And I preserved that right 100%, and you think that was easy? Republicans must never waiver in demanding that the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. But it is not only the Second Amendment that the leftists want to destroy. They are hard at work to abolish the First Amendment as well. Probably all amendments, when you get right down to it. The radical left and big tech's attack on free speech is unlawful. To protect the Constitutional rights and liberties of every citizen, this week I filed a major class action. Lot of people are joining. We are suing Facebook, Twitter, and Google. And to show you the arrogance, I was just talking to Mercedes, I guess. Matt, you announced that they are trying to take this incredible, I think much more than 50% of our country. Because there is no way they can be 50% with defund the police, sanctuary cities. And all of the crazy things that they espouse. But I heard they just filed where they want to take everybody down. It is like a spoiled child. I want that toy, dad. But I also want this one, this one, this one. We are taking Mark Zookerbucks, Jack Dorsey, and the other Silicon Valley billionaires to federal court, and we will keep on fighting until we have stopped this assault on our liberties and until we have restored the sacred right to freedom of speech for every single American. Could anybody believe we are even talking about this subject two years ago, three years ago? Who would have believed it? In addition to their malicious attacks on free speech, these Silicon Valley tyrants are also attacking our democracy itself. The big tech election interference in 2020 was an outrageous assault upon our Republic and upon the American voter. Terrible thing has happened to our country. We are being laughed at all over the world. Our election has been studied by other countries. They are not going to do it that way. Mark Zuckerberg alone spent $ 400 million dollars on election meddling. In virtually all of the key swing states, he funded unmanned and unprotected drop boxes that were deployed in Democrat run cities and heavily Democrat precincts to scoop up ballots which were supposedly 94, 95, 96% for Joe Biden, because he campaigned so well from his basement. How about where Biden did substantially better in the swing states than Barack Hussein Obama with the black population? Now, even though he did terribly throughout the country.


But in those five places, he did very well. You know about that, Louie, right? He did five places, he did very well. But they practiced that and countless other schemes to illegitimately and illegally boost the Democrat vote. I can tell you what happened. At the same time, the big tech giants worked together to suppress and diminish news coverage that was negative for Joe Biden. Look at all these stories that came up, and they were wiped out. Anything negative for Biden or the radical left Democrats, they just suppressed. The New York Post broke one of the biggest scandals ever to emerge in a presidential election, providing extraordinarily detailed evidence of the corruption of Joe Biden and where is Hunter Biden? He is painting right now for 500,00 a piece. His highest and best use, I can tell you, is in a studio to paint. He set a record for the highest price for a person that never painted a picture before. Then without any basis whatsoever, Twitter and Facebook banned the New York Post's account of this terrible story. After the election, one poll showed that at least 10% of Joe Biden's voters would have switched their vote if they had known about Joe and Hunter Biden's scandals, enough to flip the results of numerous states. But do not worry about it, because we won those states anyway. We won them all. They would have found the votes. They would have found those votes. If it was reported, they would have found the votes. Little more, they would have churned out some more ballots. The truth was covered up, and it had a giant impact on the election. This must never happen to another party's presidential candidate again. We are a laughing stock all over the world. And you know who knows it better than even the people in this room? They know it. Furthermore, these big tech companies interfered with and undermined the sacred integrity of the ballot box by censoring any honest discussion of election fraud. You say election fraud, you get canceled. The cancel culture, they are very tough on it. But the thing they really do not want is because we are too close to home. They could not help themselves. It does not go all the way, but it goes far enough and you see what they did. They want to stay away from talking about the election results. Every time the media references the election hoax, they say the fraud is unproven.

Donald Trump CPAC 2021 Speech Transcript Dallas, TX


You saw what happened in Georgia the other day. They found 35,000 votes. Then they deleted in Georgia over 100,000 votes. Because they were so bad voters, I said, Why did not you try doing it before the election? Why did not you do it before the election? We always had the reputation of being a wonderful, brilliant country for voting, and now everyone knows. The governor of Georgia and Georgia secretary of state let us down. They let us down. And by the way, the voting law they passed is far weaker than that of Texas and other states. You hear that, Mr. Attorney General? They do not even have signature verification. Could you imagine passing a voting law? But they are getting a little good because everyone thinks, Oh, they are passing this no, it is not. And you notice they are the only state that is being sued by the federal government. Because it is an easy target, because the governor and the secretary of state will not defend like that guy will defend. So I only speak the truth. And the reason the Attorney General of the United States is going after Georgia is it is so bad what they have done, and they will probably win, and that defense will not take place. They go out and they really worked very hard on finding the right state to look at. Now Stacey Abrams in Georgia got them to sign what is called a mandated consent decree, which was not approved by the legislature, therefore it is illegal, and makes it very easy for Democrats to cheat and to win elections. You do not have too many of them in Texas, do you, Louie? He only beat 22 people. I said, Doc, how about if I take a cognitive test? He said, Well, you can do it, sir. Well, I said, What is wrong with that? He said, After the first five questions, it gets very hard. I said, Let us take a shot at it, and we did it and we aced it, right? I aced it. And one of the doctors said he is never seen anybody that aced it. And some of those questions are not easy. I will tell you that. How do you think Joe would do on a cognitive test? Unfortunately, this was an election where the person that counts the votes was far more important than the candidate, no matter how many votes that candidate got, and we got record numbers of votes.


It is a disgrace to our nation and we are truly being scorned and disrespected all over the world. Never forget that the radical left is not the majority in this country. And when you look at their policies, there is just no way that can happen. They fight against the military, always fighting budgets, military. We need strong military right now, so strong. And now we have those brand new F-35s and everything's brand new, and we have a great military, or it is coming soon and they will not be able to stop it. But the radical left cheat in elections and the fake news media cheats in polling, like having me down 17 points just before the election in Wisconsin. ENTITY ABC News, Washington Post, just before now when people hear that, it is called suppression, they say, We love the president, but we are going to stay home. Let us watch television, Harry. Harry's going to stay home with Janet. I am down 17 points, and I felt I was winning the state, and we did, in my opinion, win the safe, but it was very close. Even by their fake numbers, it was very close. And interestingly in 2016, the exact same thing happened. I was down 19 points and I won the state. They had 17 instead of 19. We got her by surprise in 2016. Americans do not support the woke left. The people are with us. You have no idea how much. In a recent, highly respected Rasmussen poll, 58% of voters say the media is truly the enemy of the people. Think of that, 58%, and only 23% disagreed. Nobody can tell me that defunding the police, open borders, raising your taxes it used to be, you are running for office, We are going to cut your taxes. This is the only time in history, We are going to raise your taxes. Oh, I am going to vote for him. I want to raise them. And they are raising your taxes so you can waste this money on the Green New Deal, which is nonsense. So they want to put back the regulations. I took off more regulations than any president in history. And that is what gave us really I actually think, Louie, it was more important than the taxes, than cutting taxes. But we took off the regulations.


Used to take 20 years to get highways approved and roads approved, and we got it down to two, and we are going to try and get it down to one. Well, we were going to get it down to one. It will get back up to about 18 or 20 pretty soon, and then we will bring it down one day. The Democrats are terrible on policy, but they are very vicious and they are smart and they stick together. They do not have Mitt Romneys and little Ben Sasses and Bill Cassidy. He campaigns in the great state of Louisiana. Every ad has ENTITY in it. ENTITY, ENTITY, ENTITY, ENTITY, and then he votes to impeach me. Can you believe it? But I always sort of felt that about that guy. But you have another very good senator there, John Kennedy. And Bill Cassidy cannot walk down the streets of Louisiana without having nasty things said to him, and they do not have anyone, the Democrats, like the warmonger and most quoted Republican in the history of our country by Democrats, Liz Cheney. Every time a Democrat gets up to make a speech you know this, fellows, right? You have to live with her, I guess. Democrats are ruthless, but they are united. They do not have these Romney types. They do not have them. It must be wonderful to live like that, but they have bad policy and they have policy that is going to destroy our country. Like socialists and communists movements throughout history, today's leftists do not believe in freedom, they do not believe in fairness, and they do not believe in democracy. They believe in Marxist morality. Anything is justified as long as it hurts their political opponents and advances the radical agenda of their party. Before our very eyes, the radical left Democrats are turning the law itself into a weapon for partisan persecution. It is really look at what they are doing to incredible people like Rudy Giuliani. I mean, he is an incredible greatest mayor in the history of the city of New York, great crime fighter. And at the same time, they are weaponizing the IRS against conservatives and Christians just like they did with the tea party, except worse. There are now two sets of laws in this country, one for the left wing mob, the rioters and the rampagers who can do whatever the hell they want to whomever they want to do it.


