- Iowa
Freedom
Summit « Donald
Trump
Transcript
Donald Trump
Iowa Freedom Summit
Hoyt-Sherman Place
Des Moines, Iowa
January 24, 2015
[DEMOCRACY IN ACTION
TRANSCRIPT | C-SPAN
Video]
...Thank you so much. That's so nice.
Isn't he a great
guy. He doesn't get a fair press; he doesn't get it. It's
just not fair. And I have to tell you I'm here, and very strongly
here, because I have great respect for Steve King and have great
respect likewise for
Citizens United, David and everybody, and tremendous resect for the Tea
Party. Also, also the people of Iowa. They have something
in
common. Hard-working people. They want to work, they want
to make the country
great. I love the people of Iowa. So that's the way it
is. Very simple.
With that said, our country is really headed in
the wrong
direction with a president who is doing an absolutely terrible
job. The world is collapsing around us, and many of the
problems we've caused. Our president is either grossly
incompetent, a word that more and more people are using, and I think I
was the first
to use it, or he has a completely different agenda than you want to
know about,
which could be possible. In any event, Washington is
broken, and our country is in serious trouble and total
disarray. Very simple. Politicians are all talk, no
action. They are all talk and no action. And it's
constant; it never ends.
And I'm a conservative, actually very
conservative, and I'm a
Republican. And I'm very disappointed by our Republican
politicians. Because they let the president get away with
absolute murder. You see always, oh we're going to do this, we're
going to--. Nothing ever happens; nothing ever happens.
You look
at Obamacare. A total catastrophe and by the way it really kicks
in in '16 and
it is going to be a disaster. People are closing up shops.
Doctors
are quitting the business. I have a friend of mine who's a
doctor, a very good doctor, a very successful guy. He said, I
have more accountants than I have patients. And he needs
because it is so complicated and so terrible and he's never had that
before and he's going to close up his
business. And he was very successful guy. But it's
happening more and
more.
Look at Obamacare with a $5 billion website.
I have
many websites, many, many websites. They're all over the
place. But for $10, okay?
Now everything about Obamacare was a lie. It
was a filthy lie. And when you think about it, lies, I mean are
they
prosecuted? Does anyone do anything? And what are the
Republican politicians doing about it? He lied about the doctor,
he lied about every
aspect. You can keep your plan. And you've all heard that
hundreds of times. That's like the real estate location,
location. I don't even say it anymore because everybody goes
location, location. But you have heard
this about Obamacare.
And it's disgraceful. It's a big, fat,
horrible
lie. Your deductibles are going through the roof. You're
not going to get--unless you're
hit by an army tank, you're not going to get coverage. And people
that had plans
that they loved, that they really loved, don't have those plans
anymore. So it's a real,
real disaster. And somebody has to repeal and replace
Obamacare. And they have to do it fast and not just talk about it.
Now, we have to build a fence. And it's got to be a beauty. Who can build better than Trump? I build; it's what I do. I build; I build nice fences, but I build great buildings. Fences are easy, believe me. I saw the other day on television people just walking across the border. They're walking. The military is standing there holding guns and people are just walking right in front, coming into our country. It is so terrible. It is so unfair. It is so incompetent. And we don't have the best coming in. We have people that are criminals, we have people that are crooks. You can certainly have terrorists. You can certainly have Islamic terrorists. You can have anything coming across the border. We don't do anything about it. So I would say that if I run and if I win, I would certainly start by building a very, very powerful border.
Again, the politicians talk about it and they do
nothing about it. Benghazi. Oh, Benghazi, Benghazi.
Everything is Benghazi. What happens? Nothing.
IRS, e-mails. I get sued all the time,
okay. I run a big business. You know I've always said it's
very, very hard for a person who is very successful. I have done
so many deals. Almost all of them have been tremendously
successful. You'll see that when I file my statements. I
mean you will see; you will be very proud of me, okay. But I've
always said, and I said it strongly, it's very hard for somebody that
does tremendous numbers of deals to run for politics, run for political
office, any office, let alone president. Because you've done so
much; you've beaten so many people; you've created so many--
Look, Obama, what did he do? No deal. He never did a
deal. He did one deal. A house. And if you did that
house you'd be in jail right now, okay. He got away with
murder. But I can tell you, e-mails. IRS, the e-mails,
thousands of them, they were lost; they were lost. If you were in
my world you would know that e-mails can't be lost; they can't be
lost. So why aren't our politicians finding out where those
e-mails are?
