Trump Speaks at National Guard Conference in Detroit

… any of that. Before we get going here, those of you serving, who have served, I’m sure I speak forever when I say thank you for your service.

(00:15)
I’d just like to talk for two seconds about my service and there’s a point to this. So if it sounds like a little toot of my own horn or a pat on my back, there’s a point to this. Probably some of the most rewarding, the most rewarding things I’ve done in my life and career have been being able to perform for our troops all over the world. From Kosovo, Germany, Afghanistan, Iraq, UAE, [inaudible 00:00:44], Turkey, Italy, England, all across the U.S. But how did that start? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

(00:57)
But I want to tell you a little story of how that started. Many moons ago, some of you younger ones maybe weren’t even walking yet. There was a horrible attack, a terrorist attack in Yemen on one of our ships called the USS Cole, where 17 sailors lost their lives. And when they were getting towed out of that harbor, you can imagine their brothers and sisters, people serving with them were pretty upset, pretty pissed off, but the upper brass said they could play patriotic music while they’re getting pulled out of there. And one of those wise guys put on a little song by myself called American Badass, and they were pretty upset. I got a few pictures with these guys after losing 17 of their brothers and sisters. They got F Yemen across their chests and a couple middle fingers in the air. And it gave me chills when I found out about it.

(01:59)
But more importantly, my mother, who’s with me today, just celebrated her 80th birthday. It was her, who I might note that her father, my grandfather and my uncle and her brother served in World War II and Vietnam, suggested she said, “You know, should do something to help out with them.” And this was kind of before all the crazy wars and everything in the Middle East broke out. And I said, “You know what? You’re right.” And I was raised to be very patriotic and love my country. And so it just happened we were playing in Virginia where we have a big presence in our military and the Navy and I was able to play a show there and donate that money to the families of those 17 sailors that lost their lives. And that was because one reason, because of my mom, Susan Ritchie.

(02:52)
So how about an applause for mama Rock who’s here tonight? She’s a little shy. She’s a little shy. Probably back there cutting it up with the president. I also apologize, I did not get the dress memo today clearly. But enough of me rambling on here. There she is. Hi mom. Love you. Now, enough of me rambling on. Once again, welcome to our beautiful city, Detroit. I’m so proud to be from in and around here. It’s great to be back, especially with so many of you great patriots.

(03:44)
So let’s bring on the man now, right? Probably want to hear somebody else speak. Well, how about we give a big old Detroit welcome, a huge military salute and welcome to our 45th and soon to be 47th President of the United States, President Donald J. Trump.

(singing).

Thank you. Having Kid Rock, sometimes referred to as Bob, I call him Bob, but he’s a great guy. I’ll tell you that, he’s a great guy and a talented one, and it’s an honor to be with all of you incredible patriots, really an honor, a great one. And I’m thrilled to be here in Detroit with the incredible men and women of our National Guard. Very special people.

(05:09)
I’ve had no greater honor in life than to serve as your Commander in Chief, and you are always ready and always there for us and for the President of the United States, you are always there for me, I will tell you and I’m always going to be there for you. Thank you. And we’re doing very well as you probably see. And hopefully I can say when I’m back in the White House, I’ll get you the support, funding, training, and equipment you need, and I will get you the pay raises that you’ve really deserved for a long time. We’ll get it taken care of. For a long time.

(06:04)
I want to thank the Chairman of the National Guard Association of the United States, Major General Janson D. Boyles, and also Vice Chair Major General Jimmie Cole. Thank you both. Thank you very much. I also want to thank members of Congress, very special warriors and patriots, they’re very strong people. They love our country. Lisa McClain. Where’s Lisa? She’s so incredible. Lisa, thank you. Thank you, Lisa. John James. John, thank you. John James is a star and doing really well. Thanks John. Tim Walberg and Michael Waltz. Thank you very much Michael and Tim. And again, I want to thank Kid Rock for being here. He’s really been a great friend of mine for a long time.

(07:06)
Each and every one of the guard members here today inherits the proud spirit of the citizen soldier running all the way back to the Minutemen who stood against tyranny at Concord Bridge. Has everybody heard of Concord Bridge? Yes, I think so. You carry forward the legacy of Old Hickory division that earned more medals of honor than any division in the army in World War I and the North Dakota Guardsmen who’ve walked through hellfire at Guadalcanal. And it was the Air National Guard that thundered into the skies to defend us on 9/11. We all remember that all too well. And when our country is hit by fire, flood, or vicious storm, America turns to the National Guard because we know we can always count on you. We always can count on you. I’ve counted on you a lot.

(08:10)
The National Guard is America’s first and last line of defense, and you do not get the credit you deserve. But actually, you do because down deep everybody knows it. You get a lot of credit in your own way, a little bit different. But we really respect and appreciate the job you do. Thank you to every Guardsman for your selfless service.

(08:32)
I want to thank also our amazing National Guard families because, especially the spouses and the children, I mean, let’s face it, without which you would never be the same. You’d never be the same. But they sacrifice so much. All of us in this room have something very special in common. We’re all proud, hard-working citizens who have stepped forward to defend American freedom. And we continue to do that. And it’s why I’m here today because America’s future is under threat like never before right at this moment [inaudible 00:09:18].