And there is another set of rules for law-abiding, conservative Americans, happen to be Republicans, who simply want to speak their minds and exercise their rights, like to talk about a rigged election. But Rudy Giuliani and I mean that. He is by far the greatest mayor of the city. And now you realize, it means more right now, Matt, that it would have meant five years ago when you say that, because you see what the hell is happening to our cities, New York in particular. But one of the great crime fighters of his generation has had his law license taken away by the radical left, all because he was fighting against an election result that he saw was corrupt. That means you can never, ever fight anything. Probably will not for a long time, but we are not letting it happen. Under the standard that has now been applied to Rudy, lawyers are no longer free to represent their clients and their livelihood itself depends on one thing only, whether or not they want to fight the corruption. And because he fought, they took away his law license in New York and in Washington, DC. This is a man I lived in New York. You could walk down the streets. You were proud of the city. You are not proud of the city anymore. While many Democrats fought viciously and got caught lying about the 2016 election they were lying nothing happened. You remember Russia? I see Devin here. When I came in, he was in the basement of an office building, the basement of the White House. He is going through files and files because he knew that what shifty Schiff was saying was pure bullshit. You got it. You understood it. And he and another great one I could give it to everybody here, frankly, as far as I am concerned, because they are great. And you have a star on your left. Devin always knows who to sit next to, but Devin received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, along with Jim Jordan of Ohio for the incredible courage they showed. But he got it a long time ago with, Russia, Russia, Russia. I tell this story, during the campaign guys would come up to me and we are doing well. Sir, do you know anything about Russia? What am I supposed to know? Russia, I know Russia. Sir, what do you have to do with Russia? Do you have anything to do with her?


Then after about four or five guys coming up, I'd say, What the hell is going on with Russia? And then we went through years with Mueller and there was no collusion. 18 angry Democrats, oh they went after us. They will send everything into New York. They will give it a shot now. 18, they have already done that. In fact, it is photocopies they used. They used photocopies of the same stuff I beat in Washington. If anyone should be losing their jobs, their law licenses, and being investigated for crimes, it is not Rudy Giuliani, it is Adam Schiff. He used to stand up at a microphone and he used to lie like hell. I'd say, This guy is He'd stand up, This is a sad day for our union. ENTITY works for Russia. I'd say, What the hell is he talking about? And I am the one that exposed Russia for the biggest thing they have ever done, the pipeline to Europe. I shut it down, and now Biden opened it up. They are going to make a fortune. All of the other perpetrators who have faced no consequences whatsoever, even though they knew it was a scam that they created. They created a scam. And I must be honest with you, I have never said this because I did not want to, but I will. I am very disappointed that Bill Barr was unable to hold anyone accountable for the countless abuses of power by the Democrats. We did not hold the corrupt officials who spied on our campaign remember I said, They are spying on our campaign. Not the authors of the phony dossier, they were not held responsible. Not the women who slandered and lied and defamed Brett Kavanaugh. They said, Brett Kavanaugh, he had an affair. They did not go after them. Not any of the illegal leakers, not any of the people that were responsible for corrupting our elections. He wanted nothing to do with it. He just did not want to do it. I always liked him. But I said, Bill, you got to move your ass. Our country is under attack. But he became a different man when the Democrats viciously stated that they wanted to impeach him. We want to impeach him. We are going to impeach Bill Barr. We are going to impeach him. I understand that. So I guess I can understand it.


But I just a day ago received a statement from the US attorney, highly respected, in Pennsylvania, that Bill Barr would not allow him to investigate voter fraud. Can you believe it? So I understand in the nation. But the US attorney was not allowed to investigate what this just came out in a letter. You do not even know about this, Devin, right? What do you think? We have a letter. You will have to get it from him because I want to stay out of it. Get it from the US attorney, but I am sure he will be willing to provide it, but he is given it to us. He was not allowed to do his job. And I saw that. He was all enthused, and then all of a sudden it was like he was turned off. This was true with so many others that when the justice department, they failed to call out the late night ballot stuffing that took place in Georgia. Where they made up a story of a water main break in order to get people and security to leave the premises, and then they went into a rampage of stuffing, essentially, the ballots. But now that event, because of me and some very good people, is in court. And Bill Barr told me, Sir, we have looked at it. We found nothing. All you have to do is look at that tape. I said to them, But what about the water main? Oh, I did not hear about that. Well, I heard about it. They said there was, and the people ran, except a group of people came back. All you have to do is look at the tape. It is incredible what tapes can show. The fact is, Republicans play a much nicer, kinder game than the Democrats, but based on what we have seen and what we are witnessing now with all of the prosecutorial and other misconduct going on, perhaps Republicans will have to rethink their game plan. Louie Gohmert would agree with that. Louie Gohmert, I have to be careful with him. Do not say I said it, but actually Louie Gohmert's worse than any Democrat, but we have to hold him back. We hold him back, Doc Ronny, right? What do you think of that, Louie? You just heard something for the first time. And by the way, where is Durham? Why did not they use the very well-done Horowitz Report?


Former ENTITY speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Dallas. Even the New York Times wrote the most vicious editorial about James Comey based on the Horowitz report, which talked about the crimes and bad acts committed by Comey, McCabe and others. This is even before you go with Durham. I'd like to thank Inspector General Horowitz for that report. They did not want to use it. I do not know what the hell they are thinking. But if you cannot wait for Durham, just read a man named Daryl Cooper's brilliant thread on Twitter. He tells the whole story. You got to read it. As he put it, We know as fact the Steele dossier was the sole evidence just to justify spying on the ENTITY campaign. They spied on my campaign and nothing will happen to them. Can you imagine if I spied on Biden's campaign or Obama's campaign? They spied on my campaign, we caught them, and nothing happened. The FBI knew the Steele dossier was a DNC operation, paid for by DNC and crooked Hillary Clinton, who by the way, is the most angry person in the United States today. She said, Why the hell did not you do that for me in 2016? I got it. No, she said, Why did not you do it for me? The New York Times asked me a question, what happened in 2020 that was different from 2016? I said, Well, I will tell you. We did much better in 2020. We got 12 million more votes. We won by a much bigger margin. 2016 was very close, but Hillary said, Why did not you do that for me? Why did not you cheat for me, damn it? Steele's source told the FBI the info, was totally unserious, and they did not inform the court of any of this, and they kept on spying on the ENTITY campaign. In addition, the press is part of this crooked operation. You know that. Big tech censored the opposition. Political violence was legitimized and encouraged by the left. And then ENTITY, the President of the United States, was banned from the social media, as we call it, by sleazebags I was banned by sleazebags. I was banned by bad people. In other words, the entire system was rigged against the American people and rigged against a fair, decent, and honest election.


For decades, the conservative movement acted as if all that mattered were policy fights in Washington or that all it would take to prevail was winning a small handful of Supreme Court cases. And we are disappointed in the Supreme Court. I am disappointed, but the battle is so much bigger and so much broader than any of that. The radical left has been methodically taking over every giant centralized institution in American life. The school systems, you see that, the universities, the bar associations, look at what happened to Rudy Hollywood journalists, the big banks, big tech, and even the Supreme Court where we are getting some unexpected rulings because the nine justices do not want to be packed. And the Democrats are in a position to pack the court and they do not want to be packed. So they do not want to look at the election. They said, we do not want to see it. We had by that gentleman right there from the great state of Texas, we had almost 20 states. And we thought we had a case where the standing was so good. You know, I wanted to do it personally, but they said, Sir, you are the president. You have no standing. I said, What kind of a system? They said, The thing that has the standing are states. And if you could get one or two or three They got almost 20 and they were really strong about it. And you know, the justices never looked at the case. And many of the judges did not look at the case, but we do have cases going on right now where I think you have patriot judges. But if the justices got their way, they will not be packed. In other words, what happened is vicious things. Look at the Schumer statement that he said when he was on the court steps. So, he is no longer protected because he is not In Congress, if you are a guy like Adam Schiff, you can lie and lie and lie. You cannot do anything, you have immunity. But once you step out of that building, Schumer said horrible things. He said a mafia like statement to the judges. But they are playing the ref, you know, playing the ref? I love Bobby Knight. He came out from great state of Indiana. He came out, he endorsed me. It was over in Indiana, but Bobby Knight used to scream at the refs. And they'd say, Why are you doing that? I am not worried about this goal.


That is what is happening with our Supreme Court. We do not want to have 24 judges. You know, they said 13. I said, the Democrats are too smart for 13. Why would they have 13? And you know, if they would've looked at the case, we would have won that case in my opinion. And they would have never been packed because you would've had a beautiful veto sitting right in the oval office. I would have vetoed it because it is a terrible thing. But the Democrats are vicious to the Supreme Court and to Kavanaugh. Yeah, Bill Barr, they screamed, we are going to impeach him. We are going to impeach him. And it changes people. We are going to impeach him on women that admitted ultimately that nothing happened. They were not even in the country, one of them. But with Brett Kavanaugh, they are screaming, We are going to impeach him every time . And we are going to impeach him. How does he get out of that by voting for the Democrats? And he went through what no other person I have ever seen go through. That hearing was the most vicious, horrible hearing I think in the history of our country. I do not think there is ever been anything worse than that. In New York City and state, far left Democrats actually ran for office promising to prosecute me, my family, and my company, without knowing anything about me. I never even heard of these people. They did not know nothing about me. We are going to get him. We are going to get him. We are going to get ENTITY. A lot of people running, she won on the basis, We are going to get him. What did he do? I do not know, but we will find something. No, no, how would you like this? They are in search of a crime. To them, it did not matter whether any laws had been broken. The crime was opposing the radical left Democrat party. It is a political persecution, like something straight out of the communist countries that you see around the world. Yet, it is happening here in America at the hands of radical left Democrats. And the Republicans again, they just do not seem to understand at that top level, what the hell is happening. They do not do it the same way. And maybe they are going to have to change our job.


