The Peace Corps is teaching English in Eastern Europe as the lingua franca of business and journalism, but it is not tasked to offer a model of journalistic excellence. Only the American press corps can pick up where the Peace Corps leaves off and provide a model of accuracy, fairness, and objectivity. As broadcasters, you can and you are transferring American know-how to the East. You are working with VOA to train and orient foreign broadcasters visiting the United States. In February the director of Polish radio and television visited your headquarters, in part to seek the counsel and assistance of American broadcasters. And you have sent your representatives to meet with their counterparts inside the Soviet Union. And on top of this, you are helping Americans to invest in joint ventures to establish new radio and television networks in the East. So, most of all, I am here to recognize your energetic, international leadership. Do not neglect this hemisphere and this hemisphere's quest for democracy. We need no longer act in the fine tradition of the Underground Railroad. But before the Revolution of '89, America regularly received the speeches of Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel, and other brave men and women of conscience on smuggled tapes. And through the power of broadcasting, America became the courier of freedom, returning the eloquent words of these leaders back to their people, returning hope and the promise of liberty to half a dozen lands. And by working together, our American vision is fast becoming a reality for the world. I can tell you many friends in this audience that there has never in my view been a more exciting or challenging time to be ENTITY of the United States. The change is mind-boggling the changes around the world. The bid of freedom is irreversible. It is bound to happen to places denied freedom today. But the importance of your work, the importance of your commitment to open, fair journalism is unparalleled in any time in our history. So, I came here to say thank you thank you all for what you are doing, thank you for the support you have been able to give this administration. And may God bless you. And most of all, may God bless the United States of America.


I have participated in many rallies in my life. So, I want to thank everybody for being here for this limited audience event. It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to the Vice President. And let me begin by wishing the President and the First Lady a full and speedy recovery from the ENTITY illness that they are now dealing with. And of course, we wish the same for my colleagues in the Congress, as well as the many, many millions of Americans who are struggling with this terrible disease. What the last few days have told us is, if there was ever any doubts, it should now be clear that no one, no one, is safe from this pandemic. It does not matter if you are a frontline worker in a hospital. And I want to take a moment to thank all of the doctors and the nurses and the medical personnel who have put their lives on the line to protect all of us. And it does not matter if you are an essential worker in a supermarket, if you are a packing house worker, if you are a bus driver, and it does not matter if you are the President of the United States. Each and every one of us is vulnerable, and we will remain vulnerable until there is a vaccine or a perfected cure. That is the reality, and there is no way to get away from that. There are some who say that we have to make a choice between having a strong economy and protecting the American people from this terrible disease. The truth is, we will never have a strong economy so long as this pandemic continues to surge as it is today. We will never have a strong economy if people are afraid to go to work, afraid to go to school, afraid to shop, or afraid to have dinner at a restaurant, or afraid to do all of the things that we normally do. We will never have a strong economy unless we get this pandemic under control. Is the solution to this crisis to shut down the economy and lock everybody in their homes? We can keep our country moving forward if we do so in a way that is disciplined, not dangerous, that is responsible, not reckless. Now, I want to ask you and the American people some very simple questions. Which candidate for President has shown that he will be disciplined, that he will be responsible in dealing with this pandemic?

Bernie Sanders NH Rally Speech for Joe Biden & Kamala Harris October 3


Which candidate for President has made it clear that he will develop policies based on the advice of the best scientists in our country and the world? Which candidate for President will develop national protocols and guidelines and model the behaviors we all need to engage in to keep our families, our neighbors, and ourselves safe? Which candidate has the temperament to see us through this difficult crisis? Let me repeat that point. Which candidate has the temperament to see us through this difficult crisis? I do not think there is any doubt that the answer to those questions is that in the worst public health crisis of the last 100 years, we need Joe Biden as our president. Now, let me say a word about the economy. Let me be blunt, tell you the way it is. And that is that the working class of this country is in more desperation today than at any time since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Tens of millions of our fellow citizens have lost their jobs as a result of this pandemic. They have lost their incomes. They have lost their health insurance. They have depleted their life savings. They cannot afford to pay their rent or their mortgages. And in too many cases, in the richest country on Earth, they cannot afford to put food on the table for their kids. Today, the percentage of Americans who lack employment is at the highest level in 45 years, while tens of millions of Americans who do have jobs are often working part-time for starvation wages. And as bad as the economy is in general, it is far worse for the African American and Latino communities. During this pandemic, nearly 60% of Latino families and 55% of African-American families have either experienced a job loss or a pay cut. Meanwhile, and it is important to make this point because it is not made often enough, while the working class of this country is being devastated as a result of the pandemic, not everybody in America is hurting. The truth is that at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, over the last six months, that situation has gotten- In the last number of months, 643 billionaires, that is not a lot of people, have seen their wealth go up by $845 billion. And let me just say that again.


While 30 million Americans have lost their jobs, while 12 million Americans have lost their health insurance, while 29 million Americans do not have enough food to eat, while 40 million of our people face eviction, 643 billionaires increased their wealth by $845 billion over the last six months alone. So, that is the state of the economy today. And let us be very clear, despite what you may have heard over the past four years, the economy has not been very good for the working class of this country. And sometimes we lose track of that, but here is the truth, you do not have over the last four years, and I am not now just talking about the last six months, but you do not have a strong economy when half of our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Do you all know what living paycheck to paycheck is about? I grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. Joe Biden grew up in a family that lived paycheck to paycheck. Many of you are living paycheck to paycheck. If you got one. It was not a good economy for the last four years when 87 million Americans were uninsured or under-insured, could not get to a doctor when they were sick, and unbelievably and horrifically when 68,000 Americans were dying each year, because they could not go to the doctor when they got sick. Can you imagine that? Richest country in the history of the world, 68,000 of our people die each year, because they cannot get to a doctor when they get sick, because they lack the money and do not have any health insurance. It is not and has not been a good economy when over 40 million workers were earning starvation wages of less than $15 an hour. And here, again, is the simple truth, nobody in America can make it on eight, or nine, or $10 an hour. And over the last four years, it has not been a good economy. When a half of older workers, and we do not talk about this enough, when half of older workers had no retirement savings. Imagine being 55, 60, 65, you do not got a nickel in the bank and now you are on retirement. And how do you do that with any shred of dignity? Half a million of our people are homeless, including many veterans who put their lives on the line to defend us.


And as part of that housing crisis that we are experiencing some 18 million families are spending half of their incomes on housing or more! How do you take care of your basic needs if you are spending half of your income on housing. But I must tell you, over the last four years, it was again a great economy for the billionaire class and it has become even better for them during this horrific pandemic. My friends, we need an economy that works for all of us, not just the few. And it is not just in recent years, it is not just over the last four years. Here is something else that we do not talk about. Over the last 45 years, there has been a massive redistribution of wealth in America, but sadly, that redistribution has gone in the wrong direction. Since 1990, while the top 1% saw their wealth go up by $22 trillion, you got that? Top 1% saw their wealth increase by $22 trillion, the bottom half of America saw their wealth actually go down. Today, the average worker in America, and this is really quite astounding when you consider the growth of technology and the explosion in productivity, the average American worker today is now making $34 a week less than he or she did 47 years ago after adjusting for inflation. Can you imagine that? Over a 47-year period, an explosion in technology, increase in worker productivity, and yet the average American is earning less than he or she did 47 years ago. What I understand, and I believe you understand, and the American people know is that we are all becoming more and more outraged with the corporate greed that we are seeing every single day. The American people are sick and tired of large, profitable corporations shutting down here in America and then moving to low wage countries all over the world. They are sick and tired of seeing CEOs now make 300 times more than their average employees. While they give themselves huge bonuses, they cut back on their health care benefits of their workers. The American people are sick and tired of that corporate greed. They are sick and tired all of us paying by far the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. While at the same time, the pharmaceutical industry makes 10. the same time, the pharmaceutical industry makes tens of billions of dollars in profit, year after year after year. In my view, the American people understand that we can no longer sustain an economy which has more income and wealth inequality today than at any time since the 1920s.


When three people own more wealth than the bottom half of this country; three people; that is not acceptable. Under Joe Biden and under a Democratic Congress, we are going to change all of that. Together, we are going to end a rigged tax code that allows billionaires to pay a lower tax rate, an effective tax rate, than nurses, teachers, and truck drivers. While at the same time, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty of almost any major country on earth. So together, what this campaign is about, and what we must do in the future, is bring our people together by the millions to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%. Now, it is no great secret that Joe Biden and I disagree on a number of issues. But there is also no question that the economic proposals that Joe Biden is supporting are strong, and will go a long, long way to improving life for working families. I want to take a minute to talk about those proposals. Because of everything that is going on in this crazy world today, I think there has not been enough focus on Joe's economic proposals. Joe Biden, you, and I know that it is not acceptable that tens of millions of Americans work at starvation wages. People cannot make it on nine, 10 bucks an hour. Joe knows that, you know that, I know that. That is why Joe Biden is going to help us raise that minimum wage to at least 15 bucks an hour. What Joe understands is that if you work 40 hours a week, you should not be living in poverty. Joe Biden also understands that it is absurd that women make 75 cents on the dollar compared to men. That is why Joe is going to make sure that we have equal pay for equal work. Joe also knows that the path toward a stronger middle class is strengthening trade unions in America. Right now, all across this country, there are millions of workers who want to join unions. But because of the heavy-handed corporate tactics that now exist, it is impossible for them to do that. Joe and I and the United States Congress are going to go forward and make it easier for workers to join unions, engage in collective bargaining. Joe also understands that we have got to stop providing corporate welfare to companies that are throwing American workers out on the street and moving abroad. It is absolutely insane that we provide welfare to these guys.


