Transcripts
Trump Town Hall On Univision

Trump Town Hall On Univision

Donald Trump speaks to Latino voters during a town hall on Univision. Read the transcript here.

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Speaker 1 (00:00):

… to participate in a public forum organized by TelevisaUnivision in which they will be able to ask the candidates for the presidency of the United States directly and, thus, decide who to vote for, employment, health, immigration, security, education, and climate change among other topics. Latinos ask, Donald Trump responds.

Enrique Acevedo (00:46):

Mr. President, welcome, bienvenido.

Donald Trump (00:49):

[inaudible 00:00:49].

Enrique Acevedo (00:49):

It’s great to see you again, sir. Thank you so much. Your microphone, sir.

Donald Trump (00:54):

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (00:55):

Thank you, sir. It’s great to see you back here in Univision. Thank you so much for doing this. Muchas gracias, [inaudible 00:01:02].

Donald Trump (01:01):

Well, this is an honor, and I’ve never been my own host before, because today we’re going to be together for almost an hour, and I look forward to it. We’ve done really well with the Hispanic people. As you know, no Republican has ever done like this, and most people haven’t, but I’ve had a great relationship. We’ve created a lot of jobs. I think the numbers have broken every record and I want to keep it that way. So we’re going to have a good time today.

(01:29)
Just very special people, brilliant, energetic, and somehow just … They’ve attracted to me, I’ve attracted to them, and we look forward to having a big win. We’re going to create a lot of jobs. We create jobs. That’s what I do. Right next door, I own Doral, and a lot of you have seen that. A lot of you are from the area. That’s been a big success. We have tremendous numbers of Hispanic people going there and working there.

(01:55)
So we’re going to see what you have to say and we’re going to answer some questions. Hopefully they’ll be very extremely easy questions. But I look forward to being with you for a little while. Thank you very much.

Enrique Acevedo (02:06):

Oh, thank you.

Donald Trump (02:07):

Okay.

Enrique Acevedo (02:07):

Welcome, wonderful.

Translator (02:09):

Welcome, everyone, to this historic night where Latinos, the voters, elected by independent company and convened by Univision News, will be able to ask the Republican candidate to the presidency, Donald J. Trump, in this, again, historic encounter.

Enrique Acevedo (02:24):

The first question is from Diana Rodriguez. She’s been here for … The first time she voted was 16 years ago, when she became an American citizen. [foreign language 00:02:33].

Translator (02:42):

Good evening, Mr. President. The cost of living is very high. A family like mine used to spend $200 approximately weekly for groceries. Nowadays we’re spending over 350, and that’s increasing. What are you planning to change to improve the economy of this country, especially for people like myself?

Donald Trump (03:24):

Well, thank you very much. Look, this is a problem caused by this administration. Four years ago, you had no inflation. Now you have record-setting inflation. What they’ve done to this country is incredible in so many different ways, incredibly bad. We have people complaining about groceries, about prices, about rent, about everything. Interest rates went from 2% to 10% and you can’t get the money. You want to buy a house. You can’t buy a house anymore. You can’t do anything.

(03:57)
But the biggest thing I hear about is just what you said, groceries, the food. So we didn’t have inflation. We had a great situation for everything, for virtually everything. When they came in, they spent and they also blew my energy policies up. So we had inexpensive energy. Now you have the most expensive thing on the list is energy. That is such a big category that it leads to everything. Everything else follows.

(04:23)
Everything follows energy. We have more liquid gold under our feet than anybody else. There’s no other country that has liquid gold like we do. That’s oil and gas. We’re going to bring your energy costs down, and with your energy costs, everything is going to come down. We’re going to also make jobs available so you can afford, literally much easier. We’re going to have many more jobs that we have right now.

(04:45)
We set a record. We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. Now we have a lousy economy primarily because of inflation. So we’re going to get rid of the inflation. We’re going to drill, baby, drill. I’m going to get your energy costs down by 50%, 5-0, 50%, over the course of 12 months, which will be easy to do because we have more energy than Saudi Arabia. We have more energy than Russia, anybody.

(05:10)
We were energy-independent just four years ago and now look at us. So energy’s going to bring it down and the spending is going to bring it down. We’re going to cut a lot of waste and abuse that won’t affect anybody other than our bottom line as a country, and you’re going to be in great shape. You just hang in there. We’re going to bring those costs way down.

Diana Rodriquez (05:32):

Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (05:33):

Thank you. Thank you, President Trump. Thank you, Diana. Muchas gracias. President Trump, as you know-

Donald Trump (05:37):

Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (05:38):

… farming is one of the most demanding jobs, and farmers like Jorge Velasquez over here, work hard to put food on the table of American families. He has a question for you. Jorge Velasquez, [foreign language 00:05:50].

Donald Trump (05:50):

Good hair he had, by the way. Nice hair.

Enrique Acevedo (05:51):

[foreign language 00:05:52].

Donald Trump (05:52):

Look at that.

Translator (06:08):

Good evening, President Trump. For many years, I have worked with these hands, hunched over picking strawberries and cutting broccoli. This tough job is mainly done by undocumented people. If you deport to these people, who would do that job and what price would we pay for food?