And our mission is to resist this poison and fight for our Republic, with all of our heart and with all of ourselves. For decades, the career politicians who sold out our country shipped away our millions and millions of jobs and sent our children to die in endless foreign wars These people sold out our country. As vice-president Joe Biden flew his son Hunter around the world on Air Force Two, sucking up money like a vacuum cleaner, Hunter's emails show that he collected millions and millions of dollars from foreign nations, including Ukraine. And Joe Biden said, they are not getting the billion dollars unless that prosecutor is out. Could you imagine if I said that? If I said that they impeached me and nothing happened. Can you imagine if I said, They are not getting their billionaire and voila, he was gone. I do not know what the hell he was thinking when he Did he know the tape was running when he did that? And they will destroy our country and they will do whatever they can to do it. Hunter said that he gave half of his salary to pop and that he paid vast amounts of money for Joe Biden's expenses. Now, Joe Biden has all these houses. He is always been like a Senator or a Congressman, right? Louie, I did not know you made that kind of money that you had mansions. You have mansions? Does Louie Gohmert have mansions all over Texas? He is got one house and that is enough. No, but Joe's got a lot of toothbrushes. Yet not a single member of our treacherous, corrupt political establishment has ever experienced anything like the deranged and demented persecution that has been directed at me, my family, and everyone associated with us, everybody. I came down the escalator with our great future first lady. She had a very successful career. Did really well until she met me and so much for that career. She gets it better than anybody. And she loves you people. She loves you, but that is when all of these witch hunts began. Make America Great Again. And now, it is also because I got more votes, 75 million, than anybody in the history of the presidency. Think of it, in the history, usually they go down a little bit second term and they win, but they go down a little bit. I was told by a great pollster, really somebody great, John McLaughlin, one of the most respected one.


Sir, you got 63 million votes. If you get it up to 64 or 65, nobody can beat you. I got it to 75 and I lost in quotes. And what they have done to this movement, I think they have made the movement stronger. I will tell you, in a certain way, I think that is. I will never forget it. On election night, we did so much better than they ever thought in their wildest imagination. That they just said, The hell with it. What they did, what they did. I am also leading in the polls against Harris. Because not a lot of people think that Joe's going to be running, but you never know. It is a strange world and everyone else who is going to run on the radical left, whether it is on the Democrat side or the I love my Republicans, but we are really kicking their ass too. But we love them. But we like it because they are friends of ours, right? I think we can say that affectionately. And they are working hard and you saw a lot of them this weekend. But the Democrats want me out and they want me out as fast as possible. And here I am, I could have a nice, beautiful life. And here I am on a Sunday in Texas. No, I said to Matt and Mercedes because I have done this and we have had And by the way, you have a poll coming out. You know, they do that straw poll, right? He will not tell me. I know Matt, he will not tell me. I will tell you, here is the story. If it is bad, it'll be front page news in the newspapers. If it is great, they will not even cover it. I hate to tell you that, Matt. And I do not want to convince him to do a bad Paul, but you know the straw poll. So, I did this years ago and I got these great straw polls. It was the first time I ever did it. And I was a novice, but it was right here at CPAC. And I am so proud of the jump. I mean, look at this room. We have thousands of people trying to come in. I mean our only thing is next time we will have to get a bigger place, I guess, right? But I said to Matt, and much more importantly, I said to Mercedes, I said, Give me Death Valley. The worst slot, we will fill it up.


He said, Well, sir, that would be Sunday afternoon because most people are doing other things. You do not have to give me Friday night or Saturday night, which is easy. We love doing it the hard way. I said, Give me any time you want on Sunday that is good. And look at this crowd we got. Nah, we will give Saturday night to Louie and to the doc. We are going to give Saturday night to Devin. They give me Sunday and I love Sunday. It reminds me of church and that is okay. I said, Give me your worst time. And he gives me the worst time. And he just broke his record. The radical left and the failed political establishment hates our movement for a simple reason because together we took on the corrupt special interests. We faced down the open borders that you are saying so much, how bad are these borders. They are coming out of the prisons, they are coming out of everywhere in these other countries. murderers, drug dealers, human traffickers of women. We stood up to the absurd dictates of political correctness. And we called out the people who were getting rich bleeding our country dry. And many of them were politicians. Against the howls and cries of the corporate interests and the Washington lobbyists, we demanded fair trade for the American workers and we did a great job on that. We finally ended the worst trade deal in the history of our country, NAFTA. I do not want to disrespect our past, but the people that negotiated that deal were either stupid or corrupt. They say both. We withdrew from the horrible Transpacific Partnership, would have destroyed your automobile business. We pulled out of the world health organization scam. I pulled out because they are like a pipe organ for China, right? they called me, would they want us back? So, the guy, just nice guy, he wants us back. Sir, we really want you back. We really want you back. I said, How much are we paying? How much is China paying? So let me ask you a question. We have 325 million people not including illegal aliens. Which who the hell knows. I do not think they have any idea what But we have 325 million people. China has 1.4 billion people. They are paying 39. We are paying 500. So let me ask you a question. Would you take us back if we paid 39?


I said, Okay, I am going to think about it. I could not even get back in for 39 because everybody including Doc Ronnie thought it was amazing that I pulled out because he understands it is a pipe organ for China and for others, but mostly for China. So I said, So, I would get back in for 39 million? I did not go back in even at 39 and otherwise I turned it down. And now because of the rigged election, we are out, he is in. He went back in for the same price that they were paying before. 450 million in terms of when you are dealing with billions and trillions and all of this, it is not It is a lot of money. This is every year we pay almost 500 million. They pay 39 million. Their country is much larger, but why would not they say we will do it for 39 or in theory less? I think they would have taken it. In fact, one of the reasons I was not happy, I should have started off lower, Matt. Instead of 30, I said, How about would you do it for nine? So, they go back in and nobody said, We will go back in, but we want to come back in at 39 million or 30 million or 20 million. And now they are going to be paying what we have been ripped off for years. And we do not have control of it. China has total absolute control. We have none. What do you think of that, Matt? Our acting You took a lot of abuse. I just see you there. So, we have this deal and they just go in We built an aircraft carrier and the aircraft carrier has all sorts of problems. They decided to use magnets for the elevators that bring Magnets. You are in the middle of the ocean, big waves, bullets being shot at your ship. You got magnets. I could take this little glass of water, drop it in the magnets, that is the end of the elevator. And then they throw the plane off and they decided to do it through electric instead of steam, right? So, they have a catapult. And for 60 years it is been steam operated. They decide to do it. Let us make it out of electric. So, I go to the ship because it is been under construction for years, it was going to cost two and a half billion. It is going to end up costing 18 billion.


They even moved the tower from the center to the back of the ship, making it much harder for pilots to land. By the way, the single hardest thing for a pilot to do is land on an aircraft carrier, even great pilots cannot do it. If they are a little bit claustrophobic That carrier looks big, but when you are up there flying and moving along at rapid speeds, and you are looking at this massive ocean and you have a little deck that you have to land on, it is the hardest thing to do. So they move the thing back so it made it much tighter instead of putting it in the middle where it is a wider part of the ship, a whole thing. That is sir, where they keep the ammunition. I said, Wait a minute, they built the tower I do not want to be the captain of that ship by the way. So I said, I went to visit the ship and I was not interested in seeing the admiral, the admiral said, Sir Admiral so-and-so The things out to sea trials is not working. Actually, you are like central casting, but I want to see the catapulters. So, I meet these five guys. How long have you been doing it, Jim? I said, Let me ask you, you have a problem with it? He said, Because if it breaks, you have to go through graduate school at MIT to fix it. And with the steam, we had the same power or more and we could fix it with a blowtorch and a hammer. And I love that steam in my face, sir. He said, The steam. I said, Why did they go with electric? He said, Unnecessary because it takes us one minute and 59 seconds to put the plane on and hook it up. And by the time we do that, sir, we are all set. We have so much steam we do not know what to do with it. So, I said, So you mean they spent all of this money. They spent $900 million as of a year ago to try and fix it. I told them that three When I first came in, I am very good at this stuff. I said, Electric. I will put it out of commission. I will throw it on the electric circuits. And it is just, I mean, it is so we do things so stupidly. So they are at $18 billion. And I said, did you sue the shipyard?


