Trump Speaks at CPAC 2023 Transcript

Well, thank you very much and I'm thrilled to be back at CPAC with thousands of great and true American patriots, and that's what you are. I want to start by thanking Matt and Mercedes Schlapp and everyone at the American Conservative Union. Thank you, Matt, for hosting this wonderful event. It really has been something over the years. I also want to, we have so many people here, I'm going to leave out some, but they'll understand. We have a lot of Congress, a lot of Senate, a lot of everything, but we'll do a few words and a few names. Diana Harshbarger, thank you, Diana, Congresswoman. Mike Collins, Elise Stefanik, I call her the rocket ship. Where is Elise? She's a rocket. Thank you, Elise. Jason Smith, a friend of mine, great guy. Thank you, Jason. Wesley Hunt, Cory Mills, Dr. Ronny Jackson. He's a doctor, he's an admiral. Where's Ronny Jackson? He said I'm the healthiest man ever to be president by far. Said, if I wouldn't eat junk food, I'd live 200 years. Where is he? He's the greatest. We love you, Ronny. (01:25) He had a lot of things under his belt. Another one who's a serious character, but a great guy. You got to know him. He's a great guy. Matt Gates. Where's Matt? Thank you, Matt. Great guy. He's a brave guy. And another brave person, she started off very slow, very, very slow. She's a low-key person, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Where is Marjorie? Thank you. Thank you, Marjorie. A good location, Marge. A friend of mine, a man who's terrific, almost won for governor of New York. Could have done it, but so many people have moved out of New York, it gets tougher. But he's a terrific guy, a great lawyer too, and he is a strong guy. He stopped somebody coming at him with a knife. I don't know. He grabbed that guy's hand, he looked pretty tough, and he drove him to the ground. Lee Zeldin, where's Lee? Where's Lee? Hi, Lee. Thank you. Good job, Lee. West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrissey. Patrick, thank you, Patrick. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick. (02:39) Ohio attorney general Dave Yost. Thank you, Dave. Former acting attorney general of the United States, Matt Whitaker, Matt. A friend of mine who knows the border, knows more about illegal immigration than the next 10 people combined, Stephen Miller. Steven, hi, Steve. Great, good to have you here. One of my favorite generals, a guy who's just great. He's got a lot of common sense and a lot of smarts. And he's been doing a lot of television lately and he does a fantastic job, General Keith Kellogg. Thank you, Keith. A very popular man in South America, very, very popular in Brazil, the former president of Brazil. President Bolsonaro, a great honor. (03:41) I don't know, you beat all these US politicians. That's pretty good. And his son, who's a friend of mine, Brazilian chamber of deputies, Eduardo Bolsonaro. Hi, Eduardo. Great job you're doing. Just got reelected. And somebody that we really like in this room, I think. I certainly like a lot. He had a lot of courage, very smart guy, James O'Keefe. Where's James? Where is James? Thank you, James. Good guy. As we gather today, our country and our movement, the greatest political movement in the history of our country, as nobody going to even question it, even the fake news media. That's a lot of fake news back there. And by the way, I want to thank the fire department. Look at these people. They're up the rafters. Thank you, fire department. But the greatest in our history, most important battle in our lives is taking place right now as we speak. For seven years, you and I have been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the people who hate it and want to absolutely destroy it. (05:25) The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants. No other country wants them. If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful USA will be a failed country that no one will even recognize. A lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare. That's what it's going and that's where it's going. I used to say that we will never be a socialist country. I said it oftentimes. I said it once at the State of the Union address and people didn't understand what I was saying. But I'd shout it out loud and I was right because that train has passed the station long ago of socialism. It never even came close to stopping, frankly. (06:26) We're now in a Marxism state of mind, a communism state of mind, which is far worse. We're a nation in decline. Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know that we are the only ones who can stop them. They know that this room is so important, the people in this room. They know that we can defeat them. They know that we will defeat them. But they're not coming after me, they're coming after you and I'm just standing in their way. That's all I'm doing. I'm standing in their way. And that's why I'm here today. That's why I'm standing before you, because we are going to finish what we started. We started something that was America. We're going to complete the mission. We're going to see this battle through to ultimate victory. We're going to make America great again. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers. They are people that don't get it, although, in some cases, they get it. They get it for their wallets, but we can't do that. We can't let that happen. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists. We will throw off the political class that hates our country. They actually hate our country. No walls, no borders, bad elections, no voter ID. We will beat the Democrats. We will route the fake news media. We will expose and appropriately deal with the rhinos. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House. And we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all. When we started this journey, a journey like there has never been before, there's never been anything like this. We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools. But we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush. (09:14) We're not going back to people that want to destroy our great social security system, even some in our own party, I wonder who that might be, that want to raise the minimum age of social security to 70, 75, or even 80 in some cases. And that are out to cut Medicare to a level that it will no longer be recognizable. And when that was their original thought, that's what they always come back to. Remember that. You have to remember that. You heard it here first. We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid wars. But at the same time, demands that we cut veterans benefits and retirement benefits at home. (10:21) Our soldiers will no longer live in the streets of our city. We have cities where our soldiers, our great soldiers, are living on concrete, they're living on asphalt. We will take care of our soldiers. There has never been a time like this. Illegal immigrants come in and we house them in the Waldorf Astoria and many other of the greatest hotels anywhere in the world. But our soldiers, we do nothing for them. They sleep out at night and they freeze. They freeze in the cold and they die in the heat, while people that came into our country illegally are in beautiful hotel suites, perhaps watching us on television right now. We were taking care of our soldiers just a short while ago, but we don't do that anymore. But we'll start doing it again. Our soldiers are very special to us. When a wonderful town in Ohio has difficulty, we are going to take care of that town, that city, that village prior to worrying about the rest of the world. (11:39) We're taking care of the problems of the rest of the world that they're not taking care of themselves. They have us put up the money. You know what I'm talking about. If you look at Ukraine, and we all feel so badly about it, but why isn't NATO putting up dollar for dollar with us? We put up $140 billion and they put up just a tiny fraction of that. And we all want to see success, but it's far more important to them than it is to us because of that location. We are never going to be a country ruled by entrenched political dynasties in both parties. Rotten special interests, China-loving politicians, of which there are many. You listening to this, Mitch McConnell? You listening? And a militant left wing news media that's either frightened of telling the truth or is truly evil and bad. I don't know. I think in many ways they're frightened, but you never really know which. We are not going back to this mindset, not now, not ever, not ever. (13:06) And thank you, Mark Levin, for being here tonight. Thank you very much. And Julie. