Charles III: 'Tonight, we are here to renew an indispensable alliance,' White House State Dinner - 2026

29 April 2026, Washington DC, USA

Mr. President, First Lady,

My wife and I are most grateful to you for your generous hospitality as the United States celebrates this very special anniversary year of the Declaration of Independence.

May I also just start by paying tribute to your own courage and steadfastness, as well as to your security services for their swift actions on Saturday evening in preventing further injury. My thoughts and sympathies are with you, the First Lady and all those guests for whom this must have been a very upsetting incident. As the words of that famous anthem remind us, this is the land of the free and home of the brave as your own response demonstrates. What used to be called in the last War in the United Kingdom, Keep Calm and Carry on...!

I now realize, to my amazement, that my first visit to this remarkable country was over fifty years ago and, Mr. President, the golden threads of history and heritage between our lands are also embodied in your own family story, whose roots trace back to the beautiful landscapes of Britain’s Outer Hebrides and continue, as we know, in the great golf courses of the Highlands. I can only imagine the immense pride with which your own dear Mother, indeed both your Parents, must be looking down on the great office to which you have been elected for a historic second term.

And if I may say so, it is a particular pleasure to be back in this wonderful building, the heart of your democracy. On this occasion, I cannot help noticing the ‘readjustments’ to the East Wing, Mr. President, following your visit to Windsor Castle last year. I am sorry to say that we British, of course, made our own attempt at real estate redevelopment of the White House in 1814.

I am so glad we have an important opportunity, at this critical time, to renew those bonds of history and friendship between our Nations and our peoples. Two and a half centuries ago, the United States of America was founded through an audacious and visionary act of self-determination. From the beginning, the American character has been defined by courage, tenacity and the spirit of adventure. As the direct descendant of King George III, I know this is a Nation that never gives up.

My family’s history remains reflected in your maps, which read rather like our Christmas card list across the ages – North and South Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, and the cities of Charleston (a particular favourite of mine, obviously), Georgetown (and, for that matter, Georgia), Annapolis, as you mentioned, and (further favourites) Prince William County and Williamsburg. This said, our French friends can feel equally at home with a glance at a map. Indeed, you recently commented, Mr. President, that if it were not for the United States, European countries would be speaking German. Dare I say that, if it wasn’t for us, you’d be speaking French...! Of course, we both love our French cousins greatly, and we three states are not only bound by our shared values, but by a profound belief that, together, we are more than the sum of our parts.

Out of the fires of a bitter and bloody Revolutionary War, the triumph of the father of this country, George Washington, and his fellow founders, was to forge a democracy founded upon the rights to liberty and the Rule of Law.

The story of Britain and America is one of reconciliation, from adversaries to the closest of allies; not always, perhaps, following the straightest path. As you said yourself, Mr President, during your own State Visit at Windsor Castle last year, ours is an unbreakable bond of history and heritage, culture and commerce, industry and invention – and we are determined to face the future together.

Tonight, we are here to renew an indispensable alliance which has long been a cornerstone of prosperity and security for both British and American citizens. Our people have fought and fallen together in defence of the values we cherish. Across the ocean, and from coast to coast, we have traded, innovated and created together. We have stood together through the best and worst of times.

However, the challenges we now face, from those who wish us harm across the world, to balancing the risks and opportunities of powerful new technologies, to the threats to the very international rules that have allowed us to trade and have kept power in balance for eighty years; those challenges encourage us to reaffirm, tonight, the basis on which our partnership has been built.

And yes, we have had our moments of difficulty even in more recent history. When my mother visited in 1957, not the least of her tasks was to help put the “Special” back into our Relationship after a crisis in the Middle East. Nearly seventy years on, it is hard to imagine anything like that happening today....

But it is not hard to see how important the relationship remains, in matters both seen and unseen.

My mother’s first Prime Minister, Sir Winston Churchill, understood this so well. But then he himself was half American – a tradition of shared transatlantic heritage which I am pleased to say is alive and well in the White House today! Indeed, such was the closeness, that Sir Winston, whilst staying here in the White House – in one of the rooms you showed us upstairs - emerged naked from the bathtub to discover the door opening as President Roosevelt came in for a chat. With rapier wit, the President cast aside any embarrassment by declaring that, ‘the Prime Minister has nothing to conceal from the President of the United States’. This warmth came after testing times between our leaders in the early 1940s.

The kinship and friendship of many centuries provided great reassurance to my late grandfather King George VI, as it did to my late Mother.

It means every bit as much to me.

Of course, my late Mother met no fewer than thirteen serving Presidents – thankfully, all of them fully clothed! The first President I had the honour of meeting – at the age of ten, in 1959, when he came to Balmoral – was President Eisenhower, who had served as the Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Forces during World War II at a most critical time in the darkest days of the 20th century. American leadership helped rebuild a shattered continent playing a decisive role as a defender of freedom in Europe. We – and I – shall never forget that, not least as freedom is again under attack following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Today, our partnerships in NATO and AUKUS deepen our technological and military cooperation and ensure that, together, we can meet the challenges of an increasingly complex and contested world. And speaking of submarine alliances, there was one particular AUKUS predecessor, launched from a UK shipyard in 1944, that served for the majority of her life attached to the 4th Submarine Squadron in Australia, playing a critical role during the war in the Pacific.

Her name? HMS Trump.

So tonight, Mr President, I am delighted to present to you – as a personal gift – the original bell which hung on the Conning Tower of your valiant namesake. May it stand as a testimony to our Nations’ shared history and shining future. And should you ever need to get hold of us... well, just give us a ring!

For 250 years, the ingenuity and imagination of the people of the United States have been an inspiration to the world. This land of opportunity has nourished some of humanity’s greatest minds, from the industrial age to the space age. So many miracles of the modern world have been and still are invented in America. Indeed, we have followed the voyage of Artemis II – or Artemis the Second, as my family and I might like to call her! – with close attention. Now, I know you have big plans for the Moon, Mr. President, but I’ve checked the papers and I rather suspect it is already part of the Commonwealth, I’m afraid!

On this week’s visit, I look forward to meeting the people and communities of this dynamic country, including celebrating some of the work my King’s Trust has been doing in those communities, helping give young people the chance to succeed across America, in this year when we mark 50 years of the Trust, can you believe it?

Every year, millions of Britons journey to this remarkable country to experience its glorious national parks, soaring mountains and ancient forests. From the peaks of the Pacific Northwest to the rugged shores of the Atlantic, from the vast expanses of the West to the sweeping prairies and canyons, the natural beauty of this land is found in every corner.

And in sport, in just a few weeks, the United States and Canada will be among those to welcome the world as hosts of the FIFA World Cup. So in one sense, Mr President, as Heads of State, we are joint hosts!

We call this game, by the way, “Football”, Mr. President... And I can only say as the Head of State of five competing countries, I will be watching the matches closely and with great enthusiasm. After all, we always like favourable odds...

This city, Washington D.C., is the home of more Shakespeare Folios than anywhere in the world. 82 copies are carefully preserved and shared at The Folger Library. And at this time where the search for peace in the world, is more crucial than ever, I can only turn to Shakespeare’s genius to remind us of the plea for peace, spoken by the Duke of Burgundy at the conclusion of Henry V -

“my speech entreats, that I may know...why gentle Peace should not...bless us with her former qualities.”

Thank you, Mr. President and Mrs Trump, for your splendid dinner this evening which, may I say, is a very considerable improvement on the Boston Tea Party! So, whether your cup contains tea, wine, Scotch whisky, bourbon or even cola, let us raise our glasses and voices as we toast the past, the present and the future of our two proud and allied nations:

To the United States, and the United Kingdom. God bless both our countries.

Lawrence Wong: 'The likelihood of a fully blown trade war is growing', Implications of Liberation Day tariffs - 2025

4 April 2025, Singapore

My fellow Singaporeans, I’ve said before that the world is changing – in ways that will disadvantage small open economies like Singapore.

Some had previously questioned this assessment.

But the recent “Liberation Day” announcement by the US leaves no room for doubt.

It marks a seismic change in the global order. The era of rules-based globalisation and free trade is over. We are entering a new phase – one that is more arbitrary, protectionist, and dangerous.

For decades, the US was the bedrock for the free market economies of the world.

It championed free trade, and led efforts to build a multilateral trading system, anchored by clear rules and norms, where countries could achieve win-win benefits through trade.

This WTO system brought unprecedented stability and prosperity to the world, and to the US itself.

To be clear, the system is not perfect. Singapore, and many others, have long called for reform – to update the rules and to make the system better. But what the US is doing now is not reform. It is abandoning the entire system it had created.

Its new approach of reciprocal tariffs, country by country, is a complete rejection of the WTO framework.

The US has placed Singapore in the lowest base tier – with a tariff of 10%. So the direct impact on us may be limited – for now. But there are wider and more profound consequences. If other countries adopt the same approach as the US – abandoning the WTO, and trading only on their own preferred terms, country by country – it will spell trouble for all nations, especially small ones like Singapore.

We risk being squeezed out, marginalised and left behind.

We can also expect a strong global response to America’s tariffs.

Singapore has decided not to impose retaliatory tariffs. But other countries may not exercise the same restraint.

The likelihood of a full-blown global trade war is growing.

The impact of the higher tariffs, plus the uncertainty of what countries may do next, will weigh heavily on the global economy. International trade and investments will suffer, and global growth will slow.

Singapore will take a bigger hit than others, because of our heavy reliance on trade.

The last time the world experienced something like this was in the 1930s. Trade wars escalated into armed conflict, and eventually the Second World War.

No one can say how the current situation will unfold in the coming months or years.

But we must be clear-eyed about the dangers that are building up in the world.

Global institutions are getting weaker; international norms are eroding. More and more countries will act based on narrow self-interest, and use force or pressure to get their way.

This is the harsh reality of our world today.

We will stay vigilant. We will build up our capabilities.

We will strengthen our network of partnerships with like-minded countries.

We are more ready than many other countries, with our reserves, our cohesion, and our resolve.

But we must brace ourselves for more shocks to come. The global calm and stability we once knew will not return anytime soon. We cannot expect that the rules which protected small states will still hold.

I am sharing this with you so that we can all be mentally prepared. So that we will not be caught off guard. Let us not be lulled into complacency. The risks are real. The stakes are high.

The road ahead will be harder. But if we stay resolute and united, Singapore will continue to hold its own in this troubled world.

Melanie Stansbury: 'How can you sit here and defend this?', House Oversight Committee - 2025

12 February 2025, Washington DC, USA

Thank you Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member, Governor, welcome to our witnesses.

Thank you for being here today.

I've really appreciated your commentary. It's been real, it's been substantive, and I support much of the efficiency work that's being done at the states.

But I have to say, once again, welcome to the latest episode of the GOP Oversight Committee, where my colleagues at the beginning of this hearing once again voted to block a good government motion to carry out our most basic constitutional duty.

They voted against a motion this morning, just a few moments ago, to bring Elon Musk in front of this committee to discuss what he is doing to supposedly right-size the government as they are claiming in this hearing.

And I have to say to my colleagues, with all due respect, why are you shielding Elon Musk from coming in front of this committee - if that is what your intent is - with this hearing and the work that you want to do?

Why is the GOP and the White House shielding an unelected, unvetted, unqualified private citizen and billionaire who is literally dismantling our agencies while we sit here - and is literally breaking the law?

Maybe it's because while we're sitting here, he and his team are working across town here in Washington DC, entering federal agencies and federal buildings, hacking their data systems, firing federal employees, intimidating them, trying to force them to leave, shutting down vital programs, closing the Department of Education, the CIA, the DOJ, and threatening our domestic and international security and downloading the private and sensitive data of Americans at the Department of Treasury.

So what the hell is going on?

How can you sit here and defend this?

They are literally breaking the law, the Constitution, appropriations law, federal labor laws, and dozens of statutory laws that Congress has passed.

And meanwhile, my friends across the aisle are sitting here today are saying that we're hyperventilating, that we're just clutching our pearls.

Are you serious?

Are you that out of touch with the American people?

I mean, I guess that's what happens when you elect billionaires and put billionaires in charge of the federal government.

Just let them eat cake? Is that your message to the American people?

Because last week, while you were at Trump’s private resort in Florida and partying it up after the inauguration, telling the media that funding freezes wouldn't hurt real Americans, well, millions of real Americans were sent into total chaos and our states had to go to the courts to shut down your federal funding freeze.

While Trump was golfing, the Medicaid systems were shut down and locked out.

Hospitals and clinics were wondering if they were gonna be able to keep their doors open.

Food assistance and homeless programs across New Mexico were shut out of their grant programs that keep families literally fed and off the streets.

Head Starts, preschools, and children's programs were wondering if they were gonna be able to make payroll the next day or by the end of the week.

And while Elon Musk and a group of teenage software engineers were hacking your personal data at the Treasury Department, shutting down DOJ, the CIA, USAID, and ending diversity initiatives in the military, saying that the United States military could not honor Dr Martin Luther King.

Our proud military personnel and veterans who put their lives on the line every day for this country were wondering if they were gonna get their paychecks and veterans benefits.

So colleagues, we are not clutching our pearls or hyperventilating.

We are defending the millions of Americans who are under attack, the federal employees, the mothers, the fathers, the grandfathers being put out on leave, advocating for the people of color, the women, the members of our LGBTQ+, and yes,our trans community who are under fire right now, under the guise of canceling DEI programs.

Under the guise of so-called ‘undoing social engineering’ after years of progress in this country.

We are defending the proud federal service members who defend our national security, who serve our communities and keep our economy running.

Because I want to tell you something.

The American people are terrified, and you are that out of touch with your people, then you should talk to your constituents.

We had a town hall two days ago and 12,000 New Mexicans got on our call because the people are terrified in this county.

And that is why we are fighting back.

That is why we are trying to bring Elon Musk to this committee.

And that is why we are fighting against this agenda.

And with that, I yield back the floor.

Mitt Romney: 'What happened here today was an insurrection', Remarks from Capitol - 2021

6 January 2021, Capitol, Washington DC, USA

We gather today due to a selfish man’s injured pride and the outrage of his supporters whom he has deliberately misinformed for the past two months and stirred to action this very morning. What happened here today was an insurrection, incited by the President of the United States. Those who choose to continue to support his dangerous gambit by objecting to the results of a legitimate, democratic election will forever be seen as being complicit in an unprecedented attack against our democracy. They will be remembered for their role in this shameful episode in American history. That will be their legacy.
      
The objectors have claimed they are doing so on behalf of the voters. Have an audit, they say, to satisfy the many people who believe that the election was stolen. Please! No Congressional led audit will ever convince those voters, particularly when the President will continue to claim that the election was stolen. The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That is the burden, and the duty, of leadership. The truth is that President-elect Biden won this election. President Trump lost. Scores of courts, the President’s own Attorney General, and state election officials both Republican and Democrat have reached this unequivocal decision.
    
We must not be intimidated or prevented from fulfilling our constitutional duty. We must continue with the count of electoral college votes. In light of today’s sad circumstances, I ask my colleagues: Do we weigh our own political fortunes more heavily than we weigh the strength of our Republic, the strength of our democracy, and the cause of freedom? What is the weight of personal acclaim compared to the weight of conscience?
    
Leader McConnell said that the vote today is the most important in his 40 plus years of public service. That is not because this vote reveals something about the election; it is because this vote reveals something about ourselves. I urge my colleagues to move forward with completing the electoral count, to refrain from further objections, and to unanimously affirm the legitimacy of the presidential election.

Chris Christie: 'Donald Trump wants you to be angry every day because he’s angry', end of Presidential bid - 2024

11 January 2024, Windham, New Hampshire, USA

Good evening. Good evening. Thank you all for coming tonight. This is one of the cooler venues we’ve been to here, right? Happy to be here in Windham. Thank you all for taking the time to come. Glad we’re having better weather than we had yesterday. We were up in Rochester yesterday and it was snowing like real New Hampshire snow, so it was good to experience that. Thank you all for coming tonight. I appreciate you being here. I appreciate your support.

We started these town halls the same way. I started them the same way ever since we were up at St. Anselms in June to tell you why, why we’re in this race. We’re in this race to tell the truth. From the beginning, we’ve been in this race to tell the truth. Fact is that as we were watching this race come together from where Mary Pat and I were sitting at home in New Jersey, we were really concerned that nobody would tell the truth in this race about what’s really at stake and no one would tell the truth about Donald Trump. No one would tell the truth about his divisiveness, his stoking of anger for his own benefit in putting himself before the people of this country, myself included, who gave him the honor of being President of the United States from 2017 to 2021. Personal ambition is a necessary element for any political candidate. You got to get out of bed in the morning and be able to really believe in your heart that you have something to offer to folks that’s better and different. I have no argument with people who are involved in politics being ambitious. You need to have it, but it can’t be what governs your decision making. Ambition can’t be what makes you decide how to do things as a public figure. It could just be the fuel that gets you out of bed, that gets you in front of a room like this, that gets you on the phone raising money, that gets you working for people who you believe in and gets you working for yourself.

I made a political decision eight years ago when I dropped out of the race in 2016. I looked at the polls and I decided that Donald Trump was going to be the nominee and that since I’d known him for 15 years, that I could make him a better candidate and if he won, maybe a better president. I knew his flaws, but I also knew he was going to win the nomination so I decided that I would get behind him and support him. I let the ambition get ahead and in control of the decision-making. After I figured that out, I promised myself and I promised my wife that I would never, ever do that again, and I’m not going to.

For all the people who have been in this race, who have put their own personal ambition ahead of what’s right, they will ultimately have to answer the same questions that I had to answer after my decision in 2016. Those questions don’t ever leave. In fact, they’re really stubborn. They stay, and so I know how I’m answering those questions. I’ve never believed that Donald Trump was a foregone conclusion as our nominee in this race, and I knew that the case had to be made against him. Now, there are people in our party who are resigned with the fact that he was going to be the nominee, resigned with the fact that the case didn’t even need to be made because it would be a waste of time.

They sat on the sidelines and all they did was voice their opposition in private, behind closed doors quietly so no one could hear. That’s not leadership everybody. That’s cowardice. It’s cowardice and it’s hypocrisy. As a party, we need to be willing to take the responsibility for the part we’ve played in getting here. Our country is angry. It’s divided. It’s accomplishing little, and it is leading our citizens to be exhausted. You just look at what’s happening just in the last few days, good people who got into politics, I believe for the right reasons. People like Senator John Barrasso, people like Congressman Tom Emmer stand up and endorse Donald Trump.

They know better. I know they know better. People who continue to deny the results of the 2020 election. People in leadership in the House who go on TV and say that the people who attack the Capitol on January 6th are hostages. I’ll tell you who hostages are. The Israelis who are still being hidden in tunnels in Gaza against their will out of no fault of their own. These people speak louder for the folks who attacked our Capitol on January 6th than they are willing to stand up and speak for the people of Israel who are in tunnels in Gaza. That’s not leadership. That’s ambition and cowardice, which is outstripped their otherwise good judgment.

We want to change this party, and if we want to change this country, it’s hard work. It’s not easy. From the moment I got into the race, the decision that I made was really simple. I would rather lose by telling the truth than lie in order to win. I feel no differently today because this is a fight for the soul of our party and the soul of our country. Why have we resisted the calls to drop out of this race? Because unlike some of the other candidates, we’re fighting for something bigger than ourselves. We’re fighting for something bigger than self-interest. We’re fighting for something bigger than the next title. I’ve got plenty of titles, enough titles to last me the rest of my life. US Attorney, governor, husband, father, son, brother. I have enough titles to last me for the rest of my life. We are fighting for something bigger.

It’s something that conventional wisdom thinkers just can’t possibly understand. And so they’ve been saying for weeks and weeks and weeks because some polls that I should drop out of the race that I should get out for that reason. The smallness of the campaigns who spend more time arguing and worrying about who should get out of the race than they have spent going after the front-runner. They spend all their time saying, “Oh, Christie should get out. Scott should get out. Pence should get out. Hutchinson should get out. Burgum should get out. They and their donors have a different target every day to try to minimize the attention for their own campaign. How their own campaign is a campaign that doesn’t play to win. It’s a campaign that plays to not offend.” The problems in our country, the divisions and influx at our border, the problems with our enormous debt, the failures of our education system,

All of those things and much more will not be solved by people who are too afraid to talk about what the real problems are. If we ever have a hope of restoring this party to be a governing party of principles, we have to be willing to do the hard work and take some of the heat that comes with it. We have candidates in this race who have run away from forums where they’re afraid they were going to be booed. I run into the forums where I know I’m going to be booed because being booed for telling the truth is a badge of honor.

I’m proud of everything we’ve said and done so far, and I’m proud of all the people who have supported us and are willing to do what needs to be done to restore the soul of our country. See, because in the end, all those issues that we’ve talked about at all the town halls, they’re all really important, but they’re no more important than the most important issue, and that is the character of the candidate.

You don’t know what’s going to come across the next President’s desk. You think you can predict it, but you can’t. No one asked George W. Bush or Al Gore what they would do if four airliners were hijacked and flown into symbols of American power and killing thousands of Americans. No one asked them that in New Hampshire in 2000, but I was glad we had a man of character sitting behind the desk in the Oval Office when that attack came, because I knew George Bush would do everything he needed to do to protect this country and its people and put them first, not himself first.

Imagine just for a moment, if 9-11 had happened with Donald Trump behind the desk. The first thing he would’ve done was run to the bunker to protect himself. He would’ve put himself first before this country. And anyone who is unwilling to say that he is unfit to be President of the United States is unfit themselves to be President of the United States.

Campaigns are run to win. That’s why we do them. I see the chairman here in New Hampshire. He knows we run campaigns to win. My goal has never been to be just a voice against the hate and the division and the selfishness of what our party has become under Donald Trump. It’s also been the win the nomination and defeat Joe Biden and restore our party and our country to a new place of hope and optimism in this country. I’ve always said that if there came a point in time in this race where I couldn’t see a path to accomplishing that goal, that I would get out. And it’s clear to me tonight that there isn’t a path for me to win the nomination, which is why I’m suspending my campaign tonight for President of the United States.

I know, and I can see it from some of the faces here, that I’m disappointing some people by doing this. People who believe in our message and believe in what we’ve been doing. I also know though it’s the right thing for me to do because I want to promise you this. I’m going to make sure that in no way do I enable Donald Trump to ever be President of the United States again, and that’s more important than my own personal ambition.

So we have to decide now. We have to decide in the next 10 months, who do we want to be as a country? We forget that people are walking thousands of miles still to get here. We talk about the problems in the border and there are problems and we have to fix them, and we have to secure our border, and we have to do it in a way that’s smart and sensible and will work, because it’s not right to have a porous southern border in this country.

But I want you to remember something. Those people who are coming over that border, many of them are walking hundreds if not thousands of miles to get there because here is where they see hope. Here is where they see freedom. Here is where they see success. Here is where they see that flag, which means for them, thousands of miles away in other countries, all of those principles. We are still the indispensable nation for the rest of the world. We need to be the indispensable nation once again to each other. We need to believe in America as much as they believe in America. Right now, they believe in America in a way that this country, angry, divided, with selfish leadership, who puts their own ambition first, isn’t doing for our country anymore. We need to change that, and every election is an opportunity to change it.

We have people in this race, all they will do is tell you how bad everything is, how angry we should be. And there’s certainly sufficient reason for anger at the failures of the leaders we’ve selected, but they’re doing it not for that reason. It’s not a moment of honesty and transparency. Believe me, it’s not. It’s because they believe when we get angry, what we’ll do is naturally relate to the angriest voice in the room.

Donald Trump wants you to be angry every day because he’s angry. He wants you to be angry so that you’ll relate to his anger and then to vote for him. Please understand this. I have known him well for 22 years, more than anybody else in this race has known him, and I can promise you this. If you put him back behind the desk in the Oval Office and the choice comes and the decision is needed to be made as to whether he puts himself first or he puts you first, how much more evidence do you need that he will pick himself? And if that is what we have there, then people are going to remain angry, remain divided, and become even more exhausted than they are today.

The country that I think we should choose is the country that recognizes that our differences have always been our strength, not a weakness. Not something to divide us and anger us, but our differences have been our strength. We’ve come from different countries at different times to different places with different skills, with different religions, and yet only here can those people become an American. Can’t go to Germany and become a German, can’t come to Great Britain and become British, but you can come here and become an American, a real part of this country.

The moment we become a place where people no longer want to come in search of a better, freer, stronger nation, that will be the real problem that will be harder to solve. We back our allies

Around the world and they shouldn’t have to think twice about having America’s support. Yet, we have petty politics interfering with supporting freedom fighters in Ukraine. We have petty politics interfering with defending our friends in Israel. We have petty politics interfering with making sure Taiwan is armed to fight off the Chinese. They use the border as an excuse not to do those things.

How about we have a country where we can do all those things because leadership aspires to something greater? Not to appealing to the lowest common denominator, which is what the leadership of the last decade and a half in the White House has done, including the current president.

We need a country that once again feels like everyone has a stake in what we’re doing, that we can bring people together. It’s hard. It’s hard to do that. I did it for eight years in New Jersey, in a Democratic state with a Republican governor, and it’s hard. Because we have real disagreements, but those disagreements are small compared to the things that we have in common.

But it takes effort. We have to work at it. We have to believe that the other person has a rightful place in our country. We have to believe that whether we agree with them or not, they got elected too and they have a right to have a voice, and to be heard, and to have a vote and to have it count.

This race has always been bigger than me. It’s bigger than any one person if you do it the right way. I tried to change conversation in this race. I tried to force the conversation in this race, the conversation about the real thing that’s going on here. I stood on those debate stages, every one of them. The pundits in the media and the professional politicians who worked for other campaigns said I wasn’t going to make any of them right before every debate. No, Christie won’t make this one. He won’t make this one. I made every one of them.

But when I stood on there, I watched the other candidates arguing with each other as if the race was between us. Pretending as if the guy who’s in front and wasn’t there, wasn’t to be spoken about like Voldemort in the Harry Potter books. He who shall not be named, because they feared even bringing up his name would make him appear with his magical mystical powers to end their political careers. So they say ridiculous things, make ridiculous points.

Let me tell you, if Donald Trump becomes the nominee of this party, the moment that it happened was when Nikki Haley, and Ron DeSantis, and Tim Scott and Mike Pence and Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy stood on that stage in Milwaukee in August, and when we were asked, would you support someone who is a convicted felon to be President of the United States, they raised their hands. Give Ron credit. He had to look at everybody else first to see if he wanted to raise his hand, but then he raised his hand. Kind of like cheating off somebody’s paper in high school.

They raised their hands and I did not and will not, and I cannot countenance that behavior. I want you to imagine for a second that Jefferson, and Hamilton, and Adams, and Washington and Franklin were sitting here tonight. Do you think they could imagine that the country they risked their lives to create would actually be having a conversation about whether a convicted criminal should be President of the United States? I can’t tell you how many people in New Hampshire have asked me, “Why isn’t there a law against that?” The answer is because nobody ever thought that someone would have the audacity to run for President as a criminal and they never thought that any American electorate would actually support it. It’s not their fault that they didn’t put it in the Constitution along with 35 years old and a natural-born American citizen. They didn’t think let’s throw in here and not a criminal. They thought maybe we’d get that part. We’re going to show them now whether we do or we don’t in the next 10 months. Do we get it or don’t we? I’m out here saying what I’m saying for the last eight months because I didn’t want to take the chance that you might not get it. I wanted to be the voice that was telling you, this is unacceptable. We deserve better.