(09:17)
And I hate to say this, but we have a president who went on vacation a week ago and now he came back and he went on vacation again. And we have people that are fighting all over the place and threatening our country as we speak. I don’t think we’ve ever been closer to World War III than we are right now. It’s a terrible thing. Our country is being destroyed by a radical political class that sends our guardsmen and women to defend the borders of distant foreign nations while they surrender our own borders to an invasion right here at home, the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

(09:54)
You miss birthdays and holidays deploying overseas in the global war on terror. Only Kamala Harris is letting terrorists come into our country at record numbers and letting Jihadists pour into our homeland by the thousands and thousands and thousands. Can’t do that. And while you have risked your lives to defend our rights and liberties and our borders, our opponents have waged war on those liberties from the White House, attacking free speech, censoring dissidents, and trying to put their political opposition in jail. Never happened before. I’m in this fight to defeat the corrupt political class in Washington that’s hurting you very badly, whether we know it or not, and to reclaim America’s future as a free and sovereign nation ruled by the American people.

(10:49)
When I’m back in the White House, we will expel the warmongers, the profiteers, and take over our government and we will restore world peace and it will be again, peace through strength. On day one, I will seal the border and I will stop the invasion of millions of people into our country. We will find and remove the terrorists and jihadists who have infiltrated our soil. And under my leadership, we’ll bring back the values that you enlisted your lives to defend: sovereignty, liberty, free speech, and fair, equal and impartial justice under the constitutional rule of law. We are not just going to make America great again. We’re going to make American democracy great again. We’re going to bring it back.

(11:56)
My opponent, Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are promising the exact opposite. They want endless war, open borders, voting rights, and free healthcare for illegal aliens, Soviet-style price control, censorship, unlimited migration from terrorist hotspots and unchecked power for the deep state. This fight is no longer between Democrats and Republicans. This is a fight between communism and freedom. It’s very serious fight.

(12:31)
That’s why millions of traditional Democrats, including FDR Democrats, JFK Democrats, independents, and old-fashioned liberals are joining our movement. Our poll numbers are great. We’re uniting forces to end the endless foreign wars, stop the censorship, end weaponization of our government, defend our borders, rebuild our middle class, protect the health of our children and, above all, to restore our republic and vanquish the corruption that’s all over Washington D.C. right now.

(13:06)
Three days ago, I was honored to receive the endorsement of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We’re very proud. Thank you. We’re very proud to welcome Bobby to our cause. He’s really a terrific guy. He’s a terrific person and he’s going to do a lot of great things. I have no doubt about it. He’s got some very good ideas. Some ideas that people weren’t listening to, it’s turned out to be right.

(13:37)
And today I’m honored to officially welcome another true American patriot, a 17-year veteran of the Hawaii Army National Guard, a four-term Democrat congresswoman. Very, very popular. The former vice chair of the National Democratic Party and a 2020 Democrat candidate for the United States presidency. She was a very good candidate. Every time she ran, she was good. She did well. She decided to leave. She couldn’t take it anymore. But she is very special. And I didn’t know this, but she was a lieutenant colonel. That’s not bad, lieutenant colonel. Not bad. I didn’t know that. I just found out. I said, “Put it down. You got to put that down. That’s bigger… That’s better than all the other stuff I read.” But no, she’s a special person. She’s got great common sense, great spirit. She loves our country and she loves the people in this room. Tulsi Gabbard. Tulsi, please.

Thank you very much.

Have a good time.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Aloha. I know we got Hawaii in the house here. There we go. It is a privilege to be here with all of you, my brothers and sisters in uniform, especially on this day of all days. I had the privilege of joining President Trump this morning at Arlington Cemetery, where he joined two Gold Star families and loved ones of Staff Sergeant Hoover and Sergeant Gee, both of whom were two of the 13 killed in the Abbey Gate attack three years ago today in Kabul. And I can tell you, as we were there, as he laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, joining these Marines loved ones, I felt the sorrow that he shared with them in their loss. I felt and saw his sincere appreciation for these servicemen and women who paid the ultimate price and their loved ones who continue to grieve to this day.

(16:15)
This is personal for me as I know it is for so many of you here. This is real. It’s not just words. I first deployed to Iraq in 2005 with the Hawaii Army National Guard as a member of Charlie Med. As those of you who were deployed during that time know, it was at the height of the war, and sadly, we took many casualties. And every day we were confronted with that high human cost of war and that sadness as we boarded the plane when we left, that we were leaving some of our brothers and sisters behind only to lose others when we got home to suicide.

(17:05)
So I mean what I say when I share with you that I know that President Trump understands the grave responsibility that a president and Commander in Chief bears for every single one of our lives. Whether you’re a soldier, you’re an airman, a Marine, sailor, or a Coastie, he keeps us in his heart in the decisions that he makes. We saw this through his first term in the presidency when he not only didn’t start any new wars, he took action to de-escalate and prevent wars. He exercised the courage that we expect from our Commander in Chief in exhausting all measures of diplomacy, having the courage to meet with adversaries, dictators, allies, and partners alike in the pursuit of peace, seeing war as a last resort.

(17:58)
The truth is, as we head

… and towards our decision as a country in November. The same cannot be said about Kamala Harris. In fact, the opposite is true and we are living through this reality today as this administration has us facing multiple wars on multiple fronts and regions around the world and closer to the brink of nuclear war than we ever have been before.

(18:25)
This is one of the main reasons why I’m committed to doing all that I can to send President Trump back to the White House, where he can once again serve us as our Commander-in-Chief. Because I am confident that his first task will be to do the work, to walk us back from the brink of war. We cannot be prosperous unless we are at peace and we can’t live free as long as we have a government that is retaliating against its political opponents and undermining our civil liberties, weaponizing our very institutions against those they deem as a threat. Kamala Harris has done this over the last three and a half years. She won’t hesitate to continue that if she is elected as president.

(19:21)
President Trump has been their first and foremost target in this because they don’t want us as voters to even have the option to vote for him. I’ve been their most recent target. Added to a secret domestic terror watch list after exposing the truth about what kind of dangers we would face if Kamala Harris is elected as president. We as Americans must stand together to reject this anti-freedom culture of political retaliation and abuse of power. We can’t allow our country to be destroyed by politicians who will put their own power ahead of the interests of the American people, our freedom and our future.