Then I meet with the architect. Have you ever designed a ship before? My first question, Have you ever designed a ship before? I am telling you foreign countries are laughing at us. They are laughing at us. We renegotiated the Korea trade deal and we built the greatest economy of the history of the world with a record 160 million people working. And I do not want to see any negotiations of tax increases by Senate Republicans. Because I see certain rhinos they keep walking over to the White House. You know, guys like Romney and they walk over to the White House. The other half, the Senator from Louisiana, he was over there. I do not want to name them all because a couple of them are fine, but they go over there, they are getting fleeced. They come out, we have a deal. We have a deal. We have a deal. You do not want to get into that. We have a deal. They said they had a deal. 20 minutes later when the radical left heard that Biden agreed to something they went crazy and then Biden said, We do not have a deal anymore. And what they are doing is they are saying, We will agree to raise your taxes. Saying we will agree to raise your taxes if you approve this radical left infrastructure deal, where most of the money, almost none of the money's going to real infrastructure, which is roads, bridges, et cetera. I am telling the Republican senators right now that we are not going to stand for it if you raise our taxes. We had the greatest tax decrease in the history of our country, and we are not going to have you raise it. In order to say you have made a bipartisan deal. You know, they are dying to say, Matt, that we made a bipartisan deal. You do not have to do that, because you are getting fleeced. And it is going to destroy our country. Despite the pleading and begging of the outsourcers and globalists, I took on China like no president had ever done before. You know that? We made a great deal with China, which has immeasurably helped our farmers and manufacturers, and we put the Chinese Communist Party on defense for the first time ever in our history of our country. We never took in 25 cents. They are paying us millions. Biden, he wants to end the tariffs. If he does, China will take over the whole deal.


He campaigned on ending tariffs, which was stupid. But he campaigned on ending tariffs. We are taking billions and billions, and we convinced the world that we have to watch China. When I took over, we had a deficit with China of 507 billion dollars. But now China is totally on the offense, making Joe Biden and our country look week, and pathetic. We ignored the hysterics of the socialist left and withdrew from the unfair one sided Paris climate accord. We unleashed America's energy resources, and achieved American energy independence for the first time in the history of our country. And we do not need windmills in Texas and lots of other places. We do not need windmills. They ought to end that program as quickly as they can. When the plague came in from China, I dragged the slow and complacent bureaucrats from the FDA, and the CDC into the Oval Office. I pushed them like they have never been pushed before, and thanks to the relentless efforts of my administration and me, we got miraculous therapeutics straight to patients with historic speed, and we produced three vaccines to end the pandemic in record time. We did it in less than nine months. They said a minimum of three years, probably five years, and sir, it probably will not happen at all. If we did not have that, we would be in a position like perhaps over a 100 years ago, right? Over 100 people, I hear different number. We beat back the failed foreign policy establishment to withdraw from the disastrous Iran nuclear deal. We recognized Jerusalem as Israel's capital, and Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. We ended the endless wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Somalia, and other countries. And we brought our beautiful troops back home. Now terrible things are happening in Afghanistan. We had everything in place to finish withdrawing responsibly, and Joe Biden is turning it into a total disaster. They do not respect him. He is leaving behind billions and billions of dollars of equipment. I told these generals, I want every nail brought back home. Instead, the Taliban is now parading around with our weapons that Joe Biden allowed them to capture. But with all of that being said, we should get out. Everything we do, we refuse to bow down to the radical left, the RINOs, the political establishment, and instead we insist on standing up for America, and making America great again and always putting America first.


Every day, more people are realizing that we were right on all of the key issues, and that this is one reason why our endorsement has become, and it is really not just my endorsement, it is your endorsement, has become the most powerful weapon in politics. Because if they were not exact, they will come out at me, you would not believe. 120 of the 122 candidates we endorsed in Congressional primary elections won. But we had a great string of endorsements. We love the candidates we endorse. We are endorsing a lot of good ones right now in the Senate primary elections. Cannot say I am happy about all of them, but that is okay. So far in the 2022 election cycle, we are already 10 and 0 on endorsements, and you are going to check this. In the face of the Biden administration's far left campaign to transform our country and erase our history, we are not backing down. When we regain control of Congress, we will immediately regain control of our border, and it is not that easy. I watched a lot of good Congressmen get onto it. What we have to do is redo the ENTITY edict. We negotiated with those countries, and it was not simple. We will hold China accountable for the damage and suffering they have caused, and make them pay trillions of dollars in reparations to us and to the world. We will break up the big tech monopolies, and bring back free speech. We will take back our elections, and finally, we will always include a thing called voter ID. The Democrats are now saying, Oh, we always wanted voter ID. 88% of the people in the country want voter ID, so now the Democrats again, same old story. They are saying, We want voter ID. We have always wanted voter ID. We will completely defund and bar critical race theory. And if government run schools are going to teach children to hate their country, we will demand school choice that we already have. If you listen to the media or watch the evening newscast, our country has really gone bad. We do not talk about how America can lead the world. We do not talk about stopping crime or the hundreds and hundreds of people that are being shot in Democrat run cities and what to do about it. We do not talk about ending the drugs pouring across our borders. Which I had greatly reduced with our wall and so many other things that we are doing.


And most importantly, we never talk about the great future of our country. We do not talk about any of this stuff anymore. The Democrat controlled media talks race, race, race for political reasons. And they always have, but never like this. But it is hurting our country, and more than anyone else, our great minority communities. It is hurting them very badly. The Democrat obsession with race is only dragging us backward into the past, and it is bringing our country down to a point where even China and Russia are lecturing us on human rights, race, and they are doing it in a very humiliating fashion. During my administration, our country was respected again. In conclusion, our party and our movement, we are all united by the same shared American values, and by unyielding resolve to defend our beloved nation for citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed. We take great pride in our country, and we teach the truth about our history. We celebrate our rich heritage and national traditions. We honor George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, and all of our national heroes. And of course, we always respect our great American flag. We believe in patriotic education for our children, and we strongly oppose the radical indoctrination of America's youth. We are committed to defending innocent life, and to proudly upholding the Judaeo Christian values of our nation's founders. We embrace free thought. We stand up to political correctness, and we reject the intolerance of left wing cancel culture. We believe in our Constitution and in law and order. We want law and order. We demand law and order. We do not want people shot and killed in our cities. We totally respect and support the men and women of law enforcement. We are devoted to our communities. We are loyal to our fellow citizens, and above all, we live by the words of our national motto, in God we trust. These are the convictions that define our movement today, and must define the Republican Party, which has truly become the party of the working man and woman. We have a much different party than we had five years ago. You were in big trouble, Republicans, and look what is happening. Now for the next 16 months, we must pour every ounce of our energy into winning a historic victory in the midterms.


We will never give up our search for truth and justice for what happened in the corrupt presidential election of 2020 because without that truth, we cannot have an honest election in 2022 or 2024, no matter what they want to tell you. And our country will soon stand proudly for free and strong and proper elections again. The election fraud of 2020 is the single most requested topic for me and others to talk about. Because think of what they have done. What they have done is so sad. Look what is happened to our country in just a short number of months. Everyone here today and every conservative all across our land needs to decide right now that together we will save this country. We will not rest until our American heritage of freedom, liberty, and justice is once again safe and once again secure. We owe our country nothing less than that. Our glorious American inheritance was passed down to us by generations of American patriots who gave everything they had. Their sweat, their blood, and even their way of lives to build America into the greatest nation in the history of the world, and we are not going to let it be taken away from us by a small group of radical left Marxist maniacs. We will protect and defend our cherished American legacy and freedom for ourselves, for our children, and for every future generation. My fellow Americans, our movement is the greatest in American history, and it has just begun. With your help, your devotion, your brilliance, and your drive, we will carry forward the torch of American liberty. We will lead the conservative movement and the Republican Party back to victory, and it will be a greater victory than this party has ever had. We will take back the House. We will take back the Senate, and then after witnessing all that has gone wrong in our country in such a short period of time, with our borders, with our economy, with crime, we will take back that glorious White House. That sits so majestically in our nation's capital. And it is the most beautiful house of all.


And thanks for inviting me so I can come home. I really appreciate the Knights of Columbus. This strong organization believes in families and faith and compassion for those in need. And I am honored you'd invite me to the 122d Convocation of this great organization. I appreciate Carl Anderson and his leadership. I have gotten to know Carl because, you see, he is more than just an introducer of Presidents. He is a person who works with Presidentsat least this President. And I am proud to have his help. It is good to see my family friend Virgil Dechant. Virgil, it is good to see you, sir. I am proud to be here with Cardinal McCarrick. It is good to see you, sir. He is a neighbor in my temporary residence. I appreciate Cardinal Egan. I appreciate Cardinal Rigali of the great city of Philadelphia, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago, Cardinal Keeler of Baltimore, Maryland. I thank you for your presence. I am honored to be in the presence of Cardinal Macharski, the Archbishop of Krakow, who succeeded the Holy Father in that role. I appreciate Bishop Wilton Gregory's leadership of the Conference of Catholic Bishops. I appreciate Your Eminences and Your Excellencies, reverends, monsignors, fathers, and deacons. I appreciate the officers and directors, State deputies, board of directors, delegates, ladies and gentlemen, Knights, and my fellow Americans. Two months ago, I had the privilege of visiting His Holy Father Pope John Paul II at the Vatican. It was my third meeting with His Holy Father since I took office, and for those of you who have ever met him, you know I am telling you the truth when I tell you being in his presence is an awesome experience. On the occasion, I had the special honor of presenting him with America's highest civil award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom. It was my chance to express our Nation's respect for a devoted servant of God and a true hero of our time. Pope John Paul II has been a unique and commanding voice for the cause of the poor, the weak, the hungry, and the outcast. He has challenged our Nation and the entire world to embrace the culture of life. He is called upon us to uphold and affirm the dignity of every person, rich and poor, able and disabled, born and unborn. He is called us to love and serve our neighbors in need.

