Remarks at a National Republican Congressional Committee Dinner

Oh, thank you very much, everybody. What a group. What a group. [Applause] Thank you.

Thank you very much. And I have to say, I don't know if you know, you broke the alltime record. Last year was your record, and I was here too. [Laughter] And the year before that, you didn't do so well, and I wasn't here. [Laughter] You went from $18 million, which is good—not great—[laughter]—to $30 million last year. And this year—and I think that was some kind of an alltime record, by the way. So you have to be proud. But this year, we did $32 million. So that's quite a record.

And it really is wonderful to be here with so many friends and colleagues, and really true and great American patriots. I want to begin by thanking our incredible House leadership team, Speaker Paul Ryan. Paul, thank you. Thank you, Paul. A wonderful man who I've gotten to know very well—what a personality—Kevin McCarthy. Where's Kevin? Where is—stand up, Kevin. Thank you, Kevin. A man who's got more courage than all of us, Steve Scalise. Steve. You don't have to stand. Look at him. Kevin, he got up faster than you did. I don't know what's going—[laughter].

Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers. Cathy? Cathy? Great job. Great job, Cathy. NRCC Chair Steve Stivers—General. I didn't even know about that. I'm impressed. I don't know if I like that or your political career better, but they're both very good. Thank you, General. And tonight's dinner chair, Congressman Tom Emmer. Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. Thank you very much. Great job—$32 million—I guess you did a good job. [Laughter] We did it together. [Laughter] He was so generous. He said, "You did it." Nope, we did it together. [Laughter] That's the way we're working, right? It's the way we're—thank you very much, Tom.

Our Republican majority is one of the most successful in the history of the United States Congress. Now, we must work to keep our majority so we can keep up the fight for American workers, American security, and the American values enshrined in our glorious Constitution and in our great American flag. This year, in this election, we are fighting to win, and we are going to win. Just no reason why we shouldn't win with what we've done over the last year. No reason whatsoever.

We love our country. We cherish our liberty. And we always put America first. If you notice, we're doing that on trade. We're doing that on a lot of things. America first. It's about time. It's about time.

Our agenda is already exceeding our highest expectations. We've actually accomplished more than we said we would, and that's been a long time since you've heard that. We've accomplished a lot more. They said it the other night: that Donald Trump actually has accomplished more than he said he would. So that's a good feeling. And it wasn't even a friend that said that the other night, which is really a good feeling. [Laughter]

We've created more than 3 million new jobs since the election. And if we would have said that number prior to the election, nobody would have believed it possible. Jobless claims are at—think of it—jobless claims are at a nearly 50-year low. Fifty years. That's an amazing statistic. African American unemployment has reached the lowest levels ever recorded. And I have to tell you, the fake news about 2 weeks ago got me on that one. Because, 2 months ago, it was the lowest level ever recorded. Then, about 4 weeks ago, it went slightly not as good. And I made a speech; I said, "African American unemployment has reached the lowest levels ever recorded." And it really wasn't. It was good, but it wasn't. And they got me. They said it wasn't so.

But then, here's what happened. Last week, it went back down to the lowest levels ever recorded. [Laughter] So we have it. So we have it, right? It makes us feel good. That's an important one. And here's another one: Hispanic American unemployment has also reached historic lows—lowest ever recorded. And women, the lowest levels in 18 years.

Wages are rising at the fastest pace in more than a decade, and I've been talking on the campaign trail for so long that wages have been stagnant for 18, 20, and even 21 years.

Confidence among manufacturers is the highest in history. In the history of our country, confidence for manufacturers is the highest. And you see it: Companies are moving back. Chrysler is moving back to Michigan from Mexico. You look at so many different companies. Foxconn, they make a lot of the Apple products—great products—they're moving to Wisconsin.

We have massive companies moving back in. They all want to be back in. American producers in the mining, construction, and manufacturing industries gained more jobs in February than in any month in nearly 20 years. Think of that.

I mean, do you ever hear numbers like this? And these are really numbers that we're getting right out of the manual. This is it. It's hard to believe. These are incredible numbers. That's why we should do great when we run in a very short period of time.