Then they say thank you and they shut down factories and plants in America. There is something else that Joe understands. And that is that in the midst of the worst economic crisis in our lifetimes, we need to create millions and millions of good-paying union jobs. The fastest way to do that is to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure; our roads, our bridges, our wastewater plants, our water systems; and to build millions of units of affordable housing. I will tell you what else Joe understands. He understands that we have got to end the international embarrassment of the United States being the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid medical and family leave. When a woman in America gives birth, she should not be forced to go back to work after one or two weeks. When a child gets sick, Mom or Dad should be able to stay home, take care of that kid, and not lose a day's pay. I want everybody to hear it because it is not been talked about enough. That is why Joe Biden has proposed at least 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave for working families. When we talk about babies and we talk about young children, we all know that our current childcare system is dysfunctional, and it is totally inadequate. Our children and their parents deserve high-quality, reliable, and affordable childcare. That is why Joe has proposed universal pre-K education for every three- and four-year-old child in this country. When we talk about having the best educated workforce in the world, Joe understands that we have got to make public colleges and universities tuition free for the working class of this country. And that we must substantially reduce student debt in America. And at a time of massive income wealth inequality, Joe Biden understands that we must- Equality, Joe Biden understands that we must demand that the wealthiest people and the most profitable corporations in our country start paying their fair share of taxes. No more tax breaks for billionaires while half a million Americans sleep out on the street. No more tax breaks for companies that ship jobs overseas or shift their profits to the Cayman Islands. Joe also understands that one out of five Americans who walk into their doctor's office and gets a prescription, they cannot afford to fill that prescription because of the outrageous cost of prescription drugs in this country. And what Joe Biden knows and what I know is that if anybody is serious about healthcare reform, we have finally got to summon the guts to take on the greed of the pharmaceutical industry.


During my campaign for the presidency I took a trip from the Midwest, a few miles into Canada to buy insulin for diabetics. And we have got millions of people who were dealing with diabetes and the need for insulin. We went 15 minutes away from Detroit, Michigan into Ontario, Canada. We bought the same damn insulin as sold in the United States for 1/10th the price that was charged in America, 1/10th the price. And together, Joe knows, I know, and you know that we have to take on the collusion, the price-fixing and the greed of the pharmaceutical industry, so that Americans no longer pay the highest prices in the world for the medicine we need. Now, as many of you also know, the United States is the only major country on Earth not to guarantee healthcare to all people as a human, right. Meanwhile, despite paying almost twice as much per person for healthcare as the people of other countries, over 90 million Americans today are uninsured or under-insured. And unbelievably, over a half a million people go bankrupt every single year because they cannot afford to pay their medical bills. While Joe and disagree on the best path to get to universal coverage, his proposal will greatly expand access to healthcare and make it more affordable for tens of millions of people across this country. And here is an important point that has not been talked about enough during this campaign. He is going to lower the eligibility age for Medicare from 65 to 60, meaning millions of more people will be eligible for Medicare. He will expand Medicare to cover dental core, eye glasses and hearing ENTITY. And he will substantially increase funding for community health centers to make sure that millions of Americans get the primary health care and the mental health care that they desperately need. Joe knows that when you talk about healthcare, you are talking about mental healthcare as well. And by the way, if the Democrats gain control of the Senate, you are looking at the chairman of the subcommittee on health. And trust me that the healthcare industry and the drug companies will understand a very new reality when that happens. Let me conclude by once again, thanking all of you for coming out today and for saying that in the wealthiest country, in the history of the world and I want everybody to remember that, sometimes we forget it. We are the wealthiest country, not only in the world, but in the history of the world. We need to create an economy that works for all of us. That works for our children.


It is good to be back in Grand Junction. It was about 4 years ago, around this time, that I was first in Grand Junction. We had a bunch of bales of hay. You remember that? I have got a couple of people I want to acknowledge. And I am a little sweet on Deanne, not just because of a great introduction, but also because she is a nurse, and I just love nurses because they do such a great job every day. Also, we have got one of your outstanding U.S. Senators, Michael Bennet, in the house. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar. Now, those of you who have a seat, feel free to take a seat. Those of you who do not , just remember to bend your knees because sometimes I have people drop off in the middle of even when I am not talking too long, just because they have been standing too long. So especially when it is warm like this. I love you back. Now, obviously, this is a smart crowd, and so I know that most of the last couple of weeks, you have been watching the Olympics, cheering on our U.S. athletes over in London. You have been spending time with family and trying to get outdoors, at least when it cools off. But unless you have been able to hide the television completely or your cable is broke, then you may be aware there is a pretty intense campaign going on right now. And the reason it is such an intense campaign is because the choice that we face in November could not be bigger. This is not just a choice between two candidates or two political parties. It is a choice about two fundamentally different visions for the country, two fundamentally different paths. And the direction that we choose the direction that you choose when you walk into that voting booth in less than 3 months is going to have a direct impact not just on our lives, but on the lives of our children and our grandchildren for decades to come. Now, 4 years ago, we came together Democrats, but also Independents and some Republicans to restore the basic bargain that had built this country, that had made us the most prosperous nation on Earth.

Barack Obama Remarks at a Campaign Rally in Grand Junction, Colorado


It says that if you put in enough effort, you can find a job that pays a decent wage, pays the bills; that you can afford to have a home that you call your own; that you have health care you can count on when you get sick; that after a lifetime of labor, you can put away enough to retire with dignity and respect; and most importantly, that you can give your kids the kind of education and opportunity that allows them to dream even bigger and do even better than you could ever imagine. That is the promise of America. That is the promise of America. Now, when we came together, we knew restoring that bargain that deal, that compact was not going to be easy. because we had seen what had happened in the previous decade. The cost of everything from health care to college was going up. And then, it all culminated in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a crisis that robbed too many of our friends and our neighbors of jobs, the value of their homes, their savings. And all that pushed the American Dream even further out of reach for too many working people. But you know what, we have spent the last 3 1/2 years digging ourselves out of that hole. We averted a depression, created 4.5 million new jobs, 500,000 in manufacturing. We saved an auto industry. We worked to make sure that health care was secure for families. And what we discovered during the course of these difficult times is that a crisis does not change our character. It does not change who we are as a people. our toughness, our grit, our resilience, and our ability to come together and work together on behalf of this country. And when we came together in 2008, we understood that there is a core decency, that there is a goodness to the American people, and we need to make sure that that is reflected in what happens in Washington. So, after 3 1/2 tough years, we are still going. We are here to build an economy where hard work pays off, so that no matter who you are or what you look like or where you come from, here in America, you can make it if you try. That is what this campaign is about, Colorado. And that is why I am running for a second term as President of the United States of America. We have the capacity to meet any challenge, because we have still got the best workers in the world. We have got the best entrepreneurs in the world.


We have got the best scientists and researchers in the world and the best colleges and the best universities in the world. We are still a young nation, and we have got the greatest diversity of talent and ingenuity, and people want to come here from every corner of the globe. And so no matter what the naysayers tell us, no matter how dark the other side tries to make things look, the fact is, there is not another country on Earth that would not gladly trade places with the United States of America. So we can solve our problems. What is standing in our way is not that we do not have good ideas or we do not have solutions to problems like energy independence or improving our schools. What is standing in our way is our politics. You have got a bunch of folks in Washington who think the only way is their way and who think that the only way to go forward is to go right back to the same policies that got us into this mess in the first place. They believe in the old top-down economics that we spent an entire decade trying and that did not work. My opponent, Mr. Romney, and his friends in Congress, when you look at their economic ideas, when you look at, you know, they have spent a lot of time on commercials, saying how there are not enough jobs and the economy is not growing fast enough. And then, you ask them, okay, well, what is it that you are thinking about doing? And you know, I am not exaggerating, it boils down to two things. First of all, they want to give more tax cuts to folks at the very top. Idea number two is let us get rid of regulations that we put into place to make sure that Wall Street does not misbehave again and we do not have another meltdown or getting rid of regulations that help protect our air and our water or getting rid of regulations that protect consumers from unscrupulous lenders. You get rid of regulations, and you cut taxes for wealthy Americans, and somehow, jobs and prosperity will all rain down on all of us. If you think I am exaggerating, you go to their websites, you look at the bills that have been passed by this House of Representatives. That is where they will take us if they win. In fact, the centerpiece of Mr. Romney's entire economic plan is this new $5 trillion tax cut.