(20:14)
I am proud to stand here before you today, whether you’re a Democrat, a Republican, or an independent, if you love our country as I do, if you cherish peace and freedom as we do, I invite you to join me in doing all that we can to save our country and elect President Donald J. Trump and send him back to the White House to do the tough work of saving our country and serving the people. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Well, thank you Tulsi. I heard that might happen, but I wasn’t sure. And it happened, because she’s really an amazing, really an amazing person. So I look forward to working with Tulsi and everybody. Everybody in this room actually. And as Tulsi mentioned, early this morning, Tulsi and I were at Arlington National Cemetery with the families of service members who lost their lives in the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan. Not that we withdrew, but the way they did it. We were going to do it with dignity and strength. We were in the process of getting out. We would’ve never given up Bagram, one of the biggest air bases in the world, one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it up. We gave it. We gave them everything. China took it over.

(21:56)
China now occupies it. Can you imagine? The longest, most powerful runways, I think eight feet of concrete down, and we gave it all up. Spent billions and billions of dollars years ago building it. One hour away and we’re gone. And now China occupies it. Today marks the three-year anniversary of the terrorist attack at Abbey Gate. Now, we say Abbey Gate, a lot of people don’t know what that means. It means Afghanistan that left 13 American service members dead, dozens more badly wounded and many innocent civilians also killed and injured. Hundreds of people killed.

(22:41)
Never been anything like it. It’s the wrong base. Shouldn’t have taken the soldiers out first. Should have taken the soldiers out last. That’s where you’d want to be. They took the soldiers out first and they had a field day at our expense and our reputation. We will never forget those brave warriors who made the supreme sacrifice for our country. They will live in our hearts forever. And to all the gold star families, our gratitude is everlasting, will be everlasting always. We will honor their memory by restoring a government that puts the American people first. Caused by Kamala Harris, Joe Biden, the humiliation in Afghanistan set off the collapse of American credibility and respect all around the world.

(23:34)
And the fake news doesn’t want to talk about it. They don’t even talk about the three-year anniversary. Terrible word to use, but that’s what they’re calling it, an anniversary. It’s really, I think of anniversary is a little bit different, but it’s three years now and the fake news doesn’t even talk about it. Our country will never be safe again until we have fired those responsible for this disaster. Nobody fired. Worst, most embarrassing in my opinion, the most embarrassing day in the history of our country. It gave us Russia going into Ukraine. It gave us the October 7th attack on Israel. Because it gave us lack of respect. We’re not respected. We were respected very much four years ago. We’re not respected now. The voters are going to fire Kamala and Joe on November 5th, we hope.

(24:31)
And when I take office we’ll ask for the resignations of every single official. We’ll get the resignations of every single senior official who touched the Afghanistan calamity to be on my desk at noon on Inauguration Day. You have to fire people. You have to fire people when they do a bad job. We never fire anybody. You got to fire them like on The Apprentice. You are fired. You did a lousy job. You did a terrible, terrible disservice to our country. You get fired when that happens. Nobody got fired. Nobody ever gets fired in this administration. It’s amazing. All the bad things that have happened. Nobody ever gets fired. The problem is when you fire somebody, they always end up writing a book about you. I’ve had more books written about me. I fire a lot of people when they don’t do a good job. I get a book written about me by all these losers that get fired.

(25:36)
Every crisis Kamala and Biden have created on the world stage can turn around very quickly and we’re going to turn it around. But only we need strong leadership. We need a big victory. November 5th will be the most important day, my opinion in the history of our country. Be the most important day. In four short years, thank you, under the Trump administration we rebuilt … you know it. You know it better than anybody. Rebuilt the US military. We obliterated ISIS. So ISIS was going to take five years. “Sir, I don’t know if you’re going to be able to do it in five years.”

(26:20)
Five years we have those beautiful jets for $150 million apiece and they have knives and rifles. I don’t understand why. I traveled. You know that I traveled to Iraq. Late at night, I got in, I traveled. They said, “Sir, would you do us a favor? Close your windows. We’re turning off the lights. We’re getting ready to land in Iraq at a great base in Iraq.” And I went because I wanted to see why we’re not winning against ISIS. We’ve been fighting them for 20 years. And I was told by my Washington DC generals that it will take five years. “Five years, sir.” I said, “I don’t get it.” And I went there and I met real generals. And you know the story, you’ve probably heard the story, but I had one in particular, Raisin Caine.

(27:17)
I said, “Raisin Caine? Your name’s Raisin?” “Yes, sir. They call me Raisin Caine.” “What’s your first name?” “Dan. But they call me Raisin, sir.” “So your name’s Raisin Caine?” “Yes.” “I love you. This is what I’m looking for. I’m looking for Raisin Caine.” And anyway, we sat down and we had a meeting. He said, “Would you like to rest?” “No, I don’t need resting. Unlike other people that we know.” We don’t need to rest. He’d rest and then leave. There’d be no meeting. I said, “Let’s go now.” I said, “How do we beat these guys?” “Sir, we can do it quickly.” I said, “No. They say it’s going to take a long time. How can you do it?” “Four weeks, sir.” ” What?” “We can do it in four weeks, sir.”

(28:05)
They didn’t use our resources. They wanted to be politically correct. They didn’t fly out of areas where they thought the country may be a little angry at us, even though we support those countries and we can do it in four weeks, sir. Well, what are you going to do? We’re going to have auxiliary airports for military ports. You know all about them. Sort of portables. I think he called them, but they’re out in the desert all over the place. We want to use them and we’ll use here. But they wanted to fly from here, and it’s a long distance, sir. By the time we got there, we had to come back. I said, “So what would you do?” He said, “Well, I’d leave from seven places and we’ll hit them from the left. We’ll hit them from the right. And we’ll hit them underneath and on top. We’ll hit them so much. They won’t know what the hell is happening, sir.”