Now there’s some people who want the courts to save us. It’s not up to the courts to save us. I remember what Benjamin Franklin said, I’m sure many of you do too. When he was walking down the street in Philadelphia after the Constitutional convention and a woman approached him on the street and said, “Mr. Franklin, what kind of government did you give us?” He said to the woman, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Benjamin Franklin’s words were never more relevant in America than they are right now. The last time they were this relevant was the Civil War, which of course we know was caused by slavery. The last time those words were that relevant back in those days, and now we are confronted 160 years later with that question again.

A republic, if we can keep it. It’s up to you. I’ve been running ads all over New Hampshire, ending it saying, “It’s up to you,” and it is. It’s not up to me. I’ve done everything I can and it’s not about me. The other candidates, some of them have made it about them. It’s okay, but you forget that the privilege to serve in public office is not about you, but about the people who give you the privilege, then you lose your way.

So tonight is a sad night for me and for Mary Pat because believe it or not, we really love the people in this state. We loved being here. Both, of our experiences in 2016 and in 2024 and coming to New Hampshire and holding two hour town hall meetings and answering every question has been one of the great joys and honors of our lives. The relationships we’ve made here have been lifelong relationships now that we’re going to keep going forward, no matter what else we do with our lives and our careers.

I look around this room and see so many people who have been to so many of these meetings and have been so wonderfully supportive of us. I’d start to name names, but then I’d screw that up and I’d forget somebody who is really important to us. So I’m not going to do that. You know who you are and you know how much we treasure our relationships with you. But I will mention one person, because she texted

… with me, either last night or this morning. And she said to me, “Please, please don’t drop out. We need you.” And that was our friend Tony Papas. And because I had decided at that moment in my heart, and so had Mary Pat that we were going to, I didn’t respond to you.

Tony Papas (27:27):

I understand.

Chris Christie (27:29):

Because I didn’t want to lie to you. But I turned to Mary Pat and I handed her the phone and showed her. I said, “These are the kind of people that we’re fighting for. The people who believe that what we have to offer is something important and special, and that what we’re talking about matters.” And it meant a lot to me to get that text from you, Tony, because I know that you’ve been through a lot of campaigns here in this state. And to hear from you that you wanted me to stay made me feel guilty, but also made me feel wonderful. And both those feelings can exist at the same time. And I thank you for that. And what Tony, and I pointed out what Tony is represented by a lot of people in this room who we’ve heard from over the last few weeks, and we appreciate it very much.

We appreciate your friendship, your hospitality, your warmth, your questions, your challenges, and everything that you’ve provided to us in this state, both eight years ago and over the last eight months. I’ll just end with this. I believe and have always believed that this is the greatest country That the world has ever seen. And I still believe that today. The phrase “Make America Great Again” has always offended me because it implied that America wasn’t great. America is great. It was great long before those red hats showed up, and it will be great long after they are consigned to history. This country is a great country and the only thing that stops us from having it be greater is our willingness to work hard enough to make it greater.

It is not easy to stand up and fight for what we believe in when the wind is blowing in our face. It is not easy to stand up and fight the loudest voice in the room. It isn’t easy to look at someone who we know is unfit and unable to represent what the heart of this country really is and tell them, ” Thank you for your service. It’s time for you to go home.” But that’s what we need to do in the next 10 months if we are going to keep in concert with the spirit of this country. I don’t know how anybody could want to be President of the United States if they don’t love America. And you cannot love America if you don’t love every American. Love the Americans who look different than you. Love the Americans who speak different than you. Love the Americans who think different than you. Love the Americans who believe and have faith that is different than yours. We have had Donald Trump and other candidates in this race say they don’t want people coming to this country if there’s not of our religion.

We don’t have a religion in America. Our Constitution is founded on there being no national religion. Yet we’re abandoning that too by continuing to respond positively to the siren song of someone who would actually say something like that as a candidate for President of the United States meant to only divide. If we don’t stand for those principles, we will be the generation that gave this country away. I refuse. When I got into this race, I refused. And tonight, even though I’m suspending this campaign, I am not going away and my voice is not going away. And I’m going to continue to say all the things that I’ve said and whatever platforms are permitted to me as we go forward, the very same things and new things that I’m sure I’ll have the opportunity to comment on as we go forward. Because I’m not going to be part of the generation that gives this country away. I am not going to be part of a generation who willingly stands by and says, “It’s too hard. He’s too loud, he’s too strong.”

That’s what defeat looks and sounds like. And the only country that can defeat America is America. And the only people that can stop it are us. So I thank you for the enormous honor to have the chance to run for President of the United States again. I thank you for your time to listen to what I’ve had to say and to give it thought and consideration. I thank you for the opportunity to come into your homes, into your neighbor neighborhoods, into your schools, into your churches, and to be able to make the case for the kind of America that I hope we have. And I thank you most of all for with your attendance at these events for and your questions for continuing to renew my faith in America and Americans.

I love this country because my heart is open to every American and every person who cares about making this a better place. And so while I’m disappointed by the results of this election, I will never be disappointed by the opportunity and experience that I’ve had. And I promise you that in whatever way, Mary Pat and I can figure out, we are going to continue to fight for you and for this country in a way that will make you proud that we met. As I’m proud to have met all of you through this process. So thank you for coming tonight and thank you for all your support. I appreciate it very much.

Joe Biden: 'Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?', launch of reelection campaign, January 6th anniversary - 2024

5 January 2024, Valley Forge, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Thank you.  Please.  Thank you.  Please.  Thank you very, very much.

Today — the topic of my speech today is deadly serious, and I think it needs to be made at the outset of this campaign.

In the winter of 1777, it was harsh and cold as the Continental Army marched to Valley Forge. General George Washington knew he faced the most daunting of tasks: to fight and win a war against the most powerful empire that existed in the world at the time. 

His mission was clear.  Liberty, not conquest.  Freedom, not domination. National independence, not individual glory. 

America made a vow.  Never again would we bow down to a king. 

The months ahead would be incredibly difficult.  But General Washington knew something in his bones, something about the spirit of the troops he was leading, something — something about the soul of the nation he [that] was struggling to be born.

In his general order, he predicted, and I quote, “with one heart and one mind,” “with fortitude and with patience,” they would overcome every difficulty — the troops he was leading. 

And they did. They did.

This army that lacked blankets and food, clothes and shoes. This army whose march left bloody, bare footprints in the snow.  This ragtag army made up of ordinary people.  Their mission, George Washington declared, was nothing less than “a sacred cause.”  That was the phrase used: “a sacred cause.” 

Freedom, liberty, democracy.  American democracy. 

I just visited the grounds of Valley Forge. I’ve been there a number of times from the time I was a Boy Scout years ago.  You know, it’s the very site that I think every American should visit because it tells the story of the pain and the suffering and the true patriotism it took to make America.

Today, we gather in a new year, some 246 years later, just one day before January 6th, a day forever shared in our memory because it was on that day that we nearly lost America — lost it all. 

Today, we’re here to answer the most important of questions. Is democracy still America’s sacred cause?  I mean it.  (Applause.)

This is not rhetorical, academic, or hypothetical.  Whether democracy is still America’s sacred cause is the most urgent question of our time, and it’s what the 2024 election is all about.  

The choice is clear.  Donald Trump’s campaign is about him, not America, not you.  Donald Trump’s campaign is obsessed with the past, not the future.  He’s willing to sacrifice our democracy, put himself in power. 

Our campaign is different.  For me and Kamala, our campaign is about America.  It’s about you.  It’s about every age and background that occupy this country.  It’s about the future we’re going to continue to build together.

And our campaign is about preserving and strengthening our American democracy.  Three years ago tomorrow, we saw with our own eyes the violent mob storm the United States Capitol.  It was almost in disbelief as you first turned on the television. 

For the first time on our history, insurrectionists had come to stop the peaceful tranfer — transfer of power in America — first time — smashing windows, shattering doors, attacking the police. 

Outside, gallows were erected as the MAGA crowd chanted, “Hang Mike Pence.” 

Inside, they hunted for Speaker Pelosi [of] the House, was chanting, as they marched through and smashed windows, “Where’s Nancy?”

Over 140 police officers were injured. Jill and I attended the funeral of police officers who died as a result of the events of that day. 

And because Donald — because of Donald Trump’s lies, they died because these lies brought a mob to Washington. 

He promised it would be “wild,” and it was.  He told the crowd to “fight like hell,” and all hell was unleashed. 

He promised he would right them — right them.  Everything they did, he would be side by side with them.  Then, as usual, he left the dirty work to others.  He retreated to the White House.

As America was attacked from within, Donald Trump watched on TV in the private small dining room off my Oval — off the Oval Office. 

The entire nation watched in horror.  The whole world watched in disbelief.  And Trump did nothing. 

Members of his staff, members of his family, Republican leaders who were under attack for the — at that very moment pled with him: “Act.  Call off the mob.” 

Imagine had he gone out and said, “Stop.” 

And still, Trump did nothing.  It was among the worst derelictions of duty by a president in American history: an attempt to overturn a free and fair election by force and violence.

A record 81 million people voted for my candidacy and to end his presidency.  Trump lost the popular vote by 7 million. 

Trump’s claims about the 2020 election never could stand up in court.  Trump lost 60 court cases — 60.  Trump lost the Republican-controlled states.  Trump lost before a Trump-appointed judge — and then judges.  And Trump lost before the United States Supreme Court.  (Applause.)  All of it, he lost.

Trump lost recount after recount after recount in state after state.  But in desperation and weakness, Trump and his MAGA followers went after election officials who en- — who ensured your power as a citizen would be heard.  These public servants had their lives forever upended by attacks and death threats for simply doing their jobs.

In Atlanta, Georgia, a brave Black mother and her daughter, Ruby Freeman and Shaye Moss, were doing their jobs as elected workers until Donald Trump and his MAGA followers targeted and threatened them, forcing them from their homes and unleashing racist vitriol on them.  Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, was just hit with $148 million judgment for cruelty and defamation that he inflicted against them. 

Other state and local elected officials across the country faced similar personal attacks.  In addition, Fox News agreed to pay a record $8- — $787 million for the lies they told about voter fraud.

Let’s be clear about the 2020 election. Trump exhausted every legal avenue available to him to overturn the election — every one.  But the legal path just took Trump back to the truth that I had won the election and he was a loser. (Applause.)

Well, knowing how his mind works now, he had one — he had one act left — one desperate act available to him: the violence of January the 6th. 

And since that day, more than 1,200 people have been charged for their assault on the Capitol.  Nearly 900 of them have been convicted or pled guilty.  Collectively, to date, they have been sentenced to more than 840 years in prison. (Applause.)

And what has Trump done?  Instead of calling them “criminals,” he’s called these insurrectionists “patriots.”  They’re “patriots.”  And he promised to pardon them if he returns to office. 

Trump said that there was “a lot of love” on January the 6th.  The rest of the nation, including law enforcement, saw a lot of hate and violence. One Capitol police officer called it a “medieval battle.”  That same officer called vile — was called vile, racist names. 

He said he was more afraid in the Capitol of the United States of America, in the chambers, than when he was fighting as a soldier in the war in Iraq.  He said he was more afraid inside the halls of Congress than fighting in the war in Iraq.

In trying to rewrite the facts of January 6th, Trump is trying to steal history the same way he tried to steal the election.  But he — we knew the truth because we saw it with our own eyes.  It wasn’t like something — a story being told.  It was on television repeatedly.  We saw it with our own eyes. 

Trump’s mob wasn’t a peaceful protest.  It was a violent assault.  They were insurrectionists, not patriots.  They weren’t there to uphold the Constitution; they were there to destroy the Constitution.

Trump won’t do what an American president must do.  He refuses to denounce political violence. 

So, hear me clearly.  I’ll say what Donald Trump won’t.  Political violence is never, ever acceptable in the United States political system — never, never, never.  It has no place in a democracy.  None.  (Applause.)

You can’t be pro-insurrectionist and pro-American. 

You know, Trump and his MAGA supporters not only embrace political violence, but they laugh about it.  At his rally, he jokes about an intruder, whipped up by the Big Trump Lie, taking a hammer to Paul Pelosi’s skull and echoing the very same words used on January 6th: “Where’s Nancy?” 

And he thinks that’s funny.  He laughed about it.  What a sick — (laughter and applause).  My God.

I think it’s despicable, seriously — not just for a president, for any person to say that.  But to say it to the whole world listening. 

When I was overseas — anyway.  (Laughter.) 

Trump’s assault on democracy isn’t just part of his past.  It’s what he’s promising for the future.  He’s being straightforward.  He’s not hiding the ball. 

His first rally for the 2024 campaign opened with a choir of January 6th insurrectionists singing from prison on a cell phone while images of the January 6th riot played on a big screen behind him at his rally.

Can you believe that?  This is like something out of a fairy tale — a bad fairy tale.

Trump began his 2024 campaign by glorifying the failed violent insurrectionist — insurrection at our — on our Capitol.

The guy who claims law and order sows lawlessness and disorder.

Trump’s not concerned about your future, I promise you.  Trump is now promising a full-scale campaign of “revenge” and “retribution” — his words — for some years to come.  They were his words, not mine.  He went on to say he would be a dictator on day one.

I mean, if I were writing a book of fiction and I said an American president said that, and not in jest —

He called it, and I quote, the termina- — quote — this is a quote — the “termination of all the rules, regulation, and articles, even those found in the U.S. Constitution,” should be terminated, if it’s his will.

It’s really kind of hard to believe. Even found in the Constitution, he could terminate?

He’s threatened the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the death penalty.  Says he should be put to death because the Chairman put his oath to the Constitution ahead of his personal loyalty to Trump.

This coming from a president who called — when he visited a cemetery, called dead soldiers “suckers” and “losers.”  Remember that?

Sometimes, I’m really happy the Irish in me can’t be seen.  (Laughter.)

It was right around the time I was at Beau’s grave, Tommy.

How dare he?  Who in God’s name does he think he is?

With former aides, Trump plans to invoke the Insurrectionist Act — the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy — which he’s not allowed to do in ordinary circumstances — allow him to deploy U.S. military forces on the streets of America.  He said it.

He calls those who oppose him “vermin.”  He talks about the blood of Americans being poisoned, echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.

He proudly posts on social media the words that best describe his 2024 campaign, quote, “revenge”; quote, “power”; and, quote, “dictatorship.”

There’s no confusion about who Trump is and what he intends to do.

I placed my hand on our family Bible, and I swore an oath on the very same steps of the Capitol just 14 days after the attack on January the 6th.

As I looked out over the capital city, whose streets were lined with National Guard to prevent another attack, I saw an American that had been pushed to the brink — an America that had been pushed to the brink.

But I felt enormous pride — not in winning.  I felt enormous pride in America because American democracy had been tested and American democracy had held together.  And when Trump had seen weakness in our democracy and continues to talk about it, I saw strength — your strength.  It’s not hyperbole.  Your strength.  Your integrity.  American strength and integrity.

Ordinary citizens, state election officials, the American judicial system had put the Constitution first and sometimes at their peril — at their peril.

Because of them, because of you, the will of the people prevailed, not the anger of the mob or the appetites of one man.

When the attack on January 6th happened, there was no doubt about the truth.  At the time, even Republican members of Congress and Fox News commentators publicly and privately condemned the attack.

As one Republican senator said, “Trump’s behavior was embarrassing and humiliating for the country.”  But now, that same senator and those same people have changed their tune.

As time has go one — gone on, politics, fear, money, all have intervened.  And now these MAGA voices who know the truth about Trump on January 6th have abandoned the truth and abandoned democracy.

They made their choice.  Now the rest of us — Democrats, independents, mainstream Republicans — we have to make our choice.

I know mine.  And I believe I know America’s.

We will defend the truth, not give in to the Big Lie.  We’ll embrace the Constitution and the Declaration, not abandon it.  We’ll honor the sacred cause of democracy, not walk away from it.

Today, I make this sacred pledge to you.  The defense, protection, and preservation of American democracy will remain, as it has been, the central cause of my presidency.  (Applause.)

America, as we begin this election year, we must be clear: Democracy is on the ballot.  Your freedom is on the ballot.  (Applause.)

Yes, we’ll be voting on many issues: on the freedom to vote and have your vote counted, on the freedom of choice, the freedom to have a fair shot, the freedom from fear.  And we’ll debate and disagree. 

Without democracy, no progress is (inaudible) possible.  Think about it.  The alternative to democracy is dictatorship — the rule of one, not the rule of “We the People.” 

That’s what the soldiers of Valley Forge understood.  And so was me — was what we have to understand it as well.  We’ve been blessed so long with a strong, stable democracy.  It’s easy to forget why so many before us risked their lives and strengthened democracy, what our lives would be without it.

Democracy means having the freedom to speak your mind, to be who you are, to be who you want to be.  Democracy is about being able to bring about peaceful change.  Democracy — democracy is how we’ve opened the doors of opportunity wider and wider with each successive generation, notwith- — notwithstanding our mistakes.

But if democracy falls, we’ll lose that freedom.  We’ll lose the power of “We the People” to shape our destiny.  If you doubt me, look around the world.  Travel with me as I meet with other heads of state throughout the world. 

Look at the authoritarian leaders and dictators Trump says he admires — he, out loud, says he admires.  I won’t go through them all.  It would take too long.

Look, remember when he — when he refers to what he calls the “love letter” exchanges between he and the dictator of North Korea?  Those women and men out there in the audience who ever fought for the American military, would you ever believe you’d hear a president say something like that?

His admiration for Putin — I can go on. 

And look at what these autocrats are doing to limit freedom in their countries.  They’re limiting freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom to assemble, women’s rights, LGB[T]Q rights, people are going to jail, so much more. 

It’s true: The push and pull of American history is not a fairy tale.  Every stride forward in America is met with a ferocious backlash, many times from those who fear progress and those who exploit that fear for their own personal gain; from those who traffic in lies told for power and profit; from those who are driven by grievance and grift, consumed by conspiracy and victimhood; from those who seek to bury history and ban books.

Did you ever think you’d be at a political event talking about book banning in a presidential election? 

The choice and contest between those forces — those competing forces, between solidarity and division — is perennial.  But this time, it’s so different. 

You can’t have a contest — you can’t have a contest if you see politics as an all-out war instead of a peaceful way to resolve our differences. All-out war is what Trump wants. 

That’s why he doesn’t understand the most fundamental truth about this country.  Unlike other nations on Earth, America is not built on ethnicity, religion, geography.  We’re the only nation in the history of the world built on an idea — not hyperbole — built on an idea: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created equal.”

It’s an idea declared in the Declaration, created in a way that we viewed everybody as equal and be — should be treated equally throughout their lives.

We’ve never fully lived up to that.  We have a long way to go.  But we’ve never walked away from the idea.  We’ve never walked away from it before.  But I promise you, I will not let Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans — (applause) — force us to walk away now.

We’re living in an era where a determined minority is doing everything in its power to try to destroy our democracy for their own agenda.  The American people know it, and they’re standing bravely in the breach. 

Remember, after 2020, January 6th insurrection to undo the election in which more Americans had voted than any other in American history?  America saw the threat posed to the country, and they voted him out.  In 2022, historic midterm election, in state after state, election after election, the election deniers were defeated. 

Now, in 2024, Trump in running as the “denier-in-chief” — the election denier-in-chief.  Once again, he’s saying he won’t honour the results of the election if he loses.

Trump says he doesn’t understand.  Well, he still doesn’t understand the basic truth, and that is you can’t love your country only when you win.  (Applause.)  You can’t love your country only when you win.

So, I’ll keep my commitment to be president for all of America, whether you voted for me or not.  I’ve done it for the last three years, and I’ll continue to do it. 

Together, we can keep proving that America is still a country that believes in decency, dignity, honesty, honor, truth.  We still believe that no one, not even the President, is above the law.  We still believe — (applause) — the vast majority of us still believe that everyone deserves a fair shot at making it.  We’re still a nation that gives hate no safe harbor. 

I tell you from my experience working with leaders around the world — and I mean this sincerely, not a joke — that America is still viewed as the beacon of democracy for the world. 

I can’t tell you how many — how many world leaders — and I know all of them, virtually all of them — grab my arm in private and say, “He can’t win. Tell me. No, my country will be at risk.” 

Think of how many countries, Tommy, you know that are on the brink- — on the edge.  Imagine. 

We still believe in “We the People,” and that includes all of us, not some of us.

Let me close with this.  On that cold winter of 1777, George Washington and his American troops at Valley Forge waged a battle on behalf of a revolutionary idea that everyday people — like where I come from and the vast majority of you — not a king or a dictator — that everyday people can govern themselves without a king or a dictator. 

In fact, in the rotunda of the Capitol, there’s a giant painting of General George Washington — not President Washington — and he is resigning his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army. 

A European king at this — at the time said, after he won the revolution, “Now is the time for him to declare his kingship.”

But instead, the mob that attacked the Capitol, waving Trump flags and Confederate flags, stormed right past that portrait.  That image of George Washington gave them no pause, but it should have.

The artist that painted that portrait memorialized that moment because he said it was, quote, “one of the highest moral lessons ever given to the world.”  End of quote.

George Washington was at the height of his power.  Having just defeated the most powerful empire on Earth, could have held onto the power as long as he wanted.  He could have made himself not a future president but a future monarch, in effect. 

And, by the way, when he got elected president, he could have stayed for two, three, four, five terms, until he died.  But that wasn’t the America he and the American troops at Valley Forge had fought for.

In America, genuine leaders — democratic leaders, with a small “d” — don’t hold on to power relentlessly.  Our leaders return power to the people.  And they do it willingly, because that’s the deal.  You do your duty.  You serve your country. 

And ours is a country worthy of service, as many Republican presidents and Democratic presidents have shown over the years. 

We’re not perfect.  But at our best, we face on — we face head on the good, the bad, the truth of who we are.  We look in the mirror and ultimately never pretend we’re something we’re not.  That’s what great nations do.  And we’re a great nation.  We’re the greatest nation on the face of the Earth.  We really are.  (Applause.)

That’s the America I see in our future.  We get up.  We carry on.  We never bow.  We never bend.  We speak of possibilities, not carnage.  We’re not weighed down by grievances.  We don’t foster fear.  We don’t walk around as victims. 

We take charge of our destiny.  We get our job done with our peop- — the help of the people we find in America, who find their place in the changing world and dream and build a future that not only they but all people deserve a shot at. 

We don’t believe — none of you believe America is failing.  We know America is winning.  That’s American patriotism.  (Applause.)

And it’s not winning because of Joe Biden.  It’s winning. 

This is the first national election since January 6th insurrection placed a dagger at the throat of American democracy — since that moment.  We all know who Donald Trump is.  The question we have to answer is: Who are we?  That’s what’s at stake.  (Applause.)  Who are we? 

In the year ahead, as you talk to your family and friends, cast your ballots, the power is in your hands.  After all we’ve been through in our history, from independence to Civil War to two world wars to a pandemic to insurrection, I refuse to believe that, in 2024, we Americans will choose to walk away from what’s made us the greatest nation in the history of the world: freedom, liberty.  (Applause.)

Democracy is still a sacred cause.  And there’s no country in the world better positioned to lead the world than America. 

That’s why — (applause) — I’ve said it many times.  That’s why I’ve never been more optimistic about our future.  And I’ve been doing this a hell of a long time.  (Laughter.)

Just have to remember who we are — with patience and fortitude, with one heart.  We are the United States of America, for God’s sake.  (Applause.)

I mean it.  There is nothing — I believe with every fiber that there is nothing beyond our capacity if we act together and decently with one another.  Nothing, nothing, nothing.  (Applause.)  I mean it.

We’re the only nation in the world that’s come out of every crisis stronger than we went into that crisis.  That was true yesterday and it’s true today, and I guarantee you will be true tomorrow. 

God bless you all.  And may God protect our troops.  (Applause.)

Thank you.  Thank you.

Donald Trump: 'I am your warrior, I am your justice, I am your retribution'. CPAC closing address - 2023

4 March 2023, Gaylord National Resort, Maryland, USA

Well, thank you very much and I’m thrilled to be back at CPAC with thousands of great and true American patriots, and that’s what you are. I want to start by thanking Matt and Mercedes Schlapp and everyone at the American Conservative Union. Thank you, Matt, for hosting this wonderful event. It really has been something over the years. I also want to, we have so many people here, I’m going to leave out some, but they’ll understand. We have a lot of Congress, a lot of Senate, a lot of everything, but we’ll do a few words and a few names. Diana Harshbarger, thank you, Diana, Congresswoman. Mike Collins, Elise Stefanik, I call her the rocket ship. Where is Elise? She’s a rocket. Thank you, Elise. Jason Smith, a friend of mine, great guy. Thank you, Jason. Wesley Hunt, Cory Mills, Dr. Ronny Jackson. He’s a doctor, he’s an admiral. Where’s Ronny Jackson? He said I’m the healthiest man ever to be president by far. Said, if I wouldn’t eat junk food, I’d live 200 years. Where is he? He’s the greatest. We love you, Ronny.

(01:25)
He had a lot of things under his belt. Another one who’s a serious character, but a great guy. You got to know him. He’s a great guy. Matt Gates. Where’s Matt? Thank you, Matt. Great guy. He’s a brave guy. And another brave person, she started off very slow, very, very slow. She’s a low-key person, Marjorie Taylor Greene. Where is Marjorie? Thank you. Thank you, Marjorie. A good location, Marge. A friend of mine, a man who’s terrific, almost won for governor of New York. Could have done it, but so many people have moved out of New York, it gets tougher. But he’s a terrific guy, a great lawyer too, and he is a strong guy. He stopped somebody coming at him with a knife. I don’t know. He grabbed that guy’s hand, he looked pretty tough, and he drove him to the ground. Lee Zeldin, where’s Lee? Where’s Lee? Hi, Lee. Thank you. Good job, Lee. West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrissey. Patrick, thank you, Patrick. Thank you. Thank you, Patrick.

(02:39)
Ohio attorney general Dave Yost. Thank you, Dave. Former acting attorney general of the United States, Matt Whitaker, Matt. A friend of mine who knows the border, knows more about illegal immigration than the next 10 people combined, Stephen Miller. Steven, hi, Steve. Great, good to have you here. One of my favorite generals, a guy who’s just great. He’s got a lot of common sense and a lot of smarts. And he’s been doing a lot of television lately and he does a fantastic job, General Keith Kellogg. Thank you, Keith. A very popular man in South America, very, very popular in Brazil, the former president of Brazil. President Bolsonaro, a great honor.

(03:41)
I don’t know, you beat all these US politicians. That’s pretty good. And his son, who’s a friend of mine, Brazilian chamber of deputies, Eduardo Bolsonaro. Hi, Eduardo. Great job you’re doing. Just got reelected. And somebody that we really like in this room, I think. I certainly like a lot. He had a lot of courage, very smart guy, James O’Keefe. Where’s James? Where is James? Thank you, James. Good guy. As we gather today, our country and our movement, the greatest political movement in the history of our country, as nobody going to even question it, even the fake news media. That’s a lot of fake news back there. And by the way, I want to thank the fire department. Look at these people. They’re up the rafters. Thank you, fire department. But the greatest in our history, most important battle in our lives is taking place right now as we speak. For seven years, you and I have been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the people who hate it and want to absolutely destroy it.

(05:25)
The sinister forces trying to kill America have done everything they can to stop me, to silence you, and to turn this nation into a socialist dumping ground for criminals, junkies, Marxists, thugs, radicals, and dangerous refugees that no other country wants. No other country wants them. If those opposing us succeed, our once beautiful USA will be a failed country that no one will even recognize. A lawless, open borders, crime-ridden, filthy, communist nightmare. That’s what it’s going and that’s where it’s going. I used to say that we will never be a socialist country. I said it oftentimes. I said it once at the State of the Union address and people didn’t understand what I was saying. But I’d shout it out loud and I was right because that train has passed the station long ago of socialism. It never even came close to stopping, frankly.