And now I want you to pay attention here; we are going to do a little math. I like that; somebody said they love math. All right, so we have known for a while that a lot of this new $5 trillion tax cut would go to the wealthiest 1 percent of all households. But last week, an independent nonpartisan organization crunched the numbers. They looked, what does this mean, $5 trillion? Keep in mind, by the way, the defense budget is about $500 billion. So a $5 trillion tax cut is over 10 years is like a tax cut that is as big as our entire defense budget every single year. So these guys were trying to analyze what does this mean. They found that Governor Romney's plan would raise taxes on middle class families with children by an average of $2,000. Now, the reason is as he says that this $5 trillion tax cut he will pay for by doing other things, by slashing education or making Medicare into a voucher. But even after he makes all the cuts to education and training and science and research and transportation and environmental protection, you name it, it turns out, he is still short. So the only way that you could actually pay for it is to have you pick up the bill. So you would then pay $2,000 extra every year not to reduce the deficit, not to help our kids get an education, not to rebuild our roads and our bridges or lay broadband lines into rural communities. He would ask the middle class to pay more in taxes so he could give another $250,000 to people making more than $3 million a year. Now, he was asked about this, his campaign was asked about it, and if this sounds like an idea that would be difficult to explain to the American people, you are right. Let us just say there was a whole different kind of gymnastics being performed by Mr. Romney than what is been happening in the Olympics. So they were twisting, and they were turning and doing backflips and trying to say, well, this is a biased report, despite the fact that the head of this nonpartisan center used to work for President Bush. But it is not surprising that he was trying to scramble a little bit, because they have tried to sell this old, trickle-down tax cut fairy dust before. It is not a plan to create jobs. It is not a plan to lower the deficit. It is not a plan to move our economy forward.


It is not a plan to build the middle class. We do not need more tax cuts for folks like me. We need tax cuts for working Americans who are trying to raise a family and keep our families healthy and send our kids to college and keep a roof over their heads. That is who needs some help. to fight for you. Now, you guys still bending your knees? You have got some water; get hydrated. Michelle made me promise that I cannot sing to others anymore. Because she wants me to just sing to her, you know? But look, Grand Junction, I have got a different plan for America. Four years ago, I promised to cut middle class taxes. That is exactly what I have done. The typical family has seen their taxes go down by about $3,600. So when you talk to your friends or neighbors and they say, he is a big, spending, tax-raising Democrat you have got to tell them, no, actually, if you are in the middle class, your taxes have gone down. So now I want to keep taxes exactly where they are for the first $250,000 of everybody's income. So if your family makes under 250,000 which, by the way, 98 percent of Americans do, 97 percent of small businesses do you will not see your income taxes increase by a single dime next year. And by the way, I have told Congress I told the Republicans in Congress I said, let us do it now. You guys say you do not want to see anybody's taxes go up; I do not want to see anybody who is making $250,000 or less see their taxes go up. Let us go ahead and sign a bill. But shockingly enough they have not agreed so far, because they are holding you guys hostage to try to get tax cuts for the top 2 percent. Now, look, if you are fortunate enough to be in the other 2 percent of Americans, you are still going to get a tax cut on the first $250,000 of your income. So if you make 260,000, the first 250, you are still keeping all that tax cut. It is just that little bit over 250. Now, if you are making $5 million, you can afford it. All we are asking for folks who have been blessed like me I mean, I am not being self-interested here.


It is not like I love paying taxes, but I understand I have got certain obligations because this country has been so good to me. So what I have all we are saying is for folks in the top 2 percent, let us go back to what we were paying under Bill Clinton. Let us contribute a little bit more so we pay down our deficit and we can still invest in things like education that help our kids succeed. Now, keep in mind, just in case you are talking to your friends or neighbors again and they say, well, that just a little bit of tax increase on the top 2 percent, that will not cut the deficit, they are right. We have got to do more. So we have already cut a trillion dollars. Federal spending is growing at a slower rate than any time since Dwight Eisenhower. I will make sure Government continues to do its part, and we will cut out spending we do not need. But I am not going to pay for a massive new tax cut for millionaires and billionaires by gutting investments that have always made us strong as a country. And by the way, just like we tested their plan under the previous administration and it did not work, we have tested my plan because, as you will recall, under Bill Clinton, when those taxes were a little bit higher on folks like me, the economy grew faster than it has in years, 23 million new jobs. We went from a deficit to a surplus. And folks at the top did well. We created a lot of millionaires to boot. And the reason is that, look, when a construction worker has a got a little money in his pocket, now he starts thinking about buying a new car. When a teacher has security in her job, now she might go to a restaurant once in a while. And so what happens is, when the middle class is strong, suddenly, businesses have more customers, businesses have more profits, businesses decide to hire more workers. That is how we build a strong economy, not from the top down, from the middle out, from the bottom up. That is the choice in this election. That is why I am running for a second term for President of the United States. Now, let me say, you can see how this plays out on a whole bunch of issues, not just taxes and the deficit. When the American auto industry was on the brink of collapse, more than 1 million jobs at stake, Governor Romney says, let us let Detroit go bankrupt.


I said let us bet on American workers. So now I want to make sure that the jobs of tomorrow, including advanced manufacturing jobs, that they are not taking root in China or Germany. I want them to take root in Colorado, in Ohio, in Michigan. Governor Romney and I have a different theory. He spent his private sector experience investing in companies that were called pioneers of outsourcing. I want to stop giving tax breaks to companies that are shipping jobs overseas. Made in America. That is what I believe. Romney says it was tragic for me to end the war in Iraq, like I promised. I think after a decade of war, it is time to do some nation-building here at home. Thanks to the incredible service of our men and women in uniform, Iraq is in charge of its own destiny. We are bringing troops home from Afghanistan. We went after bin Laden and Al Qaida, and we got them. So now let us take half of the savings that we were spending on war, and let us use it to put people back to work rebuilding schools, rebuilding bridges, rebuilding roads, improving our airport systems, improving our ports so that we can move goods and services that will make our economy strong not just now, but in the future. And by the way, that also helps us pay for providing services that our men and women in uniform have earned. Our veterans fought too hard for us for them to have to fight for a job or a roof over their heads when they come home. I am running to make sure America once again leads the world in educating our kids. I want to hire new teachers, especially in math and science. Help 2 million people go to community colleges to train for the jobs that businesses are hiring for right now. And I want to make sure that every young person can afford to go to college. We have already expanded student aid; now we need to bring tuitions down. to give our young people a chance. On housing and foreclosures, Mr. Romney says let the market just bottom out. I say let us let every American refinance their homes at historically low rates, save $3,000 per family, per homeowner. That could actually boost the economy and strengthen the housing market. When it comes to health care, he wants to kill Obamacare. I am implementing Obamacare because it was the right thing to do.


Already, as we speak, 6.5 million young people under the age of 26 can stay on their parent's plan. Millions of seniors have saved hundreds of dollars on their prescription drugs, and we are closing the doughnut hole. Individuals and businesses are getting rebates from their insurance companies because insurance companies have to use most of the money they get in premiums to provide care, not for CEO bonuses and administrative costs. If your child has a preexisting condition, insurance companies cannot turn them down. Soon, adults who have preexisting conditions cannot be turned down. So if that is what Mr. Romney wants to get rid of, despite the fact that he did the same thing in Massachusetts and it worked pretty well then that is a different that is a choice in this election. You know, I do not think we should be refighting some of the battles he wants to refight. I think you should be able to serve your country no matter who you are. I do not think it makes sense for us to take away control that women have over their own health care decisions. But most of all, most of all, I want to make sure that that original bargain that made this country great, that basic idea that if you work hard you can make it, that that is restored. And everything we do from health care to education, to manufacturing, to our infrastructure, to our investment in science and research all of this is designed to make sure that we have got a strong middle class going forward, that no matter what you look like, where you come from, that everybody has got a fair shot and everybody is doing their fair share and everybody is playing by the same set of rules. And now we have got to pass on that same promise to the next generation. Now, over the last over the next 3 months 89 days, to be precise the other side will be spending more money than we have ever seen. You have got these guys writing $10 million checks. You have got these super PACs that are just going crazy. I do not know why they are running all these ads, because basically, they only have one ad. It is just a variation on the same ad, which is, the economy is not where it should be and it is ENTITY's fault. Because they know they cannot sell their actual plans; they do not have plans. Their message is designed to try to win an election, but it is not a plan to create jobs.