Donald Trump (06:47):

Please. Finished, yes?

Enrique Acevedo (06:48):

Yes.

Donald Trump (06:51):

So the problem we have is we had people coming in under my administration, and they were coming in legally. They were coming in through a system that we had, which was great, because I’m the best thing that ever happened to farmers, you know that. I was great.

(07:06)
Farmers are doing very badly right now, very, very badly, under this administration. Under my administration, farmers did very well. We have to have a lot of people come into our country. We just want them to come in legally through a system, because they’ve released hundreds of thousands of people that are murderers, drug dealers, terrorists. They’re coming in totally … Nobody knows who they are, where they come from, and the people that are most against it are the Hispanic people. They are totally against it, what’s happened.

(07:37)
The other thing I can say is that a lot of the jobs that you have and that other people have are being taken by these people that are coming in, and the African American population and the Hispanic population in particular are losing jobs now because millions of people are coming in.

(07:57)
So they’re coming in, but they’re also coming in largely, and tremendous numbers coming in out of mental institutions. They’re emptying out mental institutions. They’re emptying out insane asylums. That’s a step above a mental institution. Worse, bigger, bigger problems, bigger problem people. They’re emptying out jails. The jails are being led into our country from Venezuela. But not just South America, from all over the world they’re being led in, from jails, from … Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. The jail population throughout the world has come way down, and it’s all coming into the United States of America.

(08:36)
So we want workers and we want them to come in, but they have to come in legally. They have to love our country. They have to love you, love our people. The problem with this administration is they’ve totally lost control. It’s the worst president and the worst vice president that we’ve ever had in this country, what they have done to our country in terms of hurting it.

(08:56)
Our farmers, by the way, are dying. They haven’t had anything so bad in 25 years. Four years ago, our farmers, including you, were making a lot of money. They were doing great. Now they’re absolutely dying. We’re going to turn it around.

(09:09)
But we want people to come in, but we don’t want murderers. So it was just announced last month by the border patrol that under Biden and Harris, they allowed 13,099 convicted murderers, people in jail, to come into our country. They released them from jail into our population, and nobody wants that. That doesn’t include the terrorists and all of the others, the gang members, MS-13 gang members and other gang members.

(09:39)
We have to have people that are great people come into our country. But we do want them in, and I want them in even more than you do. We’re going to make it so that people can come into our country legally. Thank you. Good question. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (09:52):

[inaudible 00:09:52].

Enrique Acevedo (09:53):

[foreign language 00:09:54]. Thank you, President Trump. Our next question comes from Daniel Perez. Daniel is the first member of his family to have a college degree. Now he’s worried about finding the right job, one that is relevant to his area of study. Daniel Perez, [foreign language 00:10:06].

Daniel Perez (10:11):

Good evening, Mr. President.

Donald Trump (10:13):

Thank you.

Daniel Perez (10:14):

As a first-generation college graduate, I had to work multiple jobs while studying full time. The reason that being is because my family could not provide financial assistance while I was attending college. The high cost of housing led me to sleep in my car while I was attending college in a rural area. Despite my degree, I’m currently working as a delivery driver. My question to you is how do you plan to create real job opportunities for recent graduates like myself?

Donald Trump (10:45):

That’s a great question, and a lot of people ask that question, because the job opportunities, the good ones, are not there under this administration. We are going to bring companies in through a system of taxes. We call it positive taxation. We are going to bring companies in at a level that you’ve never seen in this country before.

(11:06)
I was doing it in my administration, and then what we did and we … Nobody’s ever seen what we’re doing, a combination of taxes, tariffs, and incentives. Companies are going to be coming into our country, car companies and many, many, for the manufacture of cars. They’ll be flowing into our country like never before. You need jobs, and that’s what you have to do. Again, we also have to get prices down. When prices come down, companies will be able to afford to open up again. A lot of companies over the last three years, three and a half years have closed up. Companies that would’ve hired you are not even here anymore.

(11:43)
We have had a terrible president and vice president in terms of keeping small businesses going. We want small businesses, which are very important. It’s actually to employ more … They are bigger than big businesses as a whole, and we want them taken care of. But we’re going to bring companies back into our country. We’ve lost so many companies, back into our country at a level that we haven’t seen before, and you’re going to get a lot of jobs.

(12:09)
You’re not going to be looking at one job. You’re going to be looking at a job that you want, because you don’t want to just take a job. You want to take a job that that’s a job, I want to be with that company for 25 years or longer, and that’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to have your choice.

(12:22)
Right now you’re going around. You could just get a job. Even if you don’t want it, you need it. You’re going to have your choice very soon. If I’m elected president, you’re going to have a choice between lots of different companies, and you’ll match it out with pay and with … Really very important, just as important as pay is you have to love what you’re doing. If you don’t love what you’re doing, having a job is brutal.

(12:45)
So congratulations on your degree. That’s a big achievement. That really is a great thing. It’s great that you did it. You will put that to use very soon when I’m elected president. Thank you.

