Donald Trump made a bold claim and also a strange pose with the US flag. Photo / AP
Donald Trump made a bold claim and also a strange pose with the US flag. Photo / AP
US President Donald Trump has told an appreciative audience of conservatives he will win re-election in 2020 and by a bigger margin than his 2016 victory.
Trump mocked Democrats for their framework to combat climate change and said House politicians pushing to expand their investigations of him are "sick".
In a wide-ranging speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump rehashed his outsider campaign that overcame long odds and a crowded field of established politicians to claim the White House over Democrat Hillary Clinton, reports news.com.au.
After a trying week of tumult and setbacks, Trump delivered a stemwinder that extended beyond two hours and hardly left him winded.
Bizarrely, he also posed for cameras with his arms wrapped around the American flag.
When he made his prediction of a second term, the crowd responded with chants of "USA, USA, USA".
Trump praised the conservative movement, saying: "Our movement and our future in our country is unlimited."
As he looked back to 2016, the president described himself as "probably more of a conservative than a Republican" but says people just didn't understand that.
Trump took aim at the Democrats' Green New Deal, a policy proposal floated by some liberal Democrats in congress and backed to varying degrees by several of the party's 2020 presidential candidates.
Donald Trump made a bold claim and also a strange pose with the US flag. Photo / AP
"I think the New Green Deal or whatever the hell they call it — the Green New Deal — I encourage it," Trump said mockingly as he wound up for a round of exaggeration.
"I think it's really something that they should promote. They should work hard on it. … No planes, no energy.
"When the wind stops blowing that's the end of your electric. Let's hurry up. Darling, is the wind blowing today?
"I'd like to watch television, darling."
The Democratic plan calls for a drastic drop in greenhouse-gas emissions from fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, but in no way grounds aeroplanes or pivots the country to renewable energy only.
With special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia investigation seemingly approaching its end, Trump spoke of the "collusion delusion" and lashed out at newly empowered House Democrats who are opening new inquires involving him. "This phoney thing looks like it's dying so they don't have anything with Russia there, no collusion," Trump said of the Russia probe.
Donald Trump talked up his re-election changes at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Photo / AP
"So now they go in and morph into 'Let's inspect every deal he's ever done. We're going to go into his finances. We're going to check his deals. We're going to check' — these people are sick."
House Democrats are undertaking several broad new investigations that reach far beyond Mueller's focus on Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible collusion between Russians and the Trump campaign.
So far, Mueller has not brought any public charges alleging a criminal conspiracy between the campaign and Russia; the investigation continues.
In his public testimony before the House Oversight and Reform Committee, Cohen called the president a "conman" and a "cheat" and gave Democrats several new leads for inquiry.