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Very important voice. Stay healthy, Mark. We can't lose you. Just stay healthy. Stay healthy, Mark. We're not going to lose you. In 2016, we took away the power of this corrupt political class. And we did more in four years than any administration in the history of our country, if you look at what we did. We shut down the illegal foreign invasion on our borders and achieved the most secure border in US history. We deported illegal criminal aliens by the tens of thousands. MS-13, taking them out by the thousands. We set records every single week, we were cleaning up our country. I smashed the false idols of the free trade fanatics. These are fools or they're getting very rich, probably the second. And left the China lobby reeling from our historic tariffs and taxes that we charge them, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our treasury from China. (14:22) Thank you very much, China. When no other president had gotten even 10 cents, not one president got anything from them. Our trade deficits were five, six, $700 billion a year. A billion, think of it, dollars a year. Not sustainable by any country. They built their military and they have a very powerful military with the money that we gave them. How stupid are we? I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars, no new wars. I finished some old ones. I finished some old ones. Remember when the Democrats and my Republican opponents would often look at me during the debates or whatever and they'd say, "No, no. He's going to bring us into World War III because it's a personality type." They said I had the personality. No, I had the personality type that kept us out of wars because people knew that they weren't going to mess around with us. (15:40) That's why I rebuilt our military. We were strong, we were safe. And I told delinquent foreign nations, they were delinquent, they weren't paying their bills, that if they wanted our protection, they had to pay up and they had to pay up now. And they did. They paid $ 450 billion as soon as I said, "No, I won't be protecting you if you don't pay." We truly had a policy of peace through strength. This was a serious, powerful policy. And we didn't have to lose our loved ones fighting wars in countries that nobody's ever heard of. I stood firm against the forces of anarchy and decay. I arrested the Marxists to topple statues of our great heroes in Washington, DC. We arrested them. They were knocking down the most beautiful artwork, the most beautiful statues of great heroes. They didn't even know who they were doing. They just wanted anarchy. And I passed and signed an executive order. Anybody that that gets 10 years in jail with no negotiation. It's not 10, but it turns into three months. (16:59) And it's an incredible thing that stopped right away. They were heading to the Jefferson Memorial. They wanted to take out Thomas Jefferson. I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think we're going to let that happen. But we passed it. It was a very old law that we founded. One of my very good legal people, along with Steven Miller, they found it. They said, "sir, I don't know if you want to try and bring this back." I said, "I do." And as soon as we passed it, that was the end that just stopped. It's amazing. It's a miracle. We banned transgender insanity from our military and signed the world's first ban on critical race theory long before anybody had even heard of the term. It was all banned, everything was good. (17:51) When Biden came back in, this guy came in and he put everything right back in place where it was. We were paying these people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary among our highest paid people to teach all of this nonsense to our military yet. But it was all out, it was all done. There's only one president in history who has ever taken on the entire corrupt establishment in Washington. And when we win in 2024, we will do it again even stronger, faster, and better, because... now I am experienced and I know the people of Washington. I didn't know them. I was from New York. I only came here 17 times, they said. I read that in the fake news, so probably it's not true, but it's the best I could do. And I never stayed over. I was from New York. But I now know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the strong ones. I know them all. I know the people that have to do the job and can do the job. A lot of them are in this room right now. (19:13) And as I did for four incredible years, I will put America first every single time, every single day. From the beginning, we have been attacked by a sick and sinister opposition, the radical left communists, the bureaucrats, the fake news media, the big money special interests, the corrupt Democrat prosecutors. Oh, they're after me for so many things. Oh, those prosecutors. Some are racists. Some hate our country. They all hate me. They'll get me for anything, anything. You put a comma in this paragraph. Why did you do that? I don't really know. The partisan and often corrupt intelligence agencies, the George Soros money machine that spends a lot of money on the prosecutors, by the way. The Antifa thugs who are allowed to roam the streets while we have people that in many cases are great patriots, great, great patriots, sing prayers every night, playing our national anthem every day. And they're sitting in a jail nearby, rotting away, and being treated so unfairly like nobody's probably ever been treated in this country before, except maybe me. (20:48) And Marjorie, you've been so fantastic on that issue. Where's Marjorie? You've been so fantastic on that issue. And Elise and Matt, people that love our country, people that love our country have been so great on that issue. And the perverts who use the names of Washington and Lincoln to buy millions of dollars in ads to say bad, lifeless, and incorrect things about us. I didn't know this was a rally, Matt. It really is a rally. And by the way, thank you for that beautiful straw poll. That was a big win, thank you. Our enemies are lunatics and maniacs. They cannot stand that they do not own me. I don't need them. I don't need anything about them. I don't need their money. They cannot steer me, they cannot shake me, and they will never, ever control me. And they will never, ever, therefore, control you. (22:13) At the end of the day, anyone else will be intimidated, bought off, blackmailed, or ripped to shreds. I alone will never retreat. And that is why we must stand together and charge. We have to charge full speed ahead. I had a beautiful life before I did this. I lived in luxury. I had everything. People said to me, "Are you sure you want to do it, sir?" I said, "Oh, this will be so amazing." What the hell did you get me into? I didn't know the word subpoena. I didn't know the word grand jury, those words, grand jury. I didn't know that they want to lynch you for doing nothing wrong. I didn't know they want to lynch you for doing a great job. I didn't know they want to put you away because your poll numbers are better than anybody they've seen in years. (23:20) And then they go with the disinformation campaign. First of all, we're leading every Republican by massive numbers. And very importantly, perhaps more importantly, we're leading Biden by a lot, and we're leading Kamala by a lot. And every time the polls go up higher and higher, the prosecutors get crazier and crazier. We got to stop these guys. Says, "We have to stop Trump now. We got to stop him now because we can't stop him at the ballot box." They tried that in 2016. How did that work out? Not too good. And we actually, and I have to say this, I hope Fox doesn't turn up, but we did much better in 2020 than we did in 2016, much better. (24:06) But We have no choice. If we don't do this, our country will be lost forever. People are tired of rhinos and globalists. They want to see America first. That's what they want. It's not too complicated. This is the final battle. They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. This is it. Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country. And I promise you this, if you put me back in the White House, that beautiful building, but I live in very beautiful buildings, it's not that reason. The beautiful. That building wasn't the easiest building to live in with what I was put through. And I get a lot of credit. A lot of people say, "How do you do it, sir?" I had a man come up to me the other day, one of the toughest, strongest people that you can imagine. You all know his name, big businessman, a lot of money, a lot of success, tough as hell. (25:06) And he said, "Could I ask you a question, president?" A friend of mine, used to call me Donald, now he calls me president. "Could I ask you a question, president?" "What?" "How do you do it? How do you do it every day? They sent you subpoenas every day. There're after you. They're looking to take you down at levels that nobody's ever put up with before." Seven years I've gone through this. We beat them all, but it continues. And he said to me, "Seriously, how do you do it? I could never do it." This is one of the toughest guys. I said, "Maybe you could." He said, "Nope, I couldn't do it. I couldn't get out of bed in the morning. But I do it for you, and that's what I'm doing it for. I do it for you." Thank you, [inaudible 00:26:09]. Thank you very much. And if you put me back in the White House, their reign is over. Their reign will be over, and they know it. And America will be a free nation once again. We're not a free nation right now. We don't have free press. We don't have free anything. In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. Not going to let this happen. Not going to let it happen. I will totally obliterate the deep state. I will fire...

USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.