(28:54)
“And four weeks we’ll do it, sir.” “Four weeks? They said five years.” “Four weeks is all we need, sir.” And that’s what it took. Can you believe it? I said, “Go ahead.” I made a couple of phone calls first. I said, is this guy serious? Is he serious? He did it. He knocked it out. He knocked it out. So I can tell you about some of those, what a period of time that was. And I tell that story sometimes because I want to just say, we have an unbelievable military when we have the right leader. We have an unbelievable military.

(29:37)
Really true. And they’re not going woke. Maybe a few people on top or woke, but those guys, they’ll never be aw woke. They could be put in a room and preached to for the rest of their lives and they won’t go woke. And we know them. I saw them. I saw them. What they did. I saw what they did with ISIS. We knocked out 100% quickly of the ISIS caliphate because we decided to fight. We have the greatest people in the world. We have the best equipment in the world. Now, we did give about $85 billion worth of it to Afghanistan. You know that Afghanistan is one of the largest sellers of military equipment in the world? They sell the stuff that we stupidly left them. We left them $85 billion worth of brand new tanks and planes and even goggles. They didn’t fight at night. You know why? They couldn’t see. Now they can fight at night. It’s not even believable how stupid these people were to allow this to happen to our country, and we became a laughing stock all over the world.

(30:55)
And we buried 13 soldiers. They never mentioned the 45 soldiers that just were so badly hurt, obliterated, legs, arms, face. They don’t mention. We left Americans behind. We left all of that equipment behind. And if we would’ve left from Bagram where you have hundreds of acres as opposed to a small little airport in the middle of the city where everybody just came in and it was a mess. You wouldn’t have had any of the problems. But you should have again, taken the military out last. If I asked a five-year-old child, “What do you think?” Here’s the facts. Give him one minute. “Would you take the military out first or?” “Sir, I’d take the military out last of course.” But our guys didn’t do that. But it’s embarrassing to even talk about it. And I wasn’t there. You had another group there, but it’s a very big embarrassment because I love the country. I want our country to be respected. And we lost a lot of respect at that moment.

(31:59)
And it’s so easy. It was so easy. Because we were getting out, but we were getting out with strength and dignity. Think of it. 18 months, not one soldier was killed under mine. And I spoke to Abdul. I told Abdul, “You can’t do that. Can’t do it. It’s going to be bad, Abdul.” And he said, “Your Excellency, but why do you send me a picture of my house?” “Oh, did I send that to you? I didn’t. Did I send you a picture? Did I send you a picture? I don’t remember that Abdul.”

(32:38)
But, and honestly, he was fine. 18 months, they were knocking out our soldiers, one by one, especially under Obama, Barack Hussein Obama. They were knocking out our soldiers one by one, snipers. We didn’t have one soldier killed, even shot at in 18 months. And then these guys took over and big lack of respect. But they had a lot of respect for us during that period. Think of that. Isn’t that amazing? Not one soldier was shot at, let alone killed. Nobody killed. But I’m proud to be the first president in decades who started no new wars. And the reason I started no new wars is they respected the people in this room. It’s true. You don’t want to have wars. I ended wars. I could have been in a mess like you have right now. You have every place. The whole world is blowing up. And World War III, if something doesn’t happen fast. And that’s going to be a World War like no others because of nuclear power and other power that’s out there. But we had no wars. Very proud of that.

(33:55)
I finished a couple of wars and I got troops out between Turkey. If you take a look, Turkey and Syria, remember we had 5,000 soldiers in between two armies, and I took them out. I said, “Wait a minute.” I called a couple of generals, I said, “How do 5,000 soldiers do when you have one army of 400,000 people, another army of 300,000 people, and they’re in the middle, can they do well?” They said, “It’s not going to be good, sir.”

(34:24)
I say, “Get him the hell out of there. That border’s been there for 2,000 years. They’ve been fighting over it.” The fake news back there. They hit me hard. They said, “He removed …” You know what happened? Nothing. They just kept it the way it’s been for 2,000 years under different names and saved a lot of lives. Would’ve been bad. But I did a lot of that, and I was very good at using a telephone. We didn’t have to send soldiers and kill everybody, although we had some of that too. You know that. With Russia. Where they came at us, I can’t do that. Came at us again. I said, “You can’t do that.” They came us at us the third time and you know what happened. A lot of people. People don’t talk about it, but they know about it. And they learn not to play around with us. They learn that. Because again, we are the best. But we’re not going to be the best for long if it keeps going like it is right now.

(35:27)
Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. I’ll get it settled very fast. I don’t want you guys going over there. I don’t want you going over there. And I’m the only candidate in this race who can make this promise. I will prevent … This is for the spouses. I will prevent World War III. Nobody else is going to prevent it. You’re going to end up in World War III.

Look at what’s going on right now with Ukraine. Their surging into Russia. Okay? You’re going to end up in World War III and it’s going to be a bad one. When I’m President, America will be respected again, respected like never before. They were respected four years ago. Viktor Orban from Hungary, Prime Minister, he’s known as a very tough leader, tough man, good man, but a tough man, but one of the toughest in Europe. And they asked him a little while ago, why is it that the whole world is blowing up? He says, “because President Trump isn’t the President of the United States. If he were the President of the United States, none of this stuff would be happening right now. None of it. None of it at all.” And I believe that’s true. That’s true. For that to have happened is crazy.