(06:26)
We’re now in a Marxism state of mind, a communism state of mind, which is far worse. We’re a nation in decline. Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know that we are the only ones who can stop them. They know that this room is so important, the people in this room. They know that we can defeat them. They know that we will defeat them. But they’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you and I’m just standing in their way. That’s all I’m doing. I’m standing in their way. And that’s why I’m here today. That’s why I’m standing before you, because we are going to finish what we started. We started something that was America. We’re going to complete the mission. We’re going to see this battle through to ultimate victory. We’re going to make America great again. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the warmongers. They are people that don’t get it, although, in some cases, they get it. They get it for their wallets, but we can’t do that. We can’t let that happen. We will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the communists. We will throw off the political class that hates our country. They actually hate our country. No walls, no borders, bad elections, no voter ID. We will beat the Democrats. We will route the fake news media. We will expose and appropriately deal with the rhinos. We will evict Joe Biden from the White House. And we will liberate America from these villains and scoundrels once and for all. When we started this journey, a journey like there has never been before, there’s never been anything like this. We had a Republican Party that was ruled by freaks, neocons, globalists, open border zealots, and fools. But we are never going back to the party of Paul Ryan, Karl Rove, and Jeb Bush.

(09:14)
We’re not going back to people that want to destroy our great social security system, even some in our own party, I wonder who that might be, that want to raise the minimum age of social security to 70, 75, or even 80 in some cases. And that are out to cut Medicare to a level that it will no longer be recognizable. And when that was their original thought, that’s what they always come back to. Remember that. You have to remember that. You heard it here first. We are never going back to a party that wants to give unlimited money to fight foreign wars that are endless wars, that are stupid wars. But at the same time, demands that we cut veterans benefits and retirement benefits at home.

(10:21)
Our soldiers will no longer live in the streets of our city. We have cities where our soldiers, our great soldiers, are living on concrete, they’re living on asphalt. We will take care of our soldiers. There has never been a time like this. Illegal immigrants come in and we house them in the Waldorf Astoria and many other of the greatest hotels anywhere in the world. But our soldiers, we do nothing for them. They sleep out at night and they freeze. They freeze in the cold and they die in the heat, while people that came into our country illegally are in beautiful hotel suites, perhaps watching us on television right now. We were taking care of our soldiers just a short while ago, but we don’t do that anymore. But we’ll start doing it again. Our soldiers are very special to us. When a wonderful town in Ohio has difficulty, we are going to take care of that town, that city, that village prior to worrying about the rest of the world.

(11:39)
We’re taking care of the problems of the rest of the world that they’re not taking care of themselves. They have us put up the money. You know what I’m talking about. If you look at Ukraine, and we all feel so badly about it, but why isn’t NATO putting up dollar for dollar with us? We put up $140 billion and they put up just a tiny fraction of that. And we all want to see success, but it’s far more important to them than it is to us because of that location. We are never going to be a country ruled by entrenched political dynasties in both parties. Rotten special interests, China-loving politicians, of which there are many. You listening to this, Mitch McConnell? You listening? And a militant left wing news media that’s either frightened of telling the truth or is truly evil and bad. I don’t know. I think in many ways they’re frightened, but you never really know which. We are not going back to this mindset, not now, not ever, not ever.

(13:06)
And thank you, Mark Levin, for being here tonight. Thank you very much. And Julie. Thank you. Thank you, Mark. Very important voice. Stay healthy, Mark. We can’t lose you. Just stay healthy. Stay healthy, Mark. We’re not going to lose you. In 2016, we took away the power of this corrupt political class. And we did more in four years than any administration in the history of our country, if you look at what we did. We shut down the illegal foreign invasion on our borders and achieved the most secure border in US history. We deported illegal criminal aliens by the tens of thousands. MS-13, taking them out by the thousands. We set records every single week, we were cleaning up our country. I smashed the false idols of the free trade fanatics. These are fools or they’re getting very rich, probably the second. And left the China lobby reeling from our historic tariffs and taxes that we charge them, bringing in hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our treasury from China.

(14:22)
Thank you very much, China. When no other president had gotten even 25 cents, not one president got anything from them. Our trade deficits were five, six, $700 billion a year. A billion, think of it, dollars a year. Not sustainable by any country. They built their military and they have a very powerful military with the money that we gave them. How stupid are we? I was the only president in modern history who did not have any new wars, no new wars. I finished some old ones. I finished some old ones. Remember when the Democrats and my Republican opponents would often look at me during the debates or whatever and they’d say, “No, no. He’s going to bring us into World War III because it’s a personality type.” They said I had the personality. No, I had the personality type that kept us out of wars because people knew that they weren’t going to mess around with us.

(15:40)
That’s why I rebuilt our military. We were strong, we were safe. And I told delinquent foreign nations, they were delinquent, they weren’t paying their bills, that if they wanted our protection, they had to pay up and they had to pay up now. And they did. They paid $ 450 billion as soon as I said, “No, I won’t be protecting you if you don’t pay.” We truly had a policy of peace through strength. This was a serious, powerful policy. And we didn’t have to lose our loved ones fighting wars in countries that nobody’s ever heard of. I stood firm against the forces of anarchy and decay. I arrested the Marxists to topple statues of our great heroes in Washington, DC. We arrested them. They were knocking down the most beautiful artwork, the most beautiful statues of great heroes. They didn’t even know who they were doing. They just wanted anarchy. And I passed and signed an executive order. Anybody that that gets 10 years in jail with no negotiation. It’s not 10, but it turns into three months.

(16:59)
And it’s an incredible thing that stopped right away. They were heading to the Jefferson Memorial. They wanted to take out Thomas Jefferson. I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re going to let that happen. But we passed it. It was a very old law that we founded. One of my very good legal people, along with Steven Miller, they found it. They said, “sir, I don’t know if you want to try and bring this back.” I said, “I do.” And as soon as we passed it, that was the end that just stopped. It’s amazing. It’s a miracle. We banned transgender insanity from our military and signed the world’s first ban on critical race theory long before anybody had even heard of the term. It was all banned, everything was good.

(17:51)
When Biden came back in, this guy came in and he put everything right back in place where it was. We were paying these people hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salary among our highest paid people to teach all of this nonsense to our military yet. But it was all out, it was all done. There’s only one president in history who has ever taken on the entire corrupt establishment in Washington. And when we win in 2024, we will do it again even stronger, faster, and better, because… now I am experienced and I know the people of Washington. I didn’t know them. I was from New York. I only came here 17 times, they said. I read that in the fake news, so probably it’s not true, but it’s the best I could do. And I never stayed over. I was from New York. But I now know the good ones, the bad ones, the weak ones, the strong ones. I know them all. I know the people that have to do the job and can do the job. A lot of them are in this room right now.

(19:13)
And as I did for four incredible years, I will put America first every single time, every single day. From the beginning, we have been attacked by a sick and sinister opposition, the radical left communists, the bureaucrats, the fake news media, the big money special interests, the corrupt Democrat prosecutors. Oh, they’re after me for so many things. Oh, those prosecutors. Some are racists. Some hate our country. They all hate me. They’ll get me for anything, anything. You put a comma in this paragraph. Why did you do that? I don’t really know. The partisan and often corrupt intelligence agencies, the George Soros money machine that spends a lot of money on the prosecutors, by the way. The Antifa thugs who are allowed to roam the streets while we have people that in many cases are great patriots, great, great patriots, sing prayers every night, playing our national anthem every day. And they’re sitting in a jail nearby, rotting away, and being treated so unfairly like nobody’s probably ever been treated in this country before, except maybe me.

(20:48)
And Marjorie, you’ve been so fantastic on that issue. Where’s Marjorie? You’ve been so fantastic on that issue. And Elise and Matt, people that love our country, people that love our country have been so great on that issue. And the perverts who use the names of Washington and Lincoln to buy millions of dollars in ads to say bad, lifeless, and incorrect things about us. I didn’t know this was a rally, Matt. It really is a rally. And by the way, thank you for that beautiful straw poll. That was a big win, thank you. Our enemies are lunatics and maniacs. They cannot stand that they do not own me. I don’t need them. I don’t need anything about them. I don’t need their money. They cannot steer me, they cannot shake me, and they will never, ever control me. And they will never, ever, therefore, control you.

(22:13)
At the end of the day, anyone else will be intimidated, bought off, blackmailed, or ripped to shreds. I alone will never retreat. And that is why we must stand together and charge. We have to charge full speed ahead. I had a beautiful life before I did this. I lived in luxury. I had everything. People said to me, “Are you sure you want to do it, sir?” I said, “Oh, this will be so amazing.” What the hell did you get me into? I didn’t know the word subpoena. I didn’t know the word grand jury, those words, grand jury. I didn’t know that they want to lynch you for doing nothing wrong. I didn’t know they want to lynch you for doing a great job. I didn’t know they want to put you away because your poll numbers are better than anybody they’ve seen in years.

(23:20)
And then they go with the disinformation campaign. First of all, we’re leading every Republican by massive numbers. And very importantly, perhaps more importantly, we’re leading Biden by a lot, and we’re leading Kamala by a lot. And every time the polls go up higher and higher, the prosecutors get crazier and crazier. We got to stop these guys. Says, “We have to stop Trump now. We got to stop him now because we can’t stop him at the ballot box.” They tried that in 2016. How did that work out? Not too good. And we actually, and I have to say this, I hope Fox doesn’t turn up, but we did much better in 2020 than we did in 2016, much better.

(24:06)
But We have no choice. If we don’t do this, our country will be lost forever. People are tired of rhinos and globalists. They want to see America first. That’s what they want. It’s not too complicated. This is the final battle. They know it, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. This is it. Either they win or we win. And if they win, we no longer have a country. And I promise you this, if you put me back in the White House, that beautiful building, but I live in very beautiful buildings, it’s not that reason. The beautiful. That building wasn’t the easiest building to live in with what I was put through. And I get a lot of credit. A lot of people say, “How do you do it, sir?” I had a man come up to me the other day, one of the toughest, strongest people that you can imagine. You all know his name, big businessman, a lot of money, a lot of success, tough as hell.

(25:06)
And he said, “Could I ask you a question, president?” A friend of mine, used to call me Donald, now he calls me president. “Could I ask you a question, president?” “What?” “How do you do it? How do you do it every day? They sent you subpoenas every day. There’re after you. They’re looking to take you down at levels that nobody’s ever put up with before.” Seven years I’ve gone through this. We beat them all, but it continues. And he said to me, “Seriously, how do you do it? I could never do it.” This is one of the toughest guys. I said, “Maybe you could.” He said, “Nope, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t get out of bed in the morning. But I do it for you, and that’s what I’m doing it for. I do it for you.” Thank you, [inaudible 00:26:09]. Thank you very much. And if you put me back in the White House, their reign is over. Their reign will be over, and they know it. And America will be a free nation once again. We’re not a free nation right now. We don’t have free press. We don’t have free anything. In 2016, I declared I am your voice. Today, I add I am your warrior, I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution. Not going to let this happen. Not going to let it happen. I will totally obliterate the deep state. I will fire…

Speaker 1 (27:00):

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

Donald Trump (27:00):

I will fire the unelected bureaucrats and shadow forces who have weaponized our justice system like it has never been weaponized before, these are sick people, and I will put the people back in charge of this country again, the people will be back in charge of our country. The Biden administration is the most corrupt administration in American history. Hunter Biden is a criminal, and nothing happened to him, nothing happened. Joe Biden is a criminal and nothing ever seems to happen to him, because you know, say what you want, but the Democrats stick together. They don’t have Mitt Romney, they don’t have guys like that, they stick together. How’s Mitt Romney doing? Not too good. I could name plenty of others too, but they do stick together whether you like them or not, and many of us don’t, but maybe someday we get together..

(28:15)
A question was asked of me just before Covid came in. They said, “The country is coming together, do you think this is real?” And I said to myself, “It is real, it’s amazing.” I was getting calls from radical left people, the nicest calls, it’s amazing, because we had the best employment numbers in history, we had the best economy in history. We were lapping China, China was supposed to have taken over as the world’s largest economy, and we were actually increasing at a level that nobody thought possible, we were doing great. And then you had Covid come in and a lot of things had to happen, and we did a great job. We never got the credit for that job, but we did a great job with Covid and then gave back something very strong, but we were really bringing this country together. Had Covid not come in, I think you would’ve had a much different… Because a lot of people want to know, can we all get along together? And if I didn’t have that experience, I would say no, because the thought process is so different, but we were starting to really get along, and then we had the disaster, as I call it, the China virus, because I want to be open and I want to be accurate.

(29:33)
But Biden openly held back a billion dollar taxpayer, old taxpayer money, for the government of Ukraine. Remember he said, “Until they fire the prosecutor, when they fire that prosecutor.” And this prosecutor was after Hunter and the company that was paying him a fortune of money. Remember Joe Biden stood up and said, “And I looked at them and I said, you’re not getting that billion dollars until you get rid of that.” I can’t believe he did that. Can you imagine if I did that. I wouldn’t be here right now, I suspect. And nobody picks it up, nobody wants to pick it up, it doesn’t get any worse, doesn’t get any worse than that. Although maybe it does, it’s called The Laptop from Hell. And yet they go after me over and over again about something that’s not even a crime. They make up Russia, Russia, Russia, which was a plan made up by crooked Hillary Clinton, Adam Shifty Schiff, and the Democrats, the DNC.

(30:40)
They then made up a fake phone call. They took a phone call that was perfect, and they pretended that I said things that weren’t even there. They actually imitated, remember Schiff, he stood up in Congress and he repeated the call like I was a gangster over and over again, quid pro quo. Remember the term, quid pro quo? But there wasn’t. I called downstairs at the White House, I said, “Listen, do we have that call taped? Because there’s no way I said those things.” And they called back and tell me, “Yes, sir, we do.” Essentially, we had transcripts of the call. Thank goodness we had transcripts because these guys they’re sick, they’re sick people, and they were looking to do a number. I’ll tell you how bad they are, and I tell this story seldom, but it’s a strong story. Monica, thank you very much for the great job you did, by the way, what a defender she is.

(31:38)
But they’re so bad, so they come up with this Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, and they know it’s a hoax. They know it’s hoax, I know it’s a hoax too, but they know it’s a hoax. And Adam Shifty Schiff comes out from a very secretive room, intelligence committee or whatever, and he meets the press right in front. The press is going crazy, they’re going crazy because they’ll do anything to hurt Trump, anything, they’re evil people in many cases. In some cases they’re great people, but a lot of evil people. And he stands up before a microphone. Now, this is a man who knows it’s a fake story, Russia. Russia, Russia. They checked six years of phone calls, millions of calls were made from my office, not one call to Russia, not one call. They weren’t surprised, but some people were surprised.

(32:28)
But he stood up before the microphones and he said, “Donald Trump Jr. will go to prison for what he has done with Russia.” My son’s going to go to prison. He said my son’s going to go to prison for what he’s done with Russia. And my son didn’t have anything to do with it, and he knew it was a fake story, and when it was finally revealed, now the Times, the Washington Post, they all admit it was fake story. We’re trying to get the Pulitzer Prize taken away, they got Pulitzer Prize. We’re suing. You know what the prize says? “For its concise and accurate reporting on the Russia, Russia, Russia event.” And they have it actually totally wrong. Actually, Mark Levin should get a prize, and Greg Jared, Greg Jared should get a prize. And even it’s not his deal, Sean Hannity should get a prize. And frankly, Jesse should get a prize, Jesse should. And a lot of people, and I’ll tell you, you know who should get a prize? Tucker should get a prize, they’re very strong,

(33:45)
And we have numerous writers that should get it, but the ones that got it were the New York Times, certain reporters from the New York Times, and certain reporters from the Washington Post, they got the Pulitzer Price, and they were exactly wrong. And now they’ve even admitted that it was a hoax, it was a total hoax, and they got the prize. But how bad is a person that stands before a big gaggle of press and they just can’t get enough, and says that my son is going to prison for something that he knows was a hoax? Only a really bad person would do that. But they then came in with Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, the Mueller hoax. How did Mueller present himself at the hearings? It wasn’t too pretty. But you know what? I’ll say this, at least they came to the right conclusion, because I was concerned they’d come to the conclusion, I think we have prosecutors now, they don’t give a if you’re guilty. They’re looking at me in Atlanta on a perfect phone call, I said, “Even more perfect than my perfect call to Ukraine.” That was a perfect call, this is even more perfect.

(35:05)
By the way, where’s Hunter? Where is Hunter? Remember, where’s Hunter? Will there ever be a time when Joe Biden says, “This thing with Hunter just isn’t working out well, I’m starting to get a little angry at Hunter.”? Or when Hunter comes to him and says, “Dad, dad, we have a problem.” “What is it, son? Another one, oh, son, you’re a disaster son. Son, you’re a disaster.” “Dad, we have a problem, I left my laptop at the repair shop.” And Joe looks at him and says, “What’s on it, son, what’s on it?” And Hunter looks back and he says, “Every single crime that you’ve ever committed dad.” And hence is called The Laptop from Hell. And Miranda Devine did a great book on that, and she actually thanked me. She said, “I got the name from Trump.” She told me, she said, “I want to thank you for the name.” I said, “No charge.” But she did a great job, great book, The Laptop from Hell. If I so much is fly over a blue state, they do so many bad things, it’s just crazy.

(36:29)
The racist Manhattan District Attorney, Alvin Bragg, who is presiding over one of the most dangerous and violent cities in the United States, you have to see this, the United States where killings are taking place at a number like nobody’s ever seen, right in Manhattan. And he’s doing nothing about it, nothing whatsoever. No cash bail for people that just kill people, knife them in the back, hit them over the head with a baseball bat, push them into subways when this train is right there. But this racist DA is being pushed by radical left Democrats, the fake news media, and the Department of Injustice to bring charges against me for now ancient, no affair story of Stormy Horseface Daniels. No attraction, No affair, I call it no affair, where there’s no crime anyway. And charges have never been brought in such a case before, and this case has been looked by every prosecutor, they’re all looking, they’ve looked at it for years now. She was represented by Michael Avenatti, how’s he doing? He’s now in jail and the whole thing is a complete con job, and she was ordered to pay me in federal court order this, hundreds of thousands of dollars. But they’re still looking at it, they’re still looking, and all they do is they cause anger and problems for our country, because our people aren’t going to take this stuff.

(38:14)
It never ends, in the meantime, Hunter and Joe Biden skate, they skate. They go away free, what’s going on with that? That laptop is a disaster. Has anyone read this thing? How can it be possible? They’re looking in Delaware. How’s he doing? He’s not the same guy that I have for the document oaks. I have a man, he’s a total animal. Known to be, and he’s looking, looking, looking, in the meantime, Biden’s guy that’s looking, looking, looking. And don’t forget, I had a very strong privilege as president. I was able to do things that he wasn’t able to do as vice president and wasn’t able to do as a senator. Even the Senate, they can’t believe it. The Senate cannot believe it, but when you look at what happened, they’re not even looking at him, they haven’t even started. Congress and various radical left Democrat prosecutors, in an effort to stop me, go to the Supreme Court twice. They went twice, and the Supreme Court, in a moment of total weakness, gives them everything they want in order to try and prosecute Trump everything.

(39:21)
Thank you very much, Supreme Court, I appreciate it. But they found nothing. They looked at 11 million pages of documents, it’s a big company, it’s a great company. Remember my taxes? “We’re after his taxes.” Five years I heard about my taxes. They came out about two months ago, everyone said, “Wow, it’s a great company he built, that’s great.” That’s the end of it. No, right? And I had the biggest and most prestigious one of them, at least law firms, accounting firms, doing all this stuff. I don’t do it, they do it, you rely on these people, they do it. But I didn’t hear one word, and how stupid am I telling you this story right now? Because now they’ll go, “We got to find something in there.” He made a typographical error. There’s a revolution going on within the FBI because they don’t want to be doing what they’re being told to do because they know right from wrong, I’m talking about the people that work in the FBI, and they like me and they like you a lot, so many of them. A recent article in the Washington Post, of all papers, stated very succinctly that many did not want to raid Mar-a-Lago, they didn’t want the agents. They said, “That’s terrible.” But they were forced to do so by their Marxist radical left leadership, and it drove my popularity numbers through the roof. Who would think this?

(40:46)
I got impeached and I went up 11 points. It’s not supposed to work like that. Mark, when Nixon got impeached, it went down right away, it was as spiral down, he couldn’t stop it. I got impeached, we went up, but the FBI people, they didn’t want to do this. To those in the FBI that are with us, I want to thank you very much, I really do, I want to thank you. Stay strong, stay strong, help is coming. Then there’s the racist DA from Atlanta, whose city is among the most violent and dangerous places per capita in the country. More murders than even Chicago per capita. It’s totally out of control and yet she has her kangaroo court focused on a perfect phone call that I made, while her jury foreman, a rather bizarre young woman, is going around doing media interviews and saying exactly what’s going on in this one of many grand juries. Our opponents do anything they can to hurt me politically because they’re afraid of me and they’re afraid of you, that’s what it is, but it’s not supposed to work that way.

(41:59)
The disinformation, people say they are great at disinformation. The one we want to run against is Trump. Do you ever hear that? “Oh, we want to run against Trump.” Even though I’m leading every one of these guys, and even though I won the second election, I won it by a lot. When they say Biden won, the smart people know they didn’t. But right now, we’re way up. But they say, “Oh, we want to run against Trump.” They always say that, they say that about everybody. When they have somebody that they don’t want to run against, a governor, or senator, they say, “We want to run against.” Because it’s like demeaning, in other words, like you’re supposed to be schlemiel. I got 75 million votes, I got more votes than any city president in history the second time. And we really did, we did a much better job than we did in 2016. 2020, we did better than 2016, but they say, “We want to run against Trump.” In the meantime, they’re spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to find just a single word, a sentence, anything to prosecute Trump because they don’t want to run against me. That’s what they say, “We want to run against Trump, we’ll do anything to run against Trump.”

(43:13)
They have the greatest line of bullshit of any group of people I’ve ever seen. Want to run against Trump. But at the same time, they send people from the Justice Department to the local DA’s office of Manhattan. Do you know the Justice Department sent their top people to the Manhattan DA’s office to help in the prosecution of Trump? This way, we have it a little bit away from Washington. It’s local. Oh, we had nothing to do, but their top guy was put in that office to help prosecute Trump. How would you like to have my life? Would anybody like my life? But I still like it. But they want to try and find anything they can when they’ve already been exonerated, I’ve been exonerated many times. You take a look at what this meant, time after time, but all of this is happening for one single reason. They know that when we return to power, we will bring their lies, and their corruption, and their disinformation tumbling down. Our getting back in the White House is their worst nightmare, but it is our country’s only hope, it’s our only hope. If we don’t get back now, this country can’t take it, even the two years, and now, fortunately it’s less than that, it’s hard to believe it’s less. We used to say four years, a lot of people said, “Well, sir, the election was so bad, you’ll be in in one year.” A lot of people in this room, “You’ll be back in six weeks, sir.” But it’s a bad system in many ways, very bad, very dangerous system, but nobody else can do it but us. In recent weeks, I’ve been laying out a bold detailed agenda for how we’re going to complete this mission in our next term. I do weekly statements and people are liking them. Today, I want to go through some of our big plans that I will do as the 47th President of the United States. Thank you.

(45:45)
At the top of my list, we’ll be stopping the slide into costly and never-ending wars, we got to stop it. Can’t keep spending hundreds of billions of dollars protecting people that don’t even like us. Now in business, if you did that, what you do is you put up the money and then you say, “But listen, we own half your country in case you win.” You take a piece of the upside, right? I don’t get nothing. In fact, the opposite, we put up the money, and then after it’s finished, assuming it’s successful, let’s say it’s successful, they don’t want to even talk to us. “Nope, you have nothing to do with us, get out of here.” You have nothing. No, no, in business, you put up money, seed money, call it whatever you want, you end up owning the country by the time it’s over, and the only reason they’re doing well is we’re giving them the greatest equipment, that I bought, the greatest equipment ever made. And the only reason they’re doing well with NATO is I raised $440 billion from countries that weren’t paying anything.

(46:47)
And the Secretary General, Stoltenberg, a good man, he said, “It’s one of the greatest jobs I’ve ever seen.” I hope he still says that, but one of the greatest jobs. He said, “Obama would come and make a speech, Bush would come make a speech, and then they’d leave.” I came, I looked, I said, “Man, these people aren’t paying, we’re paying for the whole thing practically.” Of the 28 countries at the time, only eight were paid up, 20 weren’t, including Germany, they paid a fraction of what they were supposed to be paying. And I said to him, “Either you pay or we’re not going to protect you.” And a man stood up, a president of a country stood up, and he said, “Sir, could I ask you a question?” This was a round table with nobody in the room, but the presidents, prime ministers, and dictators, okay? Some of them are all the same, but they stood up and he stood up and said, “Sir, can I ask you a question? If we don’t pay up and if we get attacked by Russia, will you protect us, sir?” I said, “Now you’re not paid up, right?” “That’s right.” “You’re delinquent, right?” “Yes.” I will not protect you from Russia.” “Sir, we’ll send you a check tomorrow, sir. We’ll send you a check tomorrow. It’ll be sent by overnight mail, sir, I promise you’ll have it tomorrow.”

(48:10)
Now, if I said like the stupid politicians say, “Absolutely. Article 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, where you’re supposed to do it? But those articles all suppose that you’re supposed to be paid up. But let’s say I said the opposite, “Yes, we will always protect you.” And I took a lot of heat because they said, “I’m not a good member.” Actually, NATO wouldn’t even exist if I didn’t get them to pay up, but they paid up $449 billion or something, and that’s the money they use. They’re rich as hell right now, they spent on an office building that cost $3 billion. It’s like a skyscraper in Manhattan later in its side, it’s one of the longest buildings I’ve ever seen, and I said, “You should have, instead of spending $3 billion, you should have spent $500 million building the greatest bunker you’ve ever seen.” Because Russia wouldn’t even need an airplane attack. One tank, one shot through that beautiful glass building and it’s gone. Same architect I used in Chicago, great architects, but they didn’t have war in mind, but when things happen, that building would be gone at about 15 minutes.

(49:20)
They should have spent a $500 million bunker, nice thick ceiling, six inches, six feet of concrete. And by the way, we have a great gentleman, speaking of China, will you please stand up? Gordon, stand up, please. Gordon. I’m talking a lot about China, and I’m looking over, I’m studying him, and I’m studying his face as I’m speaking, because people do like me to go off script a little bit, right? It’s a little bit more risky, but it’s more exciting. And I’m looking at Gordon, and I’m saying, “I hope he agrees with what I’m saying.” But basically I’m saying exactly what you say. They’re not out for our good, are they? They’re not out for our good, and nobody ever taxed them like I did, and nobody ever took any money in like I did. $440 billion, we took in so much money from China, it’s so incredible. So I just, it’s an honor to have you here, really it is. I agree with almost everything you said, almost everything. Great. Thank you very much, thank you, madam, thank you very much, great job, both of you.