Remarks to the Knights of Columbus Convention in Dallas, Texas


Few organizations have worked harder and done more and met this challenge than the Knights of Columbus. I know you are proud of your organization, and you should be. The Knights were born in New Haven, Connecticut. Come to think of it, so was I. From your foundations in a small church basement, you have raised up one of the great America organizations dedicated to charity and mutual assistance and the fight for civil liberties. I am proud to say that my family has contributed to your ranks. And he ye sand he recently took his Third Degree. I will see him this weekend. I will pass on the word, aim for the Fourth. Jeb knows, as I do, that your works of mercy are making our society more compassionate, changing the lives of millions of citizens. Compassionate work changes our society one heart and one soul at a time. Last year, the Knights raised and donated a record $130 million to charity. You also volunteered for an unprecedented 61 million hours of community service. You obviously have heard the call. I was pleased to hear this story about the Knights in Corpus Christi, Texas, at the Mother Teresa Day Shelter. They are mopping the floors, collecting laundry soap, blankets, and food for 130 homeless men and women. They are not giving the orders; they are serving the people. If I need help, I just give the Knights a call such a powerful example. Americans across this great land know that they can do the same, that they can serve our country by helping someone in need. We are grateful for your service to the men and women in uniform and to our Nation's veterans. You have sent hundreds of thousands of prayer books to those working to make our country more secure and to bring freedom in parts of the world that are desperate for freedom. You bring comfort and strength to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines. I want to thank you for taking time to visit our wounded and disabled veterans, for providing comfort to their families, to give them a word of thanks. See, you'rethe Knights are soldiers in the armies of compassion. You have heard the call. You are helping this Nation build a culture of life in which the sick are comforted, the aged are honored, the immigrant is welcomed, and the weak and vulnerable are never overlooked. You have a friend in this administration. You have somebody who wants to work with you to change America for the better. We have a responsibility in Government to do things to help overcome recession and corporate scandal.


That is why I put forth an economic stimulus plan to encourage small-business growth, a plan that will help get jobs moving so people can work and do their duty as a mom or a dad and put food on the table. And we are making progress. When I came to Washington, I was concerned about a school system that simply shuffled children through grade after grade, year after year, and hoped for the best. Oftentimes, what we found out was kids with great hearts were graduating from schools but could not read. I challenged the soft bigotry of low expectations by raising the bar, insisting on high standards, by making sure the money we spentand we did spend more moneywent to help those who needed extra help early, before it was too late. I believe you have got to measure in order to know. Because we measure, we know that now more minority children are learning to read at grade level, and that is good for America. I want to thank the Knights for their help inhelping low-income parents in Washington, DC, escape from schoolshave their children escape from schools that will not teach and will not change. Because of the work of the Knights of Columbus and other concerned citizens in our Nation's Capital, poor parents now have a choice. They will have a $7,500 scholarship so they can afford to send their schooltheir child to a private school or parochial school their choice to make. You know, one of the great statistics of this modern era is the fact that more people are owning their own home. It seems like to me an optimistic society is one that encourages ownership, more people owning their own business, people being able to own and manage their own health care account, people beingown a piece of their retirement policy that they can pass on from one generation to the next, and people owning their own home. I love a society in which more and more people are able to say, Welcome to my home; come to my home. This country has added more than 1.6 million minority homeowners in the past 2 years. Today, the American homeownership rate is the highest ever and the highest ever for minorities. When you own something, you have a vital stake in the future of your country. I want to work with the Knights for reasonable and compassionate immigration reform, to bring good, hard-working people out of the shadows of American life and to ensure that America is always a welcoming nation.


I recognize, like you recognize, that amidst the great prosperity of America, amongst our great wealth, there are pockets of despair in this country, and we have got to do something about it. We must address despair so America is hopeful for every single person. See, we got fellow citizens who are trapped in the misery of drugs and gang violence, collapse of the family. Our society and our Government have a responsibility. You have a responsibility. Those of us honored to hold high office have a responsibility. We are doing some practical things. We have got a community-wide effort to help educate kids to the dangers of using drugs. We believe in collaborative efforts; people all throughout society must work to reduce the demand for drugs. Listen, we will do all we can to bust the thugs, interdict the drugs coming in from foreignoverseas. But we have got to work on demand. And teen use of drugs is down by 11 percent from 2001 to 2003. There is a lot of work to be done on health care, but one place I know we can continue to work together on is health care for the poorest of the poor. We have expanded and built over 600 community health centers in America. I want to double the number so the 16 million poor Americans can get primary health care without putting a strain on the emergency rooms of our hospitals, whether they be public or private. We have got to pay forwe've got to work on additional welfare reforms to help people find a job, help them have the skills necessary to work so they realize the dignity that comes from being independent from Government and, at the same time, strengthen marriage and the family as part of welfare reforms. But I believe one of the most effective ways our Government can help those in need is to help the charities and community groups that are doing God's work every day. I believe Government needs to stand on the side of faith-based groups, not against faith-based groups, when they come to saving lives. Government can hand out money, and of course there will be arguments whether we are handing out enough or not. But what Government can never do is put love in a person's heart or a sense of purpose in a person's life. You see, in order to heal help the lonely, it works every time when a loving soul puts their arm around and says, What can I do to help you? How can I help you in your life? What can I do to make your life better?


Many are called by God to do so, and Government must stand on the side of those millions of acts of mercy and kindness that take place on a daily basis. And so the Faith-Based Initiative that I have launched recognizes the need there be separation of church and state. But the state should never fear the good works of the church. And the truth of the matter is, there is a culture inside Government which resents and fears religious charities and has discriminated against them. We are changing that. I want to thank the Knights for their help in changing that attitude in Washington, DC. Our goal is to end the unfair discrimination against faith-based charities by the Federal Government. And we are making substantial progress. In December 2002, I issued an Executive orderI was hoping, frankly, that Congress would pass a law. I got tired of the process debate. See, I am focused on results. For those of you who pay attention to Washington, you know what I am talking about when I say the process bogs down. So I signed an Executive order mandating equal treatment for faith-based charities in the Federal grantmaking process. What that means is, is that faith-based groups ought to be allowed to apply for Federal grants just like everybody else should be allowed to apply. Faith-based groups will not be allowed to discriminate against who they serve, and they will not use the Federal money to proselytize. But they are allowed to use the money to change hearts and souls, to help save lives, to embetter the world we live in. Religious charities that are effectively helping the poor should have a fair and equal chance to compete for Federal money. And thisin 2003, discretionary grants to faith-based programs was over a billion dollars. We are making progress. We are using Federal taxpayers' money for effective use in helping to save lives. We are providing a social network of lovinghelping loving souls interface with people so they can realize a better tomorrow. Three years ago, I established the Compassion Capital Fund. If you want to access Federal money, here is how you do it. If you want to start up a faith-based program, here is some of the lessons learned. In other words, what we are trying to say is not only are we going to allow those faith-based programs that already exist to access Federal money, we want to help others spring up and understand the pitfalls to succeed.


The fund provides grants to faith-based and community organizations as well to help them fund their programs for the poor and the hungry and the homeless. We have awarded $56 million under this program. Today I release another $43 million to the compassionate Federal grant program. We are moving forward on another initiative, which is mentoring for the children of prisoners. I mean, if the job of Government is to try to set priorities, a priority is to help children of prisoners find love. Imagine what a tough life it is for a young boy or girl to go see his or her mom or dad behind prison bars. These are children who need help. They are vulnerable to gangs and crime and despair. They are desperate for responsible adults in their life who can give them what many of them long for, which is love and tenderness. The best way to do that is to encourage all groups, including faith-based groups, to provide mentors. And it is happening in America. For those of you who are mentoring the children of prisoners, thank you for what you are doing to make America a more welcoming place. We have awarded grantstoday we have unleashed another $45.5 million of grants to programs, all aimed at doing this. I will tell you another program that is important is to help the addict, is to help the person so stuck on drugs that they cannot realize the great human potential that God has given them, and they need desperate help. I believe that some counseling programs work, no question about it. But I also know programs that change the heart works. When a person changes their heart, they change their habits. Government is not good at changing hearts. The Almighty God is good at changing hearts, which happens to be the cornerstone of effective faith-based programs. And therefore, when it comes to spending Federal money to help addicts, I have asked the Congress, and the Congress has agreed to allow us to use vouchers to go to the person who is seeking help. That person can use that voucher at any kind of program he or she chooses, including faith-based programs, to help heal hearts and save lives. In other words, some of these are the ways thatwhat I am telling you is, things are changing in the Nation's Capital when it comes to invigorating the Faith-Based Initiative, and the Knights have helped a lot. I appreciate your efforts to level the playing field when it comes to grantmaking.


