President Donald Trump launched his 2020 reelection campaign Tuesday much the same way he rode to power in 2016 -- with a raucous, nationalist rally stirring fear of illegal immigration and vowing to fight for blue collar workers.
Lashing out at his Democratic opponents as radical leftists fueled by "hatred" and out to "rip your country apart," Trump promised an "earthquake at the ballot box" next year.
"We did it once and we're going to do it again," he promised some 20,000 ecstatic supporters in Orlando, Florida.
"And that is why tonight I stand before you to officially launch my campaign for a second term as president of the United States."
There were no substantial new ideas or plans for the future in Trump's nearly 80-minute speech in the Orlando arena, where the crowd formed a sea of Trump campaign red baseball caps, chanting "USA" and "Four More Years."
Instead, the unconventional Republican made his reelection pitch by touting economic gains, renewing his longstanding vow to build a wall along the Mexican border.
In a speech filled with his customary boasts and rhetorical exaggerations, Trump did say -- though giving no detail -- that he would oversee cures for cancer and AIDS and pave the way to send US astronauts to Mars.
But the meat of his address aimed at the grievances and fears of the same white working and middle-class voters who underpinned his surprise victory as an utterly inexperienced politician against the seasoned Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Striking a dark note, Trump repeatedly encouraged the crowd to boo journalists covering the event, calling them "fake news."
Then Trump turned on the Democrats, whom he said have "become more radical, more dangerous, and more unhinged than at any point in the modern history of our country."
"They want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it," he said to roars of boos. "Not acceptable. It's not going to happen."
Even if dismal early poll numbers show he faces a difficult race, Trump goes into his fight buoyed by this fiercely loyal right-wing base.
Trump -- himself accused by opponents of a slew of serious crimes -- told the crowd that together they had formed "a great political movement" that had "stared down a broken and corrupt political establishment."
"We are going to keep America great again," Trump told the packed arena in Orlando, Florida. "Oh, we will keep it so great."
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