(36:53)
I’ll take immediate action to restore our depleted military. We don’t have any ammunition again. Do you remember when I first came in? They said, “sir,” right? I see that guy. Sounds like you were pretty much involved with trying to fill it up. I like that guy. I don’t know who the hell he is. Stand up. Let me see. Stand up. He’s like central casting, but that’s… Come on, stand up right there. That’s good. I like that guy.

(37:27)
It’s true, though. True. We had no ammunition. I took over. They came to me, “sir.” “How are we doing militarily?” “We have a problem, sir.” “What is it?” “We have no ammunition.” That’s a lousy thing. You’re running a country, we got enemies, and if you have the smart President, you’ll be able to do fine, but you don’t want to tell your enemy you have no… I don’t want to tell President Xi of China we don’t have ammunition. But before that, they came out with a report, before I got there, saying that the United States has no ammunition. I said, “Who would release a report like this?” Even if it’s true, you don’t talk about it, right? We do a lot of reports that are stupid reports, like a report that came out a couple of weeks ago that we would lose in a war with China. You saw that report? We’re not going to lose in a war with China. That we would lose in a war with China, how stupid are these people that would put a report like that? If you feel we’re a little weak, you got to strengthen it up, but you don’t do reports that we’re going to lose to China in a war. Stupid people do that, like the people that are in office right now.

(38:43)
I had, and you will say it, I had ammunition. We had so much, it was coming out of our gills, right? I had ammunition… I said, “what the hell do we do with all this ammunition?” We had so much. And now we don’t have ammunition again. We gave it all away to different groups, but mostly into Ukraine, and we don’t have ammunition. We had so many missiles, we didn’t know if we could fire them all. We had to hire teams of people. Even the concept, we had so much… Warehouses were full. We took new warehouses and now we’re back to a point where we have no ammunition again. These people are just so destructive.

(39:29)
I always look for good words, highly sophisticated, and I’m highly educated, I like sophisticated words, but there’s only one word I can… Stupid. They’re stupid people. I’d like to say… I guess you could say incompetent sounds maybe a little better. I don’t know which is better, being stupid or being incompetent because they’re both. We have no ammunition again, but we’ll get it taken care of.

(39:56)
Boy, oh boy, can you imagine if they wanted to go after us? Can you imagine that? And we’re saying they have no ammunition. This was just released a little while ago. We give so much of it away. We never get anything for it either. Europe, by the way, is much more, and should be much more, concerned, obviously, with the Ukraine situation than us, but we’ve spent $150 billion more. Why do we spend 150 billion? Why aren’t they going to equalize? They should equalize. I told them, I said, “you got to equalize it.” Then I read Barack Obama is much more popular than Donald Trump. Of course he is. He said, “we’ll spend all the money.” I say, “you got to pay up.”

(40:38)
And that’s what happened. I got NATO to pay up hundreds of billions of dollars, but then now we’ve lost it again because nobody’s… I’ll bet you nobody’s ever asked Europe to pay up. They don’t even ask. I’ll bet you that nobody said to Europe, “we’re 150 billion more than you.” They have about the same size economy when you add all of the different nations up as us, and nobody has said to them, “got to pay up.” I did that. I was with NATO. They were way behind. Of the 28 nations, almost all of them were not paid. Other than that, they were doing quite nicely. Thank you. But we had seven that were paid and the rest weren’t. And Obama came in, made a speech, Bush came in, made a speech. I came in and said, “you guys owe us a lot of money” because we were spending our money.

(41:36)
Think of it. They take advantage of us on trade because they are horrible to us on trade, the European nations. Horrible. They don’t take our farm products. When was the last time you saw a Chevrolet in the middle of Germany? Maybe never. I said to Angela, “Angela, do you have any Chevrolet’s or Fords in the middle of Munich?” “No, I don’t think so.” But we have plenty of Mercedes Benz’s and BMW’s, Volkswagen’s. Millions and millions of cars. They get us in the military, then they get us on trade. On top of everything else. It’s not a good way. I was straightening it all out. It was getting straightened out very quickly. And very interesting, though, I said, “who would do this? Who would do this?” Hundreds of billions of dollars we lose in the defense of Europe. All I say is, “let’s equalize. We’ll help you, but you owe us 150 billion.”

(42:39)
And during one meeting, I remember, NATO, one of the heads of countries, I won’t embarrass him by saying which one, but we had 28 countries gathered round the table, it was sort of a semi-secret meeting, which nothing secret in this world, but some of the press didn’t want to report it because it was a good story. But one of the leaders stood up, said, “does that mean…” He wasn’t paid. He owed us billions. “Does that mean if we don’t pay you, you’re not going to defend us against Russia?” I said, “that’s what it means. Are you saying you’re delinquent?” I don’t know about that word. That’s a real estate word. Very simple word. It means you’re not paid. “You’re saying you’re delinquent.” “Yes, let’s say we’re delinquent. Will you defend us?” I said, ” absolutely not.” I took so much heat from the fake news media.

(43:35)
Now, if I said, “yes, I will defend you,” they’re not going to pay. What happened is hundreds of billions of dollars came pouring in because I said that. Hundreds of billions of dollars came pouring in and they have money, but this should not be happening. This should not. This mess that’s going on over there now is very dangerous and it shouldn’t be happening. I’m the one that got them the money. Literally hundreds of billions of dollars came right in. Guys that were not paying for years. But other Presidents never even asked them for the money. They’d make a speech and leave. Literally, I was getting ready to make a speech. I said, “let me see some statements.” I looked at some, I said, “nobody’s paying.” We paid for everybody. We were keeping it solvent.

(44:21)
One of my proudest achievements on my first term was to create Space Force, the first new branch of the armed forces in over 70 years. That’s a big deal. Now that Space Force is up and running, I agree with your leadership, you want this very badly, but I agree that the time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the US Space Force. Very good. Very good. Thank you. Thank you.

