President Donald Trump (Screenshot of White House video)

(CNSNews.com) - President Donald Trump told Republican lawmakers Thursday that the Democrats’ demeanor during the State of the Union address on Wednesday, especially during parts of his speech talking about positive economic news, shows that that they would rather see Republicans “not do well than see our country do great.”



“We’ve created 2.4 million jobs. That’s unthinkable, and that doesn’t include all of the things that are happening. You’re going to see numbers that get even better. The stock market has added more than $8 trillion in new wealth. Unemployment claims are at a 45-year low, , which is something,” he said.





“After years of wage stagnation, we are finally seeing rising wages. African American and Hispanic unemployment have both reached the lowest levels ever recorded. That's something very, very special, Trump said.



“And when I made that statement the other night, there was zero movement from the Democrats. They sat there, stone cold, no smile, no applause. You would have thought that, on that one, they would have, sort of, at least clapped a little bit. Which tells you, perhaps, they'd rather see us not do well than see our country do great, and that's not good. That's not good. We have to change that,” he said.



The Trump administration has “eliminated more regulations in our first year than any administration has ever eliminated, and that means four years, eight years, or, in one instance, 16 years,” the president said, adding that it’s “every bit as important toward our success as the tax cuts.”



“I have many business friends and many people in business that came to me and they say that -- including small businesses -- they say the fact that they no longer have to go through years of turmoil in getting approved and getting approvals, and getting rule changes and getting all sorts of things, and getting old while they're waiting to get them -- the fact that all of that is gone is probably as important or even more important to the massive tax cuts we've gotten people. So that's something,” he said.



Trump also named the repeal of the individual mandate in Obamacare as “a big achievement.”



He then turned his attention to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR), which the George W. Bush administration had also pursued for oil drilling as part of its energy plan, but was blocked by environmentalists who said that oil drilling there wouldn’t produce much oil and it would negatively affect the wildlife in the area.



“And ANWR, one of the great potential fields anywhere in the world, and I never appreciated ANWR so much. A friend of mine called up, who's in that world and in that business, and said, ‘Is it true that you're thinking about ANWR?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I think we're going to get it, but you know.’ He said, ‘Are you kidding? That's the biggest thing, by itself.’ He said, ‘Ronald Reagan and every president has wanted to get ANWR approved,’” Trump said.



“And after that, I said, ‘Oh, make sure that's in the bill.’ It was amazing how that had an impact. That had a very big impact on me, Paul. I really didn't care about it, and then when I heard that everybody wanted it -- for 40 years, they've been trying to get it approved, and I said, ‘Make sure you don't lose ANWR,’” he added.