The economy is booming, and it's booming because we passed the biggest tax cut and reform in American history. Biggest in American history. And when they came to me—because not since Ronald Reagan has anything been close—and when they came to me, they said, "We're going to pass tax reform." I said, "Why hasn't it been done in 38 years?" They said, "We don't know, you just can't do it." And I said: "Well, it doesn't make sense. You're cutting taxes. Why?" "Well, sir, I don't know, but here's the bill. It's tax reform. It says tax reform."

And I said: "There's something wrong. How come it hasn't happened?" And I said: "You know, I think I have the idea. Don't call it tax reform. Call it tax cuts." It was never called tax cuts. And they said, "Well, what is that?" I said: "Tax reform might mean you're reforming taxes and you're going to raise taxes. Nobody knows what it means. So call it tax cuts. And in fact, let's call it the Tax Cut, Cut, Cut bill." [Laughter]

And Paul Ryan wouldn't do it. You know, he's a classy guy. He said, "That's just—I can't do it." [Laughter] So we called it the Tax Cut and Jobs Act. And that's fine, right? And that's fine.

And I see Kevin Brady here someplace. Where's Kevin? Stand up, Kevin, please. He doesn't stop. And let's not tell anybody, although you have a lot of cameras back there, actually. [Laughter] Let's not tell anybody, Kevin, about phase two that we've already started on, right? Phase two tax cuts. Right? Thank you, Kevin.

More than 6 million Americans have already received a tax cut bonus or a pay raise, and that is just the beginning. I want to thank everyone who made this incredible victory possible, including so many friends that worked with Kevin and myself, people in Congress, great Senators, great Congresspeople. You are really incredible, so enjoy it, because we're going to start, probably, on Monday, with Kevin and myself and everybody on doing it again.

And I just want to thank you. And on behalf of Paul and Kevin and my other Kevin, my—I don't know, I think Brady, maybe, is better looking than Kevin. I don't know. [Laughter]

But we really are. We really—I have to thank the people in this room because you really made it possible. And you worked hard, and you just wouldn't stop, and you wouldn't take no for an answer. A lot of obstacles. You wouldn't take no for an answer.

But while Republicans were fighting to reduce taxes for hard-working Americans, the Democrats were fighting to increase taxes. That's what they want to do. They're actually working right now to increase taxes. And I'm saying, "How do you lose to that?" [Laughter] They want to increase taxes. Maybe they'll call that tax reform. [Laughter]

Every single Democrat in Congress opposed our middle class tax cuts. And if Democrats were to gain control of the House, the first thing they would do is raise your taxes. They would raise your taxes. They would take away what we've done and raise your taxes. And actually, I've seen some of the numbers—very substantially raise your taxes.

Republicans also repealed one of the Nation's cruelest and most unfair taxes ever: the Obamacare individual mandate. And the mandate is gone forever. And that's a beauty. You pay a lot of money not to have to pay and not to get health care. So you're paying not to have health care. I mean, that wasn't so good. But we got rid of it. [Laughter]

And you know, included—that nobody even talks about—is ANWR in Alaska, one of the great sites of energy in the world. And I didn't think it was a big deal. And then one day, a friend of mine who was in the oil business called. "Is it true that you have ANWR in the bill?" I said: "I don't know. Who cares? What is that?" [Laughter] "What does that mean?"

They said, "No, is it true?" I said: "What does it mean? What's the big deal that they did put it in?" He said: "Well, you know, Reagan tried, every single President tried, and not one President was successful in getting it. The Bushes weren't—everybody." I said: "You've got to be kidding? I love it now." And after that we fought like hell to get ANWR. [Laughter] He talked me into it, and he didn't care, but he said it was amazing.

So by itself, that would have been a big bill. But that was included. And we're doing great, by the way, on energy. We are now an exporter of energy. Can you believe that? Ten million barrels, folks. We just cracked ten million barrels.

We've also ended the crushing onslaught of Federal and other regulation. That's a big deal. And I hate to say it to Kevin, but some people consider what we've done on regulation as important and some even more important than the tremendous tax cuts, because the regulations were killing our country. They were killing us.

Together, we have set a record for cutting the redtape, passing a record number of bills to permanently remove job-killing regulations. All over the country, they're building now where they had no chance of getting going.