And because of your efforts, America is changing for the better. I needed someone to lead this program, so guess who I turned to? I found Towey. Jim Towey is the Director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. He is with me. His job is to help the faith communityby the way, all faithsall faiths, Christian, Jew, or Muslimall faiths understand what is possible now. Let us be frank about it. Many faith-based programs do not want to interface with Government. They are afraid of losing the ability to practice their faith. How can you be a faith-based program if you are not allowed to practice your faith? Towey's job so Towey has got a big job. It is to change a culture, a suspicious culture, and we are making progressa suspicious culture in Washington, a suspicious culture in the grassroots. He goes to meet Mother Teresa for the first time. He shows up at one of her homes for the dying in India, and the sister who greeted him assumed he was there to work. That is what I assume every day that Towey shows up. So she gave Jim some cloth and said, Go clean the sores of a dying man. He says it changed his life, that experience. He went on to work full-time for the Missionaries of Charity. Incredibly enough, Jim Towey, Director of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives in the White House, was Mother Teresa's lawyer. I ask you, what kind of society is it where Mother Teresa needs a lawyer? It is a society that needs tort reform. I appreciate your good work, friend. The Knights of Columbus are transferring lives with works of compassion, and, just as importantly, you are defending the values of faith and family that bind us as a nation. I appreciate your fight to protect children from obscenity. I appreciate your working to protect the Pledge of Allegiance, to keep us one Nation under God. I want to thank youI want to thank you for the defense of the traditional family. That is a most fundamental institution for our society. I appreciate the fact you are promoting the culture of life. We are making progress here in America. Last November, I signed a law to end the brutal practice of partial-birth abortion. This law is urgently needed, and my administration will vigorously defend it in the courts. I was pleased to sign the Born-Alive Infants Protection Act.


I want to thank the Knights on that piece of legislation. I signed the Unborn Victims of Violence Act. Common sense and conscience tells us that when an expectant mother is killed, two lives are ended, and the criminal should answer for both crimes. I was pleased to sign legislation supporting maternity group homes. We will continue to work to help crisis pregnancy centers. We will work together to strengthen incentives for adoption and parental notification laws. The Knights have been helpful, and I appreciate your help. My 2005 budget, I proposed to more than triple Federal funds for abstinence programs in schools and community-based programs above 2001 levels. I will continue to work with Congress to pass a comprehensive and effective ban on human cloning. Human life is a creation of God, not a commodity to be exploited by man. I look forward to working with the Knights to defend the sacred bond of marriage. A few activist judges have taken it upon themselves to redefine the institution of marriage by court order. I support a constitutional amendment to protect the sanctity of marriage by ensuring it is always recognized as the union of a man and woman as husband and wife. I appreciate the Knights' stand on this issue. I also appreciate the Knights of Columbus' stand on the Federal judiciary. I have a responsibility as President to make sure the Federal judicial system runs well. I have nominated superb men and women for the Federal benches who will strictly and fully interpret the law, not legislate from the bench. In all these areas, caring for the poor and protecting the vulnerable, affirming life, and defending the family, we are depending on the goodness and compassion of the American people. See, the strength of this country is not our military might. It is not the size of our wallet. The strength of this country is the hearts and souls of the American people. And it is an incredible honor to be the President of such a nation, a President of a nation of compassion and decency and honor and such powerful values that we are able to bring people from all walks of life under the rubric of being an American. I appreciate the prayers of the people of this country. People I will never get to say thanks to in person, lift Laura and me up in prayer. It is a remarkable aspect of the Presidency. More significantly, it is a remarkable aspect of the life of the United States of America. I am grateful for your prayers. I am grateful for your great service and the example you set for our country.


This is the biggest stage I have been on in quite a while. I am told it is so big because you are having the Oak Ridge Boys tonight. I want to thank your president, Bill Taylor, for the invitation to come here and Bob Elsner for that fine introduction, especially what he said about health care. I look out in this crowd and see many friends of mine from across the country. I saw my good friend Neil Offen, the president of the Direct Selling Association, a minute ago. And I have already spotted five or six people in the audience that I have known for years. I thank you all for inviting me here and for giving me a chance to talk about health care today. I'd like to just begin by trying to put this very briefly in the context in which I view it as your President. I think my job is to do everything I can to help every American reach his or her God-given potential and to try to bring the American people together to make our country stronger. In other words, even though you often do not read about it in these terms, the real purpose of our political system, when it is working properly, is to get people together and to get things done. In the last year, we have been able to bring the deficit down, keep interest rates down, see economic growth come back into this country. In the last 3 months of last year we had the highest growth rate in a decade, the biggest increase in productivity from American workers in 8 years. If our budget is adopted, the one I have presented to the Congress, we will have 3 years of decline in the Federal deficit for the first time since Harry Truman was President and the first real reduction in discretionary nondefense spending since 1969, if this budget is adopted. At the same time, we are moving the money around so we will be investing more in Head Start, more in medical research, more in new technologies to support defense conversion and to rebuild the American economy. We are beginning to turn this situation around and to make this Government work for the American people. But this year we have a lot of other challenges we are facing. The Congress is working on a very important crime bill to put more police officers on the street, to stiffen penalties appropriately, to provide alternative punishments to first-time youthful offenders, to provide some ways for kids to stay out of jail, to take assault weapons off the street. They are doing a lot of important things.

Remarks to the American Society of Association Executives


And the Congress is dealing with that as we speak. The Congress will take up welfare reform, a subject on which I have worked for well over a decade now. And I hope they finally will make welfare a second chance, not a way of life, for all Americans and enable us to bring children up in a better fashion. The Congress is going to have a chance now to finally pass a campaign finance reform bill, which will increase the confidence of the American people in the way we do our business here, and a lobby reform bill. But I can tell you that if over the long run we expect the American people to be a stronger community, if we expect our economy to have the funds necessary to invest in the growth opportunities of the 21st century, and if you want your Federal Government to be able to respond to the challenges of today and tomorrow, we must address the health care crisis. It is not just a problem for individual American workers and families, it is a problem for the Federal budget and for the national investment patterns. I can tell you, just to give you two examples, in addition to the fact that almost every American, at least those who do not work for larger businesses or for the Government, is at some risk of losing his or her health insurance or of having the inability to change jobs because someone in the family got sick, and almost every small business is at risk of having their premiums explode or their deductibles and copays explode, you also should know that this is a serious competitive problem for us. We are spending 14.5 percent of our income on health care. The Germans are just a little bit over 8 percent of their income. Only the Canadians are at 10 percent of their income. If you think about spotting our competitors 512 cents on every dollar spent, that is a significant issue. And almost all of you represent a group of business people who have personally experienced that. Now, should we spend more money than other countries on health care? I would argue we should and we must, because we invest more in medical research and technology. And we lead the world in that, and that generates jobs, opportunities, and incomes. We have these great academic health centers. Every American, just about, would be happy to pay a premium for that. Must we spend more? The answer to that is, yes, we must; as long as we have higher rates of violence and ENTITY and teen pregnancy than other countries, we will have higher bills.


Does that account for all of the difference? A lot of it is directly related to the way we finance health care. In the budget we are adopting, we are cutting defense this year for the first time since 1969. If my budget's adopted, we will cut nondefense spending. Social Security will go up, but only by the rate of inflation, and it is paid for by the Social Security taxes, which are in surplus. We will have to pay more on interest on the debt as it accumulates, although not as much as we would if interest rates were not low. The only thing in this whole budget that is really going up by more than the rate of inflation in the Federal budget is health care costs, 2 and 3 times the rate of inflation. And if we do not do something about it, then the rising cost of Medicare and Medicaid will mean that 2 or 3 or 4 years from now, none of you, no matter whom you represent, will be able to come to Washington and say, How about a new airport, how about a new port, how about a new highway program? How are you going to keep up with our foreign competitors in the seven, eight areas of new technology that will control the future? because we will be spending all of the money you give us in revenues on health care, while we cut everything else. And I believe that after 60 years of false starts, we actually have an opportunity to do the right thing, that is, to give every American and every American family health security and have it be the right thing for the American economy and for the future of the United States. For individuals, health security means freedom from fear and the freedom to prosper and the freedom to make choices that now are becoming narrower and narrower for most Americans in health care. For the Nation, it means the ability to bring health care costs within inflation, to have the chance finally to control the deficit, and to allow many businesses now struggling with this problem to be able to invest, to become more productive without having to make the decision to basically terrify their own employees by cutting back health care so much. Does anybody have all the answers? If it were easy and someone had all of the answers, it would have been done before. You represent more than 22,000 members who serve millions of Americans, tens of millions of Americans, engineers and teachers, pharmacists and farmers and bankers and Red Cross volunteers.