I will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before, these are sick people, and I will put the people back in charge of this country again, the people will be back in charge of our country. The Biden administration is the most corrupt administration in American history. Hunter Biden is a criminal, and nothing happened to him, nothing happened. Joe Biden is a criminal and nothing ever seems to happen to him, because you know, say what you want, but the Democrats stick together. They don't have Mitt Romney, they don't have guys like that, they stick together. How's Mitt Romney doing? Not too good. I could name plenty of others too, but they do stick together whether you like them or not, and many of us don't, but maybe someday we get together.. (28:15) A question was asked of me just before Covid came in. They said, "The country is coming together, do you think this is real?" And I said to myself, "It is real, it's amazing." I was getting calls from radical left people, the nicest calls, it's amazing, because we had the best employment numbers in history, we had the best economy in history. We were lapping China, China was supposed to have taken over as the world's largest economy, and we were actually increasing at a level that nobody thought possible, we were doing great. And then you had Covid come in and a lot of things had to happen, and we did a great job. We never got the credit for that job, but we did a great job with Covid and then gave back something very strong, but we were really bringing this country together. Had Covid not come in, I think you would've had a much different... Because a lot of people want to know, can we all get along together? And if I didn't have that experience, I would say no, because the thought process is so different, but we were starting to really get along, and then we had the disaster, as I call it, the China virus, because I want to be open and I want to be accurate. (29:33) But Biden openly held back a billion dollar taxpayer, old taxpayer money, for the government of Ukraine. Remember he said, "Until they fire the prosecutor, when they fire that prosecutor." And this prosecutor was after Hunter and the company that was paying him a fortune of money. Remember Joe Biden stood up and said, "And I looked at them and I said, you're not getting that billion dollars until you get rid of that." I can't believe he did that. Can you imagine if I did that. I wouldn't be here right now, I suspect. And nobody picks it up, nobody wants to pick it up, it doesn't get any worse, doesn't get any worse than that. Although maybe it does, it's called The Laptop from Hell. And yet they go after me over and over again about something that's not even a crime. They make up Russia, Russia, Russia, which was a plan made up by crooked Hillary Clinton, Adam Shifty Schiff, and the Democrats, the DNC. (30:40) They then made up a fake phone call. They took a phone call that was perfect, and they pretended that I said things that weren't even there. They actually imitated, remember Schiff, he stood up in Congress and he repeated the call like I was a gangster over and over again, quid pro quo. Remember the term, quid pro quo? But there wasn't. I called downstairs at the White House, I said, "Listen, do we have that call taped? Because there's no way I said those things." And they called back and tell me, "Yes, sir, we do." Essentially, we had transcripts of the call. Thank goodness we had transcripts because these guys they're sick, they're sick people, and they were looking to do a number. I'll tell you how bad they are, and I tell this story seldom, but it's a strong story. Monica, thank you very much for the great job you did, by the way, what a defender she is. (31:38) But they're so bad, so they come up with this Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and they know it's a hoax. They know it's hoax, I know it's a hoax too, but they know it's a hoax. And Adam Shifty Schiff comes out from a very secretive room, intelligence committee or whatever, and he meets the press right in front. The press is going crazy, they're going crazy because they'll do anything to hurt Trump, anything, they're evil people in many cases. In some cases they're great people, but a lot of evil people. And he stands up before a microphone. Now, this is a man who knows it's a fake story, Russia. Russia, Russia. They checked six years of phone calls, millions of calls were made from my office, not one call to Russia, not one call. They weren't surprised, but some people were surprised. (32:28) But he stood up before the microphones and he said, "Donald Trump Jr. will go to prison for what he has done with Russia." My son's going to go to prison. He said my son's going to go to prison for what he's done with Russia. And my son didn't have anything to do with it, and he knew it was a fake story, and when it was finally revealed, now the Times, the Washington Post, they all admit it was fake story. We're trying to get the Pulitzer Prize taken away, they got Pulitzer Prize. We're suing. You know what the prize says? "For its concise and accurate reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia event." And they have it actually totally wrong. Actually, Mark Levin should get a prize, and Greg Jared, Greg Jared should get a prize. And even it's not his deal, Sean Hannity should get a prize. And frankly, Jesse should get a prize, Jesse should. And a lot of people, and I'll tell you, you know who should get a prize? Tucker should get a prize, they're very strong, (33:45) And we have numerous writers that should get it, but the ones that got it were the New York Times, certain reporters from the New York Times, and certain reporters from the Washington Post, they got the Pulitzer Price, and they were exactly wrong. And now they've even admitted that it was a hoax, it was a total hoax, and they got the prize. But how bad is a person that stands before a big gaggle of press and they just can't get enough, and says that my son is going to prison for something that he knows was a hoax? Only a really bad person would do that. But they then came in with Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the Mueller hoax. How did Mueller present himself at the hearings? It wasn't too pretty. But you know what? I'll say this, at least they came to the right conclusion, because I was concerned they'd come to the conclusion, I think we have prosecutors now, they don't give a if you're guilty. They're looking at me in Atlanta on a perfect phone call, I said, "Even more perfect than my perfect call to Ukraine." That was a perfect call, this is even more perfect. (35:05) By the way, where's Hunter? Where is Hunter? Remember, where's Hunter? Will there ever be a time when Joe Biden says, "This thing with Hunter just isn't working out well, I'm starting to get a little angry at Hunter."? Or when Hunter comes to him and says, "Dad, dad, we have a problem." "What is it, son? Another one, oh, son, you're a disaster son. Son, you're a disaster." "Dad, we have a problem, I left my laptop at the repair shop." And Joe looks at him and says, "What's on it, son, what's on it?" And Hunter looks back and he says, "Every single crime that you've ever committed dad." And hence is called The Laptop from Hell. And Miranda Devine did a great book on that, and she actually thanked me. She said, "I got the name from Trump." She told me, she said, "I want to thank you for the name." I said, "No charge." But she did a great job, great book, The Laptop from Hell. If I so much is fly over a blue state, they do so many bad things, it's just crazy. (36:29) The racist Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is presiding over one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the United States, you have to see this, the United States where killings are taking place at a number like nobody's ever seen, right in Manhattan. And he's doing nothing about it, nothing whatsoever. No cash bail for people that just kill people, knife them in the back, hit them over the head with a baseball bat, push them into subways when this train is right there. But this racist DA is being pushed by radical left Democrats, the fake news media, and the Department of Injustice to bring charges against me for now ancient, no affair story of Stormy Horseface Daniels. No attraction, No affair, I call it no affair, where there's no crime anyway. And charges have never been brought in such a case before, and this case has been looked by every prosecutor, they're all looking, they've looked at it for years now. She was represented by Michael Avenatti, how's he doing? He's now in jail and the whole thing is a complete con job, and she was ordered to pay me in federal court order this, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But they're still looking at it, they're still looking, and all they do is they cause anger and problems for our country, because our people aren't going to take this stuff. (38:14) It never ends, in the meantime, Hunter and Joe Biden skate, they skate. They go away free, what's going on with that? That laptop is a disaster. Has anyone read this thing? How can it be possible? They're looking in Delaware. How's he doing? He's not the same guy that I have for the document oaks. I have a man, he's a total animal. Known to be, and he's looking, looking, looking, in the meantime, Biden's guy that's looking, looking, looking. And don't forget, I had a very strong privilege as president. I was able to do things that he wasn't able to do as vice president and wasn't able to do as a senator. Even the Senate, they can't believe it. The Senate cannot believe it, but when you look at what happened, they're not even looking at him, they haven't even started. Congress and various radical left Democrat prosecutors, in an effort to stop me, go to the Supreme Court twice. They went twice, and the Supreme Court, in a moment of total weakness, gives them everything they want in order to try and prosecute Trump everything. (39:21) Thank you very much, Supreme Court, I appreciate it. But they found nothing. They looked at 11 million pages of documents, it's a big company, it's a great company. Remember my taxes? "We're after his taxes." Five years I heard about my taxes. They came out about two months ago, everyone said, "Wow, it's a great company he built, that's great." That's the end of it. No, right? And I had the biggest and most prestigious one