They talk about executive orders and they talk
about immigration and they talk about oh well we have to stop the
border; that's the end of it. Believe me if I did something you
would have a border that would be great. But they talk about
it. And then you have a president that does an executive
order. Nobody even heard of an executive order. He does it
to let people come in and nobody does anything about executive
orders. Why didn't they go to court and ask for declaratory
judgment--which is something that when you know somebody is going to go
after you and when it's in writing, and he's been saying it for a long
time; he said, I'm going to approve this and that--why didn't our
Republicans go in and get a declaratory judgment from the courts
because you could have started the process six months earlier.
Instead they have a weak lawsuit, that probably the time it's finished,
I know so much about this, six, seven, eight years from now everyone's
going to forget about it. We'll be into a different mode, and our
country will be further destroyed. So we have to do something.
Jobs. China. I mean I've made so much
money fighting against the Chinese. One of the best deals I ever
did was against the Chinese, and they respect me for it. And I
know them. And they say, we can't believe what we're getting away
with. We can't believe how stupid your leaders are. They
tell me that. Now they don't know I'm going to go and make a
speech about it, but why not. But they tell me that.
And by the way, especially for the folks here that
sell so much--goods, I mean the goods you sell are incredible; I don't
know if you've been watching what's happening with the devaluations of
so many countries. The Euro, China is going crazy with the
devaluation. I never thought that they'd have the guts to do what
they're doing. They are devaluing down to nothing. And what
it's going to do is make it impossible for you to sell your product;
it's going make it impossible for you to compete. And they're
getting away with it. And they wouldn't have even done it two
years ago, but now they feel we're so weak and we have so many
different problems all over the world that they can do it. But
you watch this devaluation of all of it. I mean the Euro, China,
Mexico; everybody is devaluing. And when you hear the dollar is
getting stronger, it sounds good. You know it's one of those
things, sounds good. Be very careful. Be very
careful. Because we're just going to lose more and more business
to these foreign countries that really know what they are doing.
They have it set. Don't forget another thing. China became
the number one economic power a year ago. That was unthinkable;
to think that that was going to happen. It was absolutely
unthinkable. So it happened and it's very, very sad.
Now we spent $2 trillion in Iraq. We got
nothing. They don't even respect us; they don't even care about
us. Until they started getting their ass kicked, and call, oh
please come back and help us. We want you out; then all of the
sudden a new group forms, ISIS. By the way, you know how they
formed. They took the oil. And for those of you that know
and love Donald Trump--there are some of you--have I been saying for
four years, keep the oil. So now ISIS has the oil. And the
stuff that ISIS doesn't have, Iran is going to take. So we get
nothing. We have $2 trillion and we have thousands of lives lost,
thousands, and we have, what do we have. I mean I walk down the
streets of New York and I see so many wounded warriors, incredible
people. And we have to help those people, we have to help our
vets, we have to help our military, we have to build our
military. But, and we have to do it fast; we have to do it
fast. We have incompetent people. They put people in charge
that have no clue what they're doing. It needs money.
We have to make our country rich again so we do
that, so we can save Social Security. 'Cause I'm not a cutter;
I'll probably be the only Republican that does not want to cut Social
Security. I'm not a cutter of Social Security; I want to make the
country rich so that Social Security can be afforded, and Medicare and
Medicaid. Get rid of the waste, get rid of the fraud, but you
deserve your Social Security; you've been paying your Security.
And like, I like Congressman Ryan, I like a lot of the people that are
talking about you know cutting Social Security, and by the way the
Democrats are eating your lunch on this issue. It's an issue that
you're not going to win; you've got to make the country rich again and
strong again so that you can afford it, and so you can afford military,
and all of the other things.
Now, we have a game changer now, and the game
changer is nuclear weapons. We really do have to get strong, and
we have to get strong fast. We can't let Iran get a nuclear
weapon. We can't do it. Can't do it. We cannot let
that happen. You know in the old days, I would have said 100
years ago, 50 years ago, 30 years ago, pull out and let them fight each
other.
Here we are in Syria. We're fighting people
that want to overturn Syria. Think of this. We're fighting
ISIS, but ISIS wants to overturn the government. Maybe you let
them fight for a little while and then you take out the one that
remains, okay. But think of it; think of it. ISIS is
fighting them and we are bombing the hell out of them, but we want
Syria to fall. There are so many things; there are so many
things.