(50:33)
I was the only president in decades that didn’t have a war, but I completed wars that were already started, including defeating 100% of the ISIS Caliphate. I was also the only president where Russia didn’t take over a country during my term. Russia took over, not because I got along with Vladimir Putin very well. I said, “Vladimir, don’t do it. You know, you and I have friends, don’t take over any countries because Moscow will be hit very hard.” Well, I told him things. He probably didn’t believe it, but you know what, he believed it 10%, and President Xi believed it when I talked about Beijing. He probably said, “I don’t believe him, but there’s a 10% chance we’re not going to do anything.” It’s true, it’s true, you have no idea these conversations. I wish they could have been recorded, actually, people would think a lot of me. But with Bush, they invaded Georgia, right? With Obama, they took Crimea, with Biden, they’re trying to take everything. And he won’t even know they took it. Thank you. And with me, they took nothing, nothing. And I didn’t really even have to threaten them very much, they understood me very well, I wanted them to understand me very well. They knew that they couldn’t do it. Putin knew that, President Xi knew it too. Likewise, China now has its eyes strongly focused on Taiwan, and we could soon have a nuclear armed Iran. That’s the saddest thing of all though, when we talk about Iran, that’s the saddest thing when you see. I had them in a box. I said to China, “You can’t buy any oil from Iran.” They said, “No, no, we have to buy. We buy millions of barrels here.” And I said, “You can’t buy, you have to buy from somebody else.” “No, no, we’ll buy.” I said, good, we’re not going to do any more trading with China, we’re going cold Turkey.” “We will promise you not to buy from Iran.”

(52:57)
That was the end of that, that was a conversation I had. I said, “If you buy from Iran, any oil, we’re not going to do any business, or if for some reason we do, we’re going to put a hundred percent tariff on every single thing that you sell into the United States.” And they didn’t buy any oil, and nobody was buying oil, and they were in a position, had the election not turned out the way it did, they were in a position where they were going to give us everything. We were going to make a great deal. But now they’re rich Again, China’s buying unlimited amounts of oil from Iran, unlimited amounts in other places, and we’ve done something else that’s terrible. From the time I’m a young man, I learned, never allow Russia and China to get together to, wed never ever allow it. And we’ve not only allowed it, we’ve made them bosom buddies, we’ve forced them together. And you can add

Donald Trump (54:00):

Had another group in there, a nuclear armed Iran. So the three of them are now together. That should have never been allowed to happen, would’ve never happened with me. And it was all over oil, our stupid oil policy. We’re not going to drill. We have more oil in the United States than any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, people don’t realize it. In Alaska, I approved a site, we all know what the site is, probably the biggest in the world. And the Democrats said, “No, it’s over.” They turned it down. Ronald Reagan tried to do it. Every president, Republican and some Democrats tried to do it, they couldn’t get it done, I got it done. And the first day in office, the Secretary of the Interior for Biden signed off on it where they’re going to not allow it to happen bigger probably than Saudi Arabia. If we had that without even my talking to Putin, oil would’ve been at $40, $35, maybe $30 a barrel.

(55:09)
So he wouldn’t have even had the money to prosecute a war against Ukraine. He wouldn’t have done it anyway, but… And that’s not even what I’m saying from previous. But he wouldn’t have had the money, even if he wanted to. Ukraine would’ve been thriving. There would’ve been no dead people, and there would’ve been no obliterated cities that can never be rebuilt, can never rebuild those cities. Russia never would’ve pulled the trigger. This is the most dangerous time in the history of our country, and Joe Biden is leading us into oblivion. He’s leading us into oblivion. We all smile when he falls downstairs and things, it’s cute. When he falls off his bicycle, isn’t this cute? You know what amazed me that the reporters didn’t catch him when the bike was going down. They’re standing right next to him. They let him fall. It’s amazing. I’m surprised.

(56:09)
But when he makes statements that are so bad when he gets out of Afghanistan and takes the soldiers, takes [inaudible 00:56:16] takes the soldiers out first. And in Afghanistan for 18 months, I had a talk with Abdul who was the leader of Afghanistan. I said, “Abdul…” Oh, I got a lot of criticism. Remember when I was talking to him, everyone said, “Oh, he is talking to the leader of the Taliban.” That’s right. Because our soldiers were being killed, a lot of them by snipers, and I didn’t want that. I don’t want to deal with the problems, and I don’t want to talk to the mothers and fathers who I would speak to a lot. I don’t want to talk to them and tell them their son was shot through the head from 2000 yards away by a sharp shooter. They have very good sharp shooters. So I spoke to this man, his name was Abdul, and I said, “Abdul, don’t kill any more of our soldiers because if you kill our soldiers, we are going to hit you harder than any country has ever been hit in the history of the world.”

(57:33)
And he called me Your Excellency. See, he and I got along. He’s still there. He’s still the leader of the Taliban, but now he’s got $85 billion worth of our equipment that I bought, $85 billion. I said to General Millie, I want every piece of equipment, “Sir, I think it would be cheaper to leave it behind, sir.” That’s when I lost faith, that, and when he didn’t like me holding up a Bible in front of a church, I said, “This guy’s not with us. This is not a smart guy.” But he didn’t like it. I said, “I want every single…” Because I was getting out of… But I would’ve kept Bagram, because Bagram is one hour away from where China, forget about Afghanistan, where China makes its nuclear weapons, one hour away. The biggest, most powerful runways in the world, we built it many years ago for tens of billions of dollars, and we gave it away one night.

(58:24)
We just left the lights on. We did leave the dogs behind. Everyone says, “Oh, did they take the dogs? Because they’re dog lovers.” No, we left the dogs behind. And the Taliban doesn’t like dogs, by the way, not at all. But we left in disgrace. It was the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, in my opinion. And it probably is what caused Putin to say, “Wow, Trump is gone. This is a great time to take over Ukraine.” Right? It’s probably a reason that that happened. But I stand here today and I’m the only candidate who can make this promise. I will prevent and very easily World War III, very easily. And you’re going to have World War III, by the way. You’re going to have World War III if something doesn’t happen fast, you’re going to have World War three. And by the way, just to conclude that little story, when Abdul heard me say that, he said, “Your Excellency, thank you so much for telling me that.”

(59:38)
He said, “But why, but why?” I thought it was a very interesting plan, words I’ve never heard. I use it now sometimes myself. I liked it. He said, “But why, but why, Mr. President, do you send me pictures of my home?” He said that. I said, “You’ll have to ask your wives that question.” And we didn’t have, Mark will tell you this, we didn’t have one soldier killed in 18 months, not one soldier was killed, not one soldier, right? In fact, it was so good that the media didn’t mind that I called. I took a lot of heat, tremendous heat. “Why do you call him?” I said, “Well, they asked Jesse James, the great bank robber from many years ago, “Why is it that you robbed banks? Why do you always go after banks?” And he looked at him, he says, “Because that’s where the money is.” Well, I spoke to Abdul because that’s where the problem was.” But we won 18 months until that horrible day when we lost 13 soldiers.

(01:01:02)
And the thing that nobody ever talks about, we lost 13. We lost 85 billion worth of the greatest military equipment in the world, goggles, night goggles that are so good, so sophisticated, better than anything, we have brand new, never even taken out of the box. And the Afghans, and they’re actually very good. The Taliban are good fighters. Afghan, because it’s really very much the same thing, frankly. They didn’t fight good for us, but they fought good for themselves and they took a lot of money from us. I asked General Mattis, I said, “We got to get out of there. They’ve been there for 20 years. We got to get out of there.” “Sir, they’re fighting for their country, sir.” I said, “Hmm, that’s right. I guess they are.” Then about two days later, I was thinking about it. I said, “I don’t know why,” because we had more blue on green, green on blue where they’d get their gun and then they’d shoot our master sergeants and our sergeants that are training them.

(01:01:59)
I said, “Why are they fighting for us if we’ve never had this problem to the extent that we had it?” But he said that. He said, “They’re fighting.” And I said, “Are we paying them a lot of money to fight?” And I had it checked. Yeah, we were paying billions and billions and billions of dollars to these Afghan soldiers, tens of billions of dollars. I said, “They’re not fighting, General…” I called him back, “They’re not fighting because they love us or they love their country. They’re fighting because they’re the highest paid soldiers in the world. We’re basically bribing them to fight.” And they didn’t fight, but the Taliban did fight. Same people, but the Taliban did fight. But they didn’t kill anybody for 18 months. I’m very proud. In fact, Biden got up and he actually said that, “They didn’t kill anybody. I will say that they didn’t kill anybody for 18 months.” And you know what happened? Because people start screaming, “Don’t say that,” because that’s a good thing for us.

(01:02:57)
But then when we left, we lost soldiers, 13 killed. But what they don’t talk about, they talk about the equipment. They talk about the fact that there are still to this day, a lot of Americans in there that we’ve lost contact with, it’s a rough place. But they don’t talk about the fact that many of these soldiers were absolutely destroyed. Destroyed. They lost their arms, they lost their legs. They had their face blown off, and they were absolutely destroyed. And they don’t talk about that. They don’t talk about it. That it’s very sad because these people, many of them, we lost 13, they died, but nobody ever talks about the gravity of the injuries to these soldiers. And it’s a very sad thing. I got it down to 2,500 people. I was the one that got it down. But we were going to get out with dignity, with strength. We were going to be respected and admired. And I could just see Abdul, they took out the soldiers first.

(01:04:03)
You don’t take the soldiers first. You take the soldiers out last. You get the Americans out first. Because they feared our soldiers, they feared our soldiers. They feared the F-16s, and now they own them. Think of it, you get the soldiers and they go out last. You take our American citizens out, you then take our equipment out. And Millie said to me, “Sir, it’s cheaper to leave the equipment than it is to take it out.” I said, “Let me ask you, General. So we have a plane that cost a hundred million dollars, brand new. You want to let…” “Yes, sir. It’s cheaper, sir.”

(01:04:39)
I thought he was another April fools deal, right? I said, “No, General, you fill it up with a tank of jet fuel. You fly it back home, or at a minimum you fly it into Pakistan or some semi friendly country and you take it from there.” “No, sir.” I actually told them I want the tents. You know the tents, they have big canvas, incredible tents with the… “I want every piece of steel. I want every screw. I want every nut. I want every bolt. I want every tractor. I want every Jeep.”

(01:05:12)
You know what they did? They left 700,000 rifles and guns, 700,000. They left 70,000 vehicles, 70,000, many of them brand new, many of them armor-plated where they have six inches of steel on the bottom. Of course, your millions of dollars to build. And they left that all behind. There’s not a car company, used car lot, new car lot anywhere in the world that would have 70,000 vehicles. I said to a friend of mine who’s one of the Arrigo in Florida, great guy. I said, “How many cars?” He said, “I think he’s like the biggest in Florida.” They sold, they did very well, thank you. But the biggest. I said, “How many cars would you have?” “I don’t know. A couple of hundred extra. Couple of hundred.” And he’s like, “A big one. Real big one. Run runs a great operation.” 70,000 vehicles. So now I read the other day that the Taliban, that Afghanistan is the second-largest seller of arms anywhere in the world because they’re selling everything that we gave them.

(01:06:25)
And by the way, as I’m speaking, I see cash? Is that cash? Oh, my eyes are better than I think. And is that Rick Grinnell? Huh? Wow. I better check with Gordon and I better check this audience a little more closely. I’m going to miss a lot of people in here. Great, two real patriots. They really are two great people, thank you very much. But they’re the second largest to us. They’re the second largest arms dealer in the world. They’re selling off all the beautiful brand new equipment we gave them. The Apache helicopter, which is the best in the world. They gave one to Russia, gave it. They gave one to China, and they’re very good. They take it apart and they reduplicate it. They take it apart, they reduplicate it because they’ve never been able to build one like we have. Now they’re able to do it because they’re very smart, actually. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, I will have the disastrous war between Russia and Ukraine settled. It will be settled quickly quickly.

(01:07:36)
I will get the problem solved, and I will get it solved in rapid order, and it will take me no longer than one day. I know exactly what to say to each of them. I got along very well with them. I got along very well with Putin, even though I’m the one that ended this pipeline. Remember they said, “Trump is giving a lot to Russia.” Really? Putin actually said to me, “If you’re my friend, I’d hate like hell to see you as my enemy,” because I ended the pipeline, do you remember? Nord Stream II, nobody ever heard of it, right? Nobody ever heard of Nord Stream II until I came along. I started talking about Nord Stream II. I had to go call it the pipeline because nobody knew what I was talking about, but I ended it. It was dead. I told every company that had sucked into it that you’re not doing business with the United States of America if you go forward and allow this to be built, it was done.

(01:08:29)
On day one, Biden came in… And this is the biggest economic development project. This is the most important project that Russia has on day one. This is the biggest money they could ever make. There’s nothing they could ever do to compete with us. This is the biggest pipeline in the world. Going to supply Europe, Germany in particular. On day one, Biden came in and what did he do? He approved the Nord Stream pipeline. And then they’d say, “Trump was soft on Russia.” I was the one that gave a thousand Javelins, that’s the anti-tech busters. And they are vicious because I looked at those tanks and they ended up, they got hit one shot, and that was the end of that, you wouldn’t want to be in those tanks. But I was the one that supplied the Javelins. They supplied the bedsheets, do you remember? They supplied the bedsheets and maybe even some pillows from Mike who’s sitting right over here. Where the hell is Mike? Did you send some pillows over there? Maybe? But they supplied the bedsheets, they call it. We supplied the sheets. They didn’t want to get involved.

(01:09:36)
I gave the Javelins, and then they say, “Trump was weak on Russia.” Disinformation. Again, it’s disinformation, right? That’s all they’re good at, cheating on elections and disinformation. Instead of spending hundreds of billions of dollars to defend the borders of distant foreign countries. Under my leadership, we will defend our borders first. Three years ago, we had the safest border in the history of our country, and I will quickly do that again. As you know, I built hundreds of miles of wall and completed that task as promised, and then I began to add even more in areas that seemed to be allowing a lot of people to come in. So we’re going to do another 200 miles of wall, and it could have been done and completed in three weeks but the Biden administration said they weren’t going to do it. And in fact, the wall was sitting there waiting to be installed, the easiest part, and Biden, they took it away. So the Texas and Arizona couldn’t use it.

(01:10:48)
Texas and Arizona said, “Could we use that wall? We’ll finish it right up.” And they said, no. And they actually took it away and they hid it. They put it in a hiding area, which of course was revealed pretty quickly, all you have to do is send a couple of helicopters up. But they wouldn’t let them use it. Under my leadership, we will seal it up and expand that wall till we have total control. Well, we did a great job in the wall. Remember with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell? “Yeah, we’ll give it to you next year.” I said, “Nope, nope. Give it to me this year.” “Well, sir, if you approve this budget, we’ll give it to you next year.” I said, “All right, that’s okay.” So I waited, then they didn’t give it, and yet Mitch McConnell approves five and a half trillion dollars for Green New Deal garbage. It’s a disgrace. But I took it from the military because I considered it an invasion.

(01:11:42)
So Marjorie, I said, “You know what I’m going to do? I’m going to take it right out of the military because they’re invading our country.” And I got it built, and we did a great job. We did it quickly. And we used the Army [inaudible 01:11:53] Engineers, they were fantastic. Before Biden came into office, we had illegal immigration at a record low, refugees were at the lowest level in history. Human trafficking, women and children was at the lowest in 30 years. And drug dealers were finding the US border a very inhospitable place to be. It was very inhospitable. In my last year, less drugs came through the southern border than had been seen in many, many decades. We weren’t playing games. Now we have complete chaos. Fentanyl is pouring in. Families are being wiped out, destroyed, and there’s death everywhere, all caused by incompetence. Millions of illegal aliens are stampeding across our border. Interior enforcement has been shut down. Everyone is overstaying their visas. Nobody even thinks about reporting it anymore. My wonderful travel ban is gone. I had a travel ban, it was so wonderful.

(01:12:54)
Refugee numbers are through the roof. And spies and terrorists are infiltrating our country totally unchecked like never before. When I’m back in the White House, the very first reconciliation bill I will sign will be for a massive increase in Border Patrol and a colossal increase in the number of ice deportation officers. And I want to thank the Border Patrol. These are incredible people. And I want to thank ICE. And in particular, I want to thank Brandon Judd, Border Patrol and Tom Holman, Central Casting. He’s Central Casting. Under my leadership, we will use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. Other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums and mental institutions and sending all of their problems right into their dumping ground, the USA. Think of it, they’re emptying out their prisons, and you’ve heard me say that, but they’re also emptying out their mental institutions and to use a strong couple of words, insane asylum.

(01:14:19)
Insane asylum, that’s where… Anybody see Silence of the Lamb? That’s where they come from. Insane asylum. That’s a stronger word than a mental institution. And they’re putting them into our country, thank you very much. I will ask every state and federal agency to identify every known or suspected gang member in America and every one of them that is here illegally. And the towns know who they are, the towns and cities or the police. We love our police. The police know who they are. And we will pick them up and we will throw them out of our country and there will be no questions asked. We had a problem when I first assumed the office in 2016, it was a big problem. We’d have these people, we’d round them up, MS-13 gangs, the worst people. These are absolute brutal killers. They used to knife 16 year old girls because it was more painful. It would take longer to kill her. These are real animals. And Nancy Pelosi said, “How dare you call them animals? These are human beings.”

(01:15:27)
I said, “No, they’re not.” But these are real animals. And we couldn’t get them back into their countries because the country was like, especially three… You take a look at Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras in particular, and Mexico to an extent, you couldn’t get them back in because they didn’t want them. They sent them out in the first place here. They forced them into our country, just so you know. These are very smart people that run these places. They’re very streetwise. So I said, “What’s the problem?” “Sir, we have thousands of people, but they won’t allow us to land the planes. They won’t allow the buses to cross the border. They won’t allow them back in their country.” I said, “How much money do we pay to these various countries?” “Sir, we pay $750 million a year.” I said, “All right, inform the country that we’re no longer paying any money. And if they ask why, you can tell them.”

(01:16:16)
“Yes sir, we’ll do that.” So the following morning, almost simultaneously early, about eight o’clock, I got calls from all three at one time. In fact, I had to tell two of them, “I’ll call you back,” because they all came in right on time, Matt, right on time, like you call on time. And what happens is they came in and they called. They said, “Sir, there must be a misunderstanding. We would love to have MS-13 back in our country.” And we started dropping them off by the tens of thousands, and I still hadn’t paid them back their money. I kept it. I figured, let’s hold it as long as possible because they’ve been ripping us off long enough. To stop the flow of deadly drugs, it will be my policy to take down the cartels just as I took down the ISIS caliphate that everybody said was impossible to do. A lot of parents in this audience that lost a child, that lost a loved one to Fentanyl and all of the drugs that are pouring in so many different kinds, fentanyl is a big problem.

(01:17:26)
In fact, with the ISIS caliphate, a certain general said, ” It could only be done in three years and probably it can’t be done at all, sir.” And I did it in three weeks. I went over to Iraq, met a great general. “Sir, I can do it in three weeks,” you’ve heard that story. “I could do it in three weeks, sir.” How are you going to do that? They explained it. I did it in three weeks. I was told it couldn’t be done at all, but it would take at least three years. Did it in three weeks, knocked out 100% of the ISIS caliphate. We have a great military. The reason I say that, we have a great military. And I will direct the Department of Justice to go after Marxist prosecutor’s offices to make them pay for their illegal race-based enforcement of the law. By the way, we have one of those great generals with us, General Kellogg. Where’s General Kellogg? Is he around here [inaudible 01:18:21]? Where is General Kellogg? He’s the greatest. He’s here. Thank you, General. Thank you. Thank you, General. And in cities where there’s been a complete breakdown of public safety, I will send in federal assets, including the National Guard, until law and order is restored. We’re not supposed to do that. And one thing I think about a lot is when we had some difficulty in certain cities like Minneapolis. And if you take a look at Portland, how’s Portland doing? They don’t even have storefronts anymore. Everything’s two by four is because they get burned down every week. They don’t put news storefronts up. It’s chaos. But what we had in Seattle, remember they took over a large portion. I was ready to send in the National Guard. They heard that. More than the National Guard, I was ready to go to town. And they heard that. You know what they did? They said, “We’re going to break it up now.” They left. But we saved Minneapolis.

(01:19:19)
The thing is, we’re not supposed to do that because it’s up to the governor, the Democrat governor. They never want any help. They don’t mind. It’s almost like they don’t mind to have their cities and states destroyed. There’s something wrong with these people. All of us have seen too many videos of 13 year old carjackers and 14 year old hoodlums viciously beating their victims, saw it just yesterday, a horrible situation. They kill people without retribution because they may be day short of the age required to put them away, put them in jail, and throw away the keys for a long time. My administration will crack down on these out of control monsters. Young though, they may be an imposed tough consequences on juvenile criminals. Criminals use young people. They actually hire young people, pay them some money, not a lot, because if they get caught, nothing’s going to happen to them.

(01:20:13)
That will end. I will end the scourge of homelessness taking over our cities and suburbs. I just drove through Washington DC coming here for the first time in quite a while, and the roads and highways were littered with trash like I’ve never seen before. It looked like somebody just took their garbage and just threw it all over the highways, the beltway. It’s so disgraceful, so disgusting. I always made it a point as president, when I saw the highways were dirty or that the homeless encampments were starting to form, to take care of the problem immediately. I used to have people out here all the time, sweeping highways, cleaning highways, hosing them down.

Donald Trump (01:21:00):

It bothered me so much. I’m in the Beast. I’m being driven back to the White House from some site, and I’d see this filthy, dirty highway with paper that hasn’t been … You could see it’s been laying there for months, and I’d have them cleaned up. I wouldn’t even call the mayor because it was never going to get done with the mayor. Frankly, the federal government should take over control and management of Washington, DC, good project because it’s horrible.

(01:21:35)
I think of it differently. Foreign leaders come in to see us. We want them to do what we want them to do, and they drive through these terrible, disgusting streets, where their streets are much better, much better maintained, much nicer. They see camps and homeless all over our once beautiful parks, all over, hundreds and hundreds of tents. I used to have them taken down … I’d see one or two or three. I said, “Do it fast, immediately.” Then I’d check, and it was done.

(01:22:07)
They’d never have time to do it. Once they have 500, 600, 700 of these things up, it’s a much more difficult thing, but you can do that, too. Under our leadership, we will take the homeless, drug addicted, and severely deranged, get them off our streets and create tent cities where we will get them the help they so desperately need. On day one, I will revoke Joe Biden’s crazy executive order installing Marxist diversity, equity, and inclusion czars in every federal agency, and I will immediately terminate all staffers hired to implement this horrible agenda.

(01:22:55)
I will urge Congress to create a restitution fund for Americans who have been unjustly discriminated against by these Biden policies. They’re so unfair. They’re so un-American. They’re so un-American. We will ban all racial discrimination by the government. I will fight for parents’ rights. Can you believe that here we are and I’m saying I’m going to fight for parents’ rights? Who would think that you have to ever say, “Parents’ rights?” Don’t you think parents have pretty good rights, right? Who would think that you have to actually say it? But you do because they took the rights away, including universal school choice and the direct election of school principals by the parents.

(01:23:37)
We want the school principal to be appointed and elected by parents. You’ll get some good principals then. Who loves the children more than the parents? If any principal is not getting the job done, the parents should be able to fire that principal immediately and select someone new. Continuing the work of our 1776 Commission, we will teach our values and promote our history and our traditions to our children. We will, in other words, be proud of our country again.

Audience (01:24:18):

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

Donald Trump (01:24:35):

I will revoke every Biden policy promoting the chemical castration and sexual mutilation of our youth and ask Congress to send me a bill prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. That should be easy. We will keep men out of women’s sports. How ridiculous. That will take place on day one. I will destroy the illegal censorship regime and bring back free speech in America because we do not have free speech.

(01:25:23)
I will stop Joe Biden’s demolition of our economy with his crushing inflation and mass layoffs. We will take care of inflation very, very quickly. 4.9 million people have dropped out of the labor force since I was president. As the Trump administration’s great Larry Kudlow … Does everybody know Larry? As Larry Kudlow said, “Biden is setting a record on economic regulations that are absolutely killing American companies. His spending and his borrowing are at record levels. It’s causing historic inflation, sir, which is only going to get worse and worse, sir.”

(01:26:07)
He just called me before I got here. I said, “I don’t want to say this, Larry. It’s only going to get worse and worse. It’s driving up interest rates, and new cars and homes are going to be impossible to buy.” Amidst this economic disaster, Biden talks about saving you a few dollars on some junk fees, don’t mean anything. By defeating Joe Biden, I will save your economy. I will save your retirement accounts, and I will save your jobs. We had the greatest job history of any president ever.

(01:26:37)
I will create a true national trade policy like the kind that made America the world’s economic powerhouse. What we were doing prior to the dust coming in from China was … Nobody’s ever seen it. There’s never been anything like it. That period of two and a half years was … There’s never been anything like it. I’ll tell foreign nations where we spend billions of dollars on military protection that if American products do not receive preferential treatment in their markets, our military is packed up and leaving, which some countries I did that with.

(01:27:16)
Usually it took a phone call and everything was just fine because economic security is national security. I will revoke China’s most favored nation’s trade status immediately on day one, and I will implement a four-year plan to phase out all Chinese imports of essential goods and gain total independence from China. We have to do it. We have to do it. I will hold China financially accountable for unleashing the China virus upon the world, and I will again withdraw from the WHO, which stands for We Hide Outbreaks. We Hide Outbreaks. The United States was paying.

(01:28:15)
I think this is important because, again, it’s so much common sense involved. The United States was paying the World Health Organization $450 million a year. Now, in terms of money and the kind of trillions and trillions we’re talking about, it’s not that much, but it’s still $450 million a year. I took them out. That’s what it was. The price was 450, and that’s for 350 million people. China was paying $39 million a year for 1.4 billion people. Doesn’t sound too right, and they had total control, by the way. We had no control. They’d literally own it.

(01:28:57)
When I withdrew from the WHO, they offered me to stay in, “Please don’t leave, please, please, please. But what China pays,” they said, “we’ll bring it down to 39 million.” I was actually close to doing this deal, If you wanted know the truth, but you would have been angry at me. I said, “I don’t don’t want to have CPAC angry at me.” But I might have gone back in, but I could have done it for 39. I could have probably done it for less than that. But now Biden has gone back for the full price of $450 million. Now, all he has to do is read the newspapers. They were begging me to come back in for 39 million, so why would you pay $450 million? Do you understand that? Gordon, do you understand that? How crazy. So China’s in for 39. They’re saying, “You’re right. It’s unfair. It’s unfair. We will do it for 39. We will take you back.” The head man, you know who that is. “We will take you back.” Then I started to say, “Actually, it should be much less. It should be like five or six million, right?” But I didn’t want to go there.

(01:30:01)
“We will take you back for 39 million. You’re right, President.” I said, “Well, we’ll think about it. We’ll see what happens. But the offer will remain open, right?” “Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.” They went back in for the original amount. It’s so sad, and we have no control, by the way. China controls WHO. So that’s what it does. WHO is totally controlled by China. We could have saved $400 million a year. It’s a lot of money. Now they’re asking for even more dictatorial power and more and more and more of our money, but they’re getting nothing more from China.

(01:30:40)
When we’re dealing with the Biden administration, it seems that every single day is April Fools’ Day, every day. They want an open border so that anybody can come in, and everybody else wants it to be closed. It’s April Fools’. We want an open border. That’s April Fools’. We want voter ID. They don’t want voter ID. Who wouldn’t want voter ID? 88% of the Democrats, except for the leadership because they can’t cheat with voter ID, but 88% of the Democrats want voter ID, but they don’t want voter ID. It’s April Fools’ Day.

(01:31:31)
They want to take the soldiers out of Afghanistan before we take our people and equipment out, but we want the soldiers to come out last. So then they blow it into a catastrophe, the most embarrassing event in the history of our country. It’s April Fools’ Day. They want all electric cars that don’t go very far. I have a friend. He bought a car. He said, “The car’s wonderful. But I go for an hour and a half and I got to put a charger and I can’t find a charger. I’m going crazy.” Also, all the batteries and everything, the material comes all out of China.