(45:05)
As President, I will sign historic legislation creating a Space National Guard, until I spoke to somebody that’s a great guy, very much a fan of yours, Marco Rubio. I said, “what do you think?” He said, “I love this. I love it. I love it.” So we’re going to do that. Space Force has been very important. Very, very important. When I did that, other people came in, they wanted to end it, and they were just hammered because people realized how important… We were getting just destroyed in space. And now we’re leading. We are leading with all of the major metrics in space. Russia and China were killing us because we didn’t really have a focus on it. And once you did that, we have a focus, and now we’re leading in space. Throughout the Armed Forces, we will make a historic investment in building a US military for the 21st century, investing heavily in drones, robotics, artificial intelligence. Hypersonics.

(46:04)
Hypersonics was us. Somebody stole the stuff and Russia ended up making them, but we’re making them now. But Russia ended up making that, super speed missiles. They go about seven times faster than a regular missile, which is quite fast. And we’re going to build a great Iron Dome for missile defense around our nation. Other countries has it. Israel has it. Ronald Reagan wanted this many years ago, but we didn’t have the technology at that point. But now we have the technology, so we’re going to do the Great Iron Dome, and it’s all going to be built in our country. We’re going to build it right here.

(46:43)
And as your Commander-in-Chief, I will ensure that the National Guard members have access to train on the same state-of-the-art equipment as active duty forces. We’re going to make sure about that. And I’ll also get you reinforcement for allies abroad, making them pull their weight. They have to do that and they have to pay their fair share, as I was saying. And for years, all of these NATO countries spent far less than 2% of GDP on their militaries, leaving our forces overstretched. We were the ones making up the difference in paying for, to make up for shortfalls and help deter threats. I’ll insist that every NATO nation must spend at least 3%. You have to go up to 3%. 2% is the steal of the century, especially when we’re paying for it. We pay for them. It’s just not even believable. For most NATO countries, this will represent a defense budget increase of about 30%.

(47:43)
And of course, if you take a look at their numbers, their numbers are starting to dwindle because of all the money they’re spending in Ukraine. Starting on day one, I will confront the recruiting, retention, and moral… When you talk about the crisis that you have, you have a morale crisis because I think it’s a country crisis. I think morale is about the leader of the country. I really do. I think you can only do so much. They have to be proud of their leader. They have to be proud of their country. They have to believe in their country. They have to believe in the American dream, or you’re going to have a morale problem. And that’s what you have. You have a morale problem. We will get critical race theory and left-wing gender insanity out of the armed forces and totally out of the United States military, and we’ll take care of our amazing veterans better than anybody.

(48:39)
In my first term, I gave the VA Choice and made it permanent. VA Choice, where you don’t have a doctor. You go outside. People were waiting for four months, for five months. You people probably know it. You have friends that know it very well. They go in for something that was not a big deal, and they end up being terminally ill because they couldn’t get to see a doctor, so I created and have VA Choice. They’ve been wanting to do it for 57 years. I got it done. Passed in Congress.

(49:12)
And as you know, they now go in, if they can’t get rapid service, we call it Rapid Service, then they go to an outside doctor, they get themselves fixed up, and we pay the bill and it’s been great. It’s been great. But I understand that Biden wants to terminate it. He wants to go back to the old system where you wait for nine months and then you die. It’s not even believable. No, they want to terminate it. Now, after this speech, they won’t. Every time I come in and say what really bad things, they end up…

(49:43)
Like I said, no tax on tips. It caught on like crazy. No tax on tips. This doesn’t affect you guys. You’re not big for tips, okay? You don’t need tips. But there are a lot of people that no tax on tips is a big deal. And I said, no tax on tips. I want two, three months. All of a sudden she’s making a speech, and they were just the opposite, they were going after tip income, which is pretty hard to go after in all fairness. And she’s making a speech. It goes, “oh, and by the way, no tax on tips.” And it didn’t play well for her. But they do that now on VA Choice. You watch what’s going to happen. They’ll end up saying, “oh, we want to keep VA Choice.” But they don’t. They’re not competent and they don’t…

(50:33)
But VA Choice has been one of the great and the others, VA Accountability. Do you know what that is? VA Accountability. The veterans had some horrible, horrible people in there. Sadists, bad people. They treated our veterans very badly because they weren’t in primetime. In primetime, they wouldn’t have talked to them that way, but they weren’t in primetime and they were sadists and a lot of other things. Thousands. 9,000 of them. And it was a shocking act of betrayal. We fired 9,000 people that were bad and we replaced them with good people. And then Kamala and Biden gutted those reforms after they got in, and they tried to reinstate many of the people that were fired for good reason, because they weren’t treating our veterans. They were sadists, in many cases, vicious people. And then they gave them the option to come back or get a massive $200 million buyout. Can you believe this? Of people that treated our veterans badly?

(51:40)
I had the highest number, 92% approval, from our veterans. That’s the highest number by far ever. Now it’s in the 40s, and it didn’t take long to get there, but we had 92% approval rate from our veterans. Upon my inauguration, we will take the sadists that Kamala Harris let in and escort them from the VA hospitals and get them the hell out of our federal buildings and away from our great men and women. Because those who mistreat our veterans will not be protected. They will be terminated. We’re going to terminate them. We’re going to get them out. Can’t believe we have to do it. It’s like I have to say it a second time.

(52:19)
Under Kamala Harris, American veterans are treated worse, by far, than illegal aliens. Illegal aliens are treated… You ever see them? They stay in hotels. We have veterans sleeping on the street and inside luxury hotels, you have people that came into our country, many from prisons, many from mental institutions, many terrorists, and they are treated better than our veterans. They don’t care about our veterans. As borders are, Kamala has spent over one billion of taxpayer money to house illegal aliens and foreign migrants in some of the most expensive housing and hotels anywhere in the country. Meanwhile, more than 41,000 homeless American veterans are living in squalor on our streets.

