The Latest: Trump kicks off 2020 bid by airing grievances

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump has kicked off his reelection campaign with a grievance-filled rally that focused more on settling scores than on laying out his agenda for a second term.

On Tuesday night in Orlando, Florida, Trump complained that he had been “under assault from the very first day” of his presidency by a “fake news media” and “illegal witch hunt” that had tried to keep him and his supporters down.

He also painted a disturbing picture of what life would look like if he loses in 2020, telling the crowd that Democrats “want to destroy you and they want to destroy our country as we know it.”

The apocalyptic language and finger-pointing made clear that Trump’s 2020 campaign will probably look a whole lot like his 2016 run.

Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders says President Donald Trump is “a man way out of touch with the needs of ordinary people and a man who must be defeated.”

Speaking after Trump’s 2020 campaign kickoff event in Florida on Tuesday night, Sanders said Trump’s rally was “an hour and a half speech of lies, distortions and total, absolute nonsense.”

The Vermont senator was the only candidate among the nearly two dozen Democrats seeking the presidency to offer a live rebuttal immediately following the speech. Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign released a statement nearly an hour before Trump was scheduled to speak.

Biden’s deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield said that the country faces a choice, “we can make Trump an aberration or let him fundamentally and forever alter the character of this nation.”