How the world reacted to Donald Trump impeachment acquittal

Trump shared a video online appearing to show him running for president "4EVA".
Trump shared a video online appearing to show him running for president "4EVA". Photo credit: Twitter

Donald Trump has called his Senate acquittal a victory for the country, but that view is certainly not shared by everyone.

The US President was charged with two counts of impeachment - abuse of power and obstruction of Congress - but was cleared by the Senate earlier on Thursday (NZ time).

Taking to Twitter after the historic vote, Trump said he would be addressing the nation tomorrow "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!"

Trump also tweeted a video showing him appear to run for president until the end of time.

The graphic - set on a mock Time magazine cover -  begins with a campaign poster saying "Trump 2024". It then shows campaign posters for the following election years, from 2028 up to 2048. Finally, the moving image zooms into Trump standing behind one of the campaign posters, with the number getting higher and higher until it reaches the climactic message "Trump 4EVA".

Time magazine immediately responded to the graphic.

"This is a manipulated version of the Oct 22, 2018, animated cover of TIME. Here's the real one," the magazine tweeted.

The original shows the same Trump campaign posters from 2024 until 2044, but then the moving image reverses course to show of the magazine's cover, with the headline "How Trumpism outlasts Trump".

Only one Republican cast a vote in favour of impeaching Trump, with Mitt Romney siding with Democrats on the issue of abuse of power.

Majority leader Mitch McConnell was "surprised and disappointed" by Romney's vote, according to MSNBC correspondent Garrett Haake. 

No Republicans voted to impeach Trump on the charge of obstruction of Congress.

Trump's personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani took to Twitter following the news, writing: "Acquitted for life!"

Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Trump's former press secretary, echoed Giuliani's sentiments.

"President @realDonaldTrump acquitted, vindicated, and more strongly positioned than ever to win re-election," she wrote.

"Nice try Democrats, but you are no match for our President Donald J Trump."

Trump's current press secretary, Stephanie Grisham, released a statement slamming the "sham impeachment attempt concocted by Democrats".

"As we have said all along, he is not guilty."

Grisham also laid into Romney, calling him a "failed Republican presidential candidate".

"Throughout this wholly corrupt process, President Trump successfully advanced the interests of the United States and remained focused on the issues that matter to Americans...The President is pleased to put this latest chapter of shameful behaviour by the Democrats in the past."

Not everyone was happy with the outcome.

Kamala Harris, who pulled out of the race for the Democratic candidacy race in December, slammed the Senate for failing "to hold Trump accountable".

"This continues a shameful history of two systems of justice: one for powerful people like Trump and one for everyone else. No one should be above the law, not even the President of the United States."

Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, also lashed out at the handling of the trial.

"The President will boast that he has been acquitted. There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence.

"By suppressing the evidence and rejecting the most basic elements of a fair judicial process, the Republican Senate made themselves will accomplices to the President's cover-up."

Democratic candidate Pete Buttigieg also weighed in, writing: "The Senate was the jury today, but we will be the jury tomorrow. The last word on Donald Trump and Trumpism will come through the American people - at ballot boxes across the country".