Today we have moved one step closer toward gaining broad bipartisan support for GATT. I am pleased to announce that an understanding has been reached with Senator Dole to reaffirm our United States sovereignty and to make sure that the reaffirmation will be protected in the GATT process. That means that the WTO will be accountable and fair and will meet our expectations. The Uruguay round is the largest, most comprehensive trade agreement in world history. It creates hundreds of thousands of high-paying American jobs. It slashes tariffs on manufactured and agricultural goods. It protects intellectual property. It is the largest international tax cut in history. Most importantly, this agreement requires all trading nations to play by the same rules. And since the United States has the most productive and competitive economy in the world, that is good news for our workers and our future. For the past 50 years, our country has led the world to create a more open and a more prosperous trading economy. A bipartisan vote in support of the Uruguay round next week will ensure that we will lead the world for decades to come. I want to express my deep thanks to Senator Dole, to Senator Packwood, Senator Moynihan, who are here, and ask them to speak. I thank Ambassador Kantor for his heroic work in this endeavor and the Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State for what they have done. The Secretary of State and the Secretary of the Treasury and I are going to have to excuse ourselves to go meet with the Mexican Presidentelect, President Zedillo. I also want to make a brief announcement today. As part of our ongoing nonproliferation efforts, Kazakhstan has delivered into our security nuclear materials capable of making some 20 nuclear weapons. That means that one more threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation has been removed from the world. Today-this is a good day-we are making progress toward making our people more secure and more prosperous. Again, let me say how excited I am about the prospect of the GATT round passing the Congress and to express my appreciation to Senator Dole for the very constructive working relationship that we have had. I'd like now to excuse the Secretary of State and Secretary of Treasury and ask the others who are here to make some comments, beginning with Senator Dole.

Remarks on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade


Thank you, Alvah Chapman, CADCA's founding chair, who first talked to me about this some years ago now. I thank all the families who are here today who have sustained losses. And I want to say a special word of thanks to Lori Plank for having the courage to be here, just 2 weeks after she lost her husband, along with her husband's parents and her beautiful child. I thank them for coming and for devoting themselves to the proposition that the best way they can honor Ed Plank is to do whatever can be done to stop this madness from killing more Americans. Let me say to all of you that this issue is especially close to me. Most of you, because of what you do, probably know I grew up in an alcoholic home, and I have a brother I love very much who could have been killed by the cocaine habit he had. And we all have to do whatever we can to get it out of our lives. We have to deal with the question of law enforcement and punishment. We have to deal with education and treatment and prevention. We have to deal with all those things that can be done by the President and all those things that can be done by legislators at the national, State, and local level. But in the end, this problem will be changed when America changes, when we assume responsibility for ourselves, our families, and our communities. And therefore, what you are doing-what you are doing-and what other Americans are doing in attempting to assert that sort of responsibility over their own lives for their families and for their communities is the most important thing that can be done in America today. And it is up to the rest of us to support you as well as we possibly can. Of course, parents have a special role to play because we all know that the best crime prevention, the best antidrug program in this country always has been a good family with strong parents. We know that it is the Government's job to uphold the law, to promote order, but parents must teach right from wrong, and we must all support that. And where the parents are not there or cannot do it, then the community must step in and do their best, which is what so many of you are trying to do.

Remarks to the Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America Forum


I want to say again that I thank Lee Brown for the work he has done to get the urgent message out to our young people that they are wrong if they think that drug use is not dangerous as well as illegal and that they have the power to do something about it. It is one of the cruel ironies of this battle that drug use has stabilized or is actually declining among young adults, but casual drug use, especially marijuana, continues to go up among teenagers. We have to get that message out there. We owe it to the generation of young people, some of whom are in this audience today. I also want to say that we know that here in Washington, there are things that we can and must do to try to deal with the problems of the drug supply as well as the law enforcement problems in our country. And we have developed a strategy to tackle this problem from top to bottom. We began by taking on the notorious Cali cartel, the biggest drug cartel in the world. For years, the Cali cartel pumped drugs into the American economy and into the veins of the American people with impunity. But after years of operating largely untouched by Colombian law enforcement, I am proud to say that seven of the eight top drug traffickers in the Cali cocaine cartel were arrested by Colombian authorities with our support and cooperation in 1995. Investigative activity by United States enforcement agencies provided much of the evidence against the Cali kingpins. We are also using our military and our law enforcement activities beyond our borders in other ways. We are working more closely together among ourselves and with other countries. We are beginning to have a real impact. But we know that cutting off the supply is only half the equation. As long as the demand remains great in America, people will figure out how to provide some supply. We have to take more steps here in this country to reduce demand. We have to take more steps to punish people who are making a killing by killing other people. And we have to take more steps to empower people like you to do the education, the treatment, and the prevention work that will turn this generation of young people away from this madness. A year ago with the enactment of the crime bill, we attempted to give the American people the tools they need to do what has to be done here at home. We put more police on the street, and we did more to get guns and drugs and children off the street. The 100,000 police commitment of the Federal Government is running ahead of schedule and under budget.


The crime rate is down in almost every State in America, in no small measure because people are out there in uniform, walking the streets in the communities, doing what they can to help prevent crime. More and more law enforcement officers are in our schools through programs like the D.A.R.E. program, trying to help educate children and prevent the drug problem from taking hold. Three strikes and you are out is now the law of the land, and more and more career criminals are being tried under it and convicted under it. We are taking steps against the terrible problems of violence against women. And the crime bill, together with the education bills that were passed in our budget, have increased our commitment to drug treatment as well as to education and other prevention strategies, which is also important. If you think about what your National Government does directly- well, we do the national defense directly. We do some law enforcement directly. We do some things directly through the mail, the Social Security checks, the Medicare checks. But a lot of what we do-in the form of education, in the form of protecting the environment, in the form of promoting law enforcement and safe streets, in the form of growing the economy-a lot of what we do, we do in partnership with individuals at the community level. And we have tried to focus on that very sharply. So we have tried to bring down the size of the Federal bureaucracy but to increase the commitment of the Federal Government at the grassroots level so you could do what needs to be done. We know that for the first time in a long time, as I said, the crime rate is down. In addition to the crime rate being down, you might be interested to know that over the last 3 years, the welfare rolls are down, the food stamp rolls are down, the teen pregnancy rate has come down 2 years in a row, and the poverty rate is down. Child support payments are up 40 percent, and the college loan delinquency rate is down by 50 percent. There is a real sense that this country is coming back together around core values, and that is very important. Having said that, we know that crime, welfare, poverty, violence, and drug abuse are still far too high. There are too many kids out there who are not a part of something wholesome and positive and bigger than themselves; the people are not taking responsibility for their future and trying to help them take responsibility for themselves.


And there is still way too much violence in this country, as the tragic example of the Plank family shows. So let me say-and Jim made a reference to it, but it is in this context that I want you all to see and make your own judgments about the budget battle now raging in Washington. We do have to continue to bring this deficit down, and we do need to balance our budget. I am proud of the fact that it is gone from a $290 billion a year budget to $164 billion a year budget in just 3 years. And I am -you might be interested to know that as a percentage of our income, the United States now has the lowest budget deficit of any industrial country in the world, except for Norway, in the entire world today. Now, that does not mean that we do not need to do more. We built up such a huge debt in the 1980's and early nineties. We need to do more. But it means we have to do it in a way that is consistent with our values. Why do we need to eliminate the deficit? Because we want to grow the economy and raise incomes and give our children a brighter future. But we have to do it in a way that looks to our values, give people a chance to make the most of their own lives, to strengthen families, to reward work and family, and to help communities solve their problems. That is the purpose of this. That is why I have said repeatedly I think it is a mistake to balance the budget if we cut education or if we harm the health care system or undermine the environment or weaken law enforcement or raise taxes on working families. If you look at the work at which you are involved, you are doing this work, but it makes a difference if the Nation is contributing to law enforcement. It makes a difference if the Nation is contributing to drug education. It makes a real difference if the Nation is contributing to the treatment programs. We simply cannot balance the budget in a way that puts our children at risk or that weakens our resolve to fight the drug problem. And we do not have to do that. We cannot walk away from the fight against drugs and violence. We have to walk right into it.


If the Plank family, bearing the burden of their grief only 2 weeks old, have the courage to come here and stand up for making America a better place to live, a drug-free place to live, a violencefree place to live, if these other families that have sustained their terrible losses have the courage to come here, surely the rest of us can have the courage and vision and wisdom to say, we can deal with our budget problems in Washington without walking away from our values and our responsibilities. Let me say that one of the things that concerns me most as ENTITY is to see the economy coming back and all these indicators that society is getting healthier, and then to see underneath it that juvenile violence is still going up and that casual juvenile drug use is still going up. If we do not turn that around, then all of these directions could be brought to a screeching halt as more and more of these juveniles become adults. And I told the Attorney General that in terms of law enforcement we need to focus on the problem of juvenile violence more than ever before to see what can be done there. We cannot tolerate the killing of an innocent child by gang members simply because her parents drove down the wrong street. We cannot tolerate the killing of innocent children in schools or what happened in Maryland not very long ago, an honor student standing at a bus stop just happened to be in the way, in the crossfire of two gangs that took a notion to shoot at each other. We cannot tolerate the shooting of one youth by another simply because the killer felt that he was shown disrespect and therefore had a right to shoot another child. That is not the America that won World War II or the cold war or that stood for freedom and opportunity for the whole world. And that is not the America we can afford to leave to our children. We also have to deal with this whole problem of casual drug use. You heard Jim Burke talk about it; you heard Lee Brown talk about it. There is a lot of evidence that young people simply have-starting in about 1991, began to believe that some kinds of casual drug use simply were not dangerous and did not have to be countenanced very seriously. It is not true because as a pure medical matter, marijuana is more toxic than ever before, because people who do it are now mixing it with other things, like huffing all these dangerous fumes, because very often they get into other drugs. We have got to do something about it.