But the one game changer that we have to be
careful with, that we never really had to think about too much
before, other than a cetain number of years ago, is the nuclear.
Nuclear today, it's not like soldiers in uniforms shooting
rifles. You can take out the East Coast of this country, you can
take out large sections of the Midwest, you can take out things that
were unthinkable. The power. And we have to be in a
position where that never, ever, ever, every happens. We've never
had this before.
We have a situation in Afghanistan; we're spending tremendous amounts of money there. We're trying to do the right thing. We have leadership, again--no leadership respects us. You know, leadership of other places never respect stupid people, okay, that's one thing you're going to find. The same thing is happening there. And I never knew that Afghanistan until a year ago or so, Afghanistan has tremendous wealth in minerals, different, not the oil, but minerals. And we're fighting here, and on the other side of the mountain China is taking out all the minerals. They're taking it out. Trillion of dollars and millions of dollars of minerals. So we're fighting here and they are taking it out, looking at us and saying thank you very much sucker. It's really, really crazy.
So we have to rebuild quickly our infrastructure
of this country. If we don't-- The other day in Ohio a
bridge collapsed. Bridges are collapsing all over the
country. The reports on bridges and the like are unbelievable,
what's happening with our infrastructure.
I go to Saudi Arabia, I go to Dubai; I am doing
big jobs in Dubai. I go to various different places. I go
to China. They are building a bridge on every corner. They
have bridges that make the George Washington Bridge like small time
stuff. They're building the most incredible things you have ever
seen. They are building airports in Qatar--which they like to say
"cutter" but I've always said "qatar" so I'll keep it "qatar" what the
hell. But they're building, they're building an airport and have
just completed an airport the likes of which you have never seen, in
Dubai an airport the likes of which you have never seen. And then
I come back to LaGuardia where the runways have potholes. The
place is falling apart. You go into the main terminal and they
have a terraza floor that's so old it's falling apart. And they
have a hole in it, and they replace it with asphalt. So you have
a white terraza floor and they put asphalt all over the place.
This is inside, not outside. And I just left Dubai where they
have the most incredible thing you've ever seen. In fact my pilot
said oh Mr. Trump this is such an honor. I said it's not an
honor; they're just smart. But you look at LAX, and you look at
Kennedy Airport, and you look at our airports generally, you look at
our roadways where they're crumbling.
You look at all of the things that are bad--
I'll give you an example. And this isn't part of what I was going to
say, but I ride down the highways and somebody makes those guard
rails. You know the guard rails. The ones that sort of go
like this [demonstrates with hand] that are always bent, rusted
and horrible. Did you ever see more than like 20 feet which isn't
corroded, or bent or the heat, if it gets too hot, it just
crushes. Now they've been selling this thing for 25 years.
Why doesn't someone stop them and get something that works.
Because they don't know; they don't know what's happening.
Somebody made a lot of money on that. They don't know what is
happening.
So we have to make our country great again.
We have to rebuild our country. And we have a long way to
go. We are just in such serious trouble because we owe so much
money. Now we owe it to the Chinese, a lot of it. We owe it
to other countries. They're the ones that hold the debt.
And then we give them money. We have countries that we owe money
to and yet we're giving them subsidies. I just ordered thousands
of television sets and between LG and Samsung and I mean you
know-- No American company comes to see and comes to bid.
It's South Korea, and whenever they have a problem we send the
battleships, we send the destroyers, we send our airplanes, we're going
to protect them. What are we doing; why aren't they paying
us? Why aren't they paying us; what are we doing? I order
thousands and thousands of sets all the time, for some reason it's
South Korea. You know whether it's China, South Korea, but in
this case televisions, South Korea. Why aren't they doing
something to justify what is going on?
Now, we have a very important election coming
up. We have a presidential election coming up. And we have some
good people. Nobody like Trump of course, but these are minor
details. We have some good people.
It' can't be Mitt because Mitt ran and
failed. He failed. I mean I liked him. Look--like
him, dislike him--the 47% statement that he made, that's not going
away. The Romneycare from Massachusetts, that's not going
away. What do you think they're going to say oh we won't bring
that up this time. It's not fair because it was a long t--
That doesn't work. But more importantly, he choked.
Something happened to him in the last month. He had that election
won. And let me tell you something. That election, sort of
like a dealmaker that can't close the deal. I know many of those
guys; they get it up to the one-yard line, they go ah, ah I can't close
it. Or a golfer that can't sink the three-footer to win the
tournament. And there are many of them. Most people are
like that; I mean most people are like that. You can't give
somebody another chance, 'cause actually I think this election is
tougher to win than beating a failed president. I really
do. I think beating Obama would have been a much easier one than
the one that's coming up, which is sad to say but true. So you
can't have Romney. He choked.
You can't have Bush. The last thing we need
is another Bush. Now I made that statement very strongly, and now
every one says the last thing-- You know they copied it.
I'll be accused of copying the statement; that's the bad thing.
But I said it. I was the one that said it first, and I mean
it. The last thing we need is another Bush. Now, he's
totally in favor of Common Core; that's a disaster, that's bad, it
should be local and all of that. But he's totally in favor of
Common Core. He's very, very weak on immigration. Don't
forget--remember his statement--they come for love. I say,
what? Come for love? You've got these people coming, half
of them are criminals. They're coming for love? They're
coming for a lot of other reasons, and it's not love. And when he
runs, you got to remember his brother really gave us Obama. I was
never a big fan, but his brother gave us Obama. 'Cause Abraham
Lincoln coming home back from the dead could not have won the election
because it was going so badly and the economy was just absolutely in
shambles that last couple of months. And then he appointed
Justice Roberts. And Jeb wanted Justice Roberts. And
Justice Roberts basically approved Obamacare in a shocking decision
that nobody believes. So you can't have Jeb Bush. And he's
going to lose aside from that; he's not going to win. So Mitt
and--you just can't have those two. That's it. That's
it. It's so simple.
So just in summing up and I just wrote a few of
these little points down because it's very important. And I watch
these teleprompters, and by the way I think any president candidate
that runs should not be allowed to use a teleprompter, because we got
one that uses teleprompters. And people say, oh he is so quick on
his feet. He is reading it. I mean give me a break.
Everything is read. You don't really test the mettle of a man or
a woman unless they can get up on stage and talk. And that's what
we ended up getting--the king of teleprompters. But, so when I
look at these things here I say you know what, it's so much easier, it
would be so nice, just bah, pa, bah, pa, bah, bing, bing, bing.
No problems, get off stage, everybody falls asleep and that's the end
of that. But we have to do something about these
teleprompters.
But in looking at these situations-- I built
an incredible company. And you'll see that. An incredible
company; a wonderful company. I employ thousands of people and I
love doing what I'm doing. And in a certain way, I wish I weren't
doing this, but our country is in such trouble and would be so easy to
fix. We have such great potential.
So if I run for president and if I win, I would
totally succeed in:
creating jobs;
defeating ISIS and stopping the Islamic
terrorists--and you have to do that;
reducing the budget deficit--so important, have to
do it;
securing our Southern border--and I mean seriously
securing it;
stopping nuclear weapons in Iran and elsewhere;
saving Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,
without cutting it down to the bone because it's not fair to people
that have been paying for their whole lives and other people and it's
not fair to future people coming up, and we can do it;
repealing Obamacare and replacing it with
something far better for the people, and far less expensive, both for
the people and for the country. And believe me there are plans
that are so much better for everybody. And everybody can be
covered. I'm not saying leave 50-percent of the people out.
Everybody can be c-- This plan is just a basic disaster. Nobody
knows. As bad as the website was, this is how bad the plan itself
is;
fixing our country's infrastructure, our bridges,
our schools, our highways, our airports. And that, I can tell
you, nobody is close to Trump. I just got the best hotel in North
America. I'm building, which is sort of interesting, think of
this one. I'm building one of the great hotels of the world on
Pennsylvania Avenue, right opposite the White House, between the White
House and Congress. Right on Penn.-- The Old Post
Office site, and I got it from Obama. Do you believe that?
And everybody wanted it. So, I can't believe it myself. But
it's going to be fantastic;
and so many other things.
I know what needs to be done to make America great
again. We can make this country great again. The potential
is enormous. And I am serious thinking of running for president
because I can do the job.
Thank you all very much. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much,
everybody. Thank you. Beautiful. Thank you.
###
Transcript © 2015 Eric M. Appleman/Democracy in Action.