Remarks at the North Carolina Republican Convention in Greensboro

TRUMP: Thank you very much. Great crowd. This is beautiful. I want to thank Michael [Whatley] and congratulations on your reelection as party chairman [cheers and applause]. That's a big deal. That was a big deal. It's great to be back in North Carolina, very special place, very, very special place, we've had tremendous success here. We won it twice. We won the primaries twice. We won the election twice. It was great. Sit down. Come on, let's -- we'll be with each other. We have nothing else to do tonight.

I also want to thank our outstanding NRCC chair, Chairman, where is the Chairman, Richard Hudson? Where is the Chairman? Come on, Richard, stand up [cheers and applause]. We just got back from Georgia, and he's even a celebrity in Georgia. We had a great crowd in Georgia too. He's fourth in line for Speaker, and his wonderful wife Renee is incredible, and she served four years actually in the White House, as Kellyanne's– anyone's here heard of Kellyanne Conway? Nobody, right? She's so fantastic, but thank you and thank the family, your family is fantastic. We appreciate it.

Thanks also to one of the great stars of the party, one of the great stars in politics, Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson [cheers and applause]. And I'm going to endorse Mark, but I'm not going to tell you about it tonight, OK. We'll save it for another time, but you can count on it Mark. Congratulations. Great job. You've been doing a fantastic job [cheers and applause].

We also have some warriors that we fight together with all the time, and we win a lot. We win most of the times. Representatives Dan Bishop, where's Dan? [cheers and applause]. Dan. Thank you. Thank you, Dan. Thank you very much. Great job. Great job. We love him. Chuck Edwards, Chuck, Chuck [cheers and applause]. Thank you, Chuck. Thank you. Thank you very much. And State House Speaker Tim Moore. Tim, thank you very much [cheers and applause]. Great job. Tim is doing a fantastic job. Thank you.

For seven years, we've been engaged in an epic struggle to rescue our country from the sinister forces who actually hate it and want to destroy it, I really believe they wanna destroy it, there can be no other reason. These forces are far stronger than Russia, China, North Korea and Iran all put together, because with the right leader, you saw that just three years ago, we have the right leader, all of those countries are absolutely no threat, they're not any threat to us. We talked about it before. Right now, however, they're putting us in the most dangerous position in the history of our country. We've never been in a position like this. There's never been such danger. It's because of the weaponry, the power of the weaponry. And we have people that have no clue. We have people in office that have no clue.

Together we stand up to the globalists, we stand up to the Marxists. We stand up to the RINOs, 'cuz they're very bad [cheers and applause]. 'Cuz you don't know where they're coming from, the RI- the RINOs, you don't know where they're coming from. We stand up to the Communists and the environmental extremists because, I'm an environmentalist, I really believe that. We've done some great things for the environment, but you have extremists and you don't know whether or not they're really serious about some of this stuff. It's not even believable. We stand up to the open borders fanatics destroying our country. The radical left Democrats, their lawless partisan prosecutors, and the fake news media. We have a lot of it back there [points to back of room] [crowd boos]. But not all of them are fake. That's a big group back there, by the way. Dan, I think they're here for you maybe, heh. And on November 5th, 2024, we're going to stand up to the corrupt political establishment. We're going to evict a totally corrupt president named Joe Biden from the White House [cheers and applause]. And we're going to finish the job that we so successfully started, probably there's been no more important four years than we had. We did a great job, all of us together, things we did nobody thought were possible. I put everything on the line. I will never yield. I will never be deterred. I will never stop fighting for you. Never [cheers and applause].

And if I wasn't leading in the polls by so much, we'd have no difficulty. And you know, they're the party of disinformation, they say, oh, we want to run against Trump, in the meantime, we got 5,000 prosecutors after us, because they don't want to run against Trump. We beat 'em the first time. We did much better the second time, we beat 'em. We did much better the second time. More than any other president, more votes than any other sitting president has ever gotten, and more votes in terms of the margin, from 63 million and add millions and millions, no president's done that, usually they get less the second time. You know, you get tired of them. They weren't tired of me because we got many more votes. With your vote, we will take back our country from these fascists and thugs. And we will indeed make America great again [cheers and applause].

From the beginning, our America-first agenda has been an existential threat to the rotten political class that gets rich and powerful at your expense. Erasing our borders, cheating like we've never seen before in elections, exporting our jobs and squandering our blood and treasure on endless foreign wars. We didn't start any wars. First time in 71 years, no wars [cheers and applause]. They all said Trump will get us into a war, he's got that personality. No, it was my personality that kept us out of wars [cheers and applause]. Though we finished some wars, we finished ISIS, 100% of the caliphate. We knocked out ISIS, we did whatever we had to do, and we were respected all over the world as warriors without having to fight wars. You know who doesn't fight too many wars? China. You ever noticed? It's all talk, its beautiful military. They try and beat you economically, not militarily, and there's something very smart about that, isn't there? But, uh, they respected us. They respected your president and they respected our country. They no longer respect us. And it's very sad what's happening.

They've launched one hoax, these people we have to deal with, and they've launched Witch Hunt after Witch Hunt. And they just try to stop our movement. They want to do anything they can to thwart the will of the American people. It's called election interference. That's what they're doing now. This is election interference [cheers and applause]. And we've never seen it on a scale like this. And you have to understand the other side is downright crooked. That's why we now call him Crooked Joe Biden because, you know, we took the name away from Hillary [Clinton]. She suffered enough with that name. So I retired the name from Hillary because I wanted to bring it over to Biden because he's probably worse than she ever was, and that's saying something.

As the Durham report proved, they spied on my campaign. They forged false evidence to get illegal surveillance warrants. The FBI offered $1 million for a fictitious dossier written by a foreign spy to try and frame me for treason. We beat it all off, didn't we? They put our country through Hell and they knew it was a lie the entire time. They knew it was a lie. They knew the laptop from Hell was a lie. They knew everything. Remember, it's not me they're going to go after. And if you think of it, whoever took my place, and I hope it's not gonna be anybody, 'cuz we're the ones that are gonna save this country, 'cuz our country is in trouble, [c, they'll go after that person and that person will not be able to withstand the fire. And I know all of them. I know 'em all, and they actually admit it. They come to me, how do you stand this? And I usually look at it and say, in a sick way, I sort of enjoy it [cheers and applause]. Because it exposes them. It exposes them for what they are, and it's also lifted the poll numbers to even higher legs. Have you seen this? The polls are through the roof and the fundraising, small dollar fundraising, is setting records.

But still, to get indicted over nothing, you get indicted over the Presidential Records Act, which they don't even admit, they call it the Espionage Act. These are sick people. We had Russia, Russia, Russia. Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. The no collusion Mueller witch hunt. Impeachment hoax number 1, remember the perfect phone call? Impeachment hoax number 2. The illegal censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop from Hell. The 51 intelligence officials who falsely said it was Russian disinformation, remember, they said that? I said nobody believes that. Who would believe that? You see the pictures? Horrible pictures. The real pictures haven't been exposed yet. Put all of this and it just kept coming and coming and coming, and it would for another person in my position, but they wouldn't be able to handle it. They wouldn't be able to take it, because you're dealing with crazy lunatics. Now the Marxist left is once again using the same corrupt DOJ, and the same corrupt FBI, and Attorneys General, and local district attorneys to interfere in our election, at a level that our country has never witnessed before. These criminals cannot be rewarded, they must be defeated. We have to defeat them soundly. In the end, they're not coming after me. They're coming after you, and I'm just standing in their way [cheers and applause].