of them, at least law firms, accounting firms, doing all this stuff. I don't do it, they do it, you rely on these people, they do it. But I didn't hear one word, and how stupid am I telling you this story right now? Because now they'll go, "We got to find something in there." He made a typographical error. There's a revolution going on within the FBI because they don't want to be doing what they're being told to do because they know right from wrong, I'm talking about the people that work in the FBI, and they like me and they like you a lot, so many of them. A recent article in the Washington Post, of all papers, stated very succinctly that many did not want to raid Mar-a-Lago, they didn't want the agents. They said, "That's terrible." But they were forced to do so by their Marxist radical left leadership, and it drove my popularity numbers through the roof. Who would think this? (40:46) I got impeached and I went up 11 points. It's not supposed to work like that. Mark, when Nixon got impeached, it went down right away, it was as spiral down, he couldn't stop it. I got impeached, we went up, but the FBI people, they didn't want to do this. To those in the FBI that are with us, I want to thank you very much, I really do, I want to thank you. Stay strong, stay strong, help is coming. Then there's the racist DA from Atlanta, whose city is among the most violent and dangerous places per capita in the country. More murders than even Chicago per capita. It's totally out of control and yet she has her kangaroo court focused on a perfect phone call that I made, while her jury foreman, a rather bizarre young woman, is going around doing media interviews and saying exactly what's going on in this one of many grand juries. Our opponents do anything they can to hurt me politically because they're afraid of me and they're afraid of you, that's what it is, but it's not supposed to work that way. (41:59) The disinformation, people say they are great at disinformation. The one we want to run against is Trump. Do you ever hear that? "Oh, we want to run against Trump." Even though I'm leading every one of these guys, and even though I won the second election, I won it by a lot. When they say Biden won, the smart people know they didn't. But right now, we're way up. But they say, "Oh, we want to run against Trump." They always say that, they say that about everybody. When they have somebody that they don't want to run against, a governor, or senator, they say, "We want to run against." Because it's like demeaning, in other words, like you're supposed to be schlemiel. I got 75 million votes, I got more votes than any city president in history the second time. And we really did, we did a much better job than we did in 2016. 2020, we did better than 2016, but they say, "We want to run against Trump." In the meantime, they're spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find just a single word, a sentence, anything to prosecute Trump because they don't want to run against me. That's what they say, "We want to run against Trump, we'll do anything to run against Trump." (43:13) They have the greatest line of bullshit of any group of people I've ever seen. Want to run against Trump. But at the same time, they send people from the Justice Department to the local DA's office of Manhattan. Do you know the Justice Department sent their top people to the Manhattan DA's office to help in the prosecution of Trump? This way, we have it a little bit away from Washington. It's local. Oh, we had nothing to do, but their top guy was put in that office to help prosecute Trump. How would you like to have my life? Would anybody like my life? But I still like it. But they want to try and find anything they can when they've already been exonerated, I've been exonerated many times. You take a look at what this meant, time after time, but all of this is happening for one single reason. They know that when we return to power, we will bring their lies, and their corruption, and their disinformation tumbling down. Our getting back in the White House is their worst nightmare, but it is our country's only hope, it's our only hope. If we don't get back now, this country can't take it, even the two years, and now, fortunately it's less than that, it's hard to believe it's less. We used to say four years, a lot of people said, "Well, sir, the election was so bad, you'll be in in one year." A lot of people in this room, "You'll be back in six weeks, sir." But it's a bad system in many ways, very bad, very dangerous system, but nobody else can do it but us. In recent weeks, I've been laying out a bold detailed agenda for how we're going to complete this mission in our next term. I do weekly statements and people are liking them. Today, I want to go through some of our big plans that I will do as the 47th President of the United States. Thank you. (45:45) At the top of my list, we'll be stopping the slide into costly and never-ending wars, we got to stop it. Can't keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars protecting people that don't even like us. Now in business, if you did that, what you do is you put up the money and then you say, "But listen, we own half your country in case you win." You take a piece of the upside, right? I don't get nothing. In fact, the opposite, we put up the money, and then after it's finished, assuming it's successful, let's say it's successful, they don't want to even talk to us. "Nope, you have nothing to do with us, get out of here." You have nothing. No, no, in business, you put up money, seed money, call it whatever you want, you end up owning the country by the time it's over, and the only reason they're doing well is we're giving them the greatest equipment, that I bought, the greatest equipment ever made. And the only reason they're doing well with NATO is I raised $440 billion from countries that weren't paying anything. (46:47) And the Secretary General, Stoltenberg, a good man, he said, "It's one of the greatest jobs I've ever seen." I hope he still says that, but one of the greatest jobs. He said, "Obama would come and make a speech, Bush would come make a speech, and then they'd leave." I came, I looked, I said, "Man, these people aren't paying, we're paying for the whole thing practically." Of the 28 countries at the time, only eight were paid up, 20 weren't, including Germany, they paid a fraction of what they were supposed to be paying. And I said to him, "Either you pay or we're not going to protect you." And a man stood up, a president of a country stood up, and he said, "Sir, could I ask you a question?" This was a round table with nobody in the room, but the presidents, prime ministers, and dictators, okay? Some of them are all the same, but they stood up and he stood up and said, "Sir, can I ask you a question? If we don't pay up and if we get attacked by Russia, will you protect us, sir?" I said, "Now you're not paid up, right?" "That's right." "You're delinquent, right?" "Yes." I will not protect you from Russia." "Sir, we'll send you a check tomorrow, sir. We'll send you a check tomorrow. It'll be sent by overnight mail, sir, I promise you'll have it tomorrow." (48:10) Now, if I said like the stupid politicians say, "Absolutely. Article 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, where you're supposed to do it? But those articles all suppose that you're supposed to be paid up. But let's say I said the opposite, "Yes, we will always protect you." And I took a lot of heat because they said, "I'm not a good member." Actually, NATO wouldn't even exist if I didn't get them to pay up, but they paid up $449 billion or something, and that's the money they use. They're rich as hell right now, they spent on an office building that cost $3 billion. It's like a skyscraper in Manhattan later in its side, it's one of the longest buildings I've ever seen, and I said, "You should have, instead of spending $3 billion, you should have spent $500 million building the greatest bunker you've ever seen." Because Russia wouldn't even need an airplane attack. One tank, one shot through that beautiful glass building and it's gone. Same architect I used in Chicago, great architects, but they didn't have war in mind, but when things happen, that building would be gone at about 15 minutes. (49:20) They should have spent a $500 million bunker, nice thick ceiling, six inches, six feet of concrete. And by the way, we have a great gentleman, speaking of China, will you please stand up? Gordon, stand up, please. Gordon. I'm talking a lot about China, and I'm looking over, I'm studying him, and I'm studying his face as I'm speaking, because people do like me to go off script a little bit, right? It's a little bit more risky, but it's more exciting. And I'm looking at Gordon, and I'm saying, "I hope he agrees with what I'm saying." But basically I'm saying exactly what you say. They're not out for our good, are they? They're not out for our good, and nobody ever taxed them like I did, and nobody ever took any money in like I did. $440 billion, we took in so much money from China, it's so incredible. So I just, it's an honor to have you here, really it is. I agree with almost everything you said, almost everything. Great. Thank you very much, thank you, madam, thank you very much, great job, both of you. (50:33) I was the only president in decades that didn't have a war, but I completed wars that were already started, including defeating 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. I was also the only president where Russia didn't take over a country during my term. Russia took over, not because I got along with Vladimir Putin very well. I said, "Vladimir, don't do it. You know, you and I have friends, don't take over any countries because Moscow will be hit very hard." Well, I told him things. He probably didn't believe it, but you know what, he believed it 10%, and President Xi believed it when I talked about Beijing. He probably said, "I don't believe him, but there's a 10% chance we're not going to do anything." It's true, it's true, you have no idea these conversations. I wish they could have been recorded, actually, people would think a lot of me. But with Bush, they invaded Georgia, right? With Obama, they took Crimea, with Biden, they're trying to take everything. And he won't even know they took it. Thank you. And with me, they took nothing, nothing. And I didn't really even have to threaten them very