Most of our children are busy building good lives. Most of our kids are more than happy to show up for activities like this. They are not involved in violent activities. They are doing well in their schools. I think that we forget sometimes what we need to ask these young people to do is what these young people are doing here. If the kids are doing well-and the vast majority are-if the kids are emphasizing the importance of staying in school and staying drug-free-as the vast majority are-we need to ask more of them to do what these young people are, to be an example to their peers, because many of them can have far more influence over young people their age than the rest of us old fogies can. And we need to applaud them and give them encouragement. The other thing I want to say, just to reemphasize what Jim Copple said and what Jim Burke said, we need every community in America to be a part of this alliance. Every community in America should have a group that is a part of this alliance, because we know that we can make a difference. It is simply not true that you cannot whip this problem. And a lot of you are living evidence of that. The citizens of Pierce County, Washington, for example, who have the safe streets campaign to combat illegal drug and gang activity and violence that accompanies these problems, they know their efforts are making a difference. They have closed down over 600 drug dealing locations in 12 communities and reduced calls to 911 by 23,000. Not just an urban problem, Hamilton, Missouri, citizens are banding together, using such innovations as a youth peer court in conflict mediation beginning in the 4th grade to educate and empower young people. There is a lot of things you folks are doing that are working. The real problem we have in America is that we have not learned yet to figure out how to take a solution that works in one community and put it into every community which is not doing anything. So I want to say to you, I want you to keep up the good work, but we have to find a way to say to every community in America, If something is working somewhere else, you are really doing your children and your future a disservice if you have not done it in your community. Every community in America should be a part of this alliance.


In an attempt to facilitate greater progress in dealing with the problems of juvenile violence and juvenile drug use, I will convene a White House Leadership Conference on Adolescent Drug Use and Violence in January. We want to bring together people like you to highlight successes in local communities, and we want to help you build a true, national coalition to combat drugs and violence. You will be hearing more about that in the coming weeks. One of the things we want to highlight is the positive role the media can play in the fight against drugs. Every day, as many of us have said, the children of this country are bombarded with messages that tell them it is cool, sexy, attractive to drink and smoke and do drugs. But conversely, let us not forget, that the media can also play a very positive role in influencing the attitudes of our young people about the harmfulness and the unacceptability of using drugs. The Partnership for a Drug-Free America, which Jim Burke has led so ably, has proven that over and over again. The media has donated over $2 billion in support of partnership antidrug messages on television and radio, in print and outdoor billboards. Lee Brown has been able to enlist the support of a number of sports and television celebrities in new TV and radio public service campaign spots aimed at our Nation's youth, telling them they do have the power to stay drug-free. So these messages are working to change attitudes. They can make a difference. So what I want to say is, just like I want every community in the country to have an organization that is a member of CADCA, and I want you to go out to all them and get it done, just as I want the vast majority of our young people who are doing the right thing with their lives to do what these young people are doing and reach out to other kids and help them. We ask the media across this Nation, when it comes to the fight against drugs, turn up the volume. I also ask you not to forget that the media is not a national thing entirely. Lee Brown and Bill Clinton and Jim Burke and Jim Copple and all the rest, we can go to the networks and to the large media centers and say, Will you help us do this? But the media in America is a many-faceted thing. And there are things that can be done in your community by people who are more than willing to help if you ask them to do it.


We are all very proud of you. Dale and I were looking up at you, listening to you speak, feeling a little bit better about his retirement and my imminent retirement in the next couple of years. I'd like to thank Congressman Snyder and Congressman Berry for representing you fiercely and well and for being my friends and for doing our State proud. The three of them remind me of why I have always loved public life in Arkansas. And I am always delighted to see people who have served others and worked for others and helped others and done others service be rewarded with higher positions. And all three of them deserve it richly, and I am very pleased to see that. I'd like to thank Rabbi Levy for being here tonight, and Bishop Walker, who is my longtime friend and whose vociferous and highly public defense of me may have won an election for me back in 1982, without which I would not be here. I am glad to see you. I thank Rodney Slater for his remarks and for his extraordinary service. He has really done Arkansas proud. And there are a lot of other Arkansans who have been critical to the success our country has enjoyed in the last 6 years who are here tonight. I will probably miss some of them, but I cannot help mentioning Mack McLarty, Bob Nash, Janis Kearney, Bruce Lindsey, Nancy Hernreich, Carroll Willis, Kris Engskov; anybody else who is here from home in the administration, I apologize that I missed you. But you should be very proud of your fellow Arkansans who are making a contribution in Washington. I would like to thank Vaughn McQuary for his leadership of the party. He has done a great job, and I am proud of him. And I am glad he is coming-and to all the other dignitaries that are here tonight. David Pryor tonight gave me his Harvard card--says he is a fellow at Harvard. You know, I think I deserve some credit; I had enough guts to go to the Ivy League before I was elected to office in Arkansas. David was always one of them. He was just waiting to get out of office. You know, one of the truly great joys of my life is that I got to serve as Governor when they were Senators together, Dale and David. I admired them. I liked them. I was so proud of what we were able to do together.

Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Former Senator Dale Bumpers in Little Rock, Arkansas


I rarely ever called them about any issue they had to vote on, and when I did, they tolerated what I had to say and then did what they thought was right. But when I saw David up here talking about Dale and I, and then Dale whispered to me a story about two friends of ours who were Senators from another State who, to put it charitably, do not like each other-and it interferes, I think, with what they are doing-I thought of how many examples I have seen, State after State after State, where good people let their egos get in the way in the Senate and do not work together. And there was no State that had a better team of Senators, but they were made 10 times better because they respected and liked and even loved each other, and they never let themselves get in the way of doing their jobs. And I appreciate it. You know, the thing I am going to miss most about having Dale Bumpers not in the Senate and not handy is that when I get really low, I cannot call him and hear his latest joke. There has never been a person who liked jokes better than Dale Bumpers, I am sure, in all of human history. You know, the three of us, we'd go on these road shows when we were all down here, we'd go to these roasts, and we'd tell each other's jokes. And if one of us would forget to tell one of our best jokes, somebody else would tell it and never give credit. But it got so bad one time, Dale Bumpers called me and said, You remember that joke you told me about a month ago? He said, I cannot remember the punch line to save my life. He said, Tell it to me again. So I was really happy, because his jokes were funnier than mine, by and large. And I got in the middle of the joke, and he remembered it, and he started laughing. And I never to this day-that was 10 years ago-I still have not finished that joke. I have crashed a plane with Dale Bumpers. I have been through all kinds of adversity and shared a lot of joy. But I would like to say something, if I might, to try to add my poor pittance to what Senator Pryor and others have already said.


Yesterday I got to go home to Hope to dedicate the birthplace foundation, the home I lived in for the first 4 years of my life, and it was a very emotional thing. I had a lot of my family there. And I was coming back from Central America, night before last, thinking about what I could say and how I could say it in a very few words. And I said to them that in the heady days after World War II, when I was a child and first coming of age, my hometown was not perfect. It was still segregated and had its share of flaws, Mack McLarty reminded me, including a pretty bad town gossip or two. We glorify those types today. At least people used to be embarrassed about it. But I knew then that every child was raised with at least two things in my time, when I was a child coming of age. One was an immense sense of personal optimism that life was good and that you could live your dreams if you worked for them. And the other was a sense of belonging, a sense of community, a sense of responsibility to others as well as to your own life, and a clear understanding that a lot of the richness and texture and meaning of life came from being a part of a web of relationships with other people. And in that time, we also thought of, from my earliest childhood, public service as a truly noble endeavor, not that the people who were in it were perfect but that they were well motivated and that they wanted to serve and they wanted to advance our common dreams. Dale Bumpers represents all that to me in a time when it has been under assault from many quarters. And I tried to think about what it was about him that made him stand up all these years for our State, for the children, for the country, for the environment, for the Constitution, for all the things he fought for, made him believe he could cast unpopular votes, like the Panama Canal vote, and still come home and tell the people why he did it and have them stick with him. He never forgot the lessons of the past, beginning with the Constitution of the United States; he never stopped dreaming of the future; and he never lost his essential humanity. Our public life is poorer when people forget the past and ignore the future.