The baseless indictment of me by the Biden administration's weaponized 'Department of Injustice' will go down as among the most horrific abuses of power in the history of our country. I think it already is, when you think about it. And certainly, going back to Obama, when I said, you know, they spied on my campaign, everybody, including the fake news media back there, they said ohh, that's so crazy, turned out I was right. This vicious persecution is a travesty of justice. You're watching Joe Biden try to jail his leading political opponent. Think of it, this is like third-world country stuff, trying to put his opponent, who's leading him by a lot, wants to put him in jail over following a civil act. This is a simple thing, the Presidential Records act. It's all under the Presidential Records Act as it should be. It's all under the Clinton Socks Case. You know what the Clinton Socks Case is? That's where they sued Clinton, and he ended up winning, that he could keep the things that we're talking about. It's all under that, Mr. Congressman, we discussed that before. But this is more like Stalinist Russia or Communist China that we're dealing with. These people have reached a level of 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' that nobody thought was possible. [c And I never thought, frankly, that this could happen in America. You go after a president that got, again the most votes by far of any sitting president in history, gets out of office. And because I'm running, if I wasn't running, wouldn't even be talking about it. If I weren't leading, we wouldn't be talking about it, but we're leading by a lot.

We're leading [Ron] DeSanctimonious [DeSantis] by massive numbers [cheers and applause]. He's, he's heading South quickly. No personality. You gotta have a personality to win. He's got no personality. And you know, remember that when he came to me, he had virtually no votes. He was dying, as the expression goes, he was a, he was dead. I said George Washington could endorse you, it wouldn't matter. No, Sir, if you endorse me, I'm telling you, I'm going to win. I said let's give it a shot. I endorsed him. He went up like a rocket ship and shortly thereafter they had the primary. And he won. And then we had to get him through a crackhead. But nobody knew he was a crackhead at the time. At the time, he was the hottest politician in the Democrat Party, male version. Female version, Stacey Abrams. Stacey Abrams and him. And, but he was hard to beat and Ron said to me, I don't think I can beat him. I said you'll beat him. You'll beat him. And I did 3 rallies, massive, massive, massive rallies, thousands and thousands of people. And I said you're gonna win. And he ended up winning.

And then they started cheating at the end. Do you remember, all the votes were disappearing over days? 10,000 here, Rick Scott, same thing. And I called in, you wouldn't believe it, the FBI. Would you believe it? And it stopped, so at least they did something right. But I got him in, and then they said to him -- I said congratulations, Ron. I didn't know him that well. He was one of the many people that supported me during the impeachment hoaxes. So I'd see him on television a little bit, but I didn't know him well. Then I heard three years later, they said, would you run against the president? And he said I have no comment. That means he's gonna run! I said I got this guy in, Mr. Congressman, and he said he's going to run. And then I haven't been very nice to him since then.

But we're leading in Florida by 28 points and people are not happy with him, and he's a lousy campaigner. Remember that when he came to see me, he had almost no points. He was ready to look for a new career. You [points at unknown person] told me that better than anybody. He was looking for a job. And when I endorsed him, it was like magic. It was like he was a rocket ship. But I believe in loyalty and you know, it's just very disloyal. If somebody got me into office– and I got him in; you know, some people I help, some people I help, and some people I get. And I got this guy in, along with some others, but some people I help and that's different. Some people, I, I help a little bit, some people I help a lot, but some people I get in, I got this guy in so you know you think there'd be a little bit of a loyalty, and it's bad for the Republican Party frankly, but let's see what happens.

But we're leading by a lot. But meanwhile, Joe Biden had troves and troves, thousands of boxes, classified documents from his time as Vice President, and even as a senator, and boy, when you're a senator and you take classified documents, that's a big deal. I watched Dick [Richard] Durbin get so angry about it. I said, well, he'll be brought back into the fold eventually. But he went out, and Senator Durbin, he said, you can't as a senator, take classified documents out of his skiff. He took him out of his skiff as a senator. It's unheard of. I spoke to a lot of senators, they said I don't believe a lot of 'em, got a lot of them, they didn't believe it. And they come after me. And we had a great, we had a wonderful operation, everything by the Presidential Records Act. We were talking to NARA [National Archives and Records Administration]. But you know NARA's radical left. Do you know they have a red flag on the constitution of the United States? And on the Bill of Rights. You know what red flag is? It is a dangerous document. This is where NARA is coming from. And uhh, they're very, really they've done, I would say over the last number of years, a very poor job. But they're very, very radical left, so you have to be careful of these people. But they conspire with the FBI, they conspire with– it's, it's just a crazy situation, I mean, that this country goes through.

If we could devote the same brilliance to making America great again, to fighting Russia, to fighting China, to fighting all these people that are eating our lunch like China, we did a great job with China, I took in hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes and tariffs from China. Think of it. No other, no other President took in any money, any money, not, not $2.00. But many of Biden's documents were in Chinatown, DC. You know that? You know what Chinatown DC is? That's, that's the real deal. That's the place.

And he's getting money based on reports currently, and if the media, the fake news, was doing their job, they'd be earning Pulitzer prizes, which no longer mean anything. You know, I'm suing the Pulitzer Foundation, you know that? [cheers and applause]. Because they gave Pulitzer Prizes to reporters from the New York Times and the Washington Post, because of their wonderful and accurate reporting on Russia, Russia, Russia. But they were wrong. In fact, the Durham report just said how wrong they were. But we knew that even before the Durham report. Many of them have already conceded the fact that they were wrong. And they have Pulitzer Prizes. We want those prizes taken back [cheers and applause]. And we want them maybe reissued to other people like, like Greg Jarrett. Like John Solomon, like all these people that actually did call it right, they were real reporters. They really did a great job. But they have to take those back. And so we're suing them, and we're suing them for damages because they're libelling me by saying that these people continue to have the Pulitzer Prize. That means they're saying that the story of Russia, Russia, Russia, which even the papers themselves have now admitted is a hoax, that's libeling me because they're saying that it continues to exist. So let's see what happens with that.

But we have to bring back our country. We have, have to bring back sanity into our country. You know, the media is so important, they could straighten things out so badly, so quickly. Look, if 15 years ago, 15 years -- they're like a policing agent, they should be -- 15 years ago, 10 years ago, if somebody said that somebody was taking money from China, and from Ukraine, and from all these other places, 10s of millions of dollars, they would all be rushing to try and get the story. [Bob] Woodward and [Carl] Bernstein, I'm not a fan of either one actually, I got to know 'em, major sleazebags, but, you know. Woodward looks like such a wonderful guy, he's absolutely, he's the worst. What sleazebags. Oh, poor Richard Nixon, he did he, he had to put up with 'em.

But I got my own problems with these people. But, Woodward's a sleaze, Bernstein, I don't know, but he looks pretty bad to me. I don't know, Bernstein. I heard he was the, he was the poorer of the two, he seemed to be that. Nasty person, though, for a person that doesn't know me, I don't think I ever met him. But if I did, it was quick. But he's a nasty guy. But they're all nasty because they're deranged. But we have to have our great media be policing agents so that things like this can't happen because, you know, there is no scandal without press. If the press refuses to write that Joe Biden got 5 million dollars, and a lot of other things are coming out this week, then there can't really be a scandal, when you think of it right? There can't be [cheers and applause].

Jamie Comer and Jim Jordan have been incredible, and the whole, their committees. But you know, it's amazing that they sometimes say to me, not the two individuals, but people in the committees and people in Congress, we were talking about it just a little while ago with a few congressmen, we have stuff that's so earth-shaking and you put out the announcement and you think it's going to be headlines in the New York Times and the Washington Post on every paper and every– ABC, which is real fake. I call it ABC fake news, NBC fake news, CBS fake news. But you put it– I put fake in front of everyone of them. And nobody can say it's not. It's like they're coordinated. They're totally coordinated. They use a word, like they had a word not so long ago, 'manufactured', 'the votes are manufactured.' Every station said the same thing. It's never been used in politics before. Nobody ever said votes are manufactured. Every one of them. We want to report that the votes have been manufactured. You turn to the next one, ABC. The votes have been man– it's like somebody sends them a memo, what to say. But if they were honest, our country would be in such great shape [cheers and applause]. Amazing. But they're not.

It's no coincidence they indicted me the very same day it was revealed that the FBI had explosive evidence that Joe Biden took a 5 million dollar illegal bribe from Ukraine. Now, this is done, I haven't read anything about it. This would have been the biggest story in history 10 years ago. Walter Cronkite would have reported it, and he was on the liberal side, to put it mildly. But he would've made this the biggest story. But we don't have Walter Cronkite anymore, do we? Walter Cronkite's– the Walter Cronkite's and the great winds are gone.