much, they understood me very well, I wanted them to understand me very well. They knew that they couldn't do it. Putin knew that, President Xi knew it too. Likewise, China now has its eyes strongly focused on Taiwan, and we could soon have a nuclear armed Iran. That's the saddest thing of all though, when we talk about Iran, that's the saddest thing when you see. I had them in a box. I said to China, "You can't buy any oil from Iran." They said, "No, no, we have to buy. We buy millions of barrels here." And I said, "You can't buy, you have to buy from somebody else." "No, no, we'll buy." I said, good, we're not going to do any more trading with China, we're going cold Turkey." "We will promise you not to buy from Iran." (52:57) That was the end of that, that was a conversation I had. I said, "If you buy from Iran, any oil, we're not going to do any business, or if for some reason we do, we're going to put a hundred percent tariff on every single thing that you sell into the United States." And they didn't buy any oil, and nobody was buying oil, and they were in a position, had the election not turned out the way it did, they were in a position where they were going to give us everything. We were going to make a great deal. But now they're rich Again, China's buying unlimited amounts of oil from Iran, unlimited amounts in other places, and we've done something else that's terrible. From the time I'm a young man, I learned, never allow Russia and China to get together to, wed never ever allow it. And we've not only allowed it, we've made them bosom buddies, we've forced them together. And you can add

Had another group in there, a nuclear armed Iran. So the three of them are now together. That should have never been allowed to happen, would've never happened with me. And it was all over oil, our stupid oil policy. We're not going to drill. We have more oil in the United States than any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, people don't realize it. In Alaska, I approved a site, we all know what the site is, probably the biggest in the world. And the Democrats said, "No, it's over." They turned it down. Ronald Reagan tried to do it. Every president, Republican and some Democrats tried to do it, they couldn't get it done, I got it done. And the first day in office, the Secretary of the Interior for Biden signed off on it where they're going to not allow it to happen bigger probably than Saudi Arabia. If we had that without even my talking to Putin, oil would've been at $40, $35, maybe $30 a barrel. (55:09) So he wouldn't have even had the money to prosecute a war against Ukraine. He wouldn't have done it anyway, but... And that's not even what I'm saying from previous. But he wouldn't have had the money, even if he wanted to. Ukraine would've been thriving. There would've been no dead people, and there would've been no obliterated cities that can never be rebuilt, can never rebuild those cities. Russia never would've pulled the trigger. This is the most dangerous time in the history of our country, and Joe Biden is leading us into oblivion. He's leading us into oblivion. We all smile when he falls downstairs and things, it's cute. When he falls off his bicycle, isn't this cute? You know what amazed me that the reporters didn't catch him when the bike was going down. They're standing right next to him. They let him fall. It's amazing. I'm surprised. (56:09) But when he makes statements that are so bad when he gets out of Afghanistan and takes the soldiers, takes [inaudible 00:56:16] takes the soldiers out first. And in Afghanistan for 18 months, I had a talk with Abdul who was the leader of Afghanistan. I said, "Abdul..." Oh, I got a lot of criticism. Remember when I was talking to him, everyone said, "Oh, he is talking to the leader of the Taliban." That's right. Because our soldiers were being killed, a lot of them by snipers, and I didn't want that. I don't want to deal with the problems, and I don't want to talk to the mothers and fathers who I would speak to a lot. I don't want to talk to them and tell them their son was shot through the head from 2000 yards away by a sharp shooter. They have very good sharp shooters. So I spoke to this man, his name was Abdul, and I said, "Abdul, don't kill any more of our soldiers because if you kill our soldiers, we are going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit in the history of the world." (57:33) And he called me Your Excellency. See, he and I got along. He's still there. He's still the leader of the Taliban, but now he's got $85 billion worth of our equipment that I bought, $85 billion. I said to General Millie, I want every piece of equipment, "Sir, I think it would be cheaper to leave it behind, sir." That's when I lost faith, that, and when he didn't like me holding up a Bible in front of a church, I said, "This guy's not with us. This is not a smart guy." But he didn't like it. I said, "I want every single..." Because I was getting out of... But I would've kept Bagram, because Bagram is one hour away from where China, forget about Afghanistan, where China makes its nuclear weapons, one hour away. The biggest, most powerful runways in the world, we built it many years ago for tens of billions of dollars, and we gave it away one night. (58:24) We just left the lights on. We did leave the dogs behind. Everyone says, "Oh, did they take the dogs? Because they're dog lovers." No, we left the dogs behind. And the Taliban doesn't like dogs, by the way, not at all. But we left in disgrace. It was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, in my opinion. And it probably is what caused Putin to say, "Wow, Trump is gone. This is a great time to take over Ukraine." Right? It's probably a reason that that happened. But I stand here today and I'm the only candidate who can make this promise. I will prevent and very easily World War III, very easily. And you're going to have World War III, by the way. You're going to have World War III if something doesn't happen fast, you're going to have World War three. And by the way, just to conclude that little story, when Abdul heard me say that, he said, "Your Excellency, thank you so much for telling me that." (59:38) He said, "But why, but why?" I thought it was a very interesting plan, words I've never heard. I use it now sometimes myself. I liked it. He said, "But why, but why, Mr. President, do you send me pictures of my home?" He said that. I said, "You'll have to ask your wives that question." And we didn't have, Mark will tell you this, we didn't have one soldier killed in 18 months, not one soldier was killed, not one soldier, right? In fact, it was so good that the media didn't mind that I called. I took a lot of heat, tremendous heat. "Why do you call him?" I said, "Well, they asked Jesse James, the great bank robber from many years ago, "Why is it that you robbed banks? Why do you always go after banks?" And he looked at him, he says, "Because that's where the money is." Well, I spoke to Abdul because that's where the problem was." But we won 18 months until that horrible day when we lost 13 soldiers. (01:01:02) And the thing that nobody ever talks about, we lost 13. We lost 85 billion worth of the greatest military equipment in the world, goggles, night goggles that are so good, so sophisticated, better than anything, we have brand new, never even taken out of the box. And the Afghans, and they're actually very good. The Taliban are good fighters. Afghan, because it's really very much the same thing, frankly. They didn't fight good for us, but they fought good for themselves and they took a lot of money from us. I asked General Mattis, I said, "We got to get out of there. They've been there for 20 years. We got to get out of there." "Sir, they're fighting for their country, sir." I said, "Hmm, that's right. I guess they are." Then about two days later, I was thinking about it. I said, "I don't know why," because we had more blue on green, green on blue where they'd get their gun and then they'd shoot our master sergeants and our sergeants that are training them. (01:01:59) I said, "Why are they fighting for us if we've never had this problem to the extent that we had it?" But he said that. He said, "They're fighting." And I said, "Are we paying them a lot of money to fight?" And I had it checked. Yeah, we were paying billions and billions and billions of dollars to these Afghan soldiers, tens of billions of dollars. I said, "They're not fighting, General..." I called him back, "They're not fighting because they love us or they love their country. They're fighting because they're the highest paid soldiers in the world. We're basically bribing them to fight." And they didn't fight, but the Taliban did fight. Same people, but the Taliban did fight. But they didn't kill anybody for 18 months. I'm very proud. In fact, Biden got up and he actually said that, "They didn't kill anybody. I will say that they didn't kill anybody for 18 months." And you know what happened? Because people start screaming, "Don't say that," because that's a good thing for us. (01:02:57) But then when we left, we lost soldiers, 13 killed. But what they don't talk about, they talk about the equipment. They talk about the fact that there are still to this day, a lot of Americans in there that we've lost contact with, it's a rough place. But they don't talk about the fact that many of these soldiers were absolutely destroyed. Destroyed. They lost their arms, they lost their legs. They had their face blown off, and they were absolutely destroyed. And they don't talk about that. They don't talk about it. That it's very sad because these people, many of them, we lost 13, they died, but nobody ever talks about the gravity of the injuries to these soldiers. And it's a very sad thing. I got it down to 2,500 people. I was the one that got it down. But we were going to get out with dignity, with strength. We were going to be respected and admired. And I could just see Abdul, they took out the soldiers first. (01:04:03) You don't take the soldiers first. You take the soldiers out last. You get the Americans out first. Because they feared our soldiers, they feared our soldiers. They feared the F-16s, and now they own them. Think of it, you get the soldiers and they go out last. You take our American citizens out, you then take our equipment out. And Millie said to me, "Sir, it's cheaper to leave the equipment than it is to take it out." I said, "Let me ask you, General. So we have a plane that cost a hundred million dollars, brand new. You want to let..." "Yes, sir. It's cheaper, sir." (01:04:39) I thought he was another April fools deal, right? I said, "No, General, you fill it up with a tank of jet fuel. You fly it back home, or at a minimum you fly it into Pakistan or some semi friendly country and you take it from there." "No, sir." I actually told them I want the tents. You know the tents, they have big canvas, incredible tents with the... "I want every piece of steel. I want every screw. I want every nut. I want every bolt. I want every tractor. I want every Jeep." (01:05:12) You know what they did? They left 700,000 rifles and guns, 700,000. They left 70,000 vehicles, 70,000, many of them brand new, many of them armor-plated where they have six inches of steel on the bottom. Of course, your millions of dollars to build. And they left that all behind. There's not a car company, used car lot, new car lot anywhere in the world that would have 70,000 vehicles. I said to a friend of mine who's one of the Arrigo in Florida, great guy. I said, "How many cars?" He said, "I think he's like the biggest in Florida." They sold, they did very well, thank you. But the biggest. I said, "How many cars would you have?" "I don't know. A couple of hundred extra. Couple of hundred." And he's like, "A big one. Real big one. Run runs a great operation." 