(53:07)
I hope people are going to remember this because it’s terrible. What’s going on is terrible. We become the Republican… I call it the party of common sense. We want to have strong borders. We want have fair elections. It’d be nice if somebody votes and the vote actually counts. Little things like that. But we got to have borders. We can’t let millions of people come into a country. I called it invasion. I got the wall built by using military funds. I said, “our country’s being invaded,” and I was able to do… We won 11 lawsuits. Everybody sued me. Crazy Nancy Pelosi sued me. She was always… She’s crazy as a bed bug, that one. She’s nuts. She’s a nut. But at least Joe Biden likes her a lot. No, I don’t think so. Think he’s angry? He fights for a year and a half in a primary

… system. He ends up getting 14 million votes, and they have somebody that didn’t get one vote. She was let out sooner than anybody. She never made Iowa the first state. Never made it. She was the first one out of 22 people to quit, and she’s now the nominee of the party. I mean, explain this, please. When I take office, I will sign an executive order to stop every penny that Harris has been spending on the shelter and transport of illegal aliens, and we will redirect that money to provide shelter and treatment for homeless American veterans. And we will end very rapidly veterans homelessness in America. We had it down to a level that was the lowest In a long time. We would’ve had it knocked out, but we were interrupted.

(54:54)
As you know, Kamala’s border Invasion has directly impacted thousands of National Guard families. I’ll tell you what, African American families, Hispanic American families, their jobs are being taken. Unrelated to you, but their jobs are being taken. What’s happening at our border, and she’s in charge, and now she said, “Well, I wasn’t really involved too much with the border. I wasn’t involved.” And even better now, she’s saying, “Oh, well, we actually had strong borders.” If they say it enough, even though we had probably 20 million people, more than 20 million people, but they figure if you say it over and over again, “Our borders were strong, our borders were strong.” And these are people, they’re not into it. Maybe like us, maybe like me, certainly. Nobody’s into it like me. I had a nice life until I did this. You know that? I had a nice, very beautiful life, but I wouldn’t change it. They said, “Would you have done it again?” I said, “Absolutely, because we’re going to make America great again.” We already did, and we’re going to do it again. Thank you. Last Thanksgiving. I visited the southern border near McAllen, Texas, where patriots of the Texas National Guard were doing the job that Harris refused to do. She refused to do it. In fact, when our guardsmen put up razor wire and boys to stop illegal crossings, Kamala and Joe Biden, Crooked Joe, sued to take those defenses down. You know that, right? How about where they say, “No, no, we have a strong border.” So bad. But then we find out that they flew almost a million people in over the border. They flew. That stops all of their… I shouldn’t say this because if there’s a debate, it would be nice to surprise it with that one. They flew. They have an answer to everything. “Well, we decided… Look, they flew almost a million people into our country. Our country can’t handle it. No country can handle it. Our country’s going to go bankrupt. No country can handle it. They’re taken over the schools, they’re taken over the hospitals, they’re taken over everything, and they’re getting jobs that were taken by other people that are not too happy.

(57:19)
But think of it, they flew almost a million people over everything because they were saying about how strong the border, but then they say, “Well, what about the million people you flew?” They have no answer for that one yet, but they’ll come up with one. They always have an answer. I want to salute every Guard member who has deployed as part of Operation Lone Star to defend America from her migrant invasion, it’s what it is. Including those from Texas, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, North Dakota, South Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri, or as they say, Missouri. I love Missouri. I love that state. They do say it that way. Never quite understood that, but I say it that way because I won by 25 points, so I say it that way. It’s true.Utah, Tennessee, Montana, Nebraska, Indiana and New Hampshire, every one of them. I want to thank them all. Thank them all.

(58:20)
And do not lose hope because a few months from now, you’re once again going to have a commander in chief who defends the sovereign borders of the United States above all else, we have to. Together we’ll stop the human traffickers, which are horrible. They traffic in women, mostly and children, but women, mostly, and because of the internet, it’s a big business. It’s big business. It’s going to be bigger than the drug business, they think. The internet has caused a problem. You think of it almost as an ancient crime. Human trafficking, who would imagine? But because of the internet, it’s a big business and we had it down to the smallest number in 42 years, and now they come along and it’s going at a level. They stuff women into the back of cars and they stuff them into trunks and bring them around and make a lot of money, and we allow it to happen. We’ll defeat the child smugglers. We’ll crush the cartels, and on day one, I will begin the largest deportation operation in the history of our country because we have to get the criminals from jails.

(59:31)
They’re releasing their prisoners into our country. They’re releasing their guard. You got to see MS-13, the worst gangs in the world, MS-13, they’re collecting them and dropping them into the United States. I moved out thousands and thousands of them. They’re moving them into the United States. They’re coming back. They’re taking their drug dealers, their criminals, their murderers. In Venezuela, crime is down 72% because they’ve gotten their gang members, they’re dropping them all into our country, many countries. And I’m not just talking about South America. All over the world, they’re dropping their criminals into our country. They’re emptying their jails and they’re emptying their prisons into our country. I mean, how stupid can we be? What are we doing? And we’re going to have a crime wave, the likes of which you haven’t seen. You see it every day now where a person from such-and-such a country is violent at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. You don’t have to hear it, but at levels that nobody’s ever seen before.