Right as they're closing in on Hunter and Joe Biden, they want me to put up with this form of retribution like nobody's ever seen before, but it's OK because the public is smart. You know, it's amazing how smart the public is. I go through the town, I was always doing well and people like me, and we did great with the, you know, all the votes we got, the most ever for sitting President, but I was doing great. I've never had receptions. We just left Georgia, and we had a room that was, I mean, they've never had anything like it. And there were thousands and thousands of people outside trying to get in for the Republican chairman's lunch. Not normally the biggest thing. Now because Michael is so outstanding, of course this is a big deal. But, but you've never seen the streets? Tremendous crowds at the airport waiting, the airport being very far away from the venue where it was, people all along the roadway. And this is not really campaign season. People are disgusted with what's going on in our country. They want America back. They want America back [cheers and applause].

So I've been predicting this for a long time, just like I did with LIV, you know, LIV golf. I told the players, take the money. They're all calling me, say 'thank you very much'. Should I take $185 million? Say yeah, take it. But Sir, that means I have to leave the 2– don't worry about it. Take it. 'Cuz three things are going to happen. They're gonna merge, which I predicted they would. And it was nice, they actually covered me very well. They said it was like, really good. But they're either gonna merge, or they're gonna be successful. In one case got $185 million great one Dustin, great player Dustin Johnson. Brooks Koepka. These guys were, you know, they're great. But you know, lots of others were offered hundreds of millions of dollars, they said no, and now there's a merger. And I actually made the statement, I said if there's a merger and you don't take the money, you're gonna have a lot of very unhappy golfers out there. And you have a lot of very unhappy golfers out there, but it was exactly as I said.

But I called this one too, and I said that Hunter will probably be charged with some minor offense like jaywalking, so that the FBI and the DOJ can pretend that they're fair. Ohh, we got Hunter. So while they're going after me under the Espionage Act, that's like the creation of missiles in your basement, they got him for nothing. And there's never been a more corrupt group of people in the history of our country, running this country. Where somebody sits on a board gets 83,000 a month, a 3 million dollar upfront payment. Nobody's ever seen anything like this.

And in all fairness, was interviewed on one of the shows, on main television, I call it main, used to be serious television, now it's main television. But he said, uhh, no, I don't know why they paid me so much. Do you have expertise, Sir, in oil and gas? It's an oil and gas company. No, I really don't. Do you know anything about it? No. Then why are they paying you 83,000 a month then 3 million dollars in upfront payments, and we think it's actually more than that. But these are corrupt people. These are corrupt– he had no answer. He had no answer. The money laundering, the ignoring bribery, and the other massive crimes, they all implicate Crooked Joe Biden. See how good that name works? 'Cuz you know, Hillary's now finished, let's assume, although she's probably gonna try and make a comeback. After this speech, she'll probably try, but I don't think she'll be very successful. But she was uhh, a woman that was out of control.

The stakes of this election could not be more stark either. We have a communist state, you know, they used to use the term deep state, I'm stopping it. I'm using it, Marxist. I'm using it, fascist. I'm using communist, because deep-state is far too soft [cheers and applause]. Far too soft. Remember during the campaign, I'd say we're going to end up being another Venezuela, but on steroids. Big scale version. Big, large, beautiful scale version of Venezuela. How about we're buying oil from Venezuela? When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door. But now we're buying oil from Venezuela, so we're making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it. You know we're the– well, you know, well their oil is garbage. It's horrible. The worst you can get. Tar. It's like tar. And to refine it, you need special plants. And these people are talking about not doing our– we have liquid gold, the best, most beautiful stuff you can get. Liquid gold. Better than gold. Right under our feet, we have more than Saudi Arabia, we have more than Russia. We were going to have the greatest, greatest energy system in the world. We're gonna pay off debt. We're gonna reduce taxes. We're gonna make so much money that these guys came along and they stopped at all, what we had done is, what we had done is amazing, but with Venezuela, they put their oil and they refine it in Houston. So all of those pollutants go right up in the air. We don't wanna take oil because we wanna watch the environment, but we'll take the worst tar in the world, burn the crap out of it, create oil, and watch it go into our atmosphere. So the environmentalists have no problem with that. So we lose economically and we also lose from an environmental standpoint because it is really dirty stuff, the dirtiest stuff you can imagine. We take it from Venezuela and we also make the country strong again. And the head of the country is a dictator.

It's not even believable some of the things that are happening -- open borders, who would believe open borders? Who would believe no voter ID? I want to vote, ohh, go ahead and vote. That's why they have all these people coming, and they think they're gonna be able to vote. The funny thing is, a lot of them turned for Trump. You know, a lot of them on the Texas border towns [cheers and applause]. Wouldn't that be funny? We like Trump the best. We like Trump. But the Governor of Texas called me right after the election. He said, you've done something that's unprecedented, you won every single town along the border. Mostly Hispanic. He said, that hasn't happened since he called it, Reconstruction, I said, is that Civil War, would you say that's Civil War? The Civil War, you know, term we haven't heard in a long time, Reconstruction, but hadn't happened since Reconstruction, Civil War. Uhh, but it happened. We did incredible. We're doing incredible with Hispanics.

At the end of the day, either the Communists destroy America, or we destroy the Communist [cheers and applause]. And never forget what the demented persecution of our movement is all about. Our enemies are desperate to stop us because they know that we are the only ones who can stop them. We're the only ones who can do it. Small group, relatively small group. But we couldn't stop 'em cold and we will. And we would have had them stop cold and they know that. And they cheated like dogs. They cheated like nobody's ever cheated before. You turned on your television at 10 o'clock, you would have said Pennsylvania's a lock. We were up by so much, a lock, all of a sudden you see that big fat dump, that big dump at 3:02, or whatever it was, in the morning. It's a disgrace what happened, what's happening to our country is a disgrace. But I promise you this, if you put me back in the White House, their reign will be over, and America will be a free nation once again [cheers and applause].

Thank you very much. I stand before you today as the only candidate who has what it takes to smash this corrupt system and to truly drain the swamp. And I'm the only one that they don't want to do it. And again, that's why disinformation– we wanna run against Trump, we wanna run, ohh, we're dying to run against Trump. We killed 'em last time, you know, killed 'em with Hillary. How about that one? You think that was a little surprise that shook 'em up? They said we'll never let that happen again. So they developed all sorts of– read the New York Times, I'm not a fan of the New York Times, but read New York Times certain stories. But read in particular Time magazine cover from a couple of years ago because they couldn't help themselves, they had to take credit for it. What they did was so bad for our country and look at our country now look where we are. We're dying. Anyone else will be ripped to shreds.

There's no issue where a spine of steel is more important than when it comes to rescuing America from a really bad Biden economy. Our economy is sick. Everything is sick. But remember, and it's true 100%, they will not be able to withstand the fire. For three years Joe Biden and his corrupt allies in Washington have waged economic warfare on the hard-working citizens of our country. Biden flooded your communities with millions and millions of illegal aliens, look at what's happening to our country right now, crushing American wages and stealing American jobs. I believe that you don't hear this number, I think from anyone else, I believe by the end of this year the real numbers 15 million people, that's bigger than New York State, will have come into our country.

He launched a vicious crusade to shut down American energy. ANWR [Arctic National Wildlife Refuge]. Think of ANWR in Alaska. Ronald Reagan couldn't get it done. Nobody could get it done so many years so many decades. I got it done. The first day they terminated, ANWR would have been bigger than Saudi Arabia, at least the same size. Would have been bigger. So good for Alaska. Would have been the biggest in the world. We were gonna make so much money, we're gonna pay off our debt. We're gonna reduce your taxes still further. Remember, I gave you the biggest tax cuts in history. The biggest regulation cuts in history [cheers and applause]. But we would have made so much because oil and gas is such a big business, such a big, big business, such a powerful business and such an important business. New England has a liberal tint but, or taint, I would say taint is a better word actually, but it, it's a little bit on the liberal side they say. But they pay the highest energy prices in the United States because they're afraid to build a pipeline right through New York State in a poor region where people desperately need to job, a pipeline would bring down New England numbers by 50 or 60%. But nobody wants to talk about it. Biden spent trillions of dollars on socialist lunacy, causing the highest inflation in 52 years. Since Biden took office, the typical family has lost over, think of this, $7,400 of annual, each year, income.