70,000 vehicles. So now I read the other day that the Taliban, that Afghanistan is the second-largest seller of arms anywhere in the world because they're selling everything that we gave them. (01:06:25) And by the way, as I'm speaking, I see cash? Is that cash? Oh, my eyes are better than I think. And is that Rick Grinnell? Huh? Wow. I better check with Gordon and I better check this audience a little more closely. I'm going to miss a lot of people in here. Great, two real patriots. They really are two great people, thank you very much. But they're the second largest to us. They're the second largest arms dealer in the world. They're selling off all the beautiful brand new equipment we gave them. The Apache helicopter, which is the best in the world. They gave one to Russia, gave it. They gave one to China, and they're very good. They take it apart and they reduplicate it. They take it apart, they reduplicate it because they've never been able to build one like we have. Now they're able to do it because they're very smart, actually. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly quickly. (01:07:36) I will get the problem solved, and I will get it solved in rapid order, and it will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them. I got along very well with them. I got along very well with Putin, even though I'm the one that ended this pipeline. Remember they said, "Trump is giving a lot to Russia." Really? Putin actually said to me, "If you're my friend, I'd hate like hell to see you as my enemy," because I ended the pipeline, do you remember? Nord Stream II, nobody ever heard of it, right? Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream II until I came along. I started talking about Nord Stream II. I had to go call it the pipeline because nobody knew what I was talking about, but I ended it. It was dead. I told every company that had sucked into it that you're not doing business with the United States of America if you go forward and allow this to be built, it was done. (01:08:29) On day one, Biden came in... And this is the biggest economic development project. This is the most important project that Russia has on day one. This is the biggest money they could ever make. There's nothing they could ever do to compete with us. This is the biggest pipeline in the world. Going to supply Europe, Germany in particular. On day one, Biden came in and what did he do? He approved the Nord Stream pipeline. And then they'd say, "Trump was soft on Russia." I was the one that gave a thousand Javelins, that's the anti-tech busters. And they are vicious because I looked at those tanks and they ended up, they got hit one shot, and that was the end of that, you wouldn't want to be in those tanks. But I was the one that supplied the Javelins. They supplied the bedsheets, do you remember? They supplied the bedsheets and maybe even some pillows from Mike who's sitting right over here. Where the hell is Mike? Did you send some pillows over there? Maybe? But they supplied the bedsheets, they call it. We supplied the sheets. They didn't want to get involved. (01:09:36) I gave the Javelins, and then they say, "Trump was weak on Russia." Disinformation. Again, it's disinformation, right? That's all they're good at, cheating on elections and disinformation. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to defend the borders of distant foreign countries. Under my leadership, we will defend our borders first. Three years ago, we had the safest border in the history of our country, and I will quickly do that again. As you know, I built hundreds of miles of wall and completed that task as promised, and then I began to add even more in areas that seemed to be allowing a lot of people to come in. So we're going to do another 200 miles of wall, and it could have been done and completed in three weeks but the Biden administration said they weren't going to do it. And in fact, the wall was sitting there waiting to be installed, the easiest part, and Biden, they took it away. So the Texas and Arizona couldn't use it. (01:10:48) Texas and Arizona said, "Could we use that wall? We'll finish it right up." And they said, no. And they actually took it away and they hid it. They put it in a hiding area, which of course was revealed pretty quickly, all you have to do is send a couple of helicopters up. But they wouldn't let them use it. Under my leadership, we will seal it up and expand that wall till we have total control. Well, we did a great job in the wall. Remember with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell? "Yeah, we'll give it to you next year." I said, "Nope, nope. Give it to me this year." "Well, sir, if you approve this budget, we'll give it to you next year." I said, "All right, that's okay." So I waited, then they didn't give it, and yet Mitch McConnell approves five and a half trillion dollars for Green New Deal garbage. It's a disgrace. But I took it from the military because I considered it an invasion. (01:11:42) So Marjorie, I said, "You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to take it right out of the military because they're invading our country." And I got it built, and we did a great job. We did it quickly. And we used the Army [inaudible 01:11:53] Engineers, they were fantastic. Before Biden came into office, we had illegal immigration at a record low, refugees were at the lowest level in history. Human trafficking, women and children was at the lowest in 30 years. And drug dealers were finding the US border a very inhospitable place to be. It was very inhospitable. In my last year, less drugs came through the southern border than had been seen in many, many decades. We weren't playing games. Now we have complete chaos. Fentanyl is pouring in. Families are being wiped out, destroyed, and there's death everywhere, all caused by incompetence. Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding across our border. Interior enforcement has been shut down. Everyone is overstaying their visas. Nobody even thinks about reporting it anymore. My wonderful travel ban is gone. I had a travel ban, it was so wonderful. (01:12:54) Refugee numbers are through the roof. And spies and terrorists are infiltrating our country totally unchecked like never before. When I'm back in the White House, the very first reconciliation bill I will sign will be for a massive increase in Border Patrol and a colossal increase in the number of ice deportation officers. And I want to thank the Border Patrol. These are incredible people. And I want to thank ICE. And in particular, I want to thank Brandon Judd, Border Patrol and Tom Holman, Central Casting. He's Central Casting. Under my leadership, we will use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. Other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending all of their problems right into their dumping ground, the USA. Think of it, they're emptying out their prisons, and you've heard me say that, but they're also emptying out their mental institutions and to use a strong couple of words, insane asylum. (01:14:19) Insane asylum, that's where... Anybody see Silence of the Lamb? That's where they come from. Insane asylum. That's a stronger word than a mental institution. And they're putting them into our country, thank you very much. I will ask every state and federal agency to identify every known or suspected gang member in America and every one of them that is here illegally. And the towns know who they are, the towns and cities or the police. We love our police. The police know who they are. And we will pick them up and we will throw them out of our country and there will be no questions asked. We had a problem when I first assumed the office in 2016, it was a big problem. We'd have these people, we'd round them up, MS-13 gangs, the worst people. These are absolute brutal killers. They used to knife 16 year old girls because it was more painful. It would take longer to kill her. These are real animals. And Nancy Pelosi said, "How dare you call them animals? These are human beings." (01:15:27) I said, "No, they're not." But these are real animals. And we couldn't get them back into their countries because the country was like, especially three... You take a look at Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras in particular, and Mexico to an extent, you couldn't get them back in because they didn't want them. They sent them out in the first place here. They forced them into our country, just so you know. These are very smart people that run these places. They're very streetwise. So I said, "What's the problem?" "Sir, we have thousands of people, but they won't allow us to land the planes. They won't allow the buses to cross the border. They won't allow them back in their country." I said, "How much money do we pay to these various countries?" "Sir, we pay $750 million a year." I said, "All right, inform the country that we're no longer paying any money. And if they ask why, you can tell them." (01:16:16) "Yes sir, we'll do