Those are the kind of people served by the American Society of Association Executives. Next year you will turn 75, and for threequarters of a century you have shown the importance of representation, of what can be done when people honestly seek to represent the genuine interest and feelings of their members and come together in a spirit of fairness and openness and try to achieve a common goal. Well, I feel that I almost ought to be a member of this group. I could have a little tag that said the Association of All the American People. And the members of my group want us to deal with the health care problem, and we are trying to do it. The American people want health care to be there when they need it, and they want it to be there at a reasonable price. That is what health insurance used to mean, what it can mean again. I know that because of the opposition of various interest groups and because some of them have changed their position under withering political heat, there are some who have already said, Well, we will not get health care reform; yet again, the people against it will prevail. Well, I say to the naysayers and the pessimists that, not quite so fast. I have seen a lot of endeavors in which I was involved over the last 15 years given up for dead, including my own endeavors, political endeavors. But it is a funny thing about our system here in America. The American people and their representatives, in the end, more than half the time, do the right thing when given the chance. I do not know how many Members of the Congress I have had tell me privately in the last week that they are actually becoming more optimistic that we will get a genuine health reform bill out that will provide health security to all Americans. The reality is, and everyone knows this, that while we have the best health care in the world, people who have health insurance today might not have it tomorrow. People who can afford it today might not be able to afford it tomorrow. People who have choices with which they are satisfied today might lose all those choices tomorrow. Preexisting conditions today leave 81 million Americans at risk. It means they can be denied coverage or their rates can be raised or they cannot leave the job they have got for a new one because they will not be able to carry insurance with them. A lot of you represent small businesses.


A lot of people would like to leave a bigger business and start their own business or might want to seek a better career opportunity that is in a smaller business than the one in which they are in. But if they have some member of their family that is been sick, they are literally trapped where they are, and they cannot do that. Three out of four Americans have lifetime limits on their policies which means that, for many of them, they can lose their coverage just when they need it the most. Two million families lose their health insurance every month, 100,000 of them permanently. We have seen an increase in the number of Americans without health insurance from 37 to 39 million just in the last 2 years. The health care we have is good, if we can get it. But the health care financing system does not serve the American people well. It leads to massive cost-shifting. It leads to, by far, the biggest paperwork burden of any health care system in the world. And I would like to say in simple terms what I believe we should do to fix it. First, we should guarantee private insurance to every American. Second, we should guard the right to choose a doctor and improve the quality of health care plans. Third, we should limit how much insurance companies can raise rates based on whether your business is large or small or you work for the government, whether you are older or younger or whether someone in your family has been sick. And we should make it illegal for people to drop others. But we must set up a system in which insurance companies themselves will not be forced into bankruptcy if we make it illegal to drop them, which is why it is important for people to be able to be insured in large pools. Third, we want to protect and improve Medicare and health care for older Americans. Fourth, we want to provide benefits through the workplace, because that is where 9 of 10 Americans who have insurance already get it. I know that a lot of people have seen this health security card. But if you know how to use a credit card or a bank card or a Social Security card, people can figure this out. Under the system we have proposed, every American would get a card which stands for not a Government program but guaranteed private insurance and private health providers. The card would permit every American to choose a health care plan, to choose a doctor, to fill out one simple form, and to get health care for a whole year.


And at the end of the year, Americans would be able to pick another plan or stay with the same plan or make a different decision. It would not stop any American, over and above that, from paying another private physician for some other service if that was desired. It would, in other words, give more choice than half the American work force has today in their health care plan. Beginning by guaranteeing private insurance for all means that everyone must be covered. That is not only the only way to guarantee security, it is the only way to stop cost-shifting. As long as an insurance company can deny coverage or drop from coverage, then no one is really secure, and some Americans will have to pay the price for other Americans' health care because those who do not have insurance will eventually get health care when it is too late and too expensive, often at an emergency room. And then the cost will be passed on to all the rest of you who are paying for your health care right now in the usual way. That is why I have said that I cannot sign and, indeed, would have to veto a bill that pretended to reform the health care system without providing a system by which everyone is covered. Because unless everyone is covered, there is no cost control, there is no end to cost-shifting, there is no real security, and there is no balance in the system. We are the only country in the world that has not figured out how to do this with an advanced economy, and we ought to be smart enough to do it. I mean, basically when I see all these ads that say we cannot do it, I say, these people are telling me my country is dumber than these other countries. I do not believe that. Or they are telling me that the price of having great health care and great teaching hospitals and great medical research and extraordinary technology is that you have to have some people who do not have anything and all the rest of us have to pay for that besides. I do not believe that. The benefits package ought to be comprehensive enough to encourage primary and preventive health care because that saves money over the long run. That is a very important part of this. Immunizations, mammograms, physicals, prescription drugs, all those things actually avert our health care costs when properly done and keep us healthier. We spend too much time in America treating people when they are sick and not enough time keeping people healthy in the first place.


Secondly, we want to preserve and enhance choice as the best guarantee that the quality of American medicine will remain the best in the world. People should be able to choose on their doctors and their health care plans; it guarantees quality. Under our proposal now, everyone would have a chance to make at least one from among three choices, at a minimum, every year. You could choose traditional fee-for-service medicine; you could choose an HMO, for example; you could choose a preferred provider organization that physicians and others organized themselves. But every year you would be given the chance, once again, to make that choice under our proposal. More and more people under the pressures of the present system are living with shrinking choices. And a lot of people are quite properly worried that those shrinking choices will not only interfere with their choice but will interfere with the quality of health care. There have been a lot of articles written in thoughtful publications in the last few months pointing out that choice is a rapidly vanishing facet of American health care today, and that in fact the attack on our plan as limiting choice is simply not true; that by guaranteeing at least three choices and that you get to make a decision every year again, that we are building into this system a higher level of choice and therefore a guarantee of competition and quality that otherwise would not be the case. Now, the other thing that I want to say about this system is that affordable insurance should be there and should not be able to be taken away. That is why we want to make it illegal for rates to be raised unreasonably or for coverage to be dropped based on age or previous condition of illness. And we know that in order to do that and be fair to the private insurance companies, we have to let people be in large pools. That is, this is what all of you know as community rating. That is the only way you can guarantee that small businesses and selfemployed people and farmers, for example, through some sort of cooperative system, can have access to the same good rates that people in big business and Government do, still have community rating, not discriminate against the old, not discriminate against the worker who is had a sick child or a spouse with cancer, and not bankrupt the insurance companies. If they are going to be able to be a part of this, you have to have some system of community rating.


They put the control of the health care system of America back into the hands of the American people on the one hand and health care providers on the other. Today, the control is determined by the financing, and it is in the hands of the insurance companies. And very often they do what they do because of the way we are all organized and divided, so that even if they do not want to do something that has a harmful effect, the economics of their business dictate it because of the way the system is set up. We cannot permit that to go on anymore. The American people should have the power to choose. The American health care providers should have the power to deliver. But it should not be organized the way it is now so that the people who are providing the financing in the middle have all the control and themselves are in a position not to make it fairer for many people. We cannot have the security of millions of our people in jeopardy, with a system that they are basically satisfied with when they have it but which could vanish overnight. Medicare is one of the best things about American health care because it works and has very low administrative costs, providing health security for millions of older Americans. The question is, how do we keep Medicare healthy as our population gets older? The fastest growing group of Americans in percentage terms are people over 80-hope to be one of them before long. But how are we going to do that? How are we going to take care of our own as health care costs keep rising? We believe that we have to keep Medicare but that we have to recognize that the present system is heavily tilted toward institutionalized care which will not be necessary for some people and which will be explosively expensive as the percentage of our people living in higher age brackets goes higher and higher and higher. So our system, number one, covers prescription medicine along with Medicare, which Medicare does not do now-because we believe there is ample evidence that that keeps people healthier and will save money over the long run; a year's worth of medicine might cost the same thing as a day or two in a hospital-and secondly, by beginning to phasein a long-term care system where we give people some help for making noninstitutional choices, for keeping their parents at home or finding adult day care centers or having in-home care.


Because otherwise, you are looking at a population, by the turn of the century and the end of the first decade of the next century, which we simply cannot afford to maintain and would be bad for our country, unless we have more different options to deal with this rapidly aging population. So under our proposal, if you get Medicare you keep it, which also includes the doctor of your choice and medical security. We achieve some savings in the Medicare program by bringing the rate of inflation in Medicare down to twice the rate of normal inflation. When you hear there are all these cuts in Medicare, do not believe it. We are just going to bring the rate of inflation down to twice the normal rate of inflation and take those savings to pay for prescription medicine and to pay for the beginnings of a new and more comprehensive long-term care system. We cannot do anything to mess up health care security for older people. But we must strengthen it. Finally, I think we should guarantee these benefits at work. And this is, after all, among the organized folks the most controversial decision of all. Nine out of ten Americans who have private insurance get it at work. Eight out of ten Americans who do not have any insurance have someone in their family who works. Expanding the present system lets us reach out to most of the uninsured and is based on shared responsibility. It is the easiest and simplest way to accomplish the goal. You can never stop cost-shifting until everybody's got insurance. Consider this-I just mentioned welfare reform earlier-if we take a welfare mother with two little kids who says, I hate welfare, and I want to get off of it, and I want to support my children, and you give that fine person job training, and then the woman finds a job. And she goes to work for a small business at an entry-level pay slot, because she got a very limited education, and no health care benefits at the office. And that woman goes from getting a welfare check to getting a paycheck; she begins to pay taxes. She is now paying taxes for someone who made a different decision, who stayed on welfare to keep getting Medicaid, the Government-funded health care program for poor people, which she has given up to go to work. That, by the way, is the central reason that we are having some difficulty moving people from welfare to work. People do not want to hurt their children. Again, this is a system that no other country has.