(01:00:34)
But what it is doing is it’s making these countries, and I’m not blaming them, if you can get away with it… I’d be doing it. If I were the president of such-and, I would’ve done better than them. My prisons would be totally empty. They’re emptying their prisons. They’re taking their worst people. They’re taking their real murderers, drug dealers. They’re dropping them. They’re taking them and busing them into the United States and dropping them, and they’re saying, “If you come back, we’re going to kill you.” And these people aren’t worried about being killed. They’re tough. This is a tough group of people and we’ve got them, and nothing good is going to come out of that, and that includes a lot of terrorists. Your choice in this election is between a president who will always have your back and a radical liberal who will never, ever, ever have your back, whether you like it or not.

(01:01:24)
In 2020, when the left-wing mobs came from all over to burn our cities to the ground, Kamala stood with the looters and rioters and raised money to bail out violent criminals all over the jails of Minnesota. She came with money to bail them out. Kamala’s running mate, his nickname is Tampon Tim, but I wouldn’t say that because this group is a little more low-key than the ones I’m used to speaking before. Tampon Tim Walz, think of this. He signed a bill mandating that every boy’s bathroom has tampons in it. I don’t think that’s good. It’s not good. He ignored the pleas of the mayor and the police chief to deploy the National Guard in Minneapolis and said, “You’re not highly trained soldiers. You’re 19-year-olds who cook.” That’s what he said, “You’re 19-year-olds who cook.” That’s a pretty famous statement. As president, I stood with the National Guard as you saved Minneapolis, saved Kenosha and saved Washington DC. I saved them. If I didn’t override what they wanted to do and what tradition is, we would’ve lost every monument in Washington.

(01:02:48)
They came into Washington and they were very rambunctious. They liked to pull the statues down, some of these beautiful statues, and then they hit Abraham Lincoln. I said, “All right, that’s the end of that.” And I found there was a bill from the early 1900s, we don’t do bills like that anymore, they said, “If you touch government property, statues, monuments of any kind, you’ll serve 10 years with no probation, no early getting out. You go to jail for 10 years.” Very simple. It was beautifully stated. It was like one paragraph and it had dust on it, it was dusty. Nobody used it because we wouldn’t do that because we become very soft. They only go after political opponents. They don’t do anything like… Murderers, those guys are safe. Drug dealers, no problem. But political opponents they go after. So this was in very bad. It was a very old bill and I had a news conference and they were all over it.

(01:03:48)
They wanted to take down the Thomas Jefferson, the Jefferson Memorial. They wanted to take it down. They were heading that way. They were actually heading that way. We had them all stopped, but they were heading that way. It’s like fighting a war. And I went out to a news conference. They announced, “Anybody that touches any of our monuments or statues goes to jail for 10 years.” Everybody left Washington DC. I was very lonely. They all left. I watched them. I watched their asses from the back. That’s all I could see is thousands of asses. And that stopped. We got it stopped. We got it stopped quickly. They all left immediately, and they haven’t come back. Although, the other day you see them starting to do it again. They’re taking the spray paint and they’re spraying those gorgeous limestone tigers and all of the different things. When you spray limestone, you’ll see it in 100 years from now because it’s a very porous stone, and they were spraying the hell out of it, and they were burning the American flag.

(01:04:52)
I want to get a law passed. Everyone tells me, “Oh, sir, it’s very hard.” You burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. Got to do it. We got to do it. They say it’s not constitutional. They say, “Sir, that’s not constitutional.” We’ll make it constitutional. We’re going to make it constitutional, but you burn an American flag, you go to jail for one year. That was terrible, what happened at the convention in Chicago. They’re burning American flags all over the place and the fake news doesn’t want to show it. I will proudly stand with you in defense of law and order, and we’re going to have four great years in the White House. We’re going to make our country very special again. I know your commitment. I know your character in conclusion, and I know your courage. As president, I saw it every year during natural disaster, national emergency, and just a few weeks ago, we saw it in the moments after an evil assassin tried to take my life.

(01:05:53)
That sucker was moving fast. I say, “Wow, glad I got down quick, quickly.” But it was quite a time. It was quite a thing. Who would think? But that day, a member of the Pennsylvania Air National Guard was in the second row watching as the bullets flew when the shots rang out and hit a great patriot, Cory. We know now Cory by his first name, Cory, the Pennsylvania Guardsman, did not shy away. He did not run for cover. He ran toward the gunshots, took off his tie to use as a tourniquet and cradled Cory’s head in his hands, and it was a tough scene. Cory died, as you know. Two other people were hit very badly, were supposed to die, and the doctors up there did a phenomenal job. They’re living and they’re doing okay, and although he tragically could not revive Cory, he did what every Guardsman here would have done, and it was a tough thing he did, to be honest, I saw that. It was a tough thing he did tremendous courage. Not only the bullets, I mean, just the fact he was holding this guy who really got hit.

(01:07:14)
He really got hit, but he gave his all and he was very proud to do it. America’s blessed to have such extraordinary patriots, as are all of the people in this room. You put your service above yourself, and when our country needs you, you always answer the call. I know that very much. I know the people here. That’s the spirit of duty and loyalty that defines the men and women of the National Guard, and it’s the spirit that is going to save our country because our country needs saving. With your support in this election, we will reclaim our sovereignty. We will rebuild our military. We will support our police. We will stop migrant crime, which is at levels that nobody can even imagine. We will restore our economy. We’ll get rid of inflation. We will protect our second amendment. We will lift up our cities, we will secure our rights, and we will defend our freedoms like we have never defended our freedoms before and we will fight, fight, fight for America.

(01:08:28)
Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. So just in closing, you’ve never let me down, never. You’ve always been there for me when we had emergencies, when we had a crisis, and I’m going to always be there for you and I can promise you this, together we will make America great again. Thank you. God bless you all. Thank you very much. God bless you all. Thank you. Thank you, man. Thank you.