Joe, his number one job as, as next president, what he wanted to do, he just– everybody that talks and they're right. We want to reverse what Joe Biden has done. He's been a horror show [cheers and applause]. Economic horror show. He's been a horror show from the standpoint of our country. And what he's done in terms of our military, he's given away $85 billion worth of equipment, the best equipment in the world, to Afghanistan. They're now one of the leading sellers of military equipment anywhere in the world. Some people have them at number 2 because they don't need 700,000 brand-new rifles. They don't need 70,000 vehicles, many of them armor plated. Think of your friends that have a used car lot, and think of them as big. They're big. If they have 300 cars in that lot, it's a lot, we gave away 70,000, some of them costing millions of dollars. Vehicles armor-plated, 4 inches of armor.

Under my leadership, we built the greatest economy in the history of the world. In fact, we did it twice, and now we're going to do it again, and it's gonna be better than ever [cheers and applause]. We're gonna do it again. As President, I ended years of bitter betrayals of North Carolina workers. North Carolina was hit very hard by the Democrats. I withdrew from the job killing Trans-Pacific Partnership, would have killed your state. A globalist calamity that would have killed American manufacturing forever. I stopped it. I ended it. It was a disaster known as NAFTA. I killed NAFTA. Nobody thought it could be done. You know, you had to get it killed through Congress [cheers and applause]. You helped a lot, Mr. Congressman. It was the worst trade deal ever made. Nobody thought -- because you have people, I don't know where they get their thinking, but you know, they get it from lobbyists and lots of other people. And it's hard to get the votes even when something is really good. And we replaced it with the USMCA, that's the Mexico, Canada trade deal. And you know how I know it's good? Because they are working feverishly to try and renegotiate the deal because they getting killed by that deal. And I just hope the Biden administration doesn't do it because we suffered with NAFTA for decades. NAFTA was the most unfair, it was the worst trade deal probably ever made.

I stood up to China like no administration has ever done before, bringing hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our treasury from China when no other President had gotten anything from China, they never got anything. They got a lot of bullshit, that's what they got [cheers and applause]. And when China targeted our farmers, I got China to give our farmers $28 billion. Who do you think else is gonna do– you think, Joe's gonna do that? Hey President Xi, you've really been screwing our farmers, you got to give us– got 28 billion for the farmers.

That's why I say I'm not losing Iowa. So when he said, how are you doing in Iowa? I am up like 35 points. But I said how could I lose Iowa? I got 28 billion for the farmers in Nebraska, any farm state. You were– you took some big chunk out of that 28 billion, too, by the way.

When I'm back in the Oval Office, I will revoke Chinas most favored nation trade status [cheers and applause]. And remember, they got that because they said they were a developing nation. Well, you know what, honestly, we're a developing nation. Our cities are going to hell. We have to redevelop our cities, our, our country is going to hell. Look at our cities. Look at New York and Chicago and Atlanta. Atlanta has the highest crime rate per capita of any city. Atlanta. Where they're trying to get me on a perfect phone call. People kill people and they never even get interviewed, but let's get Trump on a perfect call, a call that was so good, it was actually better than my perfect call with the Ukrainian President, Zelenskyy. It was more perfect.

But think of it, I have many lawyers on this call just to diverge, I have many lawyers on this call, state lawyers. Brad Raffensperger was on the call. I was calling to complain about the election because I said it was rigged. And, uhh, had good reason. But we were there, many lawyers. I said things. That was that, the call ended. Future calls were going to be– and nobody said, Sir, you shouldn't say what you just said. What a horrible thing. We just talked. What I said was perfect. It was actually perfect. Could not have been better. Most people have read it. They've said ohh, what's wrong with this? It's just a con job. They con, they're all disinformation, misinformation, it's a con job. If there were a problem with that call, these state lawyers would have said, Sir, you're not allowed to say that, would you please take it back? This came up long after that call was made.

It's like Jon Lovitz, remember Jon Lovitz on Saturday Night Live? He's probably a Trump hater, but I'll use his name anyway. The liar. They called him the liar. Yeah, yeah, I went to Harvard. That's where I went. I went to Harvard. I'm a businessman. That's right. I'm a businessman. Well, they did it too. They said, uhh, let's see, there was a call with Trump. That's right. There was a call. Yeah, I think he said something. Let me tell you, if– [cheers and applause]. If there was anything said wrong in that call, they would have been screaming from the rafters, how dare you say that. Sir, you're not supposed to. That call was perfect. I complained about election fraud, and I wanted them to do something about it. And they should have done something about it. But they didn't.

We will gain total independence from China. We will make the United States the manufacturing superpower of the world, and we were starting to do that [cheers and applause]. Tremendous money was coming in and to your state, it's coming into, was coming into, North Carolina. What a, what a place. Under Biden we've had record high trade deficits, which I call losses, a lot of people don't say ohh, a trade deficit is a loss. I call it a loss, some people don't. I understand their thinking.

I was a very good student at the Wharton School of Finance. Can you imagine? I wonder if they're proud of me. I got indicted. I wonder if they're saying, ohh that's wonderful. I've been indicted twice now in a couple of months. You know, when I was studying and when I was a very, very successful businessman, and I did The Apprentice and I did lots of books that were big, big, big, big sellers. Even now, I have books that are tremendous sellers. I never had, I never had this stuff in mind. I never heard the word indictment. What's indictment mean? Sir, that's when you're extremely dishonest, Sir. Now these people are conmen, and we have deranged people running it.

For this reason, I will pass landmark legislation, because we have to save our country, to be known as the Trump Reciprocal Trade Act. You know what that is? When China charges us a 150% tariff, we charge them a 150%. Right now they charge us – [cheers and applause]. Right now, so we charge them nothing, they charge us 150%. So, I said to one of our terrible senators, guy named Toomey, Pat Toomey, real beauty, he said -- and he was all in for the, you know, he called it free trade. It's not free trade. Stupid trade. Very stupid trade. We call it, we have a new name. We've developed a new name. Stupid trade. I said Pat, so let me ask you, China's charging us 150% tariff on various products, can we charge them 100? No, Sir, it's not free trade. I said how about 100%? They're at 150. What about? No, Sir, you can't do that. What about 50? No, Sir. What about 10%, Pat? No, Sir. You can't do that. That's not free trade. These are the dumbest people I've ever seen [cheers and applause]. It's called an eye for an eye, or a tariff for a tariff.

But isn't that a beautiful thought? Because we're getting screwed by every country in the world. And I need to get this one approved by Congress. And they approve things easy if they're bad things. If they're not politically correct, they don't wanna do– but this is politically correct. This is very simple. They charge us, we charge them. What's gonna happen is a lot of them will come off, because they're saying what's the use of us collecting 150 if they're going to get 150? So it's come on– but some won't do that, and that's OK because we'll take in a fortune. But we'll make trade fair in a– really in addition, because we're the pot of gold, but we're rapidly losing that part of gold status. Soon we're not gonna have anything. We're losing so much money. In addition, I think we should have about a 12 to a 15% tax on anybody that comes into the United States. This is a tariff. If they want to do business, if they want to take our wealth, if they want to steal our wealth from us, they should pay 15%. It's not that high a number. It's not going to stop them. We'll make a fortune, and we're going to become a profit-making machine so easily. So easily [cheers and applause].