Somebody has inquired as to whether I will be going to the opening baseball game. I hope to have that pleasure. Some 2 months ago I presented to our delegation to the Arms Conference at Geneva certain ideas which I believed would contribute to a solution of some of the problems before the Conference. They were practically incorporated in the general program by our delegation. These ideas have now been more fully discussed and developed during the visit of Mr. Norman Davis in consultation with the Secretary of State and our ENTITY and Navy advisers, with a view of enlarging their scope and application. With the months that passed, the economic burden and menace to world peace have, if anything, increased. The world needs the reduction of governmental expenditure and the spirit of peace that can come from some degree of successful issue of the Disarmament Conference at Geneva. I have, therefore, asked the Secretary of State to go to Geneva in order to explore with our delegates and those of other nations the possibility of taking some more definite and positive steps in that direction. It is the American desire to produce some concrete and definite results, even though they may not be revolutionary. That is the sole purpose of the Secretary's visit, and there will be no discussion or negotiations by the Secretary on debts. What I asked for in my message yesterday was organized, nonpartisan cooperation of all forces to reduce governmental expenses in a national emergency which insistently demands relief for the taxpayer. There are three general directions in which expenses can be reduced. A definite program to this end was placed before the Congress in the executive budget proposals, in which there was a reduction of $369 million for the forthcoming year. I welcome and hope for further cuts by the Congress, provided that such reductions do not destroy essential functions and that they are genuine and do not merely represent postponed appropriations until deficiency bills next December. There are a large number of expenditures within the bureaus and departments which cannot be reduced without a change in the laws so that the Executive or the Appropriations Committees can reduce such expenditures. In this direction the department heads have appeared before many different committees in Congress in the last months, and have pointed out a multitude of directions which could be considered by these committees for a reduction of expenditures. But most of them require repeal or amendment of laws which compel the expenditures. Seven departments alone have pointed out over 85 such different directions for consideration of those committees, and which offer possibility of very large reductions.

The President's News Conference


I have known this gentleman for seven years. I have never heard him make a speech. I am with him all the time. We begin and I want to thank New Hampshire for the warm welcome outside. I do not know if you have seen them, but they are all And no negatives, all positives and it is really beautiful and it is so great welcome and I am thrilled to be back at this beautiful state that we all love and so near and dear to my heart. I want to take a moment to salute your incredible outgoing chairman. Steve, what a job you have done. He loves the state, he loves the people of the state and we all love you Steve, and that is why I am going to be making an announcement about Steve. Should I do it or should I just leave it? I am also so really excited to do this because I know so many people and so many people would like to do it, but Steve is going to be stepping down and he will be coming on board as the senior advisor for my New Hampshire campaign. He is going to help us to ensure that we have a win in the granite state in 2024. We stop the communist, we stopped the Marxists. If we do not stop them this time, I think that is going to be the end. I believe that. I believe that we have to stop them and we have to stop them quickly. Now, although your next state chairman has not been announced, I believe they are going to be doing that right after this. I want to congratulate both candidates, Lou and Chris, two incredible guys for having the courage to step forward and serve. You will be hearing about that shortly. Let me also thank the New Hampshire house speaker, Sherm Packard. That means they do their job. The ones that are not shy, they do not do their job, they'd sit down. They do not have to get up because everyone knows the great job they have done. As someone who has won the New Hampshire presidential primary, not once but twice. And by the way, I believe we also won two general elections. If you want to know the truth. And I believe it very strongly in plenty of other places also, but I know better than anybody what a special role the state has, the people have. And really it is a place for American presidents.

Donald Trump Delivers Keynote Speech at New Hampshire GOP Annual Meeting Transcript


And one of the things Steve told, I told him, Steve, you can help with the campaign a little bit, but what I really want is help on that final day of voting. It used to be a day right with paper ballots. Now it is in some cases 64 days. We have 64 days to vote and we have all machines. We have no paper, we have no nothing and lots of surprises. I said, I really want the biggest help to be on election day or election period. Think of that, we have to call it an election period. Someday we will be back to paper ballots. We will be back to voter ID. We will be back to doing it the way it is supposed to be, one day voting. In France, they had an election, it was one day. They had 38 million people that took one day. By 10 o'clock in the evening, all the votes were counted. You had a winner, you had a loser. And everybody said, Good luck. But we do not have that in this country anymore. We have gone crazy in so many ways, but that is why from the very beginning I have strongly defended New Hampshire's first in the nation primary status. And there are some, you know who they are, even think about taking that cherish status away. And they wanted to take it away. And we said, No, we are not going to do it. You see what is going on with the Democrats? They taken lots of things away. You have an incredible tradition and we are going to keep that tradition and we guarantee it. And I said it last time and I said at the time before, and I have lived up to that promise just as I have many other promises. So you have it, you are first and you are going to remain first. But if you look just to try and compare and look on the other hand, lost the New Hampshire primary, Joe Biden lost it badly and it was a very tough time. He had a humiliating fifth place to feed, and now he is taken a revenge on the voters of your state by cruelly and disgracefully trashing this beloved political tradition. It is a great tradition and I hope you are going to remember that during the general election. Do not worry about it now, just general election, you are going to remember that that he took it away. He took it away. You know about that. Now, maybe that'll be stopped legally or through the courts.


But he wants to take it away from New Hampshire. I stand before you today and make this solemn pledge. When I am back in the White House, I will ensure that New Hampshire remains the home of the first in nation Republican primary for many, many years to come. And I think maybe more than anything else, I have proven that I keep my promises. I have proven it more than just about any president they say. But it is a true privilege to have this opportunity to speak with you. And my very first trip back to New Hampshire, this is about the beginning. We are starting, we are starting right here as a candidate for president. And you have probably seen the polls, we are really doing great. Remember I used to try In 2016, I talked about polls all the time. In 2020, I did not have to because we did not have a lot of competition. We had no competition. And I do not think we have a competition this time either, to be honest. But I talked about the polls and I will say that our polls, we are absolutely. We are so far ahead in the polls, both in New Hampshire. One came out this morning, a very nice poll, we are way ahead and one came out yesterday on Nationwide Poll, and we are 35 points up, 39 points up. We will not play prevent, defense like they do in football though however. You know about prevent, defense? The team holds them and there is no way. They hold them for almost four quarters and then they have to just stop them one more time and they go to prevent. We do not do prevent defense. Everyone in this room shares the one key mission. We are going to defeat Joe Biden, defeat Joe Biden and the radical Democrats. I think in many cases they are Marxists and communists and I used to say that seldom. Now, I say it all the time because they are. You look at what they are doing to our country, and we are going to turn New Hampshire red on November 5th, 2024. I hope we can have the help with everybody. Under Biden, our nation is being destroyed by a selfish, radical, and corrupt political establishment. Why are they doing these things? The three love it when I say that. They love that. They love hearing AOC plus three, all on one of the three. Crazy Nancy Pelosi and crying Chuck Schumer, and the group, they are running our country right into the ground.


They are destroying our country. To save America, we need a leader who is prepared to take on the forces laying waste to our country. And we need a president who is ready to hit the ground running on day one and aye, here, boy, am I hitting the ground? The fake news, we have a lot of news today. Some of it is fake, but some are actually are very good. But they said when I announced I just want to put my cards in the table, we are playing that very big game right now, the biggest game of all because it involves the country and the survival of the United States of America. But when I put the cards on and then I said, All right, let us go. Well, I said, I got two years. They said, He is not doing rallies, he is not campaigning. Maybe he is lost that step. I am more angry now and I am more committed now than I ever was because Now, I read a story. I read a story where they talked about why is not he out there? It was like on a Friday night, and then I actually did something that night. Little low-key stuff and lots of There is lots of work. We have great people with us, amazing people that I have met and really gotten to know because as a non-politician, I did not know anybody. I went to Washington. I tell the story. I am driving down Pennsylvania Avenue with our great first lady and I am looking over and I am saying, I saw the hotel that I built. It was very, very successful in Pennsylvania. And we had more police and more I never saw anything like it. We are going down Pennsyl, crowds are cheering and just going absolutely crazy. I looked at our first lady, I said, Do you believe it? I am the president of the United States. So I did not know the people in Washington like a politician would who spent 25 years and then ran for president. And I have learned over four years. I know the great ones and I know the not good ones. I know the rhinos that are not going to get it done, and I know people that are going to really get it done. I had to rely on, in many cases, some rhinos that we did not even know they were rhinos or not. But they are more dangerous in many ways than the Democrats, I tell you. And we have incredible people.


When you think of what we have done, we had the largest tax cut in the history of our country. We had the largest regulation cuts in the history of our country. We had the safest southern border in the history of our country. We had the least amount of drugs in decades and decades. Right now, it is 10 times the drugs are pouring into our southern border as when I left. It is coming in like water and cheaper than candy. Fentanyl, you buy cheaper than candy. You can go buy a candy bar, of course, you are much more than fentanyl and they can kill the entire nation with it. And frankly, that is probably what they are trying to do. So we had it done and we had a great thing going, and we had built hundreds of miles of wall. All of the things that we did to make it so good. Stay in Mexico, nobody even heard of it. Mexico said to us, Well, we are not going to do it. I said, No, no, no, you are going to do it, a hundred percent. Then a representative came down and I dealt with somebody, a very nice woman for the State Department. She worked with Mexico, on Mexico for 25 years. She said, Sir, you cannot get these things. They will never agree to that. They will never agree to any of this stuff. I also said, I want 28,000 soldiers from Mexico guarding our borders. Will you pay for it? No, we are not paying anything. And so she smiled and not as a bad person, she smiled. I said, No, we will get it, a hundred to one. I mean, I will tell you it is not even a chance that we want. Then the representative from Mexico came into the room. And I really like, even though he is a socialist, I really like the president of Mexico. We have a very good friend. In fact, it took him a long time to call up President Biden. It took him a long time. There were many leaders of countries that just could not do it. They did not believe it actually, even though we were very tough on many countries, we were tougher in Russia than anybody would've been. They just did not believe the result. But I said, Here is what we need, we need 28,000 soldiers and we want everybody staying in Mexico, never coming into the United States until we have them approved.