Daniel Perez (12:56):

Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (12:57):

Thank you. Thank you, Daniel, and congratulations on that degree. Our next question comes from Natalie Martinez. She’s 21 years old. She lives here in South Florida with her family. Natalie Martinez, [foreign language 00:13:06].

Natalie Martinez (13:05):

[foreign language 00:13:11].

Donald Trump (13:11):

Thank you.

Translator (13:14):

Hello, President Trump. I am in university. I participated recently on a competition on the national debt, and that has gotten me very worried. The national debt right now is $35 trillion, and it does not stop there. My question for you tonight is what will you do to improve it, to reduce the debt, and also to pay alongside its interests?

Natalie Martinez (13:58):

Thank you.

Translator (13:59):

Thank you.

Donald Trump (13:59):

Thank you very much. Good question. So we do, we have record national debt. We’ve never had anything like it before. We were getting ready to start paying down debt, and then we got hit with a thing called COVID or the China virus, and that had to be the focus. We needed to help businesses stay in business. If we didn’t do the job we did … Linda McMahon did a great job, Small Business Association. If we didn’t do the job that we did, you wouldn’t have any companies. You would’ve been in a depression like in 1929.

(14:29)
We did a great job in keeping it all going. We ended up where the stocks were higher, despite all of the COVID, China virus that came into our country. The stocks … When I handed over, the stocks were higher than they were previous to the COVID coming in. So we had to focus on that obviously, but we had the best economy that we’ve ever had. We’re going to have that again.

(14:51)
What’s going to solve the problem is growth. It’s a thing called growth that nobody even talks about from the Democrat standpoint because they don’t know about growth. But we’re going to bring companies in, we’re going to bring tremendous business to our country, and that’s going to solve that.

(15:06)
Also, waste, fraud, and abuse. We have Elon Musk, who’s a fantastic guy and a fantastic genius. He’s a genius at a lot of things, but he’s a great business person also in addition to sending rockets. You saw his rocket come down the other day and land. The way it landed was so incredible. Nobody had ever seen anything like that.

(15:26)
But Elon called me and spent a lot of time. He endorsed me, totally endorsed. He said, “If Trump doesn’t win, our country may be finished.” That’s a pretty strong endorsement from a truly brilliant guy.

(15:39)
But we’re putting him in charge, he wants to do this so badly, of cost-cutting, bringing costs down so they won’t affect the people. But the waste and abuse in this country, the fraud in this country is massive, and he and his team are going to work on that. We’re going to get it down. We’re going to start paying off debt.

(15:57)
But the key is growth. We have to grow the country. Keep

Donald Trump (16:00):

Keep the debt the same, and then bring it down and grow the country and we’ll be stronger than ever. You elect me president. We’re going to be stronger than ever. That’s what I’d do. Okay? Thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (16:10):

Thank you, President Trump.

Enrique Acevedo (16:11):

Thank you, Natalie, President Trump. We’re going to take a quick break. We’ll be right back with more questions from undecided Latino voters. [foreign language 00:16:19]

Speaker 1 (16:21):

Latinos Ask. Donald Trump Responds.

Enrique Acevedo (20:52):

[foreign language 00:20:49] Donald Trump. And we are back. President Trump, our next question comes from Guadalupe, Guadalupe Ramirez. She’s a mother of three. Her parents were born in Mexico and benefited from the Bracero program in the 1980s and became citizens. [foreign language 00:21:07]

Speaker 4 (21:05):

[foreign language 00:21:11]

Enrique Acevedo (21:05):

[foreign language 00:21:14]

Speaker 4 (21:05):

[foreign language 00:21:14]

Speaker 5 (21:16):

Before the 80s.

Enrique Acevedo (21:22):

Before the 80s then.

Speaker 4 (21:28):

[foreign language 00:21:28]

Translator (21:29):

Good evening, Mr. President. I live in the suburbs of Chicago. Daily, I see the consequences of the migration flow.

Speaker 4 (21:36):

[foreign language 00:21:38]

Translator (21:40):

What is your plan for an immigration reform?

Speaker 4 (21:43):

[foreign language 00:21:44]

Translator (21:44):

And I also would like to ask you why you used your influence to ask the Republican legislators to not back up the strengthening of our border through the proposal.

Donald Trump (22:09):

You like strong borders. So do I. And we have them. We had the strongest border we’ve ever had in the history, recorded history of our country. Four years ago, we had a border that was great. And again, people were coming in, but they were coming in through a legal process. They were great people coming into our country. And when you say Chicago, immediately we have to think about the crime because it’s so dangerous in Chicago and some of these people came from other countries. Many of them came from other countries. So what we’re going to do is we have to be much tougher on crime. The Democrats are weak. Don’t forget. The Democrats run Chicago. They have a mayor from Chicago. He’s terrible. They have a governor who’s horrible. Pritzker, he’s a horrible governor. That’s the state of Illinois. He’s horrible, and they’re very weak on crime.

