he polled the crowd, Trump laid out the stakes, making clear he is attached to the Make America Great Again slogan.
“How do you give up the greatest of all time?” Trump asked. “And if I lose people are going to say, ‘What a mistake that was!’”
President Trump noted that he spoke with China’s President Xi today but remained noncommittal on a deal.
Trump formally announced earlier today that he and Xi will have a meeting at the G20 later this month and trade talks will resume.
Tonight, he called Xi a “terrific person.”
As for a deal, he said, “We’ll see what happens,” reiterating that he wants a “good deal and a fair deal or we’re not going to have a deal at all — and that’s okay, too.”
He also responded to what he said was criticism from “fake news” (but actually, economists) regarding Americans ultimately paying the price for China tariffs, claiming to his supporters that the US is “taking in billions” from China and “You’re not paying much, if anything at all, in the case of China.”
In addressing trade with China, Trump said the US has had a regular $500 billion trade deficit with China.
Facts first: The US trade deficit with China has never once been $500 billion. Accounting for trade in both goods and services, it was $379 billion in 2018, and a record $419 billion in goods trade alone.
President Trump just announced he’s officially running for a second term in 2020 at tonight’s rally in Orlando, Florida.
“With every ounce of heart and might and sweat and soul, we’re going to keep making America great again and then we will indeed keep America great,” Trump said.
He continued:
The crowd inside the arena cheered after Trump made his announcement.
“I can promise you that I will never, ever, ever let you down. I won’t,” he told his supporters.
Trump went on to thank his family, naming his wife, children, and parents, as well as his late brother, Fred Jr.
Trump has held over 50 rallies since taking office and formally filed his re-election paperwork on Inauguration Day more than two years ago.
CNN’s Betsy Klein contributed to this post.
President Trump revived his focus on his former rival Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails, vowing “we’ll find” her emails “somewhere deep in the State Department.”
“We’re going to find them somewhere deep in the State Department. We’ll find them,” Trump said, though it was not clear exactly how or who would be doing the finding.
He did, though, mention Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee who has been involved in the counter-investigations Trump has called for.
Trump then said he would have gotten “the electric chair” if he had deleted emails.
President Trump claimed tonight that President Obama “did nothing” when he was informed of Russian election interference in 2016.
Facts first: While Obama has been widely criticized for not doing more (though he has his defenders), it’s false to say that he “did nothing.” Obama took a number of steps, including warning Russia through various channels. Obama said he himself told Russian President Vladimir Putin in September 2016 “to cut it out,” vowing “serious consequences” if he did not.
In October 2016, the US Intelligence Community issued a statement that it was “confident” that the Russian government was behind the theft and dissemination of Democratic officials’ emails.
The Obama administration subsequently issued a set of sanctions to punish Russia for its interference in the 2016 election and booted 35 Russian diplomats the US accused of being intelligence officers.
President Trump accused Democrats of wanting to “destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it” during his rally tonight.
Trump has been airing a series of grievances and attacking Democrats during much of the first 15 minutes of his speech, complaining about Democrats not being willing to accept the conclusion of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation as the end of the line.
“With the Mueller report we won and now they want a do-over, they want a do-over,” Trump said. “Didn’t work out too well, let’s do it again.”
President Trump teed off his kickoff rally tonight with a criticism of the media, saying that if he has “three or four empty seats” at his arena rally tonight, the media will say he did not fill the arena.
“So I said maybe we should take a chance,” Trump said, before noting that the arena is full.
Minutes later, after Trump noted that the 2016 election was a “defining moment in American history, ask them right there,” pointing to the media risers.
The crowd then broke out in “tell the truth” and “CNN sucks” chants.
“By the way, that is a lot of fake news back there,” Trump said after the chants died down.
See it here:
In introducing President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence said, “We have reformed the VA, and Veterans Choice is now the law.”
Facts first: The Veterans Choice Program was signed into law by President Barack Obama in 2014 and was co-sponsored by the late Sen. John McCain. In 2018, Trump signed a bill to continue the program and eventually consolidated other programs under the new Veterans Community Care Program.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump just took the stage at his rally in Orlando, Florida.
He is expected to formally launch his reelection campaign tonight.
“He truly loves this country and will continue to work on your behalf as long as he can,” the first lady said. “All of us will.”
Follow the rally here or watch it live in the video player above.
Vice President Mike Pence took the stage at Amway Center in Orlando, Florida, with second lady Karen Pence.
He was the last speaker in the pre-program lineup, which has so far only included Lara Trump, Eric Trump, and Donald Trump Jr.
A majority of Americans say they think President Trump is going to win a second term.
A new CNN Poll conducted by SSRS, finds 54% say their best guess is that Trump will win the 2020 election even as the President’s reviews on issues other than the economy remain largely negative.
The new numbers on Trump are a reversal from December, when a narrow majority of 51% said they thought Trump would lose his bid for re-election.
The shift over that time comes mostly among those who disapprove of Trump’s handling of the presidency.
When these people are asked to explain in their own words why they disapprove of Trump, Trump’s behavior is a central reason.
Here’s why people said they disapprove:
Those who approve of the way Trump is handling his job as President instead focus on his accomplishments and on issues.
Here’s why people said they approve:
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump traveled to Orlando tonight with Florida Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio and outgoing press secretary Sarah Sanders, who tweeted this would be her last trip aboard Air Force One in an official capacity.
Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and White House social media director Dan Scavino were also with the President.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his wife Casey DeSantis, along with Dr. Jason Pirozzolo, a member of the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority Board, greeted the Trumps at the airport.
Over the last few months, President Trump has complained to aides and advisers that cable TV networks had largely stopped airing his campaign rallies live as they did in 2016, two sources familiar with his comments said. It led the President’s campaign aides to contemplate different ways to gin up news interest in Trump’s rallies.
What’s adding to Trump’s frustrations: He watched as one Democratic candidate after the next launched their presidential campaigns, swinging the media spotlight — to varying degrees of success —away from him and onto his would-be successors.
Campaign aides are hopeful that today’s spectacle — a mega rally at a 20,000 person arena in Orlando — will put the spotlight on Trump in the way that he has been craving, positioning him as the main event of the 2020 campaign.
One campaign source described it as a “reset” that will also signal to grassroots supporters and donors alike the start of the campaign season.