If you do not approve it, then we are going to put a tariff on all of the cars that you stole from our country to make in Mexico of 25%. And every product that is made in Mexico is going to have a tariff of 25% on it, which would amount to tens of billions of dollars for the United States. He said, I cannot believe you'd do that. I will sign it. And in effect, this goes on on Monday at eight o'clock in the morning. And I had the document right here, showed him the document. He said, May I take five minutes to make a call? I wonder who he called, called the president and came back. Sir, we'd be honored to give you 28,000 soldiers and we would be honored to keep everybody in Mexico, even the MS13 gang members and everything until such time as they have to. And then think of it, they did not want. They come in, they said, come into the United States. They stopped the wall construction. We had built hundreds of miles of wall, but they stopped the construction. Three weeks, it could have been the addition because we added a lot more than we originally said we were going to do. We had to wait two and a half years because the Democrats sued us. We had 11 different lawsuits. We won all of the lawsuits. I actually got a lot of the money. I took it out of the military because I consider it to be defense of our country. It is an onslaught what is coming in, and we did all of those things and then they come in and what they have done to this country is incredible. Even staying out for medical reasons, you know all about that. I mean, people are very ill and they are coming into our country. Now, they are emptying out as you know, their prisons Prisons, and they are emptying out their mental institutions. I dealt with the leaders of those countries. I know them all, and they are very streetwise. They live, and they do well, but why should they pay for mental institutions when we can dump everybody into the United States? Why should they pay for prisons? It is a big portion of their budget. Why should they take care of MS-13 gang members, the worst anywhere in the world? Why should they do that when the stupid people running the United States will do it for them? What they are doing is poisoning our country.


Every day I think of the United States in a way This never happened. Literally, I thought of this yesterday, and I said, I am coming up to a place that gets it, and maybe I should say it, and I went to my buddy and I went to a couple of people that have been with me a long time. It is sort of strange, but I think of the United States, every day as April Fools' Day, and they said, Sir, what do you mean by that? I do not like the sound of that. I said, Well, listen to this, and I just gave a couple of ideas. We have open borders when they should be closed. We have prisoners, people from, as we just said, mental institutions and terrorists being dumped into our country when they should not be accepted. Who would do that? Who would do this? Who would allow prisoners in? He goes Biden, and he said Brandon. We have no voter ID when everyone wants voter ID. Even at the Democrat National Convention, they had a card on the front of them that was bigger than their chest, with the exception of some people. They had a card. It had everything, pictures, everything. So think of it, no voter ID when everyone wants it, even the Democrats. They did a poll, 88% of Democrats want voter ID. They do not want it because they want to cheat. That is what they are best at. We have a woke military that cannot fight or win, as proven in Afghanistan, but we lost unfortunately $85 billion of it to Afghanistan where we stupidly gave $85 billion to these people. We had them in check. We had them totally in check. Why are you speaking to him, sir? Who else do I want to speak to? Who else am I supposed to speak to? We want to end it. I told Abdul. I said, Abdul, you are killing a lot of our people. They did a lot during the Obama administration. The snipers, they were killing our soldiers left and right, a lot of them, and the roadside bombs. You all know because it is a very military state, very state-focused on the military. I said, Abdul, you are killing a lot of people. If you do this anymore, we are going to hit you harder than anybody has ever been hit by this country, and that is pretty hard.


We are going to hit you so hard, left and right, up and down, you are going to regret it. This is over a telephone conversation, can you believe it? He called me Your Excellency. I wonder if he calls Biden He is still there by the way, Abdul. He cannot believe his luck. We were getting out, but we were going to get out with pride. We were going to take our military out last, not first. We took our military out, and once we took the military out, they had I could just see Abdul, tough, smart guy, sitting there, Sir, they just took the military out, and he looks at the guy and probably said, This guy is the stupidest guy. They took the military out first, and we left. Right now we have many, many hundreds, maybe thousands, but hundreds of American citizens there, they are stuck. But we did not take the equipment out, and we could have taken it out easy. I had one of our generals that is currently there say to me, Sir, I think it is cheaper to leave the equipment than to take it. 85 billion, and I said, What do you mean cheaper? We have brand-new airplanes over there. You mean it is cheaper to leave a $100 million aircraft, latest and the greatest, the helicopters, brand-new Apache helicopters, hardly used, it is cheaper to leave it than to fly? I said, Listen, so you think it is better than we could give it a half a tank of gas, fly it to Pakistan, and then take it over here, right? Let it fly its way over, a couple of gallons extra, a little bit of extra fuel, jet fuel, which today you cannot get by the way. You cannot get it because of us. I said, You think it is better just to leave it? So we left them 700,000 rifles of the best. We left them 70,000 vehicles, many of them armored, cost millions of dollars, armored plate. Four inches of steel on the bottom, you can imagine what they cost. I do not know if anyone's in the car business, but I have a friend who is very big in the business. I said, Did you ever have a car lot with 70,000 cars? He said, 70,000? If we have 200, we'd consider that oversupplied. I said, 70,000, think of it.


They are very good fighters, the Taliban, but they never fight at night because they do not have binoculars. We have given them brand-new thousands of binoculars, better than what we have, far better than what we have because they are brand new, they are the best. They are now one of the biggest sellers of arms to other countries because they have so much, they cannot possibly use that much. 700,000 rifles and guns they call it. We just dumped it over there and many other things, so this is what happened. We have a military that has to get back on track, and they do not want to. We have proposed mandatory electric stoves and electric cars, when everyone wants at least the option of choice because gas stoves cook better and gasoline cars go a lot longer. I have a friend who got an electric car. After two hours, he is like, Where the hell do I get this thing Where do I get electric, please? He used to drive for 12 hours. Now he drives for a very short period of time, but he is happy because he thinks he is helping the environment. I said, You are not helping the environment. If you knew where the batteries were made, all made out of China, and they are all made with minerals and substances found in China. The substance we have, more than anybody else, is something that gets refined into gasoline, and we have more, and they do not want to use it. We have people in the midst of the greatest crime wave in history that want to defund our police. Right, let us defund the police. You cannot even get in your car. You go to New York, nobody ever gets prosecuted. They go after me. I have a man, he is 75 years old, he got prosecuted because he did not pay tax on a company apartment. He did not pay a tax on a company car. 75 years old, he has a company car, did not pay tax. I guess did not pay tax on the education of his grandchildren. I paid for the education of his grandchildren. I have a lot of money. I paid for the education. They want to put him in jail. They put him in jail. Can you believe this? To the best of our knowledge, we have never seen anything like it, only if it is somehow Trump-related.


Think of it, never been charged before that we know of, and they charged him criminally and they put him in jail, and it is a disgrace to our country. He is a fine man, never had a problem, I do not think he ever had a parking ticket. That is what is happening to our country. We have skipped socialism, that train has already left. We have men being encouraged to compete against women in sports, okay? The story I tell about the swimmer, where this great champion swimmer wants to win this race. She is looking up and down, and she is seen the same girls and women that she is fought and swam against. Then she looks to the right, same thing, but there is this giant standing right next to her, and he hurt her very badly because he went by her so fast that she suffered massive windburn during the race, the whole thing. I think he beat her by, what is it, 36 seconds, right? If she could win by an eighth of a second, she is going to win. She is worked all her life for this, all her life. She is going to win by an eighth of a second. She is going to set the U.S. record. He beat the record by 38 seconds. We have Antifa and BLM who hate our country and burn down our cities, and they are protected by law enforcement, while we put great American patriots in jail and destroy their lives, right? We are begging foreign nations for oil when we have far more oil than they have. I call it liquid gold that is under our feet. We decided to stop drilling oil as it hits an all-time high. It hits the all-time high, highest ever, we are going to stop drilling. Who would do that? Some friends of mine are great business people here. You got a lot of good business people up here, but they hear that when the price goes high, that is when they start. No, the price hits an all-time high, and that was the day where he said, No drill. We are going wind. Let us kill all the birds. Let us destroy our plains and our beautiful oceans and seas and everything else. And then on top of it, we sell China millions and millions of barrels of cheap oil. We are selling it to China. We demand windmills be built on our oceans.