Because remember, we have $34 trillion in debt. Got to pay it off. And we don't want to do anything stupid. But if we do, uhh, the reciprocal trade act, that's fantastic. And if we do a, you know, we've had people, smart people, that said if we are going to sell our wealth to other countries, we should charge them for it. Why should we allow other countries to come in and steal our jobs, to make our cars, to make our computers, to make everything and then just sell them right back at us with no tax. No, I think if we do that, they should be charged 15%. The numbers that you're talking about are astronomical, and we will become, overnight, a tremendously successful country. And many jobs, when you do that, will come back into the United States. So I want you to think about that. That'll be very controversial tomorrow when the fake news, because it's such a good thing, they're gonna hate it [cheers and applause].

We're going to fight the globalist vultures and the Washington Swamp, just as we did before, and we're going to win. We're gonna have tremendous victories. I said, we're gonna beat Hillary. I was right. I said, we're gonna beat Biden, that was actually more right. But we're gonna beat him this time, and we're gonna watch those votes. You know, with COVID, you couldn't go there. People sent in the votes, they get all these ballots, they send in the votes. Millions of– 10s of millions of votes coming out, going in. Nobody knew what the hell– they knew what was happening. But we can never let that happen again.

Remember this, Jimmy Carter, and he's a nice man, and I know he's not well, so I'm not going to say anything. But Jimmy Carter had a Commission, and he said you can't do mail in ballot. If you have mail in ballots, it's going to be rife with fraud. Of course, it's going to be rife with fraud. People are getting 7 ballots, 8 balance, ballots. And we can't do it. We can't do it. We're not gonna have a country left. France used to do it. They got out of it because they said it was so fraudulent and they went to paper ballots. Same day voting, voter ID. And you know what? They had an election [cheers and applause]. They got 36 million votes. They had a winner, they had a loser and that was the end of it. Very simple. A lot of people, you know, it sounds too simplistic, but paper ballots, they make certain watermark paper, that's phenomenal stuff. It's actually technologically advanced paper, if you can believe it. But we should do paper ballots, we should do voter ID, and we should go back to same day voting. We should also have one, just one day. We don't need, even if you call it a holiday, we don't need to have, you know, I don't know if you know this, we don't need to have 48 days of voting [cheers and applause]. And just remember they created a lot of ballots. They had places where there were more ballots than there were voters. And they had a hard time explaining it.

But the courts don't like to get involved because the courts were not courageous. They were not courageous. It's a shame what happened, but we have to have strong elections and we have to have a strong border. It's no wonder the swamp is getting truly desperate as they see us leading big in all the polls, and this week's Morning Consult poll just came out. We have a 34-point lead under 'Sanctimonious'. We're at 56% [cheers and applause]. That's with a lot of people in it. Haley's at 3. Great job. Pence is at 7. Ohh look at this one, this one just came out in the Clarity Campaign Poll, very respected, we're leading by 56 points. That doesn't mean we have 56. That means we're leading Ron 'DeSanctimonious' by 56. 69% for Trump, 13% for 'DeSanctis', and Pence has six.

You know, once you get used to saying 'DeSanctis', it's hard to say to DeSantis. I was actually being interviewed, and I was trying to be serious,and I called him DeSanctis. They said, that's not good. But he's changing his name, you know, now it's De-Santis. And I put a little message out. Never change your name in the middle of the campaign. You don't change your name in the middle of a campaign.

In the Emerson poll of Iowa, we're leading by 42 points. See, I told you, I told you [cheers and applause]. I got 'em $28 billion. How are we gonna lose? That's a big lead in Iowa. We're gonna do great in Iowa. We've always done great in Iowa. And we're leading Biden by a lot in the recent Fabrizio Swing state poll of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin. We're at almost 50% of the vote already, and we're leading Biden by 5, which is a shocking– you know, you would think he'd be leading them by 40. You would think we would be leading him by more than we're leading DeSanctis. In the ABC Washington Post Poll, just came out, I'm up by 7 points over Biden. And the new poll from Democracy Institute, very respected, shows that I'm the only candidate that beats Crooked Joe Biden. And DeSantis is losing to him by a lot.

With each passing day, more Americans are joining our patriotic movement. We are having unbelievable success, only garnered even further by what's happening because what they're doing is so bad for our country. People are saying you can't weaponize, you can't do this.

Together, we've achieved more than anyone thought, even possible. We delivered the largest tax cuts in history. We delivered the largest regulatory cuts. That's why we had the greatest employment numbers ever in history. We achieved energy independence. We were soon going for energy dominance. Whereas I told you before, we were going to be paying off massive amounts of debt and lowering your taxes still further. 'Cuz that's the kind of numbers you're talking about when you get the oil cooking.

In 60 years, think of it, we had the worst, the worst problems, and the worst costs in energy in 60 years. We had it down to $1.87 3 and a half years ago, a gallon. And we actually had it lower than that, but we won't even talk about that because I had to save the oil companies, they were all gonna go bust. I said, this is the first time I've ever said we gotta get it up a little bit. I actually called Russia and the King of Saudi Arabia, we had a three-way call, and we cut back on the oil because it was so incredible. Helped fill up the strategic national reserves and he's now taken all of that to reduce gasoline prices for cars just prior to the election, very artificially, and he's reduced it down to the lowest level that it's been in, I think 60 years.

We created the most secure border in U.S. history, built hundreds and hundreds of miles of border wall. Was going to build another 200 miles to fill up some gaps that we saw, and then they came in after a very strange election, to put it– I'm trying to be nice, very strange, strange election, really bad election. But they came in and they didn't want to fill up those walls. So that's the first time I said these guys actually want to have open borders. We got Mexico to give us 28,000 soldiers free of charge. That's how we succeeded. You know, we had the most secure border in the history of our country. Part of it was I got Mexico– we built the wall, large sections of the wall. We got Mexico free of charge and I like the President of Mexico a lot. He's a socialist, but as the expression goes, you can't have everything. But I liked him a lot.

But I said to the people over in the State Department, I said, give me a list of the 10 top things you would like. And one was to have their soldiers helping us with the people coming in, you know, they're coming in through Mexico. And they gave me a list of 10. And the woman, who was really a pro, but she was just a little bit naive, she said, Sir, you're never gonna get this. We've been trying to get this. I've been here for 25 years. We've been trying to get this for 25 years. You're never gonna get it. If said you wanna make a little bet? Then we had a representative, their top representative, come in to see me and the State Department people. And I said, here's the story. You have to give us 28,000 soldiers free of charge to stop people from pouring into the United States. He said, [laughs], he laughed, he thought like what a stupid guy this is, this guy has to be–. Sir, we wouldn't even think of doing that. Why would we do a thing? Because they're coming through your country and you're not stopping. In the South, they're coming pouring through in caravans. No, you're going to give it to us. No, Sir, we're not. I said, how much do you want to make a bet? He said we're not gonna do it. I said here what I have in front of me, and I'm gonna sign it right in front of you, a paper– this was on a Thursday or a Friday– and I said on Monday morning we're putting a tariff on all automobiles coming into the United States and all other Mexican products coming into the United States. We're putting a tariff of 25% on everyone. We're going to make so much money over and above the cost of that. And he said you wouldn't do that. I said I'm gonna sign it right before your very eyes. Watch me sign it. And this goes into effect on Monday morning [cheers and applause].

And he said to me, Sir, uhm, do you mind if I take 5 minutes to make a phone call? He was gonna call obviously the President 'cuz he was the second person. And he came back in 3 minutes. Sir, we've decided to give you 28,000 soldiers free of charge. I said, but that's not the end. We also want remain in Mexico. So that rather than having people come in and remain in our country, they remain in Mexico until we approve them, till we check them out, find out who they are. We don't want murderers in our country. We don't want killers we don't want people that are bad in our country, we don't want gang members. And he said, we'll give you that too, Sir. Remain in– that's how you think there was a remain in Mexico. You've all heard. Do you think that happened just by accident? That happened because of me.

And then when Biden came in, he wanted to end it. And even the judge said, why are you doing this? The judge, he said, you can't end it. Why are you doing this? But it expired at a certain point. As an example, Title 42, that's to keep sick people out of the United States, people that are sick. And it was an incredibly successful thing and they wanted to terminate it two years ago, and the judge said, do you know how many people are gonna be flooding our nation if you terminate? This is the judge. He's supposed to be making a ruling. He's telling them that they shouldn't be doing this. And he wouldn't let it happen, but it expired a couple of weeks ago. And they did nothing to do anything about it and we have a lot of people that have diseases that we don't want to have in our country, and I'm not just talking about COVID. I'm talking about some big things. Uhh, It's so sad.