Even if you look at the pipelines—immediately upon taking office, I let the pipelines go—Keystone, you know, both of them. And we let them proceed. Forty-eight thousand jobs, and we're going to have two great, environmentally friendly pipelines. Really great. Forty-eight thousand jobs. That was an easy one. But they would have never been built. We have ended the war on American energy, and we have ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. And thanks to this Republican Congress, we're transforming the VA to keep America's promise to our brave, incredible, beautiful veterans. And I want to thank Chairman Phil Roe. Our Republican majorities really sent me legislation that has been incredible—really incredible. You know, we have VA accountability. They've been trying to get this for 30 years—accountability. Sounds easy.

But VA accountability, and we got it passed. That means that people that are very bad—they're bad in many ways; they're even sadistic. You couldn't fire people from the VA. Now, you look at them, they do a bad job, they do something wrong, they hurt our veterans—we look at them, and we say: "Jim, you're fired. Get the hell out of here." I made a lot of money with that phrase. That was a great one. [Laughter]

But Congressman Roe, where are you? Congressman Roe. Congressman, thank you, great job. Great job. Thank you. It's really moving along. And choice is coming. Choice—where the veterans can actually—instead of waiting on line for weeks and weeks and weeks, they can actually go and see a doctor and have it taken care of, and we pay. And that's going to be the big one. Do you agree with that, Phil?

Because of Republican leadership that all of you helped make possible, America is safer, and America is much stronger. Our military is now better funded, better equipped, and better prepared to defeat any foe that dares to threaten our country or our people.

America is being respected again on the world stage. We're rebuilding our very depleted military—$700 billion. And next year, $716 billion. We had to do it. And obviously, defense is number one, but you know what else it is? Jobs. Lots of jobs, because we build our equipment. So it's lots of jobs.

For the last 8 years, Democrats apologized for America. Republicans, on the other hand, are standing up for America. Right? We've seen a lot of apologies. Last 8 years, we've seen a lot of apologizing. Not any longer. We don't apologize. [Laughter] It's been an incredible—took a little while to figure that one out. [Laughter]

It has been an incredible year for our country and for the Republican Party. And the accomplishments of our party in Congress are even more impressive, because Democrats have stood in the way of progress every single day.

Do you know, we have hundreds of people that cannot come into the administration because they're being slow-walked by the Democrats in the Senate? Last count, it was 270 people. Now the only thing good about that—in the private sector they would like it. They would say we're cutting payroll. [Laughter] But here, we want to get them—in the State Department. And one of your originals, Mike Pompeo, will be, hopefully, very soon, our new Secretary of State. He's going to do a great job. Mike is going to do a great job.

Not only did Democrats universally oppose tax cuts, but every single Democrat voted no on better health care. They voted no. Every single one. The one thing they do great is obstruct. They're great at obstruction. They're wonderful at sticking in a bloc. They rarely break up, although I think we're going to break them up a little bit, because a lot of them are saying nice things about me in certain States that we won by a lot, and they're running in races. You know about that, right?

But they really are a bloc. They just vote no. And I don't think people want that when it comes time to elect. They don't want to fix our health care system. They don't want DACA. They do not want DACA, because they think it might be a good political issue, and we want DACA. And DACA is very much tied to the wall, and we have to have the wall. For the drugs that are pouring into our country and for the people that we don't want in our country, we're going to have the wall.

But they don't want DACA. They really don't. They want to use it as a political football. And guess what? I think it plays better for us than it does for them, because we want to do something for the 800,000, and they don't. So it's been a little bit of change of position, and we're going to win that one every time. But we're also getting the wall.

Nearly every Democrat voted against a ban on late-term abortion, when unborn babies can feel the pain. The late-term abortion ban is commonsense policy, supported by almost two-thirds of the American people. But virtually every Democrat voted in lockstep against protecting these innocent lives.

On issue after issue, House Democrats are way outside of the American mainstream. Nowhere in the Democrats' extremism—and nowhere can you see anything displayed more clearly than on immigration. A vote for House Democrats is truly a vote for open borders, people pouring into our country, pouring in. We have no idea who they are. They're coming in—open borders.