(01:32:14)
We have oil and gas, but we don’t want the oil and gas cars. But we want everything, including electric cars. But we also want gasoline because the cars go longer, and they’re preferred by many people. We don’t like quick drives that are stopped for two and a half hours. It’s April Fools’. They want all electric stoves all over the country, but we don’t have the electric power for that. We want electric stoves, but we also want gas stoves. It’s April Fools’. Why do they want that?

(01:32:58)
They want windmills all over the place that ruin our fields, kill our birds, and are very unreliable and are the most expensive energy ever developed. We want oil, gasoline, natural gas because it’s cheaper, better, and much more powerful. It’s April Fools’ Day. Under my leadership, we will regain energy independence that we had three years ago. We were on our way to massive energy dominance. We would have been paying off our debt because energy is big numbers.

(01:33:33)
It’s not like you’re selling a little product. You’re selling the biggest product of all is energy. We would have been paying off our debt. We would have been the strongest. We were going to be. We were already bigger under my administration, bigger than Saudi Arabia or Russia. We were going to be much bigger than both of them combined. Within about a year, we would have made the kind of money they’re making times five, and we would have been paying off debt and we would have been reducing taxes. It would have been a beautiful thing. But they came in and they said, “We don’t want that.”

(01:34:06)
I will fight for a constitutional amendment to impose term limits on members of Congress, and I will move heaven and Earth to fully and finally secure our elections. All Republican governors should immediately go for paper ballots, one-day voting, and voter ID. The problem we have is we have governors, and some of them we like and some of them we don’t, but they’re all talk. Think of it. They control the state. We have a lot of governors. They should go for that, paper ballots, same-day voting.

(01:34:59)
France had 37 million people voting. They voted in one day, and at 10:30 in the evening, they called the winner. There were no problems. They had paper ballots, same-day voting, voter ID. They only had a little mail-in, and we would have this, too, for soldiers that are very far away or people that are legitimately sick, legitimately, as opposed to millions and millions of ballots flooding the offices. They used COVID to cheat. But until that day comes, Republicans must compete using every lawful means to win. That means swamping the left with mail-in votes, early votes, and election day votes. Have to do it.

(01:35:49)
We have to change our thinking because some bad things happened. For some reason, Republicans like to vote on election day, right? The problem is you get there, and they have so many already started. But worse, if you take a look at Kari Lake in Arizona where they waited and waited. “Don’t vote now. Wait till Tuesday. Wait till Tuesday. Wait till Tuesday.” In the Republican areas, a tremendous percentage of the machines were broken, and you couldn’t vote. They had lines that were a mile long all over the place, Republican areas, and they couldn’t vote.

(01:36:28)
They said, “Come back in seven hours.” But people can’t do that. They have Little League. They have doctors. They might love Kari. They might love the Republican party and everything we stand for, but they can’t do that. They were standing in the hot sun for hours and hours. And then they sent in mechanics to fix them, and when the mechanics left, they were far worse. They lose those cases in courts because our judges have no courage to do what’s right. They have no courage to do what’s right.

(01:36:56)
I can tell you that was the case in 2022, where we can’t get rid of drop boxes. We need them in every church. What we have to do, we have to put our own drop boxes in. Zucker Bucks spent $500 million. If you contribute $5,700, $1 more than that, to a candidate, they put you in jail. This guy gave $500 million for all of this crap that they were doing shenanigans. They were handing out the money like it was candy, and that’s fine, but people are going to jail for spending like $93 too much because it’s not according to election law.

(01:37:46)
Until we can eliminate ballot harvesting, we will become masters at ballot harvesting. We have no choice, beating the Democrats at their own game. We’ll do it legally. The agenda I’ve laid out today will end America’s destruction, but it is not enough just to stop the forces tearing America down. I want once again to build America up. We have to build our country. We don’t build anymore. All we do is investigate everybody.

(01:38:20)
You ever see television? It used to be we’d build our military. We were proud of it. We’d be doing all things. All you see on the thing, investigation, investigation, investigation. Now, with that being said, you got to look at Hunter. I mean how crooked is that deal? But it’s not something I really … I’d like to get back to building our country and making our country great again, but it’s time to start talking about greatness for our country.

(01:38:50)
Our objective will be a quantum leap in the American standard of living, especially for our young people. As I announced yesterday, we will hold a competition to build new freedom cities on the frontier to give countless Americans a new shot at home ownership and the American dream. It’s such a wonderful, beautiful thing. I’ll challenge the governors of all 50 states, all 50 states, to join me in a great beautification campaign. We will rename our schools and boulevards not after communists, but after great American patriots. We will get rid of bad and ugly buildings in return to the magnificent classical style of western civilization. We will support baby boomers, and we will support baby bonuses for a new baby boom. How does that sound? I want a baby boom. Oh, you men are so lucky out there. You’re so lucky. You are so lucky, men. Our country will shine, thrive, and prosper like never before. All of this is within our reach, but only if we have the courage to complete the job, gut the deep state, reclaim our democracy, and banish the tyrants and Marxists into political exile forever.

(01:40:26)
They are bad for us. They want us to fail. They want our country to go down. They are sick people. Change only happens if we plow fearlessly ahead and declare with one voice that the era of woke and weaponized government is over. That is our task. That is our mission. This is the turning point and the time for that decision because, as you’ve probably heard me say before, we will not back down. We will not bend. We will not quit. We will not yield. We will press forward with push. We will press forward with vigor. We will push onward, and we will finish what we started.

(01:41:14)
We started a great, great, positive revolution. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it before. It’s called Make America Great Again. We want to make America great again. We will cross the finish line. We will dismantle the deep state. We will demolish woke tyranny, and we will restore the American republic to all of its radiant glory, and with God’s help and your support, we will make America powerful again. We want to have a powerful country. We need to have a powerful country.

(01:41:58)
We will make America wealthy again. We will make America strong again. That’s what we want. We want strength. Think of your heart pounding, we will make America proud again. We will make America safe again, not like our streets of the cities which are a disgrace for the entire world to watch, and we will make America great again. Thank you very much, CPAC. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you.

Arnold Schwarzenegger: 'The more you temper a sword, the stronger it becomes', video address on Capitol riots - 2021

10 January 2021, California, USA

As an immigrant to this country, I would like to say a few words to my fellow Americans and to our friends around the world about the events of recent days. Now, I grew up in Austria. I am very aware of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass. It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938 by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys. Wednesday was the Day of Broken Glass right here in the United States. The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol. But the mob did not just shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideas we took for granted. They did not just break down the doors of the building that housed the American democracy. They trampled the very principles on which our country was founded.

Now, I grew up in the ruins of a country that suffered the loss of its democracy. I was born in 1947, two years after the Second World War. Growing up, I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil regime in history. Not all of them were rabid antisemites or Nazis. Many just went along step-by-step down the road. They were the people next door.

Now, I’ve never shared this so publicly because it is a painful memory. But my father would come home drunk once or twice a week and he would scream and hit us and scare my mother. I did not hold him totally responsible because our neighbor was doing the same thing to his family, and so was the next neighbor over. I heard it my own ears and saw it with my own eyes. They were in physical pain from the shrapnel in their bodies and in emotional pain from what they saw or did.

It all started with lies and lies and lies, and intolerance. So being from Europe, I’ve seen firsthand how things can spin out of control. I know there is a fear in this country and all over the world that something like this could happen right here. Now, I do not believe it is, but I do believe that we must be aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism. President Trump sought to overturn the results of an election and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies. My father and our neighbors were misled also with lies, and I know where such lies lead.

President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever. The good thing is that he soon will be as irrelevant as an old Tweet. But what are we to make of those elected officials who have enabled his lies and his treachery? I will remind them of what Teddy Roosevelt said, “Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.” And John F. Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage. A number of members of my own party, because of their own spinelessness, would never see their names in such a book, I guarantee you.

They’re complicit with those who carried the flag of self-righteous insurrection into the Capitol. But it did not work. Our democracy held firm. Within hours, the Senate and the House of Representatives were doing the people’s business and certifying the election of President Elect Biden. What a great display of democracy.

Now, I grew up Catholic. I went to church, went to Catholic school. I learned the bible and my catechism, and all of this. And from those days, I remember a phrase that is relevant today, a servant’s heart. It means serving something larger than yourself. See, what we need right now is from our elected representatives is a public servant’s heart. We need public servants that serve something larger than their own power or their own party. We need public servants who will serve higher ideals, the ideas on which this country was founded, the ideas that other countries look up to.

Now, over the past few days, friends from all over the world have been calling and calling and calling me, calling me distraught and worried about us as a nation. One woman was in tears about America, wonderful tears of idealism about what America should be. Those tears should remind us of what America means to the world. Now, I’ve told everyone who has called that, as heartbreaking as all of this is, America will come back from these dark days and shine our lights once again.

Now, you see this sword? This is the Conan sword. Now, here’s the thing about swords; the more you temper a sword, the stronger it becomes. The more you pound it with a hammer and then heat it in the fire and then thrust it into the cold water, and then pound it again and plunge it into the fire and into the water, the more often you do that, the stronger it becomes. Now, I’m not telling you all this because I want you to become an expert sword maker, but our democracy is like the steel of this sword. The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes. Our democracy has been tempered by wars, injustices, and insurrections.

I believe, as shaken as we are by the events of recent days, we will come out stronger because we now understand what can be lost. We need reforms, of course, so that this never ever happens again. We need to hold accountable the people that brought us to this unforgivable point. And we need to look past ourselves, our parties, and disagreements, and put our democracy first. And we need to heal, together, from the trauma of what has just happened. We need to heal, not as Republicans or as Democrats, but as Americans.

Now, to begin this process, no matter what your political affiliation is, I ask you to join me in saying to President Elect Biden, “President Elect Biden, we wish you great success as our president. If you succeed, our nation succeeds. We support you with all our hearts as you seek to bring us together. And to those who think they can overturn the United States Constitution, know this: you will never win. President Elect Biden, we stand with you today, tomorrow, and forever in defense of our democracy from those who would threaten it.” May God bless all of you and may God bless America.

Bernie Sanders: 'Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs', Democratic National Convention - 2020

18 August 2020, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

Good evening. Our great nation is now living in an unprecedented moment. We’re facing the worst public health crisis in 100 years and the worst economic collapse since the great depression. We are confronting systemic racism and the enormous threat to our planet of climate change. And in the midst of all of this, we have a president who is not only incapable of addressing these crises, but is leading us down the path of authoritarianism. This election is the most important in the modern history of this country. In response to the unprecedented crises we face, we need an unprecedented response, a movement like never before of people who are prepared to stand up and fight for democracy and decency and against greed, oligarchy, and bigotry. And we need Joe Biden as our next president.

Let me take this opportunity to say a word to the millions of people who supported my campaign this year and in 2016. My friends, thank you for your trust, your support, and the love you showed Jane, me, and our family. Together, we have moved this country in a bold new direction, showing that all of us, black and white, Latino, native American, Asian American, gay and straight, native born and immigrant yearn for a nation based on the principles of justice, love, and compassion. Our campaign ended several months ago, but our movement continues and is getting stronger every day. Many of the ideas we fought for that just a few years ago were considered radical are now mainstream.

But let us be clear, if Donald Trump is reelected, all the progress we have made will be in jeopardy. At its most basic, this election is about preserving our democracy. During this president’s term, the unthinkable has become normal. He has tried to prevent people from voting, undermine the US Postal Service, deployed the military and federal agents against peaceful protestors, threatened to delay the election, and suggested that he will not leave office if he loses. This is not normal and we must never treat it like it is. Under this administration, authoritarianism has taken root in country. I and my family, and many of yours, know the insidious way authoritarianism destroys democracy, decency, and humanity.

As long as I am here, I will work with progressives, with moderates, and yes, with conservatives to preserve this nation from a threat that so many of our heroes fought and died to defeat. This president is not just a threat to our democracy, but by rejecting science, he has put our lives and health in jeopardy. Trump has attacked doctors and scientists trying to protect us from the pandemic while refusing to take strong action to produce the masks, gowns, and gloves our healthcare workers desperately need. Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs. His actions fanned this pandemic resulting in over 170,000 deaths and a nation still unprepared to protect its people.

Furthermore, Trump’s negligence has exacerbated the economic crisis we are now experiencing. Since this pandemic began, over 30 million people have lost their jobs and many have lost their health insurance. Millions of working families are wondering how they will feed their kids and they’re worried that they will be evicted from their homes. And how has Trump responded? Instead of maintaining the $600 a week unemployment supplement that workers were receiving and the $1,200 emergency checks that many of you received, instead of helping small businesses, Trump concocted fraudulent executive orders that do virtually nothing to address the crisis while threatening the very future of social security and Medicare.

But the truth is that even before Trump’s negligent response to this pandemic, too many hardworking families have been caught on an economic treadmill with no hope of ever getting ahead. Together, we must build a nation that is more equitable, more compassionate, and more inclusive. I know that Joe Biden will begin that fight on day one. Let me offer you just a few examples of how Joe will move us forward. Joe supports raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour. This will give 40 million workers a pay raise and push the wage scale up for everyone else. Joe will also make it easier for workers to join unions, create 12 weeks of paid family leave, fund universal pre-K for three and four year olds, and make childcare affordable for millions of families.

Joe will rebuild our crumbling infrastructure and fight the threat of climate change by transitioning us to 100% clean electricity over the next 15 years, these initiatives will create millions of good paying jobs all across our country. As you know, we are the only industrialized nation not to guarantee healthcare for all people. While Joe and I disagree on the best path to get universal coverage, he has a plan that will greatly expand healthcare and cut the cost of prescription drugs. Further, he will lower the eligibility age of Medicare from 65 down to 60. To help reform our broken criminal justice system, Joe will end private prisons and detention centers, cash bail, and the school to prison pipeline.

And to heal the soul of our nation, Joe Biden will end the hate and division Trump has created. He will stop the demonization of immigrants, the coddling of white nationalists, the racist dog whistling, the religious bigotry, and the ugly attacks on women. My friends, I say to you, to everyone who supported other candidates in the primary and to those who may have voted for Donald Trump in the last election, the future of our democracy is at stake. The future of our economy is at stake. The future of our planet is at stake. We must come together, defeat Donald Trump, and elect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris as our next president and vice president. My friends, the price of failure is just too great to imagine. Thank you.

Kimberly Guilfoyle: "Don't let them kill future generations', Republican National Convention - 2020

24 August 2020, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

Good evening, America. I’m Kimberly Guilfoyle. I speak to you tonight as a mother, a former prosecutor, a Latina, and a proud American, and yes, a proud supporter of President Donald J. Trump. Why? He is the President who delivers for America. He built the greatest economy the world has ever known, for the strivers, the working class, and middle class. As Commander in Chief, he always puts America first. President Trump is the law and order President.

Now, Presidential leadership is not guaranteed. It is a choice. Biden, Harris, and the rest of the Socialists will fundamentally change this nation. They want open borders, closed schools, dangerous amnesty, and will selfishly send your jobs back to China while they get rich. They will defund, dismantle, and destroy America’s law enforcement. When you are in trouble and need police, don’t count on the Democrats.

As a first-generation American, I know how dangerous their Socialist agenda is. My mother, Mercedes, was a special education teacher from Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. My father, also an immigrant, came to this nation in pursuit of the American Dream. Now, I consider it my duty to fight to protect that dream. Rioters must not be allowed to destroy our cities. Human sex drug traffickers should not be allowed to cross our border. The same Socialist policies which destroyed places like Cuba and Venezuela must not take root in our cities and our schools.

If you want to see the Socialist Biden/Harris future for our country, just take a look at California. It is a place of immense wealth, immeasurable innovation, and immaculate environment, and the Democrats turned it into a land of discarded heroin needles in parks, riots in streets, and blackouts in homes. In President Trump’s America, we light things up. We don’t dim them down. We build things up, we don’t burn them down. We kneel in prayer and we stand for our flag.
)
This election is a battle for the soul of America. Your choice is clear. Do you support the cancel culture? The cosmopolitan elites of Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, and Joe Biden, who blame America first? Do you think America is to blame? Or, do you believe in American greatness? Believe in yourself? In President Trump? In individual and personal responsibility? They want to destroy this country and everything that we have fought for and hold dear. They want to steal your liberty, your freedom. They want to control what you see and think and believe so that they can control how you live. They want to enslave you to the weak, dependent, liberal victim ideology to the point that you will not recognize this country or yourself.

From the beginning, when President Trump spoke about making American Great Again, he was speaking about that shining city on a hill and restoring the beacon of light that once shined so bright. His promise was to put America first and he has. When President Trump cut middle class taxes, putting tens of thousands of dollars back in the pockets of working class Americans, that beacon began to flicker once again. When President Trump commanded the defeat of ISIS, took out al-Baghdadi and Soleimani and paved the way for peace in the Middle East, that beacon started to glow. When he negotiated historic trade deals with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and China, bringing back thousands of manufacturing jobs to America, that beacon shined bright once again for the world to see.

America, it’s all on the line. President Trump believes in you. He emancipates and lifts you up to live your American Dream. You are capable. You are qualified. You are powerful and you have the ability to choose your life and determine your destiny. Don’t let the Democrats take you for granted. Don’t let them step on you. Don’t let them destroy your families, your lives, and your future. Don’t let them kill future generations because they told you and brainwashed you and fed you lies that you weren’t good enough.

Like my parents, you can achieve your American Dream. You can be that shining example to the world. Manifest and be the change in this country that you dream, that you hope, that you believe in. Stand for an American President who is fearless, who believes in you, and who loves this country and will fight for her. President Trump is the leader who will rebuild the promise of America and ensure that every citizen can realize their American Dream. Ladies and gentlemen, leaders and fighters for freedom and liberty and the American Dream, the best is yet to come!

Mariann Edgar Budde: 'The President did not pray when he came to St John's', Remarks to CNN about Bible photo shoot - 2020

Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde called into CNN to talk about Trump's photo op. Listen to this. pic.twitter.com/i2G0nS4Xxf

— John Whitehouse (@existentialfish) June 2, 2020

2 June 2020, Washington DC, USA

I want to thank you for allowing me on here, to be part of this conversation
Let me just be clear,
The president just used a bible, the most sacred text of the Judaea Christian tradition, in one of the churches of my diocese, without permission, as a backdrop to a message antithetical to the teachings of Jesus, everything that our churches stand for.
And to do so, as you just said, he sanmctioned the use of tear gas by police officers in riot gear, to clear the church yard.
I am outraged.
The President did not pray when he came to St John’s.
Nor did he acknowledge the agony of our country right now.
And in particular, that of the people of colour in our nation, who wonder if anyone ever … if anyone in power will ever acknowledge their sacred work, and who are rightfully demanding an end to four hundred years of systemic racism and white supremacy in our nation.
And I just want the world to know, that we in the diocese of Washington, following Jesus and his way of love, do not … we distance ourselves from the incendiary language of this president.
We follow someone who lived a life of non violence and sacrificial love.
We align ourselves with those seeking justice for the death of George Floyd and countless others who died performing the sacred act of peaceful protest, and I just can’t believe what my eyes have seen tonight.

Bishop Budde later appeared on PBS to further explain her position.

Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson: 'Where is he?' Remarks following death of George Floyd - 2020

Where are you?#normalizeequality#blacklivesmatter pic.twitter.com/Xid3BC4B2n

— Dwayne Johnson (@TheRock) June 4, 2020

4 June 2020, Los Angeles, California, USA

Where are you? Where is our leader? Where are you? Where is our leader at this time? At this time, when our country is down on its knees, begging, pleading, hurt, angry, frustrated, in pain, begging and pleading with its arms out, just wanting to be heard. Begging and pleading and praying for change. Where are you? Where is our compassionate leader who’s going to step up to our country who’s down on its knees and extend a hand and say, “You stand up. Stand up with me. Stand up with me, because I got you. I got you. I got you, I hear you, I’m listening to you, and you have my word that I’m going to do everything in my power until my dying day, my last breath, to do everything I can, to create the change that is needed, to normalize equality because black lives matter.”

Where are you? It’s that same compassionate leader who has to come back and readdress the country to give important context, to give important perspective on the comments that were just made. Of course all lives matter. Every single one. All lives matter because we as Americans, we believe in inclusivity, we believe in acceptance, we believe in human rights, we believe in equality for all. That’s what we believe in. So of course all lives matter, but in this moment right now, this defining, pivotal, explosive moment where our country is down on its knees, the floorboards of our country are becoming unhinged in this moment, we must say the words, black lives matter.

Where are you? Where are you, because here’s what happens when you extend a hand and you reach out to Americans who are in pain, and they stand with you. They stand with you, here’s what happens, the country, the entire country, the entire country stands and rises as well. There is military force that has been deployed on our own people. Looters, yes. Criminals, absolutely. But our protesters, who are begging and pleading, our protesters, who are in pain? You would be surprised how people in pain would respond when you say to them, “I care about you.” When you say to them, “I’m listening to you.” You’d be surprised how people would respond, how Americans would respond if you say to them, “I care about you, I am listening to you, this is our country, you are all my people, and I take full responsibility and full accountability for something that has been hundreds of years of systemic disease. Why am I taking full accountability? Because I am your leader. I’m your leader and I’m going to do everything I can to make this right. I’ll tell you what, you give me some trust, you give me some time, you give me some effort, you give me some love. I’m right there with you and together, we’re going to make this right. Together we’re going to create that change. Together we’re going to normalize equality. We’re going to do it but we’re going to do it together.”

You’d be surprised how Americans and how human beings would respond. They would rise up with you. We would rise up with you. The world would rise up with you. I want to take a moment to thank the world. I want to take a moment right now to thank the world for standing up with us in our fight for equality, to normalize equality. I want to thank all these countries around the world, incredible, inspiring, beautiful displays of solidarity, and I want you to know something, and I feel confident speaking on behalf of your American brothers and sisters, us, through our fire, through our smoke, through our debris, through our noise and everything that we’re going through right now, because there’s a lot happening around us as we’re taking our lumps. Don’t think for a second that we don’t see you. We see you. We see you, we thank you, we love you.

Look, I am like the majority of Americans. I’m not a politician and I’ve never clearly been elected to office and I am not the President of the United States, but I am a man and I am a father who cares so deeply about my family, about my children and the world that they will live in. I care so deeply about our country and every single person in it. That’s who I am. I am a man who is frustrated, I am disappointed, I am angry, but I am also doing my best to stay focused and as calm as I can possibly be in the pocket to make the best decisions for my family and make the best decisions for our country. So as we continue to wait for that leader to emerge, as we continue to wait for that leader to emerge, I would recommend to all of you that we must become the leaders we’re looking for. We become our own leaders. Because we’re doing it now. We’re doing it now. We must become the leaders we are looking for.

I’ll ask it one more time. Where are you? Where is that compassionate leader who steps up and takes accountability for his country and all of the people in our country? Where are you? Because I’ll tell you what, we’re here. We’re all here. We are all here. We’re all here, and the process to change has already begun. The process to change has already begun, you can feel it. You can feel it, you can feel it, you can feel it across our country. Change is happening. It’s going to take time, we’re going to get beat up, we’re going to take our lumps, there’s going to be blood, but the process of change has already begun. You guys stay strong. We got this.

Where are you? Where is our leader? Where are you? Where is our leader at this time? At this time, when our country is down on its knees, begging, pleading, hurt, angry, frustrated, in pain, begging and pleading with its arms out, just wanting to be heard. Begging and pleading and praying for change. Where are you? Where is our compassionate leader who’s going to step up to our country who’s down on its knees and extend a hand and say, “You stand up. Stand up with me. Stand up with me, because I got you. I got you. I got you, I hear you, I’m listening to you, and you have my word that I’m going to do everything in my power until my dying day, my last breath, to do everything I can, to create the change that is needed, to normalize equality because black lives matter.”

Where are you? It’s that same compassionate leader who has to come back and readdress the country to give important context, to give important perspective on the comments that were just made. Of course all lives matter. Every single one. All lives matter because we as Americans, we believe in inclusivity, we believe in acceptance, we believe in human rights, we believe in equality for all. That’s what we believe in. So of course all lives matter, but in this moment right now, this defining, pivotal, explosive moment where our country is down on its knees, the floorboards of our country are becoming unhinged in this moment, we must say the words, black lives matter.

Where are you? Where are you, because here’s what happens when you extend a hand and you reach out to Americans who are in pain, and they stand with you. They stand with you, here’s what happens, the country, the entire country, the entire country stands and rises as well. There is military force that has been deployed on our own people. Looters, yes. Criminals, absolutely. But our protesters, who are begging and pleading, our protesters, who are in pain? You would be surprised how people in pain would respond when you say to them, “I care about you.” When you say to them, “I’m listening to you.” You’d be surprised how people would respond, how Americans would respond if you say to them, “I care about you, I am listening to you, this is our country, you are all my people, and I take full responsibility and full accountability for something that has been hundreds of years of systemic disease. Why am I taking full accountability? Because I am your leader. I’m your leader and I’m going to do everything I can to make this right. I’ll tell you what, you give me some trust, you give me some time, you give me some effort, you give me some love. I’m right there with you and together, we’re going to make this right. Together we’re going to create that change. Together we’re going to normalize equality. We’re going to do it but we’re going to do it together.”

You’d be surprised how Americans and how human beings would respond. They would rise up with you. We would rise up with you. The world would rise up with you. I want to take a moment to thank the world. I want to take a moment right now to thank the world for standing up with us in our fight for equality, to normalize equality. I want to thank all these countries around the world, incredible, inspiring, beautiful displays of solidarity, and I want you to know something, and I feel confident speaking on behalf of your American brothers and sisters, us, through our fire, through our smoke, through our debris, through our noise and everything that we’re going through right now, because there’s a lot happening around us as we’re taking our lumps. Don’t think for a second that we don’t see you. We see you. We see you, we thank you, we love you.

Look, I am like the majority of Americans. I’m not a politician and I’ve never clearly been elected to office and I am not the President of the United States, but I am a man and I am a father who cares so deeply about my family, about my children and the world that they will live in. I care so deeply about our country and every single person in it. That’s who I am. I am a man who is frustrated, I am disappointed, I am angry, but I am also doing my best to stay focused and as calm as I can possibly be in the pocket to make the best decisions for my family and make the best decisions for our country. So as we continue to wait for that leader to emerge, as we continue to wait for that leader to emerge, I would recommend to all of you that we must become the leaders we’re looking for. We become our own leaders. Because we’re doing it now. We’re doing it now. We must become the leaders we are looking for.

I’ll ask it one more time. Where are you? Where is that compassionate leader who steps up and takes accountability for his country and all of the people in our country? Where are you? Because I’ll tell you what, we’re here. We’re all here. We are all here. We’re all here, and the process to change has already begun. The process to change has already begun, you can feel it. You can feel it, you can feel it, you can feel it across our country. Change is happening. It’s going to take time, we’re going to get beat up, we’re going to take our lumps, there’s going to be blood, but the process of change has already begun. You guys stay strong. We got this.

Steny Hoyer: 'This impeachment asks whether we are still a republic of laws', Statement ahead of House impeachment - 2019

18 December 2019, Washington DC, USA

Madam Speaker, I’ve had the honor of serving in this House for over thirty-eight years. I’ve served during six presidencies. I’ve been here through moments of tremendous progress and terrible tragedy. I’ve seen periods of rank partisanship and patriotic bipartisanship. I’ve seen our two-party system work, and I’ve seen it break down.

Never, in all my years serving in this great institution and the people of my district, did I ever expect to encounter such obvious wrongdoing by a President of the United States. Nor did I expect to witness such craven rationalization of presidential actions, which have put our national security at risk, undermined the integrity of our elections, and defied the Constitutional authority of the Congress to conduct oversight.

