WAPAKONETA — Renewed calls for impeachment didn’t dampen the mood here on Sunday when President Donald Trump visited Wapakoneta’s Pratt Industries paper mill and corrugated box plant, a $500 million investment that will create up to 300 new jobs within the next several years.
Instead, President Trump took a victory lap on jobs and the economy, a message which the crowd of some 1,500 supporters was more than happy to hear.
“It’s good for Wapakoneta. Neil went to the moon and now we’ve got Australia coming to Wapak,” said Vicki Kuhn, a self-employed cleaner in Wapakoneta.
The $500 million investment from Pratt Industries to build a paper mill and box factory in Wapakoneta is a “very big thing” for the town of 10,000, according to Bryan Stombaugh, a production engineer for Pratt Industries in Wapakoneta.
“(They’re) bringing lots of well-paying jobs,” Stombaugh said. “It’s great for the community.”
Trump stuck to his script for much of the evening, avoiding mention of the rising chorus for impeachment from Democrats following reports that the president allegedly asked the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings.
The president spent much of the weekend tweeting about the incident and resumed tweeting shortly after leaving Wapakoneta.
Before departing Houston for Wapakoneta, Trump told reporters that his conversation was “largely congratulatory” and that “we don’t want our people like Vice President Joe Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” according to the New York Times.
But Trump’s supporters are skeptical the latest calls for impeachment have merit.
“Leave it alone. The people voted him in. Let it go,” said Kuhn, who attended Sunday’s event at Pratt Industries. “That’s what the people wanted.”
“The constitution allows the impeachment process to be able to protect you and me from a president who is just rogue. They are just using it without any, he hasn’t done anything,” said David Aikin, of Sidney, Ohio. “The Mueller investigation is a really good example. That was the first time in American history that there was ever any kind of investigation when there wasn’t a crime. They opened the investigation to find the crime.
“They didn’t find a crime but then they tried to get him for obstruction. But if it wasn’t a crime, what was he obstructing? Nothing. I mean, it’s a who great big net of deception. He’s fighting it pretty well.”