You look at sanctuary cities, where criminals are protected. If House Democrats control the committees and control the floor, they will block every single effort to secure our borders and to defend our communities. Nearly every House Democrat voted in favor of sanctuary cities. They voted to release criminal aliens to prey on innocent American lives. Republicans believe our cities should be safe havens for law-abiding Americans, not for criminal aliens or illegal immigrants.

It's time for Congress to stop funding sanctuary cities so we can restore the rule of law. The American people are with us. Let's fight to save those incredible American lives. And you see what's happening. You see the slaughter. You see the kind of killing and hurt and pain. And we are fighting very hard, and I think we're doing one hell of a job. And you look at our borders, and you see the difference in the numbers. But the laws are not helping us, because we have some laws that are very much against everything that we stand for in this room.

House Democrats also voted against Kate's Law, a commonsense bill authored by Chairman Bob Goodlatte. Where's Bob? Bob. Bob. Thank you, Bob. And that bill has been sitting for a long time over there, Bob, hasn't it? It's too bad.

They voted against legislation to keep gang members like MS-13 out of our country. These are extreme and dangerous positions. They make no sense.

So here is our message from the coming election to the American people: If the Democrats ever got back into power, they would vote to raise your taxes; release dangerous criminals; open your borders; shut down this great surge of American energy that is tremendous for jobs, tremendous for the economic well-being of our country and, frankly, helping the world. They would take over American health care, take away your Second Amendment, and ship away your jobs to foreign countries like has gone on for so many years. And those days are over. Those days are over.

The world, including our friends, has been taking advantage of the United States of America. We can't allow that to happen anymore. We just can't. We want our jobs to be here. We want our great factories, our great plants to be here. We don't want people fired and watch a company leave our country, make a product somewhere nearby, ship it back into our country, not be taxed, and all we get out of it is unemployment and pain. Not going to happen anymore. That's why so many companies are moving back. They're moving back. First time in many, many decades.

That's why we need strong Republican majorities. It doesn't matter what Democrat candidates say on the campaign trail because once Democrats get to Washington, they always do the same thing: They vote for the liberal Pelosi agenda down the line, straight down the line every single time. They will never vote for us. They will never vote for what's right.

These days, there's no such thing as a Blue Dog Democrat, a red State Democrat, or a conservative Democrat because they are all Pelosi Democrats: weak on crime, weak on terrorism, and weak on national defense.

And on terrorism, in Iraq and Syria, we've taken back almost a hundred percent, in a very short period of time, of the land that they took. And it all took place since our election. We've taken back close to a hundred percent.

Democrats like to campaign as moderates, but they always govern like radicals. That is why I am going to campaign all across this country to elect Republicans so that we can reduce taxes further, reduce crime, increase jobs, and make our communities safe and prosperous and secure. And I'll be all over the country. Kevin, you'll get me all over. Where is our Kevin? You're going to get me all over the country, Kevin. [Laughter] And I'll be complaining every single trip. [Laughter] But I'm going to get there.

We are going to keep criminals off our streets. And terrorists, we're going to keep them the hell out of our country.

Our opponents are fielding the most candidates they've ever had in a quarter century. Many have not held office before, which means it will be easier for them to conceal their true beliefs. You're not going to know anything about these people.

That's why we must tell the truth over and over again: A vote for a House Democrat is a vote for higher taxes, open borders, and the destruction of American jobs and American wealth. It's also the destruction of the American Dream. It's a dream, and they're destroying that beautiful dream.

But to win, we have to outwork the opposition. For some reason, when a party wins the Presidency—incredible—what happens is they lose 2 years later. And I know what happens, I figured—you know, I could never understand—like, 95 percent of the time they end up losing the midterms. It's called complacency.

Nobody has explained it. I couldn't understand why—you win the Presidency, you think it'd—and we do record business. The economy is maybe the best it's ever been ever, I think—ever. How has it ever been better? The stock market is at an alltime high, jobs are the number one—154 million jobs. That is the most jobs in the history of our country. We have, right now, the most jobs.