that." So the following morning, almost simultaneously early, about eight o'clock, I got calls from all three at one time. In fact, I had to tell two of them, "I'll call you back," because they all came in right on time, Matt, right on time, like you call on time. And what happens is they came in and they called. They said, "Sir, there must be a misunderstanding. We would love to have MS-13 back in our country." And we started dropping them off by the tens of thousands, and I still hadn't paid them back their money. I kept it. I figured, let's hold it as long as possible because they've been ripping us off long enough. To stop the flow of deadly drugs, it will be my policy to take down the cartels just as I took down the ISIS caliphate that everybody said was impossible to do. A lot of parents in this audience that lost a child, that lost a loved one to Fentanyl and all of the drugs that are pouring in so many different kinds, fentanyl is a big problem. (01:17:26) In fact, with the ISIS caliphate, a certain general said, " It could only be done in three years and probably it can't be done at all, sir." And I did it in three weeks. I went over to Iraq, met a great general. "Sir, I can do it in three weeks," you've heard that story. "I could do it in three weeks, sir." How are you going to do that? They explained it. I did it in three weeks. I was told it couldn't be done at all, but it would take at least three years. Did it in three weeks, knocked out 100% of the ISIS caliphate. We have a great military. The reason I say that, we have a great military. And I will direct the Department of Justice to go after Marxist prosecutor's offices to make them pay for their illegal race-based enforcement of the law. By the way, we have one of those great generals with us, General Kellogg. Where's General Kellogg? Is he around here [inaudible 01:18:21]? Where is General Kellogg? He's the greatest. He's here. Thank you, General. Thank you. Thank you, General. And in cities where there's been a complete breakdown of public safety, I will send in federal assets, including the National Guard, until law and order is restored. We're not supposed to do that. And one thing I think about a lot is when we had some difficulty in certain cities like Minneapolis. And if you take a look at Portland, how's Portland doing? They don't even have storefronts anymore. Everything's two by four is because they get burned down every week. They don't put news storefronts up. It's chaos. But what we had in Seattle, remember they took over a large portion. I was ready to send in the National Guard. They heard that. More than the National Guard, I was ready to go to town. And they heard that. You know what they did? They said, "We're going to break it up now." They left. But we saved Minneapolis. (01:19:19) The thing is, we're not supposed to do that because it's up to the governor, the Democrat governor. They never want any help. They don't mind. It's almost like they don't mind to have their cities and states destroyed. There's something wrong with these people. All of us have seen too many videos of 13 year old carjackers and 14 year old hoodlums viciously beating their victims, saw it just yesterday, a horrible situation. They kill people without retribution because they may be day short of the age required to put them away, put them in jail, and throw away the keys for a long time. My administration will crack down on these out of control monsters. Young though, they may be an imposed tough consequences on juvenile criminals. Criminals use young people. They actually hire young people, pay them some money, not a lot, because if they get caught, nothing's going to happen to them. (01:20:13) That will end. I will end the scourge of homelessness taking over our cities and suburbs. I just drove through Washington DC coming here for the first time in quite a while, and the roads and highways were littered with trash like I've never seen before. It looked like somebody just took their garbage and just threw it all over the highways, the beltway. It's so disgraceful, so disgusting. I always made it a point as president, when I saw the highways were dirty or that the homeless encampments were starting to form, to take care of the problem immediately. I used to have people out here all the time, sweeping highways, cleaning highways, hosing them down.

It bothered me so much. I'm in the Beast. I'm being driven back to the White House from some site, and I'd see this filthy, dirty highway with paper that hasn't been ... You could see it's been laying there for months, and I'd have them cleaned up. I wouldn't even call the mayor because it was never going to get done with the mayor. Frankly, the federal government should take over control and management of Washington, DC, good project because it's horrible. (01:21:35) I think of it differently. Foreign leaders come in to see us. We want them to do what we want them to do, and they drive through these terrible, disgusting streets, where their streets are much better, much better maintained, much nicer. They see camps and homeless all over our once beautiful parks, all over, hundreds and hundreds of tents. I used to have them taken down ... I'd see one or two or three. I said, "Do it fast, immediately." Then I'd check, and it was done. (01:22:07) They'd never have time to do it. Once they have 500, 600, 700 of these things up, it's a much more difficult thing, but you can do that, too. Under our leadership, we will take the homeless, drug addicted, and severely deranged, get them off our streets and create tent cities where we will get them the help they so desperately need. On day one, I will revoke Joe Biden's crazy executive order installing Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion czars in every federal agency, and I will immediately terminate all staffers hired to implement this horrible agenda. (01:22:55) I will urge Congress to create a restitution fund for Americans who have been unjustly discriminated against by these Biden policies. They're so unfair. They're so un-American. They're so un-American. We will ban all racial discrimination by the government. I will fight for parents' rights. Can you believe that here we are and I'm saying I'm going to fight for parents' rights? Who would think that you have to ever say, "Parents' rights?" Don't you think parents have pretty good rights, right? Who would think that you have to actually say it? But you do because they took the rights away, including universal school choice and the direct election of school principals by the parents. (01:23:37) We want the school principal to be appointed and elected by parents. You'll get some good principals then. Who loves the children more than the parents? If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to fire that principal immediately and select someone new. Continuing the work of our 1776 Commission, we will teach our values and promote our history and our traditions to our children. We will, in other words, be proud of our country again.

USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.

I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our youth and ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. That should be easy. We will keep men out of women's sports. How ridiculous. That will take place on day one. I will destroy the illegal censorship regime and bring back free speech in America because we do not have free speech. (01:25:23) I will stop Joe Biden's demolition of our economy with his crushing inflation and mass layoffs. We will take care of inflation very, very quickly. 4.9 million people have dropped out of the labor force since I was president. As the Trump administration's great Larry Kudlow ... Does everybody know Larry? As Larry Kudlow said, "Biden is setting a record on economic regulations that are absolutely killing American companies. His spending and his borrowing are at record levels. It's causing historic inflation, sir, which is only going to get worse and worse, sir." (01:26:07) He just called me before I got here. I said, "I don't want to say this, Larry. It's only going to get worse and worse. It's driving up interest rates, and new cars and homes are going to be impossible to buy." Amidst this economic disaster, Biden talks about saving you a few dollars on some junk fees, don't mean anything. By defeating Joe Biden, I will save your economy. I will save your retirement accounts, and I will save your jobs. We had the greatest job history of any president ever. (01:26:37) I will create a true national trade policy like the kind that made America the world's economic powerhouse. What we were doing prior to the dust coming in from China was ... Nobody's ever seen it. There's never been anything like it. That period of two and a half years was ... There's never been anything like it. I'll tell foreign nations where we spend billions of dollars on military protection that if American products do not receive preferential treatment in their markets, our military is packed up and leaving, which some countries I did that with. (01:27:16) Usually it took a phone call and everything was just fine because economic security is national security. I will revoke China's most favored nation's trade status immediately on day one, and I will implement a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods and gain total independence from China. We have to do it. We have to do it. I will hold China financially accountable for unleashing the China virus upon the world, and I will again withdraw from the WHO, which stands for We Hide Outbreaks. We Hide Outbreaks. The United States was paying. (01:28:15) I think this is important because, again, it's so much common sense involved. The United States was paying the World Health Organization $450 million a year. Now, in terms of money and the kind of trillions and trillions we're talking about, it's not that much, but it's still $450 million a year. I took them out. That's what it was. The price was 450, and that's for 350 million people. China was paying $39 million a year for 1.4 billion people. Doesn't sound too right, and they had total control, by the way. We had no control. They'd literally own it. (01:28:57) When I withdrew from the WHO, they offered me to stay in, "Please don't leave, please, please, please. But what China pays," they said, "we'll bring it down to 39 million." I was actually close to doing this deal, If you