(22:58)
You want to make sure that you’re not attacked, you’re not mugged, you’re not shot. Chicago’s a very dangerous city right now. It’s a great city potentially, but right now, it’s a very dangerous city. And we’re working on that, but we have Democrats running it. Everything the Democrats run is bad. 25 cities, they’re all run by Democrats, and crime-infested cities. The Republicans running, they don’t have the same problem because we have law and order. We have it the way you need it. You need to be safe. You want to walk across the street for a loaf of bread, you want to be able to walk and not get shot or not get mugged or anything else. So we’re going to bring that back. I’m bringing a lot back to help the Democrat mayors, where they have them, run their cities better because they can’t run their cities. They’re crime infested. And Chicago’s an example of it, and we’re going to make it good.

(23:51)
As far as the border, we want to have a strong border, and we want people to come in. And that’s what we had. Remember, we had the strongest border in history and we had the best economy in history, two things I had. And I said, that’s pretty good. We also got into no wars. I didn’t get into any wars. I’m the first president in 84 years that never got into a war, but I beat ISIS, and we beat him in two months instead of, I guess they told me it was going to take years, like five years. I did it in two months. Our military is incredible. I rebuilt the military. But remember these two things. I had the strongest border in the history of our country and had the best economy in the history of our country. And I had no inflation, no inflation. Thank you.

Speaker 4 (24:36):

Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (24:38):

Gracias, Guadalupe. Thank you, President Trump. Our next question comes from Arizona, key state in the upcoming election. Jose Saralegui lives right on the border with Mexico. Jose Saralegui [foreign language 00:24:52]

Donald Trump (24:56):

Thank you.

Speaker 6 (24:56):

[foreign language 00:24:58]

Carlos Garcia (25:04):

Good evening, President Trump. I am a Republican. I am a registered Republican, but at this time, I am undecided.

Speaker 6 (25:11):

[foreign language 00:25:13]

Carlos Garcia (25:13):

During the campaign, there has been some conspiracy theories and use.

Speaker 6 (25:22):

[foreign language 00:25:23]

Carlos Garcia (25:25):

If you’ll allow me, I would like to give you an example of it.

Speaker 6 (25:27):

[foreign language 00:25:29]

Carlos Garcia (25:39):

The authorities in Springfield, Ohio have more than one time clarified that the Haitians are not eating their cats and their dogs. Nonetheless, you want to revoke the permit they have to legally reside in this country. My question to you, very respectfully, is do you really believe that these people are eating the people’s pets?

Speaker 6 (26:19):

Thank you.

Donald Trump (26:19):

Well, thank you very much. And this was just reported. I was just saying what was reported. That’s been reported, and eating other things too that they’re not supposed to be. But this is… All I do is report. I was there. I’m going to be there, and we’re going to take a look. And I’ll give you a full report when I do, but that’s been in the newspapers and reported pretty broadly. I will say this, as far as Springfield is concerned, because I do know that situation, you have a city of 52,000 people and they’ve added almost 30,000 migrants into the city. If you were a person that lived there, if you lived in Springfield, Ohio, and all of a sudden you couldn’t get into a hospital, you couldn’t get your children into a school, you wouldn’t be able to buy groceries, you can no longer pay the rent because the government’s paying rent, any of that, if any of that happened, it would be a disaster for you and you wouldn’t be happy.

(27:16)
We want to make our people safe and secure and we want to make them happy. But Springfield, Ohio is a perfect example. You have a town, a beautiful little town with no problems. All of a sudden, they have 30 or 32,000 people dropped into the town, most of whom don’t speak the language, most of whom don’t speak the language at all. And what they’re doing is they’re looking all over for interpreters. Well, I think you can’t just destroy our country. Maybe some people disagree with me, but you can’t put, in a very short period of time, 32,000 people into a 50,000 people town and expect things to go well. It’s a disaster. It’s a total disaster. And the people that live there are… They want to leave. They want to move because if you read about it or talk to them, people want to move. They want to leave because they’ve never had anything like this. And we can’t let that happen to our towns and our cities and our country. Just can’t let it happen. It’s not sustainable. I appreciate the question. Thank you. I hope you vote for a Republican.

Enrique Acevedo (28:22):

Gracias, Jose. Thank you, President Trump. Let’s take a quick break again, and we’ll be right back. [foreign language 00:28:28]

Speaker 8 (33:02):

[inaudible 00:33:02] with former President Trump and our audience. And as you know the topics we have touched upon, employment, health, immigration, Ramiro Gonzalez has a question for Donald Trump.

Enrique Acevedo (33:13):

As you know Florida got hit with two major hurricanes in the last two weeks. Por favor, Ramiro.

Ramiro (33:22):

[foreign language 00:33:23]. Good evening, Mr. Trump. Okay. I am a Republican no longer registered though. I want to give you the opportunity to try to win back my vote. Okay. Your, let me say, action and maybe inaction during your presidency and the last few years sort of was a little disturbing to me, what happened during January 6th and the fact that you waited so long to take action while your supporters were attacking the Capitol. Coronavirus, I thought the public was misled during coronavirus and that many more lives could have been saved if we would’ve have been informed better. And also people in your administration who don’t support you, I’m curious how people so close to you and your administration no longer want to support you. So why would I want to support you? If you would answer these questions for me, I would really appreciate it and give you the opportunity. Your own vice president doesn’t want to support you now.