And then we terminated catch and release. Remember the famous– you catch them in our country, and then you release them in our country and we say come back in 4 and a half years, we're gonna have a trial. Only the stupid ones come back. Nobody comes back. 4 and a half years later, they're gone. Nobody ever sees them Dan, right? That's it. I mean, how crazy is it? It's so crazy.

But we ended all of that stuff. We had the greatest border, most secure border we've ever had. And the people of this country want that back. You know, it's very interesting. When I ran in 2016, the border was a big deal. I would talk about the border all the time. The border, the border, the border. People couldn't get enough of it because we had a really bad, unsafe border, people pouring through. I did such a good job that in 2020 nobody wanted to talk about the border. And when I talked about it, people would start falling asleep. I said I did too good a job. But now it's worse than ever. It's never been like this. Now it's worse than– I say it's worse than any third-world country. Because the third-world country wouldn't let 15,000,000 people flow through their borders, they'd fight them out with sticks and stones [cheers and applause]. So we had the best border in the history of our country and now we have, in my opinion, the worst border in the history of the world. Think of it. What third-world country would let millions of people just walk across the border? Take our education, take our hospitals, take our food.

Our veterans aren't treated nearly as well as illegal aliens. Our veterans aren't treated nearly as well [cheers and applause]. So sad to see. And we had one of the– we had the highest approval rating, Dan knows this, of any VA in the country. You know, we passed two things. Number one, we were able to fire people, which you couldn't do for 58 years, it was in the Hopper. Because we had a lot of sadists, we had thieves, and we had a lot of bad people that worked in the VA. Bad people, but the worst were the sadists, this they would beat up old wonderful soldiers, beat the hell out of them. They got their jollies out of it, they're sick, and we weren't allowed to fire 'em no matter what they did, we couldn't fire 'em. I got it. So we fired, I think 8,000, about 8,000 people, all sadists and sick people and– [cheers and applause]. There was one group, just before me, they caught 'em stealing $400,000. Stone cold, caught 'em. And they couldn't get rid of 'em [inaudible]. The whole thing is crazy. But we got that done.

But of equal importance, maybe more importance, if you had to wait more than a day to get yourself taken care of, and we had all this passed through Congress, if you had to wait more than one day– and you [points at Richard Hudson] were so helpful. If you had to wait more than one day, by the way, Richard has been a fantastic, a fantastic congressman. Richard Hudson. You really helped, you really helped us a lot. He was a fighter for this. But if you had to wait more than one day, because people were waiting months, they were becoming terminally ill waiting. Something they could clean up with a prescription or with a small operation, they'd end up dying. They'd become terminally ill, 'cuz it would take four or five, six months to see a doctor, and I said, if you had to wait more than one day, you go to a private doctor. And we pay the bill. We made deals with doctors all over the place, so they can't, you know, they tend to be a little bit high. This is like a golden pot, but we actually saved a lot of money, because we were making people better. They were able to live with their families. They weren't dying. It was an incredible thing.

We had a 92% approval rating. And now it's down the drain because they ended all that stuff. And it's worse than it ever was before. And then some people will still foolishly vote for the Democrats, I don't understand it. It's like with religion. We fight for religion, they fight against religion. How can a religious person vote for the Democrats, what they've done to Christianity and all religions? [cheers and applause]. I mean, how can they do it? We appointed nearly 300 federal judges and three great Supreme Court justices. I fully rebuilt the US military. We had more ammunition than at any time. And now we have no ammunition. We have a military missing a thing called ammunition. We had so much, it was stuck to the gills and now we have very little left. Because we're giving it to Ukraine. And, uhh, I would end that war within 24 hours, I will tell you [cheers and applause]. And end it fairly.

And I imposed a powerful travel ban to keep radical Islamic terrorists and radical jihadists the hell out of our country. People said, ohh, that's a terrible thing. But how good did we do in four years? Look at our record in four years. You didn't hear about all that stuff. I don't even like talking about it. Give people ideas. But we had a tremendous record because of what we, what we passed, and we passed things that nobody thought were possible, but look at our record on that.

We accomplished all of this and more in just four short years and just imagine what we can accomplish in the next four years. And the advantage is that I've been through it. I know the good people, I know the bad people, I know weak people and strong people. I know the people that are losers, that you don't want, and I know the people that are winners, that a lot of people don't know or understand. But they're the winners. The people that can bring us back. I know 'em all. When I first went there, I didn't. I had to rely on people. What do you think of this guy? What do you think of that guy? And people were giving me advice. We had great, we had great people too. You know, again, we rebuilt the military. We got all those tax cuts and regulation cuts, we had great people. But we had some people that I wouldn't have put in the place, guys like Bill Barr 'cuz he didn't have courage. And I just– I wouldn't have put them, I wouldn't have put them in place. They missed a great opportunity. But we have all these people cold, we've caught all of these lies, and all of this corruption. And something has to be done about it, but I know the strong ones and the weak ones. I know the great ones and the ones that will never be great.

Uhh, and again, you know, it's funny, I was in Washington, DC 17 times in my entire life. And most of it was building a hotel down the road from the White House, beautiful hotel. Now I sold it to Waldorf Astoria, but beautiful hotel. And, uhh, but I was only there 17 times and I never slept over, so I wasn't into that whole world of Washington establishment. But I quickly, I learned very quickly and now I, I think I'm into it probably more than anybody else and I know the people.

Here's just some of the bold agenda I'll put into effect when we become the 47th president of the United States [cheers and applause]. Before I even arrive at the Oval Office, shortly after I win the Presidency, I will have the horrible war between Russia and Ukraine settled. If it's not already settled, and I should get it done quickly. Can't let those people die.

They asked me, did you see the town hall with CNN? They got one of the highest ratings they've had in like 11 years, and they end up firing the guy because it was Trump. Instead, they should celebrate. We had our highest ratings. You're supposed to get paid for high ratings, Richard. But they had one of the highest ratings they've had in many, many years. I was on with a young woman who was, I said nasty, she was a very nasty woman, but it worked out very well and they were all, he owns you. He owns you, get him off the air. They're screaming. AOC [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez] is screaming. He owns you, get him off the air. Stop it. Stop it. But you'd think if they had high ratings, that would be a big– he should ask for an increase, instead they fired him because I was allowed to put across our point of view, it's our point of view [cheers and applause]. You know, we went into the, the womb of the enemy. And I thought actually, the reason I did, I thought they'd probably be solid. I tell them [points at back of room], because there they are, right there. But I tell them that they're doing so poorly in their ratings. If they went to the center, or even went a little bit right of center, and I thought they might be planning that, I think that's a good business strategy because right now they're known as fake news.

Can you imagine if this is on CNN right now? The one thing you know is they're going to turn it off. Oh, the light just went off the television. That just went off. The red light. I can see all those red lights, that light [points at back of room]. Ohh, well, sorry about that. I'll be finished about this in one– like 20 seconds and then you can turn the light back on. But I thought they were going to be maybe a little bit more moderate and get their viewership up and really have a big evening and great, but as I was being introduced, they were saying things that were so bad. I said this is gonna be a war. But it was and, uhh, look, it worked out well, but it didn't work out well for him. It should have, because he actually did a good job in the sense it was very professionally done, very professional. Everything. The set, everything was beautiful and they got tremendous numbers and they fired him. He's gone now. Mr. [Chris] Licht, sorry about that. I'd like to apologize to Mr. Licht.

But I'm the only candidate who can make this promise. I will prevent World War 3 [cheers and applause]. I will prevent it. Not gonna happen. And we're much closer than you think right now to having it. And at some point it will happen. It will happen. I will prevent it. I'm the only one that can say it. I know 'em all. I know how to deal with them, I deal with them. And I'm not saying say I know how, but I will get it done. I will get it done.