So we have to find a way to do it. Now you say, well, but it is really tough on restaurants who have a lot of young people who are healthy and who do not want to pay for health insurance anyway. Or it is tough on people who have a lot of part-time workers. Some do and some do not ; UPS has over 100,000 part-time workers and insures them all. But you say, it is tough on businesses with part-time workers, and it is certainly tough on small businesses that are eking by. But that is why we reasoned that if we do this, we have to give substantial discounts for small businesses with low average payrolls, low profit margins, difficult times. And the self-employed, for the first time, under our bill, get 100 percent tax deductibility, not limited tax deductibility as they do now. These things will make this insurance more affordable, plus which, if small businesses and self-employed people are in larger pools, they will not be paying higher rates as they do now. One reason small business people have to either not cover their folks or reduce coverage every year is that the average small business premium is 35 percent higher than the average government premium or big business premium. And you cannot blame people for doing something in the face of those kinds of economics. Another reason is, as a restaurant owner told me-the other day I was in Columbus, Ohio, and this restaurant owner said to me, Look, I am getting the worst of all worlds. I have 20 employees full-time and 20 part-time. She says, I cover my 20 full-time employees. I do not cover the parttime employees. I feel guilty that I do not cover the part-time employees and mad that my competitors do not cover the full-time employees, and I am having to pay higher rates because we had one person, me, in our group of 20 that was sick. She said, I am getting the worst of all worlds, too high insurance, my competitors have an advantage because I am covering my employees and they are not covering theirs, and I feel just terrible that the part-timers do not get any insurance at all. She said, I would gladly do it all if everybody were treated the same way and we had access to competitive rates.


So I would argue that this is still the fairest and best way to make sure everyone is covered, discounts for smaller business, full deductibility for the self-employed, and a system which permits us to overcome the discrimination in rates that small business endures today. It uses what is right about the American system, the health care, and fixes what is wrong, the financing. It guarantees permanent private insurance, safeguards the right to choose a doctor and a plan, limits how much rates can be raised because of categories and makes it illegal for people to be dropped, protects and improves Medicare and the health care of senior citizens, and provides health benefits to the workplace. Now, the largest associations of America's family physicians, pediatricians, nurses, and pharmacists have supported this health care plan. Our approach was not designed to hurt anyone. It did have to make some difficult choices. It was designed for the American people. It was about giving life to our best values and dealing with one of our biggest problems. It was about giving families who work hard and do their best to raise their kids the security they deserve; stopping people from paying more because of the irresponsibility of others; stopping a situation in which 8 million older Americans, every month, who are not poor enough to be on the Medicaid program but are on Medicare and have to have medicine every month, 8 million, choosing between food and medicine. It was, in short, about dealing with a problem that is only going to get worse unless we fix it now and doing it in a way that does not interfere with what is finest about our health care system. It is about, ultimately, the freedom of the American people to be free from fear, the freedom to preserve choice, the freedom to preserve quality, and the freedom to grow and prosper into the 21st century, putting our values to work and believing that it is irrational to say that we cannot do something that our competitors have figured out how to do. That is why I think this year we will give every American the freedom that only real health care security can mean. I would encourage you to participate in this outreach, to respond to your communities, the people you honorably represent, not to agree with every jot and tittle of everything in the plan we have presented. If we involve thousands of people and work for months and we know how complicated this is, but the basic things we have to do are fairly simple and straightforward.


This week, we received encouraging reports that show our economy is gaining strength. Consumer confidence hit a 2-year high in July. Existing home sales hit an alltime new record in June. The homeownership rate has hit a new all-time high. And since last summer, our economy has grown at a rate as fast as any in nearly 20 years. These gains in our economy have come at a time when Americans are benefiting from the full effects of tax relief. I have traveled across America meeting small-business owners who are investing tax savings into new equipment, and I have met families who are using tax savings to pay for their children's needs. All of this added economic activity is creating opportunity. Since last August, Americans have started work at more than 1.5 million new jobs, many of them in high-growth, high-paying industries. The impact of our growing economy is being felt in Washington, where estimates of Government deficits are shrinking. My administration now forecasts that the combined deficits in 2004 and 2005 will be about $100 billion less than previously expected, and because of my policy of strengthening the economy while enforcing spending discipline in Washington, we remain on pace to reduce the deficit by half in the next 5 years. These are hopeful signs, and we must make sure our economy continues to gain momentum. Families are working hard to make ends meet, and these families depend on good policies in Washington that promote growth, new jobs, and new opportunities. Thanks to the No Child Left Behind Act, we are improving our public schools so students learn basic skills like reading, writing, math, and science. We have expanded Pell grant college scholarships so that more students can attend college, and we are helping community colleges train workers for the new high-skill jobs being created in our growing economy. We are giving individuals more control over their health care dollars through newly created health savings accounts, and we must also address the rising costs of health care by enacting commonsense reforms in our medical liability system. We must continue to open up foreign markets to American goods, because on a level playing field, American workers and farmers and entrepreneurs can compete with anybody, anytime, anywhere. We must enact reforms to our legal system so hard-working entrepreneurs are not run out of business by frivolous lawsuits. We must have a national energy policy so we become less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

The President's Radio Address


On Sunday, our Nation will observe the fourth anniversary of the September the 11th terrorist attacks. Every American has memories of that day that will never leave them. We remember the images of fire and terror at the Pentagon, in Pennsylvania, and in the heart of New York City. We remember the ruthlessness of those who murdered the innocent and took joy in their suffering. We remember the courage of the police and firefighters and rescue personnel who rushed into burning buildings to save lives, knowing they might never emerge. And we remember the victims, moms and dads, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and the loved ones they left behind. As night fell on America on September the 11th, 2001, we felt grief and great sorrow. Yet we also saw that while the terrorists could kill the innocent, they could not defeat the spirit of our Nation. The despair and tragedy of that day were overcome by displays of selflessness, courage, and compassion. And in the days and weeks that followed, America answered history's call to bring justice to our enemies and to ensure the survival and success of liberty. Four years later, Americans remember the fears and uncertainty and confusion of that terrible morning. But above all, we remember the resolve of our Nation to defend our freedom, rebuild a wounded city, and care for our neighbors in need. Today, America is confronting another disaster that has caused destruction and loss of life. This time the devastation resulted not from the malice of evil men but from the fury of water and wind. Hurricane Katrina flattened entire towns along our gulf coast and left one of America's most storied cities under water. Tens of thousands have lost homes and loved ones and all their earthly possessions. The storm took countless lives and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee from their communities, with no assurance of returning soon. Once more, our hearts ache for our fellow citizens, and many are left with questions about the future. Yet we are again being reminded that adversity brings out the best in the American spirit. In this time of great suffering, we have seen the courage and determination of rescue personnel who willingly risk their lives to save the lives of others. We have seen the spirit of America's armies of compassion who have rallied in response to this tragedy. Faith-based organizations and community groups and individual citizens across the country are caring for those affected by the storm and comforting those whose loved ones are lost or missing.

The President's Radio Address


And I am just delighted to be with you today to celebrate the work of those wonderful Americans we call Points of Light. And I think our First Lady is a Point of Light. So I salute her for what she is done in literacy and helping this country understand the importance of reading. There is another guy here who is been a personal Point of Light to me, and that is Gregg Petersmeyer, who many of you know. In a sense it was his dream and his dedication that made all this possible. I do not need to do it, but I will anyway. You said it all with your own lives. Tom Ehrlich of the Commission on National and Community Service, Dick Munro of the Points of Light Foundation, and Solon Cousins of the National Center for Community Risk Management and Insurance . Ray Chambers, what an inspiration he has been in this whole voluntarism concept; Pete McCloskey; also George Romney, who I hope is here with us today. What an honor it is to have Larnelle here, Larnelle Harris, for helping make this event so very special. Anybody that can get up without a pitch pipe or a band and do what he did, we have got to look them over and see what makes him tick. But I will tell you, his song said it all; his song got right to the heart. And I understand that he is just been nominated for his seventh Grammy Award. And Presidents ought not to do this, but I know who I am rooting for. But above all, Barbara and I wanted to come over and thank the Points of Light that we are honoring today. I know that many of them have gone to great efforts to get here. And lots of folks ask me about the phrase, Points of Light. And some say it is religion; others say, well, it is a patriotic theme, like the flag; and others think it is an image of hope. But I think that Points of Light are all of these things and yet still something more. It is what happens when ordinary people claim the problems of their community as their own. And it is the inspiration and awakening to the God-given light from within, lit from within, and it is the promise of America. We have got Points of Light here today from all 50 States, shining all the way from Anchorage to Harlem, Miami to Maine. Each of you here today knows what I mean by that. Each of you found within yourselves your own special genius for helping others.

Remarks at a Celebration of the Points of Light