We’ve heard from Republicans that this impeachment really has to do with policy differences or concerns about the President’s temperament or that we simply dislike the President. They’ve alleged that Democrats have been itching to impeach him since he first took office. The facts say otherwise.

Throughout the Trump presidency, Democrats have resisted pursuing impeachment even as we watched with dismay and disgust at a pattern of wrongdoing. That pattern included ordering federal agencies to lie to the public, firing the FBI Director for refusing to end an investigation of his campaign, siding with Vladimir Putin over our intelligence agencies, taking funding away from the military to put toward an ineffective border wall, and setting policies that have led to the separation of families and the caging of children. We have, to be sure, deep disagreements with the policies and actions taken by this president. But they are not reasons to pursue what Chairman Schiff has called, ‘a wrenching process for the nation.

In fact, Democrats rejected that process emphatically in three specific votes. In December of 2017, Democrats overwhelmingly voted against pursuing articles of impeachment, including the Speaker and myself. We did so again in 2018, with over sixty percent of Democrats rejecting that path. Again, in July 2019, just days before the infamous July 25 telephone call, we did the same, with sixty percent of Democrats voting not to proceed.

It was not until there was clear evidence that the President was abusing his power to serve his own interests – at the expense of our democracy, our national security, and the safeguarding of our elections from foreign interference – that we were compelled to consider articles of impeachment. Credible witnesses, many of whom were appointed to office by President Trump, have corroborated the details and timeline of his abuse of presidential power, which forms the basis of the first article of impeachment in this resolution. I will not recount them here. They have been laid out fully in the articles before us and by colleagues in their remarks.

What I will do is remind Americans that the House provided President Trump every opportunity to prove his innocence. Instead, he ignored Congressional subpoenas for documents and for testimony by White House officials and ordered his subordinates not to cooperate. This itself is unprecedented. When Presidents Nixon and Clinton were asked to hand over documents and allow officials to testify, ultimately both complied. Because it is the law. Such actions of the President can be taken as further evidence of his obstruction and abuse of power. It is itself impeachable conduct, the subject of the second article in this resolution.

These two articles before us concern two very profound Constitutional issues about the abuse of power in our republic. First, whether it is acceptable for the President of the United States to solicit foreign interference in our elections, undermining our national security and the integrity of our democracy. And second, whether it is permissible for the president to obstruct Congress and act as if he is above the law and immune from Constitutional oversight.

On December 4, the Judiciary Committee heard the testimony of Constitutional law experts who weighed in on these points. One of them, Professor Noah Feldman, cautioned: ‘If we cannot impeach a president who abuses his office for personal advantage, we no longer live in a democracy. We live in a monarchy, or we live under a dictatorship.’

The votes we are about to take concern the rule of law and our democracy itself. Let us not forget the words of the philosopher John Locke, so influential to the Founders of our republic. He warned: ‘Wherever law ends, tyranny begins.’

This impeachment asks whether we are still a republic of laws, as our Founders intended – or whether we will accept that one person can be above the law. In America, no one is above the law, but only as long as we hold every person accountable for breaking the law – even a president. Especially a president.

If the House does not act – if we wait and delay – we run the risk of allowing the President’s misconduct to be repeated at the expense of the integrity of our elections, our national security, and our Constitutional system of separation of powers. Democrats did not choose impeachment. We did not wish for it. But President Trump’s misconduct has forced our Constitutional republic to protect itself.

These votes we are about to take – and the process that will follow in the Senate – are not only an assessment of the President’s commitment to the Constitution or to his oath of office. It is, as well, a test of our own. Damning evidence of the President’s high crimes has emerged. Nevertheless, Republican Members of this House and of the Senate have continued to defend a President whose actions and statements are indefensible.

All of us feel a sense of loyalty to party. It’s what makes our two-party system function. It’s what helps hold presidents and majorities accountable. But party loyalty must have its limits. And as evidence of the President’s impeachable offenses has mounted, it has become increasingly clear that the limits of partisanship have been reached and passed.

Now, Democrats and Republicans together face a test before our constituents, our countrymen, and our Creator.

The New York Times on October 18 summarized the question now posed to House and Senate Republicans: ‘Compromise by compromise, Donald Trump has hammered away at what Republicans once saw as foundational virtues: decency, honesty, responsibility. …Will they commit themselves and their party wholly to Mr. Trump, embracing even his most anti-democratic actions, or will they take the first step toward separating themselves from him and restoring confidence in the rule of law?’

Madam Speaker, we have seen Republican courage throughout our history, from the Civil War to the Cold War. In 1950, Margaret Chase Smith, the Senator from Maine, spoke bravely against the cancer of McCarthyism in her party, leading six of her Republican colleagues in a ‘Declaration of Conscience’ against their own leadership.‘We are Republicans,’ they declared, ‘but we are Americans first.’

In 1974, one Congressman took the brave and principled step of becoming the first Republican on the Judiciary Committee to support impeaching President Nixon. He said to his colleagues and to the country: ‘…It isn’t easy for me to align myself against the president to whom I gave my enthusiastic support… on whose side I’ve stood in many legislative battles, whose accomplishments in foreign and domestic affairs I’ve consistently applauded. But it’s impossible for me to condone or ignore the long train of abuses to which he has subjected the presidency and the people of this country. The Constitution and my own oath of office demand that I bear true faith and allegiance to the principles of law and justice upon which this nation was founded. And I cannot in good conscience turn away from the evidence of evil that is to me so clear and compelling.

That Congressman’s name was Larry Hogan Sr. He represented the Fifth District of Maryland, which I now represent. His son is presently the second-term Republican governor of our state. When Larry Hogan Sr. died in 2017, every obituary led with praise for his great act of political courage. Who among us, many years from now, will receive such praise as a man or woman of courage? Who will regret not having earned it?

When Rep. Justin Amash left the Republican Party, he admonished his colleagues that: ‘This president will only be in power for a short time, but excusing his behavior will forever tarnish your name.’ Rep. Amash, of course, is the only Member of this House who has no allegiance to either party. He is supporting both articles of impeachment.

We need not ask who will be the first to show courage by standing up to President Trump. The question we must now ask is: who will be the last to find it?

The pages of our history are filled with Americans who had the courage to choose country over party or personality. But, as President Kennedy wrote: ‘The stories of past courage …can teach, they can offer hope, they can provide inspiration. But they cannot supply courage itself. For this each man must look into his own soul.

I urge my colleagues in the House and in the Senate: look into your soul. Summon the courage to vote for our Constitution and our democracy. To do less betrays our oath and that of our Founders, who pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. Let us neither turn away from the evidence, which is so clear, nor from our good conscience, which compels us to do what in our hearts we know to be right. Let us not allow the rule of law to end or for tyranny to find its toehold.

With our votes today, we can ‘bear true faith and allegiance’ to the vision of our Founders. And we can show future generations what it truly means to be ‘Americans first.’

Donald Trump: 'My administration has has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country' United Nations address - 2018

25 September, New York City, New York, USA

Madam President, Mr. Secretary-General, world leaders, ambassadors, and distinguished delegates:

One year ago, I stood before you for the first time in this grand hall. I addressed the threats facing our world, and I presented a vision to achieve a brighter future for all of humanity.

Today, I stand before the United Nations General Assembly to share the extraordinary progress we’ve made.

In less than two years, my administration has accomplished more than almost any administration in the history of our country.

America’s — so true. (Laughter.) Didn’t expect that reaction, but that’s okay. (Laughter and applause.)

America’s economy is booming like never before. Since my election, we’ve added $10 trillion in wealth. The stock market is at an all-time high in history, and jobless claims are at a 50-year low. African American, Hispanic American, and Asian American unemployment have all achieved their lowest levels ever recorded. We’ve added more than 4 million new jobs, including half a million manufacturing jobs.

We have passed the biggest tax cuts and reforms in American history. We’ve started the construction of a major border wall, and we have greatly strengthened border security.

We have secured record funding for our military — $700 billion this year, and $716 billion next year. Our military will soon be more powerful than it has ever been before.

In other words, the United States is stronger, safer, and a richer country than it was when I assumed office less than two years ago.

We are standing up for America and for the American people. And we are also standing up for the world.

This is great news for our citizens and for peace-loving people everywhere. We believe that when nations respect the rights of their neighbors, and defend the interests of their people, they can better work together to secure the blessings of safety, prosperity, and peace.

Each of us here today is the emissary of a distinct culture, a rich history, and a people bound together by ties of memory, tradition, and the values that make our homelands like nowhere else on Earth.

That is why America will always choose independence and cooperation over global governance, control, and domination.

I honor the right of every nation in this room to pursue its own customs, beliefs, and traditions. The United States will not tell you how to live or work or worship.

We only ask that you honor our sovereignty in return.

From Warsaw to Brussels, to Tokyo to Singapore, it has been my highest honor to represent the United States abroad. I have forged close relationships and friendships and strong partnerships with the leaders of many nations in this room, and our approach has already yielded incredible change.

With support from many countries here today, we have engaged with North Korea to replace the specter of conflict with a bold and new push for peace.

In June, I traveled to Singapore to meet face to face with North Korea’s leader, Chairman Kim Jong Un.

We had highly productive conversations and meetings, and we agreed that it was in both countries’ interest to pursue the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. Since that meeting, we have already seen a number of encouraging measures that few could have imagined only a short time ago.

The missiles and rockets are no longer flying in every direction. Nuclear testing has stopped. Some military facilities are already being dismantled. Our hostages have been released. And as promised, the remains of our fallen heroes are being returned home to lay at rest in American soil.

I would like to thank Chairman Kim for his courage and for the steps he has taken, though much work remains to be done. The sanctions will stay in place until denuclearization occurs.

I also want to thank the many member states who helped us reach this moment — a moment that is actually far greater than people would understand; far greater — but for also their support and the critical support that we will all need going forward.

A special thanks to President Moon of South Korea, Prime Minister Abe of Japan, and President Xi of China.

In the Middle East, our new approach is also yielding great strides and very historic change.

Following my trip to Saudi Arabia last year, the Gulf countries opened a new center to target terrorist financing. They are enforcing new sanctions, working with us to identify and track terrorist networks, and taking more responsibility for fighting terrorism and extremism in their own region.

The UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar have pledged billions of dollars to aid the people of Syria and Yemen. And they are pursuing multiple avenues to ending Yemen’s horrible, horrific civil war.

Ultimately, it is up to the nations of the region to decide what kind of future they want for themselves and their children.

For that reason, the United States is working with the Gulf Cooperation Council, Jordan, and Egypt to establish a regional strategic alliance so that Middle Eastern nations can advance prosperity, stability, and security across their home region.

Thanks to the United States military and our partnership with many of your nations, I am pleased to report that the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS have been driven out from the territory they once held in Iraq and Syria. We will continue to work with friends and allies to deny radical Islamic terrorists any funding, territory or support, or any means of infiltrating our borders.

The ongoing tragedy in Syria is heartbreaking. Our shared goals must be the de-escalation of military conflict, along with a political solution that honors the will of the Syrian people. In this vein, we urge the United Nations-led peace process be reinvigorated. But, rest assured, the United States will respond if chemical weapons are deployed by the Assad regime.

I commend the people of Jordan and other neighboring countries for hosting refugees from this very brutal civil war.

As we see in Jordan, the most compassionate policy is to place refugees as close to their homes as possible to ease their eventual return to be part of the rebuilding process. This approach also stretches finite resources to help far more people, increasing the impact of every dollar spent.

Every solution to the humanitarian crisis in Syria must also include a strategy to address the brutal regime that has fueled and financed it: the corrupt dictatorship in Iran.

Iran’s leaders sow chaos, death, and destruction. They do not respect their neighbors or borders, or the sovereign rights of nations. Instead, Iran’s leaders plunder the nation’s resources to enrich themselves and to spread mayhem across the Middle East and far beyond.

The Iranian people are rightly outraged that their leaders have embezzled billions of dollars from Iran’s treasury, seized valuable portions of the economy, and looted the people’s religious endowments, all to line their own pockets and send their proxies to wage war. Not good.

Iran’s neighbors have paid a heavy toll for the region’s [regime’s] agenda of aggression and expansion. That is why so many countries in the Middle East strongly supported my decision to withdraw the United States from the horrible 2015 Iran Nuclear Deal and re-impose nuclear sanctions.

The Iran deal was a windfall for Iran’s leaders. In the years since the deal was reached, Iran’s military budget grew nearly 40 percent. The dictatorship used the funds to build nuclear-capable missiles, increase internal repression, finance terrorism, and fund havoc and slaughter in Syria and Yemen.

The United States has launched a campaign of economic pressure to deny the regime the funds it needs to advance its bloody agenda. Last month, we began re-imposing hard-hitting nuclear sanctions that had been lifted under the Iran deal. Additional sanctions will resume November 5th, and more will follow. And we’re working with countries that import Iranian crude oil to cut their purchases substantially.

We cannot allow the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism to possess the planet’s most dangerous weapons. We cannot allow a regime that chants “Death to America,” and that threatens Israel with annihilation, to possess the means to deliver a nuclear warhead to any city on Earth. Just can’t do it.

We ask all nations to isolate Iran’s regime as long as its aggression continues. And we ask all nations to support Iran’s people as they struggle to reclaim their religious and righteous destiny.

This year, we also took another significant step forward in the Middle East. In recognition of every sovereign state to determine its own capital, I moved the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.

The United States is committed to a future of peace and stability in the region, including peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. That aim is advanced, not harmed, by acknowledging the obvious facts.

America’s policy of principled realism means we will not be held hostage to old dogmas, discredited ideologies, and so-called experts who have been proven wrong over the years, time and time again. This is true not only in matters of peace, but in matters of prosperity.

We believe that trade must be fair and reciprocal. The United States will not be taken advantage of any longer.

For decades, the United States opened its economy — the largest, by far, on Earth — with few conditions. We allowed foreign goods from all over the world to flow freely across our borders.

Yet, other countries did not grant us fair and reciprocal access to their markets in return. Even worse, some countries abused their openness to dump their products, subsidize their goods, target our industries, and manipulate their currencies to gain unfair advantage over our country. As a result, our trade deficit ballooned to nearly $800 billion a year.

For this reason, we are systematically renegotiating broken and bad trade deals.

Last month, we announced a groundbreaking U.S.-Mexico trade agreement. And just yesterday, I stood with President Moon to announce the successful completion of the brand new U.S.-Korea trade deal. And this is just the beginning.

Many nations in this hall will agree that the world trading system is in dire need of change. For example, countries were admitted to the World Trade Organization that violate every single principle on which the organization is based. While the United States and many other nations play by the rules, these countries use government-run industrial planning and state-owned enterprises to rig the system in their favor. They engage in relentless product dumping, forced technology transfer, and the theft of intellectual property.

The United States lost over 3 million manufacturing jobs, nearly a quarter of all steel jobs, and 60,000 factories after China joined the WTO. And we have racked up $13 trillion in trade deficits over the last two decades.

But those days are over. We will no longer tolerate such abuse. We will not allow our workers to be victimized, our companies to be cheated, and our wealth to be plundered and transferred. America will never apologize for protecting its citizens.

The United States has just announced tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese-made goods for a total, so far, of $250 billion. I have great respect and affection for my friend, President Xi, but I have made clear our trade imbalance is just not acceptable. China’s market distortions and the way they deal cannot be tolerated.

As my administration has demonstrated, America will always act in our national interest.

I spoke before this body last year and warned that the U.N. Human Rights Council had become a grave embarrassment to this institution, shielding egregious human rights abusers while bashing America and its many friends.

Our Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, laid out a clear agenda for reform, but despite reported and repeated warnings, no action at all was taken.

So the United States took the only responsible course: We withdrew from the Human Rights Council, and we will not return until real reform is enacted.

For similar reasons, the United States will provide no support in recognition to the International Criminal Court. As far as America is concerned, the ICC has no jurisdiction, no legitimacy, and no authority. The ICC claims near-universal jurisdiction over the citizens of every country, violating all principles of justice, fairness, and due process. We will never surrender America’s sovereignty to an unelected, unaccountable, global bureaucracy.

America is governed by Americans. We reject the ideology of globalism, and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.

Around the world, responsible nations must defend against threats to sovereignty not just from global governance, but also from other, new forms of coercion and domination.

In America, we believe strongly in energy security for ourselves and for our allies. We have become the largest energy producer anywhere on the face of the Earth.

The United States stands ready to export our abundant, affordable supply of oil, clean coal, and natural gas.

OPEC and OPEC nations, are, as usual, ripping off the rest of the world, and I don’t like it. Nobody should like it. We defend many of these nations for nothing, and then they take advantage of us by giving us high oil prices. Not good.

We want them to stop raising prices, we want them to start lowering prices, and they must contribute substantially to military protection from now on. We are not going to put up with it — these horrible prices — much longer.

Reliance on a single foreign supplier can leave a nation vulnerable to extortion and intimidation. That is why we congratulate European states, such as Poland, for leading the construction of a Baltic pipeline so that nations are not dependent on Russia to meet their energy needs. Germany will become totally dependent on Russian energy if it does not immediately change course.

Here in the Western Hemisphere, we are committed to maintaining our independence from the encroachment of expansionist foreign powers.

It has been the formal policy of our country since President Monroe that we reject the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs. The United States has recently strengthened our laws to better screen foreign investments in our country for national security threats, and we welcome cooperation with countries in this region and around the world that wish to do the same. You need to do it for your own protection.

The United States is also working with partners in Latin America to confront threats to sovereignty from uncontrolled migration. Tolerance for human struggling and human smuggling and trafficking is not humane. It’s a horrible thing that’s going on, at levels that nobody has ever seen before. It’s very, very cruel.

Illegal immigration funds criminal networks, ruthless gangs, and the flow of deadly drugs. Illegal immigration exploits vulnerable populations, hurts hardworking citizens, and has produced a vicious cycle of crime, violence, and poverty. Only by upholding national borders, destroying criminal gangs, can we break this cycle and establish a real foundation for prosperity.

We recognize the right of every nation in this room to set its own immigration policy in accordance with its national interests, just as we ask other countries to respect our own right to do the same — which we are doing. That is one reason the United States will not participate in the new Global Compact on Migration. Migration should not be governed by an international body unaccountable to our own citizens.

Ultimately, the only long-term solution to the migration crisis is to help people build more hopeful futures in their home countries. Make their countries great again.

Currently, we are witnessing a human tragedy, as an example, in Venezuela. More than 2 million people have fled the anguish inflicted by the socialist Maduro regime and its Cuban sponsors.

Not long ago, Venezuela was one of the richest countries on Earth. Today, socialism has bankrupted the oil-rich nation and driven its people into abject poverty.

Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay. Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression. All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone.

In that spirit, we ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela. Today, we are announcing additional sanctions against the repressive regime, targeting Maduro’s inner circle and close advisors.

We are grateful for all the work the United Nations does around the world to help people build better lives for themselves and their families.

The United States is the world’s largest giver in the world, by far, of foreign aid. But few give anything to us. That is why we are taking a hard look at U.S. foreign assistance. That will be headed up by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. We will examine what is working, what is not working, and whether the countries who receive our dollars and our protection also have our interests at heart.

Moving forward, we are only going to give foreign aid to those who respect us and, frankly, are our friends. And we expect other countries to pay their fair share for the cost of their defense.

The United States is committed to making the United Nations more effective and accountable. I have said many times that the United Nations has unlimited potential. As part of our reform effort, I have told our negotiators that the United States will not pay more than 25 percent of the U.N. peacekeeping budget. This will encourage other countries to step up, get involved, and also share in this very large burden.

And we are working to shift more of our funding from assessed contributions to voluntary so that we can target American resources to the programs with the best record of success.

Only when each of us does our part and contributes our share can we realize the U.N.’s highest aspirations. We must pursue peace without fear, hope without despair, and security without apology.

Looking around this hall where so much history has transpired, we think of the many before us who have come here to address the challenges of their nations and of their times. And our thoughts turn to the same question that ran through all their speeches and resolutions, through every word and every hope. It is the question of what kind of world will we leave for our children and what kind of nations they will inherit.

The dreams that fill this hall today are as diverse as the people who have stood at this podium, and as varied as the countries represented right here in this body are. It really is something. It really is great, great history.

There is India, a free society over a billion people, successfully lifting countless millions out of poverty and into the middle class.

There is Saudi Arabia, where King Salman and the Crown Prince are pursuing bold new reforms.

There is Israel, proudly celebrating its 70th anniversary as a thriving democracy in the Holy Land.

In Poland, a great people are standing up for their independence, their security, and their sovereignty.

Many countries are pursuing their own unique visions, building their own hopeful futures, and chasing their own wonderful dreams of destiny, of legacy, and of a home.

The whole world is richer, humanity is better, because of this beautiful constellation of nations, each very special, each very unique, and each shining brightly in its part of the world.

In each one, we see awesome promise of a people bound together by a shared past and working toward a common future.

As for Americans, we know what kind of future we want for ourselves. We know what kind of a nation America must always be.

In America, we believe in the majesty of freedom and the dignity of the individual. We believe in self-government and the rule of law. And we prize the culture that sustains our liberty -– a culture built on strong families, deep faith, and fierce independence. We celebrate our heroes, we treasure our traditions, and above all, we love our country.

Inside everyone in this great chamber today, and everyone listening all around the globe, there is the heart of a patriot that feels the same powerful love for your nation, the same intense loyalty to your homeland.

The passion that burns in the hearts of patriots and the souls of nations has inspired reform and revolution, sacrifice and selflessness, scientific breakthroughs, and magnificent works of art.

Our task is not to erase it, but to embrace it. To build with it. To draw on its ancient wisdom. And to find within it the will to make our nations greater, our regions safer, and the world better.

To unleash this incredible potential in our people, we must defend the foundations that make it all possible. Sovereign and independent nations are the only vehicle where freedom has ever survived, democracy has ever endured, or peace has ever prospered. And so we must protect our sovereignty and our cherished independence above all.

When we do, we will find new avenues for cooperation unfolding before us. We will find new passion for peacemaking rising within us. We will find new purpose, new resolve, and new spirit flourishing all around us, and making this a more beautiful world in which to live.

So together, let us choose a future of patriotism, prosperity, and pride. Let us choose peace and freedom over domination and defeat. And let us come here to this place to stand for our people and their nations, forever strong, forever sovereign, forever just, and forever thankful for the grace and the goodness and the glory of God.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the nations of the world.

Thank you very much. Thank you. (Applause.)

Michael Cohen: 'He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat', Testimony to Congress - 2019

27 February 2019, Congress, Washington DC, USA

Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me here today.

I have asked this Committee to ensure that my family be protected from Presidential threats, and that the Committee be sensitive to the questions pertaining to ongoing investigations. Thank you for your help and for your understanding.

I am here under oath to correct the record, to answer the Committee's questions truthfully, and to offer the American people what I know about President Trump.

I recognize that some of you may doubt and attack me on my credibility. It is for this reason that I have incorporated into this opening statement documents that are irrefutable, and demonstrate that the information you will hear is accurate and truthful.

Never in a million years did I imagine, when I accepted a job in 2007 to work for Donald Trump, that he would one day run for President, launch a campaign on a platform of hate and intolerance, and actually win. I regret the day I said "yes" to Mr. Trump. I regret all the help and support I gave him along the way.

I am ashamed of my own failings, and I publicly accepted responsibility for them by pleading guilty in the Southern District of New York.

I am ashamed of my weakness and misplaced loyalty – of the things I did for Mr. Trump in an effort to protect and promote him.

I am ashamed that I chose to take part in concealing Mr. Trump's illicit acts rather than listening to my own conscience. I am ashamed because I know what Mr. Trump is.

He is a racist.

He is a conman.

He is a cheat.

He was a presidential candidate who knew that Roger Stone was talking with Julian Assange about a WikiLeaks drop of Democratic National Committee emails.

I will explain each in a few moments.

I am providing the Committee today with several documents.

These include:

A copy of a check Mr. Trump wrote from his personal bank account – after he became president - to reimburse me for the hush money payments I made to cover up his affair with an adult film star and prevent damage to his campaign;

Copies of financial statements for 2011 – 2013 that he gave to such institutions as Deutsche Bank;

A copy of an article with Mr. Trump's handwriting on it that reported on the auction of a portrait of himself – he arranged for the bidder ahead of time and then reimbursed the bidder from the account of his non-profit charitable foundation, with the picture now hanging in one of his country clubs; and

Copies of letters I wrote at Mr. Trump's direction that threatened his high school, colleges, and the College Board not to release his grades or SAT scores.

I hope my appearance here today, my guilty plea, and my work with law enforcement agencies are steps along a path of redemption that will restore faith in me and help this country understand our president better.

***

Before going further, I want to apologize to each of you and to Congress as a whole.

The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr. Trump. Today, I'm here to tell the truth about Mr. Trump.

I lied to Congress about when Mr. Trump stopped negotiating the Moscow Tower project in Russia. I stated that we stopped negotiating in January 2016. That was false – our negotiations continued for months later during the campaign.

Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That's not how he operates.

In conversations we had during the campaign, at the same time I was actively negotiating in Russia for him, he would look me in the eye and tell me there's no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people by saying the same thing. In his way, he was telling me to lie.

There were at least a half-dozen times between the Iowa Caucus in January 2016 and the end of June when he would ask me "How's it going in Russia?" – referring to the Moscow Tower project.

You need to know that Mr. Trump's personal lawyers reviewed and edited my statement to Congress about the timing of the Moscow Tower negotiations before I gave it.

To be clear: Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it because he never expected to win the election. He also lied about it because he stood to make hundreds of millions of dollars on the Moscow real estate project.

And so I lied about it, too – because Mr. Trump had made clear to me, through his personal statements to me that we both knew were false and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie. And he made it clear to me because his personal attorneys reviewed my statement before I gave it to Congress.

****

Over the past two years, I have been smeared as "a rat" by the President of the United States. The truth is much different, and let me take a brief moment to introduce myself.

My name is Michael Dean Cohen.

I am a blessed husband of 24 years and a father to an incredible daughter and son. When I married my wife, I promised her that I would love her, cherish her, and protect her. As my father said countless times throughout my childhood, "you my wife, and you my children, are the air that I breathe." To my Laura, my Sami, and my Jake, there is nothing I wouldn't do to protect you.

I have always tried to live a life of loyalty, friendship, generosity, and compassion – qualities my parents ingrained in my siblings and me since childhood. My father survived the Holocaust thanks to the compassion and selfless acts of others. He was helped by many who put themselves in harm's way to do what they knew was right.

That is why my first instinct has always been to help those in need. Mom and Dad…I am sorry that I let you down.

As many people that know me best would say, I am the person they would call at 3AM if they needed help. I proudly remember being the emergency contact for many of my children's friends when they were growing up because their parents knew that I would drop everything and care for them as if they were my own.

Yet, last fall I pled guilty in federal court to felonies for the benefit of, at the direction of, and in coordination with Individual #1.

For the record: Individual #1 is President Donald J. Trump.

It is painful to admit that I was motivated by ambition at times. It is even more painful to admit that many times I ignored my conscience and acted loyal to a man when I should not have. Sitting here today, it seems unbelievable that I was so mesmerized by Donald Trump that I was willing to do things for him that I knew were absolutely wrong.

For that reason, I have come here to apologize to my family, to the government, and to the American people.

***

Accordingly, let me now tell you about Mr. Trump.

I got to know him very well, working very closely with him for more than 10 years, as his Executive Vice President and Special Counsel and then personal attorney when he became President. When I first met Mr. Trump, he was a successful entrepreneur, a real estate giant, and an icon. Being around Mr. Trump was intoxicating. When you were in his presence, you felt like you were involved in something greater than yourself -- that you were somehow changing the world.