We demand they go on our prairies and our mountains and our plains, only to realize that they are killing all our birds at a level that If you go out hunting and you happen to shoot a bald eagle, they put you in jail for five years, right? They kill thousands of them with these windmills, nothing happens. It is the most expensive and least reliable form of energy on our planet, extremely expensive, and the wind turbines are all made in China. Some are made in Germany, but most are made in China. We have a president whose son's laptop from hell gets taken over and exposes massive corruption like nobody's ever seen before. You think the father Did you ever hear this? Dad, I left my laptop in a repair shop. I forgot to pick it up, and this repair guy went a little crazy when he saw what was on it. What is on it, son? Every crime that you have ever committed, pa. At what point does the father get angry, like, This kid is not working out well for me. Then the FBI goes and convinces the media that it is Russian disinformation. Remember, they went over to see the people at Twitter and other media and other agencies also, but the FBI, can you imagine the good old FBI? This is Russian disinformation, so if you hear anything about it, do not put it in. You better not do it because it is Russian disinformation. Even though they know that is a lie that they are telling them. Instead of doing that, they come after Trump. Let us go after Trump. Let us raid Mar-a-Lago. We have an FBI and Justice Department that does raid Mar-a-Lago in Florida. It is placed under lock and key. It was built actually as a southern White House by Marjorie Merriweather Post and E. F. Hutton. They willed it over to the government. Jimmy Carter turned it back. Can you believe it? And I say, Thank you, Jimmy. I appreciate it. But they asked if we could do them a favor. They saw the room. We are having very good discussions with NARA, which is what we are supposed to do. We looked at the room. They asked us, Would you do us a favor? They came down and looked at it. I told them, Absolutely, go down and look. They looked at the room. They found everything in order.


They looked at the room, and they made a request, Could you put on an additional lock? We had a strong lock. Could you put on an additional? Let them put it on. We put on additional. Then they came in and they raided Mar-a-Lago after that. We were having very good discussions with NARA, but of course, NARA is very radical left. They have a red flag. Does anybody know this? It is a red flag meaning danger. The Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights, can you imagine? This is what we are dealing with. So they raided, but if you take a look at it, and if you look at all these things, all of these things, I was going to go longer, but we want to get to who the hell your next boss is going to be, okay? I was going to go a lot longer, but honestly, I said, I am not sure the cameras have that much time. That is because Steve is leaving, and he is coming with us. If he was not coming with us, I might just have to forget about New Hampshire and just mark it down to a loss, but with Steve, I do not think we can lose. I think with Steve, we are going to mark it down to a victory. In recent weeks, I have begun to introduce our bold, ambitious agenda to control and confront the colossal disasters that Joe Biden is leaving in his wake, what he is done to this country, the damage. I say all the time in the rallies, which are starting very soon, even though it is still very early. I almost enforced that we entered the rallies. Why is not he doing rallies two years early? But we are going to do them soon. I think we should do a big one up here, Steve, okay? Let us do a big one. They love our rallies. I am in Florida, and I am driving over to a big meeting, a destination. We go different ways sometimes, and they are driving over, and we have We are passing signs, and every lawn has Trump 2024, Trump. The spirit, and the spirit is because they knew what they had, and now they look at what is happening to our country.


Within hours of my inauguration, we will restore every border security measure of the Trump presidency, we had it so good, to quickly achieve the most secure border in US history again just as we had two years ago, and I will ask Congress to establish criminal penalties for any future administration that releases millions and millions of people that you do not want in our country. I do not say that as a bad person. I mean, I have a bigger heart than anybody, but we do not want their prisoners, and we do not want people that are living in mental institutions. We do not want terrorists in our country. We do not want it. We are going to be paying a price for a long time. We have to get them out. We have to get them out. They poison our country, the people who launched this invasion because it really is an invasion. We believe those people belong in jail. When they say conservative, or liberal, or Democrat, or Republican, or independent, it is really with people of common sense. You want to have borders. You want to have voter ID. You want to have these things, and it is just Look, there is two reasons this could be happening, the list that I read, and there is so many more, but the list that I read. They are stupid, which they are not because they are great at cheating at elections. Anybody that cheats like that cannot be stupid, but they are either stupid or they hate our country, and it has to be they hate our country because who would allow this invasion of our country to take place? Despite two and a half years of working and all of the things we did, I mean, to get this stuff in place, and then they just walk away from it. We worked two and a half years to get it. We had to negotiate with Mexico and stay in Mexico. I think I pulled another tariff one on that one too, We are going to charge you so much, but they were great, and they understand it, too. They really understand it, and I came up with the name Caravan because we had caravans of 15,000, 20,000 people pouring in, not when I I will tell you what. We had it stopped pretty early, but now, if you look at these caravans, these are massive, massive caravans, and they have no idea who these people are coming into our country. Nobody is asking them about health, but it is hard to get in.


I have so many people, Can you help me become a citizen? I have a guy, rich guy, wants to become a citizen, and he is gone through everything. He is gone to school to study, and this, and this, and that. He is been working for 11 years. He has not been able to pull it off. I finally said to him, You know, you have been working so hard. Why do not you just go down to Mexico, then suddenly start walking across our border? They will take you gladly. They will not even talk to you. Now, how ridiculous is it when you think people study, then they work, and they are on lists for years, and years, and years trying to come into our country legally, which we want all of those people we can get. Everybody agrees to that, right? But you have other people that are prisoners and that are very ill in many different ways, including mentally, and they just walk into our country. Although we took out thousands and thousands of MS-13 gang members. They were really killing places of They were killing Long Island and other places. Lethal drugs are pouring across our wide open border at levels never seen before and 10 times greater than just two years ago. The drug cartels are waging war in America, and it is time that America wage war on the cartels. I got very badly criticized by some of the rhinos mostly that said, Oh, behind the scenes, he was saying that maybe he is going to hit Patriot missiles into these drug dens, and they announced that. One of the stupid people like a Bolton or somebody, these are stupid people, but they said, He is going to go into those area, and he is going to hit him with a Patriot missile. I said, Well, that is going to be a couple of days of bad publicity, except everybody said, What a great idea that is. This is a crazy world we are living in, and we have to be very careful because we have a very fragile country. Just as we destroyed ISIS You know I destroyed ISIS in three weeks. You know that, General Dan Caine Raisin Cane. When I went over to Iraq because I said, Why are not we beating ISIS, Raisin Cane? He was central casting you. Most of you heard the story, but he did a great job. I was told in Washington by the Washington generals. I call them the television generals. We have great generals.


We have a great army, great military. I created Space Force, which is a big deal. I said, I am going to like you. Are you kidding me? This is a Then, I said, I was told it takes three years to get rid of ISIS and maybe we could not even do it in that by Washington. I actually flew to Iraq to meet with the generals. Sir, we can do it in three weeks, sir. We can do it in three weeks. Well, why have not they done it? Sir, they did not do it because I should not say this, sir. In fact, I will not say it because you know a military person is not supposed to say. I said, Why did not you convince them to do it the way you want to do it? I am in the military, and I have to take orders. They came in from Washington and told us what to do. Even if I disagree with them, I have to take orders. I mean, I understand that. I am not sure I fully understand it because it does not seem to make a lot of sense, but militarily, I guess it does. I met him at the base of Air Force One with another general and a drill sergeant. These guys are all better looking than Tom Cruise. You got to see these guys. They are like perfect human beings. The pilots on Air Force One were landing in the desert. We are landing, and I am saying They told me, Sir, turn off your lights, please. An hour before landing, they said, Please turn off your lights, sir. Why would I turn off my Because we are landing. I said, Well, you mean we spent $7 trillion in the Middle East that we cannot land? After spending $7 trillion and by the way, millions of people killed if you include the other side, which I include, but we spent trillions and trillions. They said, Turn off your lights. Then, they come, and they not only turn off the lights, they put down the shades. So we are an hour out, and I went up to the front of the cockpit because I love going with these guys, seeing how great they are. Best pilots fly Air Force One. They take the best pilots. Anybody fly Air Force One in this room? I heard some guy over there, but the best pilots. I do not see any lights. I said, I have pretty good vision, Captain.


I do not see anything ahead. Then, you hear the mechanical They call it a mechanical voice. 1,000 means you are at 1,000 feet. I am trying to be Captain, I do not see a runway up there. I could take him to Hollywood tomorrow. I do not think they ever had a problem in their life. I never saw so many people operate a plane, but these are minor details. That is why it is called Air Force One in the United States, right? We have five telephone operators. I might make one call, right? I will call our First Lady. They wait for me to make calls. We are getting 700. I just closed my eyes. In fact, I checked immediately. I wanted to see whether or not I could award myself as president the Congressional Medal of Honor. I do not think the fake news media back there would like it. They would not be happy with that. They said, This is not good, but I do not think I had the right. Anyway, I got off the plane. I see General Cane. We can take it three weeks. We can do it in three weeks. It is like central casting. You could make a movie. If I took a camera, I would've made a movie out of it, but I walk. Let us go right to work. Now, do you think Biden would say that? I do not think He'd rest for three days. He'd rest for three days, and then they'd walk him back to the plane. They would not have a discussion. No, I said, Let us go to your room. So we went up to this gorgeous room. This is an incredible fortress with 22-inch walls of concrete. I mean, this is really an amazing thing, and we go into this area that is very secure with no lights at all, practically. Then, we turned the lights on. I said, So why can you do it in such a short period of time when they told me in Washington they probably could not do it in three years? Well, sir, we'd do it differently. How would you do it differently? Well, they only attack from this location, and we are very far away. By the time the planes got there, we had it pretty much turned back. We did not have any time, but sir, I'd attack them from the front.