Enrique Acevedo (34:37):

Thank you, Ramiro.

Donald Trump (34:39):

So the people that don’t support are a very small portion, we have a tremendous, about 97% of the people in the administration support me, but because it’s me, somebody doesn’t support, they get a little publicity. The vice president, I disagree with him on what he did. I totally disagreed with him on what he did. Very importantly, you had hundreds of thousands of people come to Washington. They didn’t come because of me. They came because of the election. They thought the election was a rigged election and that’s why they came. Some of those people went down to the Capitol, I said, peacefully and patriotically, nothing done wrong at all. Nothing done wrong. And action was taken, strong action. Ashli Babbitt was killed. Nobody was killed. There were no guns down there. We didn’t have guns. The others had guns, but we didn’t have guns. And when I say “we” these are people that walk down, this was a tiny percentage of the overall, which nobody sees and nobody shows.

(35:37)
But that was a day of love from the standpoint of the millions, it’s like hundreds of thousands. It could have been the largest group I’ve ever spoken before. They asked me to speak. I went and I spoke and I used the term peacefully and patriotically. If you look at the Democrats, what they say, you look at Maxine Waters, and you look at Hillary Clinton and you look at what they say and they don’t put that on. They only put Republicans on, but they couldn’t get me because of the fact that I said, everything’s got to be peaceful and patriotic and we’ll see how it all works out. But I think that we’re right now in another election, we want, all I want is honest elections. I’m willing to take any chance. I want honest elections. We need borders, and we need honest elections. And if we don’t have either of those two things, that’s it.

(36:26)
We have tremendous loyalty to the Trump administration. Now, Biden, when he lost in Afghanistan, when he looked so bad, that’s why Putin went into Ukraine, in my opinion, he looked and he saw, he should have fired every general involved in that. There was a disaster. He should have fired a lot of people because he had the most unsuccessful administration in the history of our country. A disaster acknowledged. I again, had the best economy we’ve ever had. I rebuilt our military. I defeated ISIS. I did things that nobody thought… In terms of medical right to try, I got right to try where you could use space age, things that wouldn’t be approved for another five or 10 years, you were able to use it and we saved thousands and thousands of lives.

(37:11)
But 97% of the people in my administration supported me. When you fire somebody, they say bad things. When I fire a John Bolton or when I fire any of these people, he was terrible, but when I fire people, they go out and say, if I didn’t fire people, they wouldn’t say it. But you know what? Biden should have fired a lot of people because he had a very unsuccessful administration. And the first person he should have fired is his vice president, because she’s absolutely terrible. And I’ll tell you, she’s no way fit, in any way fit, to be the President of the United States. In fact, she turned on him and they had a coup. They took it over from a president that got 14 million votes. I’m no fan of his, but he got 14 million votes. He won the primary. She was out of the primary. She was the first one to quit and she left 22 people. She was the first one out. She never made it to Iowa. And then she comes back and they do a coup. They take it over from him. So that’s the way it is.

(38:08)
When people don’t do their job, I fire them. And if they say bad things about me, that’s okay. But overall, look, we’re leading in the polls now. We have an election going on right now. I’m doing really well with Hispanics and we’re doing well pretty much with every group. When people don’t do a job, I’m sorry, I get rid of them. And if they want to say bad things… I’ve never fired somebody that said wonderful things. Sometimes they think about it. But when you let somebody go even for cause, and I only do it for cause, they don’t generally say great things.

(38:40)
But Biden never, think of it, in the worst administration in the history of our country he never fired one person. And that’s disgraceful. And you look at the border, the border has been a disaster. All they had to do is leave my border. I had the safest, most secure border and people came in legally. I had the safest border in the history of our country. All they had to do was leave our people and leave our policies. I had a Remain in Mexico policy, worked out with the Mexican government. The head of Mexico, all of them, they were my friends. They were good. They were great people. It wasn’t easy to work it out, but I worked it out, Remain in Mexico. It was an unbelievable success. Remain in Mexico, we check you out and then we bring you into the country if you check out.

(39:25)
Biden didn’t do that. He got rid of everything. He had an open border policy where the whole world flowed in. Unfortunately, the world were prison populations. If I were running a country, any country, and I heard that the US had an open border policy, the first thing I do is open up my jails, take all of my prisoners and let them out, murderers and everyone else. And that’s essentially what they did and it’s a shame. So we had the most successful country we’ve ever had, and I hope someday maybe we’ll get your vote. Sounds like maybe I won’t, but that’s okay too. Thank you very much.

Enrique Acevedo (39:59):

Gracias, Ramiro. Thank you so much. Jesus Gonzales, he’s the son of immigrants, the first US born member of his family as well. [inaudible 00:40:09].

Jesus (40:09):

Good evening, President Trump.

Donald Trump (40:16):

Thank you.

Jesus (40:17):

With respect, could you explain your gun control policy to the parents of the victims of school shootings?