We need more people, if you can believe it. We're going to have an incredible expansion. But it's called complacency. Because you win the Presidency; you work so hard. Look how hard we worked. You work, you work, you work, and you win. And now you take it easy a little bit: "Oh, I'm so happy we won. That was so hard." And then, a year goes by, and now, all of a sudden, you're running again. And you get complacent, and you lose. But then what happens—oh, boy, are we going to—are we going to win 2020. [Laughter] But we have to worry about '18 before we worry about '20. But there is a complacency, and I can understand it. It's natural—human trait. But we cannot be complacent. We can't. We have so much to gain, and this country has so much to lose. So we have to remember—you know, we have a short period of time now. We have to remember.

And the other thing is, you know, we had five races up until last week. And of the five races, we won all five. These people back here expected us to lose a couple of those races, maybe more than that. We won. They didn't know what to do.

So they said, "We didn't win by as much as we were supposed to." And by the way, if we won by more, they would've found a reason. So we're fighting the press, we're fighting the media; we always will, for whatever reason. But we're five-and-oh, and then we lost by 300 votes the other night, right? Three hundred out of two-hundred-and-twenty-some-odd-thousand votes. Three hundred votes.

And I will tell you, though, that area in Pennsylvania and all of Pennsylvania and all other states—they're energized because I made a speech there 2 nights before, and I'll tell you what—that crowd was—they were going. They really—they were happy. They were thrilled. I wish I was running. Boy. [Laughter] Man. That was some energetic group. And it was close. It was really close. We went in there; they were down. Good man—Rick Saccone. Good man. And didn't quite make it. But lost—think of it—lost by about 300 votes out of all those votes. So it's pretty incredible. But we can't let it happen. We have to win. There's nothing like winning. We have to win.

Now, the last election, we defied every expectation and totally proved the pundits wrong. Right? They said, "There's no way to 270." Remember that? "There is no way to 270." And everybody believed them. I even believed them. I said, you know, it doesn't look good. I heard this for 6 months. [Laughter] "You cannot win unless you win the great state of Ohio." I kept hearing that, right? And I said, "I think I'm doing well, but they're showing me a little down in Ohio." And I said, "Man, I guess you can't win if you can't win Ohio." So I went to Ohio—we have great people. Those are great people. Now, we really won Ohio by a lot, right? We won Ohio by a lot. And we won Iowa by a lot.

And we ran the East Coast because, you know, we have a tremendous disadvantage in Presidential elections with the electoral college. Much easier to get the popular vote, but it's a very much different campaign. It's like somebody that trains for the hundred-yard dash and trains for the mile. It's a much different thing. But we just ran out the East Coast, and it was a thing of beauty. But they all said we couldn't do it. Now they say the midterms. Here come the midterms. And as usual, they say, "Well, 95 percent of the time it doesn't happen." But nobody has ever had an economy like this. Nobody has ever had a military that's getting so much stronger so fast. Nobody has ever done what we've done. The people in this room have done it. Nobody has ever done it.

We sent a message straight to the media, to the lobbyists, and to the powerbrokers that this city doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the American people. That's what the message was. Now, I shouldn't say it to the people in this room—[laughter]—because, you know, a couple of you are a little marginal about this. [Laughter] But I came up with this expression—it's called, "Drain the swamp," right? Drain the swamp. And I hated it. [Applause] No, no. I hated it. And it was a speech during the campaign, and it was a term that was actually given to me. Usually, I like to think them up myself, but this was given to me. Which bothered me too. [Laughter] I never like that. But they had this expression, "Drain the swamp," and I hated it. I thought it was so hokey. I said: "That is the hokiest—give me a break. I'm embarrassed to say it." And I was in Florida, where 25,000 people going wild, and I said, "And we will drain the swamp." The place went crazy. [Laughter] I couldn't believe it. And then, the next speech, I said it again. And they went even crazier. "We will drain the swamp." I hate to have to—especially these people right here. [Laughter] They're saying, "Oh, please don't say this, Mr. President." Don't worry. Close your ears. "We will drain the swamp." And every time I said it, I'd get the biggest applause. And after four or five times, I said: "Boy, what a great expression. I love saying it." You know? [Laughter] It's amazing. It really is amazing.