Did you see the other day? Putin said they're delivering nuclear missiles to Belarus. Here we go, and we have a man that has no clue. He has no clue. We have a guy that walks around. He has no clue. He's like a walking zombie. You know, I meet these other leaders, President Xi, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, did a great job with that, Kim Jong Un, we had the meetings and you know, historic. Got along great. They hate saying that when they– I say they got along– 'how dare you get along great with a dictator'. You know, guys got hundreds of nuclear weapons. It's nice to get along. And I'm not saying that from weakness. I'm just saying from common sense. No I got along with him great. 'How dare you say that President Xi of China is a brilliant man'. No, he's brilliant. He leads 1.4 billion people. And he leads them very powerfully, and he's doing things and ripping off our country for years. But they get upset when I say somebody's brilliant.

But here's what I will say. They're all at the top of their game. I know everyone of 'em, all these leaders. They're smart as hell. They're tough, they're cunning. Some are vicious. Most of them are vicious, actually. They think the United States is run by fools. They all take advantage of the United States.

I had a thing with France. I like Macron, but he's a wise guy. I like, you know, sort of young, and my people for negotiating with him, he's putting a tax on all American companies that do business in France. I said, who the hell wants to go to France? But he's putting a very big tax on. So, Steve Mnuchin and my people were negotiating with them and came back. No, they can't make a deal. I said, why can't you make a deal? We can't. They wanna put the tax on all these companies, tax, if you're an American company, they gotta tax you. I said that's not right. I said give it another shot. They came back a week later. They can't make it a deal. I said, I, I'll make a deal. What do you mean you'll make it? Same thing. Same old story all the time. It's always the same story. They don't write about it [points at media]. They know about it, but they don't write about it. I wish all these things were taped. I really do. I wish these conversations, because these were classic conversations. So I got Macron, Emmanuel, on the phone and I said Emmanuel, why are you putting a tax on all of our companies? Ohh, but Donald, we have to, as you know, it's been approved by everybody. I said I don't care if it's approved, take it off. Ohh, no, no, we can't do that. It's been fully approved. And I said now here's the story. If you don't take it off, again, tomorrow morning, at 7 o'clock in the morning, we're taxing all of your wine and champagne that's coming into the United States at 100 frickin' percent [cheers and applause]. He'll tell you that's true. No, no, no, no, you cannot do that Donald. Donald, you cannot do that. That is not fair. No, no, it's not fair that you're putting this massive tax on American companies but not others. And that's only 'cuz you think we're a stupid country. I said you're not going to do that, Emmanuel. Tomorrow morning at 7 o'clock, 100% on every freaking bottle of your wine and champagne. I don't even like it. I like the stuff made in our country better, even though I don't drink too much wine. One of my good things, not a big, not a big drinker. But no, we don't want that, Emmanuel. No, no, no. I said yes, yes, yes. You have 10 minutes to call me back. He called me back in 3 minutes. You have a deal. That was the end. That was the end. But you know what? Now he's gonna put it back on. So, and nobody's gonna– you think Biden's gonna call him back and talk that way? No, they don't talk that way. And yet they're vicious. I don't even think it's Biden that's vicious. I think it's a circle of maniacs around him.

You know, you have a woman in the Justice Department, Lisa Monaco. She's a Trump hater like nobody you've ever seen. I think she's second in the Justice Department. Lisa Monaco. Very unfair. They have this maniac, he, I call him a deranged person. Jack Smith. He's deranged. His wife hates Trump even more than he does. And these are the people– we get treated very unfairly.

But I will also, so importantly, immediately cancel every open-borders policy of the Biden administration. The borders will be closed [cheers and applause]. Unless you come in legally. Under Biden, other countries are emptying out their prisons, insane asylums, and mental institutions and dumping everyone into the United States. Did you know that? Wonderful. Their prisons are being emptied out all over the world, not just in Guatemala. Not just Mexico. Not just El Salvador. No, all over the world, they're coming. Last week we had 129 people coming from– 129 countries were represented by people pouring into our country illegally. 129 countries. Most people didn't even know there were that many. There are actually more than that, and sometimes we have a lot more than that. But their prisons are being emptied into the United States. You go into their prisons, they used to have it so crowded, so horrible, that people couldn't lie on the floor. They would stand up and lean against each other. Now they have nobody in those prisons. They're all in the United States of America. Thank you very much. We're like a dumping ground. The same thing with people that are mentally ill. They said, please don't use the word insane asylum, but no, they're some very serious places, insane asylums and mental institutions. And, uh, those people are all being dumped into the United States. Why should they take care of them, if a country is foolish enough to take the tremendous risk and cost, the risk being even bigger than the cost, but the cost is not even, it's not imaginable how big it is. So we have all these people that are vicious prisoners. You think our prisoners are bad? These people make them look like Boy Scouts. And they're being dumped into our country, and all of the people who are mentally ill. I read an article recently, fairly recently, about a psychiatrist who was working at a hospital for 20, 25 years in South America. And he was sitting, reading the newspaper, being interviewed for this article. And he said, you know, I used to work 24 hours a day working with patients, but I don't have patients anymore. They've all been delivered to the United States. He wasn't like complaining, he was, he was just saying the facts. He said he used to work so hard. Now, you know, I want to help people, but we really don't have– the people are being led into the United States. And he said some of these people are very sick. And this is what we're doing. Because we have a president that doesn't have a clue and we have radical leftist, Marxist crazy people that are actually running our country.

Following the Eisenhower model, people don't realize Eisenhower was very tough on immigration. Did you know that Richard? Like very, very tough. He had them taken away and he used to have 'em brought a little bit over the border, and they'd come back, again a little bit. Then he had 'em brought 2,000 miles away. And they didn't come back so quick. But they used to put 'em on the other side of the border. They'd come right back. But he was very tough.

But we'll use all necessary state, local, federal, and military resources to carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history. [c We have no choice. We have no choice. And I'll probably lose votes because of that, they'll say, oh, he's so mean. We're not mean. They're killing people. They're destroying our country. And if I lose votes, that's OK. I don't, I don't care. We have to do what's right. We have to straighten out our country. I will ask every state and federal agency to identify every single known or suspected gang member in America, and every one of them that is here illegally, we will pick them up and we will send them back to the country from which they came. We'll bring 'em back very quickly. Because we don't want you, or your family killed by some deranged person or some person that's in prison for having killed 9 people, and that happens to be living happily in the United States of America. And this is very unsuspecting, when they, when they hit you, you wouldn't even expect it. These are hardened criminals. And to further deter illegal immigration, I will sign a day one executive order ending automatic citizenship for the children of illegal aliens [cheers and applause]. You get automatic citizenship, automatic citizenship.

And unlike Ron DeSanctimonious, who voted to gut Medicare, to– remember that he voted to gut it, and Social Security, gut Social Security, and he voted three times to raise the retirement age to 70. You know, Ron Desanctimonious is a disciple of Paul Ryan. Anybody that's a disciple of Paul Ryan, you don't want him. But I will always protect Medicare and Social Security for our great seniors [cheers and applause]. And one thing I've learned in politics, when a guy is against like Medicare or wants to decapitate it, or a guy's against anything Social Security, and then they have an election and all of a sudden they love it, although he hasn't even said that yet. But when they have– and you earned it, you know, people have been working very hard for long periods of time. There are many things we can cut. You don't have to cut Social Security. You don't have to cut Medicare. If we did the oil thing, you wouldn't have to even think about these things. But they don't want to do the oil thing because they don't know what they're doing. But one thing I learned is that when they want to do it, then they go a little bit because they want to try and get elected, they always go back to it. So when somebody wants to cut Social Security or Medicare, and then they go back to saying, oh, I love 'em very much, within a fairly short period of time, they'll be cutting it. Just remember what I say.

And I will not put a national sales tax of 23% on our citizens, which DeSanctions wants to do. He wants to put a 23% national sales tax on rich, rich people– I think, I sort of like the idea for myself. Can you imagine somebody now is gonna pay every time they buy something, 23%. This will not be happy, but more importantly, it's not, it's not fair.