Donald Trump (40:26):

I could. We have a Second Amendment and right to bear arms essentially, and I’m very strongly an advocate of that. I think you need that. I think that if you ever tried to get rid of it, you wouldn’t be able to do it. You wouldn’t be able to take away the guns because people need that for security. They need it for entertainment and for sports and other things, but they also in many cases need it for protection. If you have a house out in the country or you’re in a little bit of a rough area or in a very rough area, and the bad guy, let’s call him, has a gun, if you don’t have a gun, you’re finished. You have no chance. So you need them. You want to have a lot of good people, have them.

(41:11)
But if we didn’t have that, you would see a crime rate that’s crazy. I’ll tell you though, it’s a very interesting stat. The toughest gun laws in the United States by far are Chicago, and that’s got one of the worst records of any city, and a lot of them are shot. 17 people died on Labor Day, 17 people died Labor Day weekend in Chicago. It’s got laws that are so tough, they can do anything they want. You have a gun there’s no place maybe on Earth that has a tougher gun policy than Chicago. There’s no place that has, and they have the right to do anything they want to you.

(41:52)
You know what happens? It’s probably the worst place, right now, one of the most unsafe places anywhere in this country, maybe anywhere in the world. So it’s not just that. Remember this, it’s the person pulling the trigger. It’s not the gun. It’s the person pulling the trigger. But if you ever passed something… She wants to take everybody’s gun away. She’s always wanted that. That’s because it’s what she wants. She wants to take everybody’s gun. You know who the ones that will never give their guns up? The bad guy. The bad guy’s not giving up the gun. So that’s what we have. We want safety, we want security. But you have to still adhere to the Second Amendment. Thank you. Great question. Thank you.

Jesus (42:33):

Thank you Mr. President.

Enrique Acevedo (42:35):

Muchas gracias. Thank you. President Trump. Our next question comes from Carlos Aguilera. He’s a veteran of the construction sector here in South Florida. He says he’s seeing an environmental crisis grow before his eyes. Carlos Aguilera, [foreign language 00:42:50], Carlos.

Carlos (42:50):

Yeah, good evening. Mr. President. For 30 years I’ve been working in the construction industry and building water plants in Florida. I’ve seen with my own eyes the devastating impacts of climate change, things that include sea level rise, saltwater intrusion in our drinking water supply frequent flooding of our coastal communities. Given the mounting evidence of climate change, do you still believe it’s a hoax?

Donald Trump (43:19):

Well, let me tell you. First of all, I built Okeechobee Dam and I did so much for Florida in terms of when I was president. And even as a private person I built a lot. But I did the Okeechobee Dam, which solved a big problem from the climate standpoint. What I do think is this, we can’t destroy our country over being forced to do things. They want to do the, I call it the Green New Deal, they call it the Green New Deal, some people call it the Green New Hoax. They want to spend $93 trillion on the climate. Now, I happen to think that there are very important elements of climate, water, and air. In my administration. I had the cleanest air on record, and yet I didn’t destroy jobs. I had the most jobs of any administration ever. I also had the cleanest water crystal clean. We had the cleanest water, the cleanest air. To me, those are the primary factors. Clean water, clean air.

(44:21)
We went into rural parts of the country and fixed people’s water. They were drinking such terrible water. It was very important to me. All of that’s important. At the same time, you can’t give up your country. You can’t say that we’re not going to have any jobs anymore. If they took their ultimate, which is 93 trillion, the Green New Deal, 93 trillion, that’s more money than we would have in 20 years. We wouldn’t be able to survive. We wouldn’t be able to live. So I always feel that with the climate, and I have been an environmentalist. I built many things. I own Doral right next door, and we did that in a very environment… I get awards, environmental awards for the way I built it, for the water, the way I use the water, the sand, the mixing of the sand and the water. I mean many different…

(45:06)
But I’ve had many awards over the years for environmental, the way I’ve built. Because you know about building, that’s what you do. It’s very important to me. At the same time, we can’t destroy our country and we’re competing against countries that don’t spend anything on climate change like China and others. And they’re able to make their product for tremendously less than us and we’re not going to let that happen either. We have to have a strong country and we have to have a nice climate. And there’s nobody better at that, I think, at that combination than me.

(45:37)
I will say this though, I hear a lot about climate and they talk about global warming, et cetera, et cetera, because they used to call it global warming, now they call it climate change because that covers everything but global warming. The real global warming that we have to worry about is nuclear. The water’s coming up an eighth of an inch, over 300 years, the ocean is going to rise. And nobody knows if that’s true or not, but they’re worried about the ocean rising an eighth of an inch or a quarter of an inch in 300 years.

(46:06)
What I’m worried about is nuclear weapons tomorrow because the power of nuclear weapons, and we’re going to end up with this administration, if she gets in, we will end up in a third world war. She’s grossly incompetent. And if she gets in, Kamala, if she gets in, we’re going to end up in a third world war. And with me, you’ll never end up in even a war. So we have to be very careful. Thank you very much.

Enrique Acevedo (46:31):

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President.

Carlos (46:33):

Thank you very much.