But this city does belong to loyal, hard-working, taxpaying Americans. And with your help, with the help of the hard work of everyone in this room—and you do work hard; it's a tough job. Politics is nasty. I used to say, "The toughest people are real estate developers in New York City." [Laughter] And now I say, "You guys are babies." [Laughter] They come to see me, "Hi, Don." I say, "You are nothing." [Laughter] These politicians are brutal: "We've got a leak. We've got a this. We've got a that. We've got a horrible false story on the front page of every newspaper." No, no, no. Real estate developers are no longer the toughest people. Politicians in Washington are the toughest people. Not even—it's not even close.

But we're going to defy the predictions once again. We will keep the House majority. And we will keep fighting for the change the American people want and they deserve. The Democrats think they're invincible. I mean, I watch this Maxine Waters. You ever see Maxine Waters? [Laughter] A low-IQ individual. [Laughter] Low IQ. "We will impeach him. We will impeach him." "But he hasn't done anything wrong." "It doesn't matter. We will impeach him." [Laughter] This is what we're going to have. This is what we're going to have to fight against. It's easier just keep going good. We're going to keep the economy strong.

The truth is, the Democrats never have been more vulnerable, because they've lost touch with normal, everyday working people. Democrats haven't learned. They still think the loyal citizens who care about jobs and borders and security are deplorable.

You know, when Hillary made that speech, she said "deplorable." I thought it was bad, but I didn't know it was going to be that bad. [Laughter] But the problem is, she said so many of my people were deplorable. And you know, the next day, I made a speech, and everybody is wearing, "I am deplorable." And I said, "There's something going on here." That was not a good word to use. You have to be careful in politics, right? That was not a good—and I would say her last statement about women—they have to get approval from their husbands, their sons, and their male bosses to vote for Trump. That was not a good statement. [Laughter] Not good.

You notice how fast the Democrats have run from these statements now? They are disavowing those statements like I've never heard before. "She's wrong." People that were her biggest supporters are now saying: "What is she doing? Why doesn't she just go home?" [Laughter] But that was not a good statement.

But we know the truth. And the truth is that we are great patriots. We really are. We're doing what's right. We come from every city, from every town, from every walk of life. We come from backgrounds, and it doesn't matter the color, the creed. But we all have one thing in common: We love this country. [Applause] We love this country. And we're putting the interests of our country and our people and our taxpayers, we're putting them first. This election is not merely about which party is in charge in Congress. It's about whether the American people will be in charge of their government. The choice cannot be any clearer. It's never been this clear. It's never—think of it. It's never been this clear. The Democrats used to be somewhat in the middle, and now they're so far right—meaning, that's where they're going to be. But the Democrats used to be right here. And now what happened is, they just moved. They just moved. They're going so far to the left-hand side of the equation, I don't know whether or not it's going to even be possible for them to do well. But for some reason, they'll probably do okay. We can't let that happen. They have gone so far left, we have to go a little bit further right. We're doing very, very well, and I think you're going to have something very, very, special take place in a short period of time.

While congressional Democrats delay, and they obstruct, and they resist, Republicans actually deliver. There's never been a group that have delivered like we've delivered, especially in the first year of an administration. We're creating jobs for everybody: for the African American population—they're thanking me; they're thanking me—Hispanic Americans, all Americans. But they're really thanking us.

While Democrats denigrate our history, Republicans believe young Americans should be taught to have pride in America's achievements and to treasure our truly incredible heritage. While Democrats hand over our rights to international organizations, we defend our sovereignty, and we defend our Constitution. And we defend our American flag. We're the ones defending it.

And while Democrats sit on their hands, Republicans stand with law enforcement. These are great people. We stand with working families. And we always proudly stand for our national anthem. We believe in strong borders and safe communities. And we believe in the truth of our national motto: In God we trust.

Our victories are Americans' victories, because the Republican Party is now the party of the American worker, the American family, and the American Dream. Our mission is to serve the needs, the desires, and the highest ambitions of the American people. And that's what we're doing. And we're really doing a great job of it. We work for them. Their hopes are our hopes, their dreams are our dreams, and their future is what we are fighting for each and every day.

With your help, and with our Republican majorities in Congress, we will carry the hopes and dreams of the American people all the way to victory in November. So important. So important. And together, we will build a future of safety, security, prosperity, and freedom for all of our citizens. We will never give in, we will never give up, and we will never, ever stop fighting to make America great again. And that's what's happening.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America. Thank you, everybody. And congratulations on this evening. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.