On day one, I will immediately sign a new executive order to cut federal funding for any school pushing critical race theory, transgender insanity, and other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children [cheers and applause]. It's amazing how strongly people feel about that. You see, I'm talking about cutting taxes. People go like that [mimics light clapping]. Talking about talk about transgender, everyone goes crazy. Who would have thought? Five years ago you didn't know what the hell it was. But one that I think is incredible that we would be saying, that I can't even believe you have to say. We're a politic– I guess I have to say I'm a politician, right? I don't want to say that, but I have to. I became president. I guess I'm a politician. But I can't believe I say this, I will always support parents' rights. Can you imagine saying that 10 or 15 years ago, parents' rights? Who wouldn't– think of it, who wouldn't support parents' rights? That you have to get up and say I will always support parents' rights with their children. I mean what's going on with their children, they can take their children and do whatever they want without the parent even knowing. I will not give one penny to any school that has a vaccine mandate or a mask mandate [cheers and applause].

And one of the easiest to me, is I will keep men out of women's sports, OK? [cheers and applause]. You see the records that are being broken now, records that have held up for 18, 19 years. They're being obliterated. Check out the weightlifting records. Guy comes up. A woman is fantastic, she's a great champion, she's lifting weights, something like 218 pounds. That's a lot of weight for a woman to go [inaudible]. And they'll put, like a 16th of an ounce on one side, a 16th of an ounce on the other side, [mimics weightlifter] yeah, I can't do it, can't do it. Doesn't quite get there. Great champion. Then a guy comes along. Bingo. I mean, they're breaking records by numbers. But you know what? It's honestly, it's really demeaning to women, very demeaning to women. It's so unfair [cheers and applause].

The swimmers, the women female swimmers, they're great, incredible people, incredible athletes, but they're getting obliterated. These records are just getting obliterated. Some women are being badly injured by the wind burn that's caused by the man going so much faster. The wind is blowing. It's just, it's just terrible, you know, these records are being obliterated. It's so unfair. But who would even think that you could allow this? Who would say that this is OK? Uh, these people are sick, they're deranged.

I'll sign a law prohibiting child sexual mutilation in all 50 states. Child sexual mutilation [cheers and applause]. There's another one, though, think of it. Think of it. I'm gonna sign a bill prohibiting the mutilation of your child. Do you think you're supposed to say this? I mean, who would have to say this? Who would have something where they can actually do that, but they can. Because our country has gone cuckoo. Ten years ago, if you ever said that they'd carry you out of the room. They'd say, what the hell is this guy talking about? Today you have to say it because they actually, they mutilate children.

As I announced this week, to continue my long record of standing up to Big Pharma, I will establish a special Presidential Commission to investigate what is causing the decades long increase in childhood diseases, autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity, infertility, and other chronic health problems [cheers and applause], that people are seeing over the last nine or ten years that they, they weren't seeing before.

To uphold our Second Amendment, I will ask Congress to pass the national concealed carry reciprocity. And I've always had the endorsement of the NRA. And I should, because I've kept, I've kept it going. I've kept our Second Amendment totally alive, we haven't done anything to injure or hurt it, and it's been very hard. It's been hard. It's been a very hard battle, but the NRA has always endorsed me and I appreciate it. But I've done a job that for years I've kept it alive under the most trying circumstances. We need it for protection. We need it for our safety. We need it for other things too, including sporting, including living. But we need it for our protection, and I am a big believer in the Second Amendment. You know, a certain country, a man was elected and they're having tremendous crime out in the countryside all over this country, where people were going and attacking households, and killing and raping, and doing things that were just absolutely horrible, and he got elected and he said everybody go out and buy a gun. And they did. And now your crime is down like 40%. Go out and buy a gun to protect yourself. It's down 40%. Before then you couldn't, you couldn't have any protection. And the one thing you know, the bad guys are gonna have the gun. They're not gonna be following the rules.

I will protect innocent life just as I did for four strong years. [c Nobody did a job like I did. Including Roe v. Wade, bringing it back to the states. Did a, a great, a great thing. And remember that this is a very complex issue. What we've done is we've shown that they are the radicals, not the Pro-lifers. They are the radicals because they're willing to kill a child, seven months, eight months, nine months. And even after the child is born. And what I did by killing Roe v. Wade, which everyone said was impossible, number one, we got it sent back to the States. And number 2, and very importantly, I gave you now the power to negotiate. You had no power before. Because they were allowed to do whatever they wanted to do, they could kill the child at any point, including after birth.

You look at the Governor of Virginia, the ex-governor of Virginia, I call him Michael Jackson. You remember that catastrophe? He said he's a big Michael Jackson fan, that's why he did certain stupid things. But he was willing, and he said it, you know, put the baby down and we'll decide with the mother what you want to do, after the baby is born. They are the radicals, not us. And nobody wants to see mutilation or death of a baby after a certain period of time. But I gave you, by getting that, by winning that– everybody said it was impossible to win, but we put 3 great justices on the Supreme Court, justices, and, uhh, we now have– you now have the right to a superpower to negotiate something that's going to be acceptable. Before you didn't have any rights whatsoever. They could do whatever they wanted. So it's a very powerful thing that I was able to get. I'm very proud of it, but it goes back to the states and you're in a very strong negotiating position. Actually right now, you're in a much stronger position than the other side. So, it's going to be interesting over a period of time, but it could go fairly quickly perhaps, but there are many negotiations going on right now that wouldn't be going. I gave you the power to negotiate at a very high level. And I also have, I think, shown very conclusively that they're the radicals. We're not the radicals, they are the radicals. So it's very important, and it's very important that it be handled properly [cheers and applause].

I will restore free speech in America and I will require every federal employee to pass a new civil service test demonstrating an understanding of our Constitution [cheers and applause]. And finally– ohh look at that, wow. Wow. That's nice. Nice that you believe in the Constitution. That is really something that's great.

Finally, to restore pride in our history and confidence in our future, I will lead a massive yearlong salute to America to celebrate the 250th anniversary of July 4th 1776. That's the date [cheers and applause]. We're not changing the date. We have a massive anniversary. And our country deserves it. Especially what it's going through now. This is what we must do to restore our country to greatness. The USA is a total mess. Our economy is crashing, inflation is out of control. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have formed together as a menacing and destructive coalition. Nobody thought that would be possible. It's all taken place over the last two and a half, three years.

Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard, which will be our greatest defeat in 200 years. This will be, in many ways, bigger than losing a war. It will take our power away from us. It'll take everything away from us, and it's happening faster and faster. And it will happen if we're not put there, we have to stop it. We have to have the currency of record. That would be a tremendous failure. That would lead to problems, the likes of which you would never even be able to think of. But it won't happen with me. Not even a chance, just like Russia would never have happened with Ukraine. China would not have even thought about raiding Taiwan. They're flying bombers over there every day. They have ships circling it, they're getting ready for something. They were never doing that in four years. One of these gentlemen standing right there said, well, you have to admit, nobody talked about it when Trump was president. That's right.

If you took the five worst presidents in the history of the United States and added them up, they would not have done near the destruction to our country as Joe Biden and the Biden administration have done [cheers and applause]. We are a failing nation, we are a nation in decline and now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. It's totally corrupt and we can't let it happen. This is the final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the deep state. We will expel the war mongers from our government. We will drive out the globalists. We will cast out the communists. We will throw off the sick political class that hates our country. We will roll out the fake news media. We will expose the 'RINOs' for what they are. We will defeat Joe Biden and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all. We will liberate, we're gonna liberate our country. The silent majority is rising, and under our leadership, the forgotten man and woman will never be forgotten again. Never be forgotten again [cheers and applause]. With your help, with your love, your prayers, you have to remember this will happen. This will be a certainty. We will put America first, always, and that will lead to the fact, that we will make America great again, greater than ever before [cheers and applause]. Thank you very much, North Carolina. Congratulations to Mike. Well, thank you very much. Great to be with you. Thank you.