Enrique Acevedo (46:34):

[inaudible 00:46:34] to take our last commercial break. [inaudible 00:46:38]

Speaker 8 (46:38):

[inaudible 00:46:38] break we’ll come back in this encounter with ex-President Donald Trump. Thank you.

Speaker 7 (46:49):

Latinos Ask. Donald Trump Responds.

Enrique Acevedo (49:03):

We are back in this historic encounter with ex-President Donald Trump and the Latino voters. Our next question comes from Yaritza Kuhn. She’s a homemaker and has a question about women’s reproductive rights. Yaritza Kuhn [Spanish 00:49:35] .

Yaritza Kuhn (49:35):

Good evening, Mr. Trump, president. Recently, your wife Melania said that she supported women’s rights of reproduction along with being able to get an abortion. My question is, do you agree with her?

Donald Trump (49:57):

Well, thank you very much. First of all, I told Melania that she has to go with her heart and she has to do what she has to do. She has to support what she wants to support, and she wrote a great book. It’s the number one bestseller. I hope you all go out and buy it, but it’s really a great book. But I want her to do what she wants to do. I wouldn’t want to impose what I think. What has happened is over the last 52 years, people have wanted to get Roe v. Wade out of the federal government, and they’ve been trying. Every lawyer, every legal scholar, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, everybody wanted it out. It shouldn’t be in the federal government. They wanted it out for many different reasons, all of them very good reasons, and I was able to do that, and with the courage of six great Supreme Court justices who are brilliant and courageous.

(50:48)
Because this issue has torn our country apart. For 52 years, it’s torn our country apart. And if something wasn’t done, it would’ve continued and maybe gotten worse. And I was able to do that. And like Ronald Reagan, I believe in the exceptions for life of the mother, rape, and incest. So, I believe in exceptions. Most people do. Most Republicans do. There are some that probably don’t. Of course, that number has gotten a lot larger with the years. And what they wanted, what people wanted is for it to go back to the states and a vote of the people. It’s going back to the states and a vote of the people. It’s out of the federal government now, which is so good. And now, if you look, the states are voting on it. And some states, like Ohio, a state that I won by a lot, took a very liberal stance. They have a very liberal stance, same thing with Kansas and other states. And some states took a tougher stance.

(51:49)
But what it is, is it’s now the vote of the people within the states. This is what everybody has wanted for 52 years. They wanted to get rid of Roe v. Wade and let it come back to the states. And I’ve done that. And now the people are voting on it. And you’re going to see it’s going to heal. It will never heal. It would’ve never healed if it stayed in Congress, if it stayed in the federal government. It’s now in the states. The people are voting. As we speak, the people are voting. Some states have completed, like Kansas, Ohio, and a lot of others. But it’s going to settle a problem that was only going to get more divisive and worse. It was a big, big dispute for a long period of time. And I think the question is great, and I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Yaritza Kuhn (52:37):

Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (52:39):

Gracias, Yaritza. Thank you, President Trump. Our next question comes also from Arizona. Carlos Garcia was part of our town hall last week with Vice President Harris. Carlos Garcia [Spanish 00:52:51].

Carlos Garcia (52:58):

Good evening, Mr. President, thank you for being here tonight with us and thank you for answering my questions. Besides being a data analyst, I’m a pastor for the youth in my local church. So, I believe in the power of growth through reflection and learning. We can always have triumphs, but we can always also have mistakes. My question to you is out of the four years you were in the White House, can you name one error or something you learned, during those four years, so we may learn from you and once more give you our vote?

Donald Trump (54:01):

Thank you very much. We had a very successful administration. Everybody acknowledges it, because we had the great economy, which is so important. We didn’t have inflation. We won the war. We rebuilt the military, we won the ISIS and the nice part is we didn’t get into any wars. As a pastor, as somebody of faith, you have to like. It hasn’t happened in 82 years that that happened with a president. I didn’t get into a war. We had great trade policies. We changed some of the horrible policies. We did a lot of good things. So when you say about something, I regretted, the thing I would say that’s most important, and it’s going to be most important for coming up, is people. It’s all about the people. Where I had great people, things happened good. Where I had people that I didn’t like as much, it doesn’t work out as well.

(54:53)
And Unlike Biden or Harris, I get rid of them. I get new people in. Because I’m not working for them. I’m working for you. I want to make sure the country is running well. And if somebody’s not doing their job, I make changes. So, I would say this. The mistakes I made weren’t big policy. We had the strong border. We had the great economy. We had all these things, but I put some people in that I wouldn’t have used again. Now, when I went to Washington, as you know, I was only there 17 times in my entire life, 17 times. I never stayed over. The press for me that, so I don’t know if it’s true, but it sounds like it might be right, very little. I wasn’t in Washington, so I didn’t know the people very well, and I relied on other people to give me. And generally speaking, I got it right. Bob Lighthizer and trade. We had great trade people. We had a lot of great people. But I had some people that I would not have used again. Now, I have tremendous experience.