I wound up touting the Trump narrative for over a decade. That was my job. Always stay on message. Always defend. It monopolized my life. At first, I worked mostly on real estate developments and other business transactions. Shortly thereafter, Mr. Trump brought me into his personal life and private dealings. Over time, I saw his true character revealed.

Mr. Trump is an enigma. He is complicated, as am I. He has both good and bad, as do we all. But the bad far outweighs the good, and since taking office, he has become the worst version of himself. He is capable of behaving kindly, but he is not kind. He is capable of committing acts of generosity, but he is not generous. He is capable of being loyal, but he is fundamentally disloyal.

Donald Trump is a man who ran for office to make his brand great, not to make our country great. He had no desire or intention to lead this nation – only to market himself and to build his wealth and power. Mr. Trump would often say, this campaign was going to be the "greatest infomercial in political history."

He never expected to win the primary. He never expected to win the general election. The campaign – for him – was always a marketing opportunity.

I knew early on in my work for Mr. Trump that he would direct me to lie to further his business interests. I am ashamed to say, that when it was for a real estate mogul in the private sector, I considered it trivial. As the President, I consider it significant and dangerous.

But in the mix, lying for Mr. Trump was normalized, and no one around him questioned it. In fairness, no one around him today questions it, either.

A lot of people have asked me about whether Mr. Trump knew about the release of the hacked Democratic National Committee emails ahead of time. The answer is yes.

As I earlier stated, Mr. Trump knew from Roger Stone in advance about the WikiLeaks drop of emails.

In July 2016, days before the Democratic convention, I was in Mr. Trump's office when his secretary announced that Roger Stone was on the phone. Mr. Trump put Mr. Stone on the speakerphone. Mr. Stone told Mr. Trump that he had just gotten off the phone with Julian Assange and that Mr. Assange told Mr. Stone that, within a couple of days, there would be a massive dump of emails that would damage Hillary Clinton's campaign.

Mr. Trump responded by stating to the effect of "wouldn't that be great."

Mr. Trump is a racist. The country has seen Mr. Trump court white supremacists and bigots. You have heard him call poorer countries "shitholes."

In private, he is even worse. He once asked me if I could name a country run by a black person that wasn't a "shithole." This was when Barack Obama was President of the United States.

While we were once driving through a struggling neighborhood in Chicago, he commented that only black people could live that way.

And, he told me that black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.

And yet I continued to work for him.

Mr. Trump is a cheat.

As previously stated, I'm giving the Committee today three years of President Trump's financial statements, from 2011-2013, which he gave to Deutsche Bank to inquire about a loan to buy the Buffalo Bills and to Forbes. These are Exhibits 1a, 1b, and 1c to my testimony.

It was my experience that Mr. Trump inflated his total assets when it served his purposes, such as trying to be listed among the wealthiest people in Forbes, and deflated his assets to reduce his real estate taxes.

I am sharing with you two newspaper articles, side by side, that are examples of Mr. Trump inflating and deflating his assets, as I said, to suit his financial interests. These are Exhibit 2 to my testimony.

As I noted, I'm giving the Committee today an article he wrote on, and sent me, that reported on an auction of a portrait of Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit 3A to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to find a straw bidder to purchase a portrait of him that was being auctioned at an Art Hamptons Event. The objective was to ensure that his portrait, which was going to be auctioned last, would go for the highest price of any portrait that afternoon. The portrait was purchased by the fake bidder for $60,000. Mr. Trump directed the Trump Foundation, which is supposed to be a charitable organization, to repay the fake bidder, despite keeping the art for himself. Please see Exhibit 3B to my testimony.

And it should come as no surprise that one of my more common responsibilities was that Mr. Trump directed me to call business owners, many of whom were small businesses, that were owed money for their services and told them no payment or a reduced payment would be coming. When I advised Mr. Trump of my success, he actually reveled in it.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

Mr. Trump is a conman.

He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did. Lying to the First Lady is one of my biggest regrets. She is a kind, good person. I respect her greatly – and she did not deserve that.

I am giving the Committee today a copy of the $130,000 wire transfer from me to Ms. Clifford's attorney during the closing days of the presidential campaign that was demanded by Ms. Clifford to maintain her silence about her affair with Mr. Trump. This is Exhibit 4 to my testimony.

Mr. Trump directed me to use my own personal funds from a Home Equity Line of Credit to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign. I did that, too – without bothering to consider whether that was improper, much less whether it was the right thing to do or how it would impact me, my family, or the public.

I am going to jail in part because of my decision to help Mr. Trump hide that payment from the American people before they voted a few days later.

As Exhibit 5 to my testimony shows, I am providing a copy of a $35,000 check that President Trump personally signed from his personal bank account on August 1, 2017 – when he was President of the United States – pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea, to reimburse me – the word used by Mr. Trump's TV lawyer -- for the illegal hush money I paid on his behalf. This $35,000 check was one of 11 check installments that was paid throughout the year – while he was President.

The President of the United States thus wrote a personal check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws. You can find the details of that scheme, directed by Mr. Trump, in the pleadings in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

So picture this scene – in February 2017, one month into his presidency, I'm visiting President Trump in the Oval Office for the first time. It's truly awe-inspiring, he's showing me around and pointing to different paintings, and he says to me something to the effect of…Don't worry, Michael, your January and February reimbursement checks are coming. They were FedExed from New York and it takes a while for that to get through the White House system. As he promised, I received the first check for the reimbursement of $70,000 not long thereafter.

When I say conman, I'm talking about a man who declares himself brilliant but directed me to threaten his high school, his colleges, and the College Board to never release his grades or SAT scores.

As I mentioned, I'm giving the Committee today copies of a letter I sent at Mr. Trump's direction threatening these schools with civil and criminal actions if Mr. Trump's grades or SAT scores were ever disclosed without his permission. These are Exhibit 6.

The irony wasn't lost on me at the time that Mr. Trump in 2011 had strongly criticized President Obama for not releasing his grades. As you can see in Exhibit 7, Mr. Trump declared "Let him show his records" after calling President Obama "a terrible student."

The sad fact is that I never heard Mr. Trump say anything in private that led me to believe he loved our nation or wanted to make it better. In fact, he did the opposite.

When telling me in 2008 that he was cutting employees' salaries in half – including mine – he showed me what he claimed was a $10 million IRS tax refund, and he said that he could not believe how stupid the government was for giving "someone like him" that much money back.

During the campaign, Mr. Trump said he did not consider Vietnam Veteran, and Prisoner of War, Senator John McCain to be "a hero" because he likes people who weren't captured. At the same time, Mr. Trump tasked me to handle the negative press surrounding his medical deferment from the Vietnam draft.

Mr. Trump claimed it was because of a bone spur, but when I asked for medical records, he gave me none and said there was no surgery. He told me not to answer the specific questions by reporters but rather offer simply the fact that he received a medical deferment.

He finished the conversation with the following comment. "You think I'm stupid, I wasn't going to Vietnam."

I find it ironic, President Trump, that you are in Vietnam right now.

And yet, I continued to work for him.

***

Questions have been raised about whether I know of direct evidence that Mr. Trump or his campaign colluded with Russia. I do not. I want to be clear. But, I have my suspicions.

Sometime in the summer of 2017, I read all over the media that there had been a meeting in Trump Tower in June 2016 involving Don Jr. and others from the campaign with Russians, including a representative of the Russian government, and an email setting up the meeting with the subject line, "Dirt on Hillary Clinton." Something clicked in my mind. I remember being in the room with Mr. Trump, probably in early June 2016, when something peculiar happened. Don Jr. came into the room and walked behind his father's desk – which in itself was unusual. People didn't just walk behind Mr. Trump's desk to talk to him. I recalled Don Jr. leaning over to his father and speaking in a low voice, which I could clearly hear, and saying: "The meeting is all set." I remember Mr. Trump saying, "Ok good…let me know."

What struck me as I looked back and thought about that exchange between Don Jr. and his father was, first, that Mr. Trump had frequently told me and others that his son Don Jr. had the worst judgment of anyone in the world. And also, that Don Jr. would never set up any meeting of any significance alone – and certainly not without checking with his father.

I also knew that nothing went on in Trump world, especially the campaign, without Mr. Trump's knowledge and approval. So, I concluded that Don Jr. was referring to that June 2016 Trump Tower meeting about dirt on Hillary with the Russian representative when he walked behind his dad's desk that day -- and that Mr. Trump knew that was the meeting Don Jr. was talking about when he said, "That's good…let me know."

***

Over the past year or so, I have done some real soul searching. I see now that my ambition and the intoxication of Trump power had much to do with the bad decisions I made.

To you, Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, the other members of this Committee, and the other members of the House and Senate, I am sorry for my lies and for lying to Congress.

To our nation, I am sorry for actively working to hide from you the truth about Mr. Trump when you needed it most.

For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your "fixer," Mr. Trump.

I am going to prison and have shattered the safety and security that I tried so hard to provide for my family. My testimony certainly does not diminish the pain I caused my family and friends – nothing can do that. And I have never asked for, nor would I accept, a pardon from President Trump.

And, by coming today, I have caused my family to be the target of personal, scurrilous attacks by the President and his lawyer – trying to intimidate me from appearing before this panel. Mr. Trump called me a "rat" for choosing to tell the truth – much like a mobster would do when one of his men decides to cooperate with the government.

As Exhibit 8 shows, I have provided the Committee with copies of Tweets that Mr. Trump posted, attacking me and my family – only someone burying his head in the sand would not recognize them for what they are: encouragement to someone to do harm to me and my family.

I never imagined that he would engage in vicious, false attacks on my family – and unleash his TV-lawyer to do the same. I hope this committee and all members of Congress on both sides of the aisle will make it clear: As a nation, we should not tolerate attempts to intimidate witnesses before congress and attacks on family are out of bounds and not acceptable.

I wish to especially thank Speaker Pelosi for her statements in Exhibit 9 to protect this institution and me, and the Chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Adam Schiff and Chairman Cummings for likewise defending this institution and my family against the attacks by Mr. Trump, and also the many Republicans who have admonished the President as well.

I am not a perfect man. I have done things I am not proud of, and I will live with the consequences of my actions for the rest of my life.

But today, I get to decide the example I set for my children and how I attempt to change how history will remember me. I may not be able to change the past, but I can do right by the American people here today.

Thank you for your attention. I am happy to answer the Committee's questions.

Testimony of Michael D. Cohen by on Scribd

Barack Obama: 'This is not normal', University of Illonois, pre mid-terms - 2018

7 September 2018, Urbana-Champaign, Illonois, USA

Hello, Illinois! I.L.L.! I.L.L.! Okay, okay. Just checking to see if you’re awake. Please have a seat, everybody. It is good to be home. It’s good to see corn, beans. I was trying to explain to somebody as we were flying in, that’s corn. That’s beans. They were very impressed at my agricultural knowledge. Please give it up for Amari, once again, for that outstanding introduction.

I have a bunch of good friends here today, including somebody who I served with who is one of the finest senators in the country, and we’re lucky to have your senator, Dick Durbin, is here. I also noticed, by the way, former governor Edgar here, who I haven’t seen in a long time, and somehow he has not aged and it was great to see him.

I want to thank everybody at the U of I system for making it possible for me to be here today. I am deeply honored at the Paul Douglas award that is being given to me.

He is somebody who set the path for so much outstanding public service here in Illinois. Now, I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room. I know people are still wondering why I didn’t speak at the 2017 commencement. The student body president sent a very thoughtful invitation. Students made a spiffy video, and when I declined, I hear there was speculation that I was boycotting campus until Antonio’s pizza reopened. So I want to be clear. I did not take sides in that late-night food debate.

The truth is, after eight years in the white house, I needed to spend some time one on one with Michelle if I wanted to stay married. And she says hello, by the way. I also wanted to spend some quality time with my daughters, who were suddenly young women on their way out the door. And I should add, by the way, now that I have a daughter in college, I can tell all the students here, your parents, they cry privately. It is brutal. So please call. Send a text. We need to hear from you. Just a little something.

Truth was, I was also intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.

Truth was, I was also intent on following a wise American tradition of ex-presidents gracefully exiting the political stage and making room for new voices and new ideas.

We have our first president, George Washington, to thank for setting that example. After he led the colonies to victory as General Washington, there were no constraints on him, really. He was practically a god to those who had followed him into battle. There was no constitution. There were no democratic norms that guided what he should or could do. And he could have made himself all-powerful, could have made himself potentially president for life.

Instead, he resigned as commander in chief and moved back to his country estate. Six years later, he was elected president. But after two terms, he resigned again and rode off into the sunset.

The point Washington made, the point that is essential to American democracy, is that in a government of and by and for the people, there should be no permanent ruling class. There are only citizens, who through their elected and temporary representatives, determine our course and determine our character.

I’m here today because this is one of those pivotal moments when every one of us as citizens of the United States need to determine just who it is that we are. Just what it is that we stand for. And as a fellow citizen — not as an ex-president, but as a fellow citizen — I’m here to deliver a simple message, and that is that you need to vote because our democracy depends on it.

Now, some of you may think I’m exaggerating when I say this November’s elections are more important than any I can remember in my lifetime. I know politicians say that all the time. I have been guilty of saying it a few times, particularly when I was on the ballot. But just a glance at recent headlines should tell you that this moment really is different. The stakes really are higher. The consequences of any of us sitting on the sidelines are more dire.

And it’s not as if we haven’t had big elections before or big choices to make in our history. Fact is, democracy has never been easy, and our founding fathers argued about everything. We waged a civil war. We overcame depression. We’ve lurched from eras of great progressive change to periods of still, most Americans alive today, certainly the students who are here, have operated under some common assumptions about who we are and what we stand for.

Out of the turmoil of the Industrial Revolution and the Great Depression, America adapted a new economy, a 20th century economy, guiding our free market with regulations to protect health and safety and fair competition, empowering workers with union movements, investing in science and infrastructure and educational institutions like U of I, strengthening our system of primary and secondary education, and stitching together a social safety net. All of this led to unrivaled prosperity and the rise of a broad and deep middle class and the sense that if you worked hard, you could climb the ladder of success.

Not everyone was included in this prosperity. There was a lot more work to do. And so in response to the stain of slavery and segregation and the reality of racial discrimination, the civil rights movement not only opened new doors for African-Americans but also opened up the floodgates of opportunity for women and Americans with disabilities and LGBT Americans and others to make their own claims to full and equal citizenship.

And although discrimination remained a pernicious force in our society and continues to this day, and although there are controversies about how to best ensure genuine equality of opportunity, there’s been at least rough agreement among the overwhelming majority of Americans that our country is strongest when everybody’s treated fairly, when people are judged on the merits and the content of their character and not the color of their skin or the way in which they worship God or their last names. And that consensus then extended beyond our borders.

And from the wreckage of world War II, we built a post-war architecture, system of alliances and institutions to underwrite freedom and oppose Soviet totalitarianism and to help poorer countries develop. American leadership across the globe wasn’t perfect. We made mistakes. At times we lost sight of our ideals. We had fierce arguments about Vietnam and we had fierce arguments about Iraq. But thanks to our leadership, a bipartisan leadership, and the efforts of diplomats and peace corps volunteers, and most of all thanks to the constant sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, we not only reduced the prospects of war between the world’s great powers, we not only won the Cold War, we helped spread a commitment to certain values and principles like the rule of law and human rights and democracy and the notion of the inherent dignity and worth of every individual.

And even those countries that didn’t abide by those principles were still subject to shame and still had to at least give lip service to the idea, and that provided a lever to continually improve the prospects for people around the world. That’s the story of America. A story of progress, fitful progress, incomplete progress, but progress. And that progress wasn’t achieved by just a handful of famous leaders making speeches. It was won because of countless acts of quiet heroism and dedication by citizens, by ordinary people, many of them not much older than you. It was won because rather than be bystanders to history, ordinary people fought and marched and mobilized and built, and yes, voted to make history.

Of course, there’s always been another darker aspect to America’s story. Progress doesn’t just move in a straight line. There’s a reason why progress hasn’t been easy and why throughout our history every two steps forward seems to sometimes produce one step back. Each time we painstakingly pull ourselves closer to our founding ideals, that all of us are created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, the ideals that say every child should have opportunity and every man and woman in this country who’s willing to work hard should be able to find a job and support a family and pursue their small peace of the American dream, ideals that say we have a collective responsibility to care for the sick and the and we have a responsibility to conserve the amazing bounty, the natural resources of this country and of this planet for future generations — each time we’ve gotten closer to those ideals, somebody somewhere has pushed back.

The status quo pushes back. Sometimes the backlash comes from people who are genuinely, if wrongly, fearful of change. More often it’s manufactured by the powerful and the privileged who want to keep us divided and keep us angry and keep us cynical because it helps them maintain the status quo and keep their power and keep their privilege. And you happen to be coming of age during one of those moments.

It did not start with Donald Trump. He is a symptom, not the cause. He’s just capitalizing on resentments that politicians have been fanning for years, a fear and anger that’s rooted in our past but it’s also born out of the enormous upheavals that have taken place in your brief lifetimes.

By the way, it is brief. When I heard Amari was 11 when I got elected and now he’s like started a company — that was yesterday!

But think about it. You’ve come of age in a smaller, more connected world where demographic shifts and the wind of change have scrambled not only traditional economic arrangements but our social arrangements and our religious commitments and our civic institutions. Most of you don’t remember a time before 9/11, when you didn’t have to take off your shoes at an airport. Most of you don’t remember a time when America wasn’t at war or when money and images and information could travel instantly around the globe. Or when the climate wasn’t changing faster than our efforts to address it.

This change has happened fast, faster than any time in human history. And it created a new economy that has unleashed incredible prosperity, but it’s also upended people’s lives in profound ways. For those with unique skills or access to technology and capital, a global market has meant unprecedented wealth. For those not so lucky, for the factory worker, for the office worker, or even middle managers, those same forces may have wiped out your job or at least put you in no position to ask for a raise, and as wages slowed and inequality accelerated, those at the top of the economic pyramid have been able to influence government to skew things even more in their direction.

Cutting taxes on the wealthiest Americans, unwinding regulations and weakening worker protections, shrinking the safety net. So you have come of age during a time of growing inequality, a fracturing of economic opportunity. And that growing economic divide compounded other divisions in our country. Regional, racial, religious, cultural. And made it harder to build consensus on issues. It made politicians less willing to compromise, which increased gridlock, which made people even more cynical about politics. And then the reckless behavior of financial elites triggered a massive financial crisis.

Ten years ago this week a crisis that resulted in the worst recession in any of our lifetimes and caused years of hardship for the American people. For many of your parents, for many of your families. Most of you weren’t old enough to fully focus on what was going on at the time, but when I came into office in 2009, we were losing 800,000 jobs a month. 800,000. Millions of people were losing their homes. Many were worried we were entering into a second great depression.

So we worked hard to end that crisis but also to break some of these longer term trends. The actions we took during that crisis returned the economy to healthy growth and initiated the longest streak of job creation on record. And we covered another 20 million Americans with health insurance and cut our deficits by more than half, partly by making sure that people like me who have been given such amazing opportunities by this country pay our fair share of taxes to help folks coming up behind me.

And by the time I left office, household income was near its all-time high, and the uninsured rate hit an all-time low, poverty rates were falling. I mention this just so when you hear how great the economy is doing right now, let’s just remember when this recovery started. I’m glad it’s continued, but when you hear about this economic miracle that’s been going on, when the job numbers come out, monthly job numbers and suddenly Republicans are saying it’s a miracle, I have to kind of remind them, actually, those job numbers are the same as they were in 2015 and 2016 and -- anyway. I digress.

So we made progress, but -- and this is the truth -- my administration couldn’t reverse 40-year trends in only eight especially once Republicans took over the house of representatives in 2010 and decided to block everything we did. Even things they used to support.

So we pulled the economy out of crisis, but to this day, too many people who once felt solidly middle class still feel very real and very personal economic insecurity. Even though we took out bin Laden and wound down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, got Iran to halt its nuclear program, the world’s still full of threats and disorder that come streaming through people’s televisions every single day. And these challenges get people worried and it frays our civic trust and it makes a lot of people feel like the fix is in and the game is rigged and nobody’s looking out for them.

Especially those communities outside our big urban centers. And even though your generation is the most diverse in history with a greater acceptance and celebration of our differences than ever before, those are the kinds of conditions that are ripe for exploitation by politicians who have no compunction and no shame about tapping into America’s dark history of racial and ethnic and religious division. Appealing to tribe, appealing to fear, pitting one group against another, telling people that order and security will be restored if it weren’t for those who don’t look like us or don’t sound like us or don’t pray like we do, that’s an old playbook. It’s as old as time.

And in a healthy democracy, it doesn’t work. Our antibodies kick in, and people of goodwill from across the political spectrum call out the bigots and the fear mongers and work to compromise and get things done and promote the better angels of our nature.

But when there’s a vacuum in our democracy, when we don’t vote, when we take our basic rights and freedoms for granted, when we turn away and stop paying attention and stop engaging and stop believing and look for the newest diversion, the electronic versions of bread and circuses, then other voices fill the void.

A politics of fear and resentment and retrenchment takes hold and demagogues promise simple fixes to complex problems. No promise to fight for the little guy, even as they cater to the wealthiest and most powerful. No promise to clean up corruption and then plunder away. They start undermining norms that ensure accountability and try to change the rules to entrench their power further. They appeal to racial nationalism that’s barely veiled, if veiled at all. Sound familiar?

I understand this is not just a matter of Democrats versus Republicans or liberals versus conservatives. At various times in our history, this kind of politics has infected both parties. Southern Democrats were the bigger defenders of slavery. It took a Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, to end it. Although it was a Democratic president and a majority Democrat Congress spurred on by young marchers and protesters that got the civil rights act and the voting rights act over the finish line, those historic laws also got passed because of the leadership of Republicans like Illinois’s own Everett Dirksen. So neither party has had a monopoly on wisdom.

Neither party has been exclusively responsible for us going backwards instead of forwards. But I have to say this because sometimes we hear a plague on both your houses. Over the past few decades, it wasn’t true when Jim Edgar was governor here in Illinois.

But over the past few decades, the politics of division and resentment and paranoia has unfortunately found a home in the Republican party. This Congress has championed the unwinding of campaign finance laws to give billionaires outside influence over our politics. Systematically attacked voting rights to make it harder for young people and minorities and the poor to vote. Handed out tax cuts without regard to deficits. Slashed the safety net wherever it could, cast dozens of votes to take away health insurance from ordinary Americans, embraced wild conspiracy theories like those surrounding Benghazi or my birth certificate, rejected science, rejected facts on things like climate change, embraced a rising absolutism from a willingness to default on America’s debt by not paying our bills to a refusal to even meet much less consider a qualified nominee for the supreme court because he happened to be nominated by a Democratic president.

None of this is conservative. I don’t mean to pretend I’m channelling Abraham Lincoln now, but that’s not what he had in mind, I think, when he helped form the Republican party. It’s not conservative. It sure isn’t normal. It’s radical. It’s a vision that says the protection of our power and those who back us is all that matters even when it hurts the country. It’s a vision that says the few who can afford high-price lobbyists and unlimited campaign contributions set the agenda, and over the past two years, this vision is now nearing its logical conclusion.

So with Republicans in control of Congress and the White House, without any checks or balances whatsoever, they’ve provided another $1.5 trillion in tax cuts to people like me who I promise don’t need it and don’t even pretend to pay for them. It’s supposed to be the party supposedly of fiscal conservatism. Suddenly deficits do not matter. Even though just two years ago when the deficit was lower, they said I couldn’t afford to help working families or seniors on medicare because the deficit was in existential crisis. What changed? What changed?

They’re subsidizing corporate polluters with taxpayer dollars, allowing dishonest lenders to take advantage of veterans and consumers and students again. They’ve made it so that the only nation on Earth to pull out of the global climate agreement, it’s not North Korea, it’s not Syria, it’s not Russia or Saudi Arabia, it’s us. The only country. There are a lot of countries in the world. We’re the only ones.

They’re undermining our alliances, cozying up to Russia. What happened to the Republican party? Its central organizing principle in foreign policy was the fight against communism, and now they’re cozying up to the former head of the KGB.

Actively blocking legislation that would defend our elections from Russian attack. What happened? Their sabotage of the affordable care act has already cost more than 3 million Americans their health insurance, and if they’re still in power next fall, you better believe they’re coming at it again. They’ve said so. In a healthy democracy, there’s some checks and balances on this kind of behavior, this kind of inconsistency, but right now there’s nothing. Republicans who know better in Congress, and they’re there, they’re quoted saying, yeah, we know this is kind of crazy, are still bending over backwards to shield this behavior from scrutiny or accountability or consequence, seem utterly unwilling to find the backbone to safeguard the institutions that make our democracy work.

And by the way, the claim that everything will turn out okay because there are people inside the White House who secretly aren’t following the president’s orders, that is not a check. I’m being serious here. That’s not how our democracy’s supposed to work. These people aren’t elected. They’re not accountable. They’re not doing us a service by actively promoting 90% of the crazy stuff that’s coming out of this white house, and then saying, don’t worry, we’re preventing the other 10%.

That’s not how things are supposed to work. This is not normal. These are extraordinary times. And they’re dangerous times.

But here’s the good news. In two months we have the chance, not the certainty, but the chance to restore some semblance of sanity to our politics. Because there is actually only one real check on bad policy and abuse of power. That’s you. You and your vote. Look, Americans will always have disagreements on policy. This is a big country. It is a raucous country.

I happen to be a Democrat. I believe our policies are better and we have a bigger, bolder vision of equality and justice and inclusive democracy. We know there are a lot of jobs young people aren’t getting a chance to occupy or aren’t getting paid enough or aren’t getting benefits like insurance. It’s harder for young people to save for a rainy day let alone retirement.

So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like a higher minimum wage, they’re running on good new ideas like medicare for all, giving workers seats on corporate boards, reversing the most egregious corporate tax cuts to make sure college students graduate.

We know that people are tired of toxic corruption and that democracy depends on transparency and accountability, so Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like requiring presidential candidates to release their tax returns, but on good new ideas like barring lobbyists from getting paid by foreign governments.

We know that climate change isn’t just coming. It’s here. So Democrats aren’t just running on good old ideas like increasing gas mileage in our cars, which I did and which Republicans are trying to reverse, but on good new ideas like putting a price on carbon pollution.

We know in a smaller, more connected world, we can’t just put technology back in a box. We can’t just put walls up all around America. Walls don’t keep out threats like terrorism or disease. And that’s why we propose leading our alliances and helping other countries develop and pushing back against tyrants.

Democrats talk about reforming our immigration system so, yes, it is orderly and it is fair and it is legal, but it continues to welcome strivers and dreamers from all around the world. That’s why I’m a Democrat. That’s a set of ideas that I believe in. But I am here to tell you that even if you don’t agree with me or Democrats on policy, even if you believe in more libertarian economic theories, even if you are an evangelical and our position on certain social issues is a bridge too far, even if you think my assessment of immigration is mistaken and the Democrats aren’t serious enough about immigration enforcement, I’m here to tell you that you should still be concerned with our current course and should still want to see a restoration of honesty and decency and lawfulness in our government.

It should not be Democratic or Republican. It should not be a partisan issue to say that we do not pressure the attorney general or the FBI to use the criminal justice system as a cudgel to punish our political opponents. Or to explicitly call on the attorney general to protect members of our own party from prosecution because an election happens to be coming up. I’m not making that up. That’s not hypothetical.