wanted know the truth, but you would have been angry at me. I said, "I don't don't want to have CPAC angry at me." But I might have gone back in, but I could have done it for 39. I could have probably done it for less than that. But now Biden has gone back for the full price of $450 million. Now, all he has to do is read the newspapers. They were begging me to come back in for 39 million, so why would you pay $450 million? Do you understand that? Gordon, do you understand that? How crazy. So China's in for 39. They're saying, "You're right. It's unfair. It's unfair. We will do it for 39. We will take you back." The head man, you know who that is. "We will take you back." Then I started to say, "Actually, it should be much less. It should be like five or six million, right?" But I didn't want to go there. (01:30:01) "We will take you back for 39 million. You're right, President." I said, "Well, we'll think about it. We'll see what happens. But the offer will remain open, right?" "Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir." They went back in for the original amount. It's so sad, and we have no control, by the way. China controls WHO. So that's what it does. WHO is totally controlled by China. We could have saved $400 million a year. It's a lot of money. Now they're asking for even more dictatorial power and more and more and more of our money, but they're getting nothing more from China. (01:30:40) When we're dealing with the Biden administration, it seems that every single day is April Fools' Day, every day. They want an open border so that anybody can come in, and everybody else wants it to be closed. It's April Fools'. We want an open border. That's April Fools'. We want voter ID. They don't want voter ID. Who wouldn't want voter ID? 88% of the Democrats, except for the leadership because they can't cheat with voter ID, but 88% of the Democrats want voter ID, but they don't want voter ID. It's April Fools' Day. (01:31:31) They want to take the soldiers out of Afghanistan before we take our people and equipment out, but we want the soldiers to come out last. So then they blow it into a catastrophe, the most embarrassing event in the history of our country. It's April Fools' Day. They want all electric cars that don't go very far. I have a friend. He bought a car. He said, "The car's wonderful. But I go for an hour and a half and I got to put a charger and I can't find a charger. I'm going crazy." Also, all the batteries and everything, the material comes all out of China. (01:32:14) We have oil and gas, but we don't want the oil and gas cars. But we want everything, including electric cars. But we also want gasoline because the cars go longer, and they're preferred by many people. We don't like quick drives that are stopped for two and a half hours. It's April Fools'. They want all electric stoves all over the country, but we don't have the electric power for that. We want electric stoves, but we also want gas stoves. It's April Fools'. Why do they want that? (01:32:58) They want windmills all over the place that ruin our fields, kill our birds, and are very unreliable and are the most expensive energy ever developed. We want oil, gasoline, natural gas because it's cheaper, better, and much more powerful. It's April Fools' Day. Under my leadership, we will regain energy independence that we had three years ago. We were on our way to massive energy dominance. We would have been paying off our debt because energy is big numbers. (01:33:33) It's not like you're selling a little product. You're selling the biggest product of all is energy. We would have been paying off our debt. We would have been the strongest. We were going to be. We were already bigger under my administration, bigger than Saudi Arabia or Russia. We were going to be much bigger than both of them combined. Within about a year, we would have made the kind of money they're making times five, and we would have been paying off debt and we would have been reducing taxes. It would have been a beautiful thing. But they came in and they said, "We don't want that." (01:34:06) I will fight for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, and I will move heaven and Earth to fully and finally secure our elections. All Republican governors should immediately go for paper ballots, one-day voting, and voter ID. The problem we have is we have governors, and some of them we like and some of them we don't, but they're all talk. Think of it. They control the state. We have a lot of governors. They should go for that, paper ballots, same-day voting. (01:34:59) France had 37 million people voting. They voted in one day, and at 10:30 in the evening, they called the winner. There were no problems. They had paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID. They only had a little mail-in, and we would have this, too, for soldiers that are very far away or people that are legitimately sick, legitimately, as opposed to millions and millions of ballots flooding the offices. They used COVID to cheat. But until that day comes, Republicans must compete using every lawful means to win. That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes, and election day votes. Have to do it. (01:35:49) We have to change our thinking because some bad things happened. For some reason, Republicans like to vote on election day, right? The problem is you get there, and they have so many already started. But worse, if you take a look at Kari Lake in Arizona where they waited and waited. "Don't vote now. Wait till Tuesday. Wait till Tuesday. Wait till Tuesday." In the Republican areas, a tremendous percentage of the machines were broken, and you couldn't vote. They had lines that were a mile long all over the place, Republican areas, and they couldn't vote. (01:36:28) They said, "Come back in seven hours." But people can't do that. They have Little League. They have doctors. They might love Kari. They might love the Republican party and everything we stand for, but they can't do that. They were standing in the hot sun for hours and hours. And then they sent in mechanics to fix them, and when the mechanics left, they were far worse. They lose those cases in courts because our judges have no courage to do what's right. They have no courage to do what's right. (01:36:56) I can tell you that was the case in 2022, where we can't get rid of drop boxes. We need them in every church. What we have to do, we have to put our own drop boxes in. Zucker Bucks spent $500 million. If you contribute $5,700, $1 more than that, to a candidate, they put you in jail. This guy gave $500 million for all of this crap that they were doing shenanigans. They were handing out the money like it was candy, and that's fine, but people are going to jail for spending like $93 too much because it's not according to election law. (01:37:46) Until we can eliminate ballot harvesting, we will become masters at ballot harvesting. We have no choice, beating the Democrats at their own game. We'll do it legally. The agenda I've laid out today will end America's destruction, but it is not enough just to stop the forces tearing America down. I want once again to build America up. We have to build our country. We don't build anymore. All we do is investigate everybody. (01:38:20) You ever see television? It used to be we'd build our military. We were proud of it. We'd be doing all things. All you see on the thing, investigation, investigation, investigation. Now, with that being said, you got to look at Hunter. I mean how crooked is that deal? But it's not something I really ... I'd like to get back to building our country and making our country great again, but it's time to start talking about greatness for our country. (01:38:50) Our objective will be a quantum leap in the American standard of living, especially for our young people. As I announced yesterday, we will hold a competition to build new freedom cities on the frontier to give countless Americans a new shot at home ownership and the American dream. It's such a wonderful, beautiful thing. I'll challenge the governors of all 50 states, all 50 states, to join me in a great beautification campaign. We will rename our schools and boulevards not after communists, but after great American patriots. We will get rid of bad and ugly buildings in return to the magnificent classical style of western civilization. We will support baby boomers, and we will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom. How does that sound? I want a baby boom. Oh, you men are so lucky out there. You're so lucky. You are so lucky, men. Our country will shine, thrive, and prosper like never before. All of this is within our reach, but only if we have the courage to complete the job, gut the deep state, reclaim our democracy, and banish the tyrants and Marxists into political exile forever. (01:40:26) They are bad for us. They want us to fail. They want our country to go down. They are sick people. Change only happens if we plow fearlessly ahead and declare with one voice that the era of woke and weaponized government is over. That is our task. That is our mission. This is the turning point and the time for that decision because, as you've probably heard me say before, we will not back down. We will not bend. We will not quit. We will not yield. We will press forward with push. We will press forward with vigor. We will push onward, and we will finish what we started. (01:41:14) We started a great, great, positive revolution. Nobody's ever seen anything like it before. It's called Make America Great Again. We want to make America great again. We will cross the finish line. We will dismantle the deep state. We will demolish woke tyranny, and we will restore the American republic to all of its radiant glory, and with God's help and your support, we will make America powerful again. We want to have a powerful country. We need to have a powerful country. (01:41:58) We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. That's what we want. We want strength. Think of your heart pounding, we will make America proud again. We will make America safe again, not like our streets of the cities which are a disgrace for the entire world to watch, and we will make America great again. Thank you very much, CPAC. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. (01:42:40) (singing)

Ladies and gentlemen, the silent auction is now closed. Please don't forget to pick up your items from the-