(55:49)
I think I have more experience than anybody in history in terms of the people, in terms of that kind of experience, the experience you need. And I know all of the people. I know the players. I know the good ones, the bad ones, the smart ones, the dumb ones, the ones that don’t have courage. You think you never really know about courage until you’re tested. But I know the people very well. I know who I want, who I don’t want. So I would say that in terms of knowledge and learning, it was people. If you have a good group of people or a great secretary, somebody in charge of a big agency, it’s all about the people. So, I would say that would be the biggest mistake. Mostly good, but some bad.

Carlos Garcia (56:31):

[Spanish 00:56:33].

Enrique Acevedo (56:32):

Gracias, Carlos. President Trump, we have time for a couple more questions.

Donald Trump (56:36):

Well, it’s okay. They said, “Would you like to sit down?” I said, “That is the most uncomfortable-looking chair I’ve ever seen.” I’m looking at that chair. I said, “I don’t think anybody could sit in that chair.”

Enrique Acevedo (56:47):

I didn’t get one though.

Donald Trump (56:47):

Let’s go do a couple of more, fine.

Enrique Acevedo (56:49):

Wonderful. Eloy Contreras, he’s a security guard at a hospital. [Spanish 00:56:58]

Speaker 9 (56:57):

Good evening, President Trump. Thank you for being here and taking these questions. When you left office, Mr. President, we were a divided nation. Instead of the United States of America, we were the divided states of America. Win or lose, if the American people to send you back to the White House or not, what specific steps will you take to unite a deeply divided nation?

Donald Trump (57:25):

So, when I left office, we had election that was in dispute by most people, I think, but certainly a vast majority of people. That was the primary division, and that was a shame. That was a shame, because that should never happen with a country. And it’s really too bad that it did happen. But we are much more of a divided nation now than we ever were then. And I will tell you this, that when we had the economy blazing, the best economy we’ve ever had, liberals, radical left people, as I would call them, Democrats were calling me. Our country was coming together. Then we got hit with a gift from China called COVID, and we had to fight that. But for two and a half years, almost three years, we were the most united … People wanted to get together. They wanted to be … people that I never thought would want to be meeting and were asking to have lunch, have dinner. Our country was coming together and the thing that will bring our country together is success. It was coming together because it was so successful.

(58:39)
Hispanic Americans, Black Americans, everybody had jobs, women, men, people with high school diplomas, people without high school diplomas, people from the best colleges in the world, from MIT, and Harvard, the Wharton School of Finance, from Stanford, and people with no education, everybody was doing better than they’d ever done, everybody, every group, every group. And who was doing the best? Proportionately, were low-income people, and that’s a statistical fact. Everybody was doing better. There was no division.

(59:12)
Success will bring our country together. And I never knew that I’d say that. I thought that even if you were successful … Because the views are so different on so many things. For instance, the Democrats want men to play in women’s sports. I don’t like that. I don’t know if they’re going to change, but I don’t think I could ever change. I see the differences. I don’t understand how they could want it. They want transgender operations, change a man into a woman, and in some cases, a boy into a woman without parental consent. I am not going to go for that. So, I don’t know. I never thought you could come together, but I will say this, success will bring this country together. Thank you. Good question.

Enrique Acevedo (59:58):

Thank you. Our last question, last week, Teresa Djedjro had the opportunity to ask the last question on our town hall … asked the last question last week, and she’ll have the opportunity again. Go ahead.

Translator (01:00:10):

President Trump, [Spanish 01:00:12].

Donald Trump (01:00:12):

Thank you.

Translator (01:00:20):

Good evening, Mr. President. I only think it’s fair to ask the same question I posed the Democrat candidate. What are the three virtues that you see in Vice President Kamala Harris?

Donald Trump (01:00:42):

That’s a very hard question. That’s the toughest question. The other ones are easy. Look, I’m not a fan. I’m not a fan. I think she’s harmed our country horribly, horribly, at the border with inflation, with so many other things. But she seems to have an ability to survive. Because she was out of the race and all of a sudden she’s running for president. That’s a great ability that some people have and some people don’t have. She seems to have some pretty long-time friendships. And that’s also … I don’t call that an ability. I call that a good thing. And she seems to have a nice way about her. I like the way some of her statements … some of the way she behaves in a certain way, but in another way, I think it’s very bad for our country … very bad for our country. But she does seem to have some relationships that be lasting. And she does seem to be a survivor. Because remember, she was the first one out, and all of a sudden she’s running for president. And the other 21 people that are running, they’re sitting home watching her on television, right? So, that’s by far the toughest question I’ve had today. Thank you very much.

Translator (01:02:02):

I appreciate your answer.

Enrique Acevedo (01:02:04):

Thank you, Teresa. Thank you, President Trump. We’ve reached the end of our historic conversation. Thanks again for being here with us and answering the questions of Latino voters.

Donald Trump (01:02:12):

Thank you all very much. It’s been an honor. Go out and vote. Thank you.

Enrique Acevedo (01:02:19):

Thank you. We say goodbye. Thank you for joining us. We will [inaudible 01:02:22] you tomorrow at 7:00 PM after the answers, for a special show after this public encounter in this forum with both candidates. I am Enrique Acevedo. Thank you for joining us. Thank you, again, sir.

Donald Trump (01:02:34):

Thank you.

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