It shouldn’t be Democratic or Republican to say that we don’t threaten the freedom of the press because they say things or publish stories we don’t like. I complained plenty about Fox News, but you never heard me threaten to shut them down or call them enemies of the people. It shouldn’t be democratic or Republican to say we don’t target certain groups of people based on what they look like or how they pray.

We are Americans. We’re supposed to stand up to bullies. Not follow them. We’re supposed to stand up to discrimination, and we’re sure as heck supposed to stand up clearly and unequivocally to Nazi sympathizers. How hard can that be? Saying that Nazis are bad.

I’ll be honest, sometimes I get into arguments with progressive friends about what the current political movement requires. There are well-meaning folks passionate about social justice who think things have gotten so bad, the lines have been so starkly drawn, that we have to fight fire with fire. We have to do the same things to the Republicans that they do to adopt their tactics. Say whatever works. Make up stuff about the other.

I don’t agree with that. It’s not because I’m soft. It’s not because I’m interested in promoting an empty bipartisanship. I don’t agree with it because eroding our civic institutions and our civic trust and making people angrier and yelling at each other and making people cynical about government, that always works better for those who don’t believe in the power of collective action.

You don’t need an effective government or a robust press or reasoned debate to work when all you’re concerned about is maintaining power. In fact, the more cynical people are about government, the angrier and more dispirited they are about the prospects for change, the more likely the powerful are able to maintain their power.

But we believe that in order to move this country forward, to actually solve problems and make people’s lives better, we need a well-functioning government. We need our civic institutions to work. We need cooperation among people of different political persuasions. And to make that work, we have to restore our faith in democracy. We have to bring people together, not tear them apart. We need majorities in Congress and state legislatures who are serious about governing and want to bring about real change and improvements in people’s lives. And we won’t win people over by calling them names or dismissing entire chunks of the country as racist or sexist or homophobic.

When I say bring people together, I mean all of our people.

This whole notion that has sprung up recently about Democrats needing to choose between trying to appeal to white working class voters or voters of color and women and LGBT Americans, that’s nonsense. I don’t buy that. I got votes from every demographic. We won by reaching out to everybody and competing everywhere and by fighting for every vote. And that’s what we’ve got to do in this election and every election after that. And we can’t do that if we immediately disregard what others have to say from the start because they’re not like us, because they’re white or they’re black or they’re man or a woman or they’re gay or they’re straight.

If we think that somehow there’s no way they can understand how I’m feeling and therefore don’t have any standing to speak on certain matters because we’re only defined by certain characteristics, that doesn’t work if you want a healthy we can’t do that if we traffic in absolute when it comes to make democracy work, we have to be able to get inside the reality of people who are different, have different experiences, come from different backgrounds. We have to engage them even when it is frustrating. We have to listen to them, even when we don’t like what they have to say.

We have to hope that we can change their minds, and we have to remain open to them changing ours. And that doesn’t mean, by the way, abandoning our principles or caving to bad policy in the interests of maintaining some phony version of civility. That seems to be, by the way, the definition of civility offered by too many congressional Republicans right now. We will be polite so long as we get 100% of what we want and you don’t call us out on the various ways we’re sticking it to people. And we’ll click our tongues and issue vague statements of disappointment when the president does something outrageous, but we won’t actually do anything about it. That’s not civility. That’s abdicating your responsibilities. But again, I digress. Making democracy work means holding on to our principles,

having clarity about our principles, and then having the confidence to get in the arena and have a serious debate. It also means appreciating progress does not happen all at once but when you put your shoulder to the wheel, if you’re willing to fight for it, things do get better. And let me tell you something, particularly young people here.

Better is good. I used to have to tell my young staff this all the time in the white house. Better is good. That’s the history of progress in this country. Not perfect, better. The civil rights act didn’t end racism, but it made things better. Social security didn’t eliminate all poverty for seniors, but it made things better for millions of people. Do not let people tell you the fight’s not worth it because you won’t get everything that you want. The idea that, well, you know, there’s racism in America, so I’m not going to bother voting, no point, that makes no sense. You can make it better. Better is always worth fighting for. That’s how our founders expected this system of self-government to work. Through the testing of ideas and the application of reason and evidence and proof, we could sort through our differences, and nobody would get exactly what they wanted, but it would be possible to find a basis for common ground. And that common ground exists.

Maybe it’s not fashionable to say that right now. It’s hard to see it with all the nonsense in Washington. It’s hard to hear it with all the noise. But common ground exists. I have seen it. I have lived it. I know there are white people who care deeply about black people being treated unfairly. I have talked to them and loved them, and I know there are black people who care deeply about the struggles of white rural I’m one of them. And I have a track record to prove it. I know there are evangelicals who are deeply committed to doing something about climate change. I’ve seen them do the work.

I know there are conservatives who think there’s nothing compassionate about separating immigrant children from their mothers. I know there are Republicans who believe government should only perform a few minimal functions but that one of those functions should be making sure nearly 3,000 Americans don’t die in a hurricane and its aftermath.

Common ground is out there. I see it every day. It’s just how people interact, how people treat each other. You see it on the ball field. You see it at work. You see it in places of worship. But to say that common ground exists doesn’t mean it will inevitably win out.

History shows the power of fear and the closer that we get to Election Day, the more those invested in the politics of fear and division will work -- will do anything to hang on to their recent gains. Fortunately, I am hopeful because out of this political darkness, I am seeing a great awakening of citizenship all across the country. I cannot tell you how encouraged I’ve been by watching so many people get involved for the first time or the first time in a long time. They’re marching and they’re organizing and they’re registering people to vote and they’re running for office themselves.

Look at this crop of Democratic candidates running for Congress and governor, running for the state legislature, running for district attorney, running for school board. It is a movement of citizens who happen to be younger and more diverse and more female than ever before, and that’s really useful. We need more women in charge. But we have first-time candidates. We have veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. Record numbers of women. Americans who have previously maybe didn’t have an interest in politics as a career but laced up their shoes and rolled up their sleeves and grabbed a clipboard because they, too, believe this time’s different. This moment’s too important to sit out.

And if you listen to what these candidates are talking about in individual races across the country, you’ll find they’re not just running against something, they’re running for something. They’re running to expand opportunity and running to restore the honor to public service. And speaking as a Democrat, that’s when the Democratic party has always made the biggest difference in the lives of the American people. When we led with conviction and principle and bold new ideas. The antidote to a government controlled by a powerful few, a government that divides is a government by the organized, energized, inclusive many. That’s what this moment’s about. That has to be the answer.

You cannot sit back and wait for a savior. You can’t opt out because you don’t feel sufficiently inspired by this or that particular candidate. This is not a rock concert. This is not Coachella. We don’t need a messiah. All we need are decent, honest, hard-working people who are accountable and who have America’s best interests at heart. And they’ll step up and they’ll join our government, and they will make things better if they have support.

One election will not fix everything that needs to be fixed. But it will be a start. And you have to start it. What’s going to fix our democracy is you.

People ask me, what are you going to do for the election? No, the question is what are you going to do? You’re the antidote. Your participation and your spirit and your determination, not just in this election, but in every subsequent election and in the days between elections. Because in the end, the threat to our democracy doesn’t just come from Donald Trump or the current batch of Republicans in Congress or the Koch brothers and their lobbyists or too much compromise from Democrats or Russian hacking. The biggest threat to our democracy is indifference. The biggest threat to our democracy is cynicism.

Cynicism led too many people to turn away from politics and stay home on Election Day. To all the young people who are here today, there are now more eligible voters in your generation than in any other, which means your generation now has more power than anybody to change things. If you want it, you can make sure America gets out of its current funk. If you actually care about it, you have the power to make sure what we see is a brighter future. But to exercise that clout, to exercise that power, you have to show up. In the last midterm elections in 2014, fewer than one in five young people voted.

One in five. Not two in five or three. One in five. Is it any wonder this Congress doesn’t reflect your values and your priorities? Are you surprised by that? This whole project of self-government only works if everybody’s doing their part. Don’t tell me your vote doesn’t matter. I’ve won states in the presidential election because of 5, 10, 20 votes per precinct. And if you thought elections don’t matter, I hope these last two years have corrected that impression.

So if you don’t like what’s going on right now, and you shouldn’t, do not complain, don’t hashtag, don’t get anxious, don’t retreat, don’t binge on whatever it is you’re bingeing on, don’t lose yourself in ironic detachment, don’t put your head in the sand, don’t boo. Vote. Vote. If you are really concerned about how the criminal justice system treats African-Americans, the best way to protest is to vote. Not just for senators and representatives but for mayors and sheriffs and state legislators.

Do what they just did in Philadelphia and Boston and elect states attorneys and district attorneys who are looking at issues in a new light, who realize that the vast majority of law enforcement do the right thing in a really hard job, and we just need to make sure all of them do. If you’re tired of politicians who offer nothing but thoughts and prayers after a mass shooting, you’ve got to do what the parkland kids are doing. Some of them aren’t even eligible to vote yet. They’re out there working to change minds and registering people. And they’re not giving up until we have a Congress that sees your lives as more important than a campaign check from the you’ve got to vote.

If you support the #metoo movement, you’re outraged by stories of sexual harassment and assault, inspired by the women who have shared them, you’ve got to do more than retweet a hashtag. You’ve got to vote. Part of the reason women are more vulnerable in the workplace is because not enough women are bosses in the workplace. Which is why we need to strengthen and enforce laws that protect women in the workplace, not just from harassment, but from discrimination in hiring and promotion and not getting paid the same amount for doing the same work. That requires laws, laws get passed by legislators.

You’ve got to vote. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make it easier to afford college and harder to shoot up a school. When you vote, you’ve got the power to make sure a family keeps its health insurance. You could save somebody’s life. When you vote, you’ve got the

power to make sure white nationalists don’t feel emboldened to March with their hoods off or their hoods on in Charlottesville in the middle of the day. 30 minutes. 30 minutes of your time. Is democracy worth that?

We have been through much darker times than these. And somehow each generation of Americans carried us through to the other side. Not by sitting around and waiting for something to happen, not by leaving it to others to do something, but by leading that movement for change themselves. And if you do that, if you get involved and you get engaged and you knock on some doors and you talk with your friends and you argue with your family members and you change some minds and you vote, something powerful happens. Change happens. Hope happens. Not perfection, not every bit of cruelty and sadness and poverty and disease suddenly stricken from the Earth. There will still be problems, but with each new candidate that surprises you with a victory that you supported, a spark of hope happens.

With each new law that helps a kid read or helps a homeless family find shelter or helps a veteran get the support he or she has earned, each time that happens hope happens. With each new step we take in the direction of fairness and justice and equality and opportunity, hope spreads. And that can be the legacy of your generation.

You can be the generation that at a critical moment stood up and reminded us just how precious this experiment in democracy really is, just how powerful it can be when we fight for it, when we believe in it. I believe in you. I believe you will help lead us in the right direction, and I will be right there with you every step of the way. Thank you, Illinois. God bless you. God bless this country we love.

Thank you.

Anderson Cooper: 'Not racial, not racially charged, racist', response to Trump's Haiti remarks

11 January 2018, CNN Studios, New York City, USA

Before we go tonight, I just want to take a moment to talk about Haiti, one of the place the president of United States referred to today as a shithole country. I was taught math in high school by a Haitian immigrant name Yves Volel who work hard, who dedicate themselves to teaching kids of America. He ultimately returned to his country in Haiti and was assassinated while running for president.

I spend a lot of time in Haiti, I first went there in the early 1990s, as a young reporter. In 2010, my team from CNN was the first international team of journalists on the ground after the earthquake struck. I spent more than a month there and have return many times on assignment and on vacation. Like all countries, Haiti is a collection of people, it's rich and poor, well-educated, not good and bad many. But I've never met a Haitian who isn't strong. You have to be to survive in a place where the government has often abandoned this people, where opportunities are few and where mother nature has punished the people far more than anyone should ever be published.

But let me be clear tonight, the people of Haiti have been through more, they've been through more, they've with stood more, they fought back against more injustice than our president ever has.

Tomorrow marks exactly eight years since the earthquake struck Haiti, a 7.1 magnitude earthquake killed between 220,000 and 300,000 people. The actual numbers will never be known, because they were buried in unmarked pits. One and a half million people were displaced. For days and weeks without help from their own government or police, the people of Haiti dug through rubble with their bare and bloodied hands to save complete strangers. Guided only by the cries of the wounded and the dying. I was there when a young girl name Bee (ph) who'd been trapped in rubble for nearly a day was rescued by people who had no heavy equipment, they just had their God given strength and their determination and their courage.

I was there when a 5-year-old boy name Mangly (ph) was rescued after being buried for more than seven days. Do you know what strength it takes to survive on rainwater buried under concrete, a 5-year-old boy buried for seven days. Haitians slap your hand hard when they shake it, they look you in the eye. They don't blink, they stand tall and they have a dignity. It's a dignity many in this White House could learn from. It's a dignity the president with all his money and all his power could learn from as well.

On the anniversary of the earthquake, on this day, when this president has said what he's said about Haitians, we hope the people on Haiti who are listening tonight, and (INAUDIBLE) L.A. and Miami and elsewhere, we hope they know that our thoughts are with them and our love is with them as well.

David Cicilline: 'How the Grinch stole middle class tax cuts', Congress floor speech - 2017

19 December 2017, Congress, Washington DC, USA

With a little help from Dr. Seuss, I’d like to share the story of How the Grinch Stole Middle Class Tax Cuts.

Every middle class family wanted tax cuts a lot,
But the Grinch, who lived in a big white house, did not!
The Grinch hated middle class tax cuts.   He wanted the whole tax code uneven.
Now please don’t ask why.  No one quite knows the reason.

It could be his head was screwed on a bit wrong.
It could be his ties were two inches too long.
But I think that the most likely reason of all,
Was his heart (or his hands) were two sizes too small.

Whatever the reason, his heart or his ties,
He stood on Christmas Eve, planning workers’ demise.
Staring out from his office with a sour, Grinchy frown,
At the workers’ warm lighted windows below in their town.

"Tomorrow is Christmas! It's practically here!"
He said from his office with a terrible sneer.
“Why, for 71 years I’ve put up with it now!”
"I MUST stop these middle class tax cuts! But HOW?"

Then he got an idea! An awful idea!
The Grinch got a terrible, awful idea.
"I know just what to do!" The Grinch thought with a pause.
"With this coat and this hat, I look like Santa Claus!"

Then he loaded some empty bags on his plane,
And he took off to cause some mean grinchy pain.
While working families dreamed of sweet tax cuts without care,
The Grinch came to the first little house on the square.

"This is stop number one," the old Grinch Claus hissed,
And he climbed to the roof, empty bags in his fist.
Then he slid down the chimney, Santa suit all in place,
And he stuck his head out of the small fireplace.

Where the tax deductions all hung in a row.
"These deductions," he grinned, "are the first things to go!"
Personal Exemptions!  Home Equity Interest! State and Local Taxes Too!
“I’ll take almost every deduction away from you!”

Then he slunk to the tax brackets—the corporate tax cuts were HUGE!
Why, that Grinch even took the Arctic Wildlife Refuge…
"And NOW!" grinned the Grinch, with his sacks in a net.
“I’ll stack the deficit with one trillion in debt!”

Then he heard a small sound, a child’s soft cry,
"Why are you taking our deductions, Grinch? WHY?"
But, you know, that old Grinch was so smart and so slick,
That he thought up a fib, and he thought it up quick!

"Why, my sweet little tot," the Grinch said on the fly,
“I’m here because corporate taxes are far too high”
“So I’m taking most of your deductions away,”
“To help corporations…and you get to pay!”

“See my dear child, there’s no reason to frown,”
“We’ll make them more wealthy, but it will all trickle down.”
His fib fooled the child. Then he patted her head,
And he got her a tax postcard and sent her to bed.

The Grinch took one last look at her sad little pup,
And he went to the chimney and shoved the deficit up!
Health care for 13 million was the last thing he took,
Then he slithered away without another look.
In their homes he left nothing but debt and despair

While giving handouts to corporations, the Grinch didn’t care
And the one deduction that he extolled,
Was even too small for a single household.
He rode with his load of deductions for dumping!

"Pooh Pooh to the middle class" he said gleefully jumping.
"They're just waking up! I know just what they'll do!"
"Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,
And they’ll all cry “‘Boo Hoo!’”

"That's a noise," grinned the Grinch, "That I simply MUST hear!"
So he paused. And the Grinch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising over the snow.
It started in low. Then it started to grow.

He stared down aghast! The Grinch popped his eyes!
Then he shook! What he saw was a shocking surprise!
Every American, the tall and the small,
Loudly demanding tax cuts for all.

We want our deductions and A Better Deal,
Not tax cuts for corporations while you cut Meals on Wheels.
And the Grinch, with his small hands ice-cold in the snow,
Stood puzzling and puzzling: "How could it be so?"

Am I a fool? Are my policies all wrong?
Without those deductions, can the nation be strong?
And he puzzled three hours, till his puzzler was sore.
Then the Grinch thought of something he’d not tweeted before!

“Maybe tax cuts should help more than just corporations,”
“Maybe this Christmas I can help the whole nation!”
“America’s middle class is what made it thrive,
“They need these deductions if they’re to survive!”

We all know how the real story ends,
The Grinch finds his heart and he makes amends.
Now we know this tax bill won’t end with such glee,
Because the President and corporate lobbyists control the GOP.

This Christmas, families will get just coal in their stocking,
Thanks to President Trump, the final result will be shocking.

Jeff Flake: 'Our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies', Senate speech on Trump, media and truth - 2018

17 January 2018, Senate, Washington DC, USA

Mr. President, near the beginning of the document that made us free, our Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident....” So, from our very beginnings, our freedom has been predicated on truth. The founders were visionary in this regard, understanding well that good faith and shared facts between the governed and the government would be the very basis of this ongoing idea of America.

As the distinguished former member of this body, Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, famously said: “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts.” During the past year, I am alarmed to say that Senator Moynihan’s proposition has likely been tested more severely than at any time in our history.

It is for that reason that I rise today, to talk about the truth, and its relationship to democracy. For without truth, and a principled fidelity to truth and to shared facts, Mr. President, our democracy will not last.

2017 was a year which saw the truth — objective, empirical, evidence-based truth — more battered and abused than any other in the history of our country, at the hands of the most powerful figure in our government. It was a year which saw the White House enshrine “alternative facts” into the American lexicon, as justification for what used to be known simply as good old-fashioned falsehoods. It was the year in which an unrelenting daily assault on the constitutionally-protected free press was launched by that same White House, an assault that is as unprecedented as it is unwarranted. “The enemy of the people,” was what the president of the United States called the free press in 2017.

Mr. President, it is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase “enemy of the people,” that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that the phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of “annihilating such individuals” who disagreed with the supreme leader.

This alone should be a source of great shame for us in this body, especially for those of us in the president’s party. For they are shameful, repulsive statements. And, of course, the president has it precisely backward – despotism is the enemy of the people. The free press is the despot’s enemy, which makes the free press the guardian of democracy. When a figure in power reflexively calls any press that doesn’t suit him “fake news,” it is that person who should be the figure of suspicion, not the press.

I dare say that anyone who has the privilege and awesome responsibility to serve in this chamber knows that these reflexive slurs of “fake news” are dubious, at best. Those of us who travel overseas, especially to war zones and other troubled areas around the globe, encounter members of U.S. based media who risk their lives, and sometimes lose their lives, reporting on the truth. To dismiss their work as fake news is an affront to their commitment and their sacrifice.

According to the International Federation of Journalists, 80 journalists were killed in 2017, and a new report from the Committee to Protect Journalists documents that the number of journalists imprisoned around the world has reached 262, which is a new record. This total includes 21 reporters who are being held on “false news” charges.

Mr. President, so powerful is the presidency that the damage done by the sustained attack on the truth will not be confined to the president’s time in office. Here in America, we do not pay obeisance to the powerful – in fact, we question the powerful most ardently – to do so is our birthright and a requirement of our citizenship -- and so, we know well that no matter how powerful, no president will ever have dominion over objective reality.

No politician will ever get to tell us what the truth is and is not. And anyone who presumes to try to attack or manipulate the truth to his own purposes should be made to realize the mistake and be held to account. That is our job here. And that is just as Madison, Hamilton, and Jay would have it.
Of course, a major difference between politicians and the free press is that the press usually corrects itself when it gets something wrong. Politicians don’t.

No longer can we compound attacks on truth with our silent acquiescence. No longer can we turn a blind eye or a deaf ear to these assaults on our institutions. And Mr. President, an American president who cannot take criticism – who must constantly deflect and distort and distract – who must find someone else to blame -- is charting a very dangerous path. And a Congress that fails to act as a check on the president adds to the danger.

Now, we are told via Twitter that today the president intends to announce his choice for the “most corrupt and dishonest” media awards. It beggars belief that an American president would engage in such a spectacle. But here we are.

And so, 2018 must be the year in which the truth takes a stand against power that would weaken it. In this effort, the choice is quite simple. And in this effort, the truth needs as many allies as possible. Together, my colleagues, we are powerful. Together, we have it within us to turn back these attacks, right these wrongs, repair this damage, restore reverence for our institutions, and prevent further moral vandalism.

Together, united in the purpose to do our jobs under the Constitution, without regard to party or party loyalty, let us resolve to be allies of the truth -- and not partners in its destruction.

It is not my purpose here to inventory all of the official untruths of the past year. But a brief survey is in order. Some untruths are trivial – such as the bizarre contention regarding the crowd size at last year’s inaugural.

But many untruths are not at all trivial – such as the seminal untruth of the president’s political career - the oft-repeated conspiracy about the birthplace of President Obama. Also not trivial are the equally pernicious fantasies about rigged elections and massive voter fraud, which are as destructive as they are inaccurate – to the effort to undermine confidence in the federal courts, federal law enforcement, the intelligence community and the free press, to perhaps the most vexing untruth of all – the supposed “hoax” at the heart of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.

To be very clear, to call the Russia matter a “hoax” – as the president has many times – is a falsehood. We know that the attacks orchestrated by the Russian government during the election were real and constitute a grave threat to both American sovereignty and to our national security. It is in the interest of every American to get to the bottom of this matter, wherever the investigation leads.

Ignoring or denying the truth about hostile Russian intentions toward the United States leaves us vulnerable to further attacks. We are told by our intelligence agencies that those attacks are ongoing, yet it has recently been reported that there has not been a single cabinet-level meeting regarding Russian interference and how to defend America against these attacks. Not one. What might seem like a casual and routine untruth – so casual and routine that it has by now become the white noise of Washington - is in fact a serious lapse in the defense of our country.

Mr. President, let us be clear. The impulses underlying the dissemination of such untruths are not benign. They have the effect of eroding trust in our vital institutions and conditioning the public to no longer trust them. The destructive effect of this kind of behavior on our democracy cannot be overstated.

Mr. President, every word that a president utters projects American values around the world. The values of free expression and a reverence for the free press have been our global hallmark, for it is our ability to freely air the truth that keeps our government honest and keeps a people free. Between the mighty and the modest, truth is the great leveler. And so, respect for freedom of the press has always been one of our most important exports.

But a recent report published in our free press should raise an alarm. Reading from the story:
“In February…Syrian President Bashar Assad brushed off an Amnesty International report that some 13,000 people had been killed at one of his military prisons by saying, “You can forge anything these days, we are living in a fake news era.”

In the Philippines, President Rodrigo Duterte has complained of being “demonized” by “fake news.” Last month, the report continues, with our President, quote “laughing by his side” Duterte called reporters “spies.”

In July, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro complained to the Russian propaganda outlet, that the world media had “spread lots of false versions, lots of lies” about his country, adding, “This is what we call 'fake news' today, isn't it?”
There are more:

“A state official in Myanmar recently said, “There is no such thing as Rohingya. It is fake news,” referring to the persecuted ethnic group.

Leaders in Singapore, a country known for restricting free speech, have promised “fake news” legislation in the new year.”

And on and on. This feedback loop is disgraceful, Mr. President. Not only has the past year seen an American president borrow despotic language to refer to the free press, but it seems he has in turn inspired dictators and authoritarians with his own language. This is reprehensible.

We are not in a “fake news” era, as Bashar Assad says. We are, rather, in an era in which the authoritarian impulse is reasserting itself, to challenge free people and free societies, everywhere.

In our own country, from the trivial to the truly dangerous, it is the range and regularity of the untruths we see that should be cause for profound alarm, and spur to action. Add to that the by-now predictable habit of calling true things false, and false things true, and we have a recipe for disaster. As George Orwell warned, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”

Any of us who have spent time in public life have endured news coverage we felt was jaded or unfair. But in our positions, to employ even idle threats to use laws or regulations to stifle criticism is corrosive to our democratic institutions. Simply put: it is the press’s obligation to uncover the truth about power. It is the people’s right to criticize their government. And it is our job to take it.

What is the goal of laying siege to the truth? President John F. Kennedy, in a stirring speech on the 20th anniversary of the Voice of America, was eloquent in answer to that question:
“We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.”

Mr. President, the question of why the truth is now under such assault may well be for historians to determine. But for those who cherish American constitutional democracy, what matters is the effect on America and her people and her standing in an increasingly unstable world -- made all the more unstable by these very fabrications. What matters is the daily disassembling of our democratic institutions.

We are a mature democracy – it is well past time that we stop excusing or ignoring – or worse, endorsing -- these attacks on the truth. For if we compromise the truth for the sake of our politics, we are lost.

I sincerely thank my colleagues for their indulgence today. I will close by borrowing the words of an early adherent to my faith that I find has special resonance at this moment. His name was John Jacques, and as a young missionary in England he contemplated the question: "What is truth?" His search was expressed in poetry and ultimately in a hymn that I grew up with, titled “Oh Say, What is Truth.” It ends as follows:

“Then say, what is truth? 'Tis the last and the first,
For the limits of time it steps o'er.
Tho the heavens depart and the earth's fountains burst.
Truth, the sum of existence, will weather the worst,
Eternal… unchanged… evermore.”

Thank you, Mr. President. I yield the floor.

Beth Fukumoto: 'Then she watched a bully win the presidency of the United States', Hawaii Women's March - 2017

21 January 2017, Women's March, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Rep Fukumoto was a member of the Republican party but was booed at the Convention for disapproving of Donald Trump. She has since left the party.

Today I'd like to talk to you about my niece. She's eight years old, and she's campaigned with me since she was two. She's come with me to all sorts of events. And, last summer when I stood up at my party's convention she watched as a ballroom full of a men and women tossed insults and booed me because instead of pledging to support my party's nominee I said I thought his remarks were racist and sexist and that they had no place in the Republican Party. 

Now, to that room full of people, I was a traitor, or a fake, or one of the many derogatory words I was called on social media afterward. To my niece, I had told the truth. Because little kids know right and wrong. 

We teach them that they're supposed to be nice and kind to everyone even when they're different. So, she didn't understand why people would be so mean to her aunt who stood on stage and said Donald Trump shouldn't say the things he says. 

We had to explain to her later, that sometimes people are angry and they don't know how to express it so they treat other people badly. We explained that sometimes people are bullies, but that you should insist that they treat people with respect. We told her that you always stand up to bullies no matter who they are. 

Then she watched a bully win the presidency of the United States. 

It doesn't matter to me who you voted for. People cast their votes for a lot of different reasons. But, no matter who your choice was, the fact remains the same. A man won the White House with anger and hate, and our kids watched it happen. Now, it's our jobs to make sure they watch us fight back. 

So what I'm going to ask you to do today is get involved. Testify at the Legislature, run for office, help on a campaign, but do it with kindness. Show our kids that everyone's voice matters, even when they believe the opposite thing you do. Teach them that everyone deserves respect. In the end, LOVE will always win!