June 22, 2016

Donald J. Trump Addresses the Stakes of the Election

Today, Donald J. Trump spoke at his property, Trump SoHo in New York, NY. During his speech, Mr. Trump took strong positions to end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C., to fix our country after it lost its way when we stopped putting America First and how the stakes in November are bigger than ever before - a Trump Administration will put America First. A transcript of the remarks can be viewed via the link below:

Donald J. Trump on the Stakes of the Election

Today I‘d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this election.

People have asked me why I am running for President.

I have built an amazing business that I love and I get to work side-by-side with my children every day.

We come to work together and turn visions into reality.

We think big, and then we make it happen.

I love what I do, and I am grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it.

So when people ask me why I am running, I quickly answer: I am running to give back to this country which has been so good to me.

When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton – only by me.

The fact is, we can come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before --Jobs, jobs, jobs!

Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created them.

We will never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who rigged it in the first place.

The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money.

That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders’ voters to join our movement: so together we can fix the system for ALL Americans. Importantly, this includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals.

Because it’s not just the political system that’s rigged. It’s the whole economy.

It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep down wages.

It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the U.S. with absolutely no consequences for them.

It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools.

It’s rigged against you, the American people.

Hillary Clinton who, as most people know, is a world class liar –

just look at her pathetic email and server statements, or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack but the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total self-serving lie.

Brian Williams’ career was destroyed for saying far less.

Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses. But here is the bottom line: I started off in Brooklyn New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business worth over 10 billion dollars. I have always had a talent for building businesses and, importantly, creating jobs. That is a talent our country desperately needs.

I am running for President to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first.

We are going to put America First, and we are going to Make America Great again.



This election will decide whether we are ruled by the people, or by the politicians.

Here is my promise to the American voter:

If I am elected President, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C.

The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests – and taking money from special interests.

Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and theft.

She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund – doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others, in exchange for cash.

Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests – in less than 2 years – secret speeches that she does not want to reveal to the public.

Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs, and foreign governments in the years since 2001.

They totally own her, and that will never change.

The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests, or surrendering our last scrap of independence to their total and complete control.

Those are the stakes.

Hillary Clinton wants to be President. But she doesn't have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders' said, the judgement, to be president.

She believes she is entitled to the office.

Her campaign slogan is “I’m with her.”

You know what my response to that is? I’m with you: the American people.

She thinks it’s all about her.

I know it’s all about you – I know it’s all about making America Great Again for All Americans.



Our country lost its way when we stopped putting the American people first.

We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism – focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class – to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy.

We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed.

This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats.

This is a wave of globalization that wipes out our middle class and our jobs.

We need to reform our economic system so that, once again, we can all succeed together, and America can become rich again.

That’s what we mean by America First.

Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to our shores.

Our Founders understood this.

One of the first major bills signed by George Washington called for “the encouragement and protection of manufactur[ing]” in America.

Our first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying:

“The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.”

I have visited the cities and towns across America and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton.

Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton’s disastrous NAFTA, just like she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.

We’ve lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.

Our trade deficit with China soared 40% during Hillary Clinton’s time as Secretary of State -- a disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.

Then she let China steal hundreds of billions of dollars in our intellectual property – a crime which is continuing to this day.

Hillary Clinton gave China millions of our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself.

In return, Hillary Clinton got rich!

The book Clinton Cash, by Peter Schweitzer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America’s expense.

She gets rich making you poor.

Here is a quote from the book: “At the center of US policy toward China was Hillary Clinton…at this critical time for US-china relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters.”

These funds were paid to the Clinton bank account while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States.

She sold out our workers, and our country, for Beijing.

Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas – and give up Congressional power to an international foreign commission.

Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she is pretending that she is against it. She has even deleted this record of total support from her book – deletion is something she is very good at -- (at least 30,000 emails are missing.)

But this latest Clinton cover-up doesn’t change anything: if she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership, and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She will do this, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career – and it will be even worse than the Clintons’ NAFTA deal.

I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and our workers.

We don't make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president.



It’s not just our economy that’s been corrupted, but our foreign policy too.

The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions of dollars – and unleashed ISIS across the world.

No Secretary of State has been more wrong, more often, and in more places than Hillary Clinton.

Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched.

Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed -- that's right, when the phone rang at 3 o'clock in the morning, she was sleeping.

Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security.

Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.

She started the war that put him in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die.

To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.

Here is what one of the victim’s mothers had to say:

“I want the whole world to know it: she lied to my face, and you don’t want this person to be president.”

In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world.

Libya was cooperating.

Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence.

Syria was under control.

Iran was being choked by sanctions.

Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty with Israel.

ISIS wasn’t even on the map.

Fast forward to 2013: In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed

to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East.

Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to the ISIS barbarians.

Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.

Hillary Clinton’s support for violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen – while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West.

She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control, but Clinton has opened the Pandora’s box of radical Islam.

Then, there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure date from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS killers.

ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made.

ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East, and peaceful Muslims across the world, who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality – and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety.

In short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another.

It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the War in Iraq in the first place.

Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war, and yes, even before the war ever started.

But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq, because when she got into power, she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya.

She lacks the temperament, the judgment and the competence to lead.

In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office:

“She simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office…from the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true…Her leadership style – volcanic, impulsive…disdainful of the rules set for everyone else – hasn’t changed a bit.”

Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by Radical Islam.

In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that's an increase over President Obama's already very high number.

Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.

Already, hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the U.S.

The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the most repressive anti-gay and anti-women regimes on Earth.

I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.

Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death.

Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department.

Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency.

Here is some more of what we learned from the book, Clinton Cash:

  • A foreign telecom giant faced possible State Department sanctions for providing technology to Iran, and other oppressive regimes. So what did this company do? For the first time ever, they decided to pay Bill Clinton $750,000 for a single speech. The Clintons got their cash, the telecom company escaped sanctions.
  • Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while 9 investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.
  • Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access – even though he had no national security credentials.
  • Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was Secretary of State – plus millions more for her foundation. The Sultan of Brunei has pushed oppressive Sharia law, including the punishment of death by stoning for being gay. The government of Brunei also stands to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of Hillary’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she would absolutely approve if given the chance.
  • Hillary Clinton took up to $25 million from Saudi Arabia, where being gay is also punishable by death.
  • Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and LGBT citizens.

To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.

Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.

Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted.

While we may not know what is in those deleted emails, our enemies probably do.

So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be President of the United States.

This fact alone disqualifies her from the Presidency.

We can’t hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies.



National security is also immigration security – and Hillary wants neither.

Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States.

She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States

The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African-American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They are the ones she will hurt the most.

Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Ann Mendoza.

She lost her amazing son, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of the open borders policies supported by Hillary Clinton.

Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate.

Here is an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza’s letter:

“Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harms’ way – an open door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country. Hillary is not concerned about you or I, she is only concerned about the power the presidency would bring to her. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes she has already committed against this country.”

Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions to resettle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration.

For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.

Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work. She can’t claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage workers to compete against them.



Here are a few things a Trump Administration will do for America in the first 100 days:

  •  Appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution. Hillary Clinton’s radical judges will virtually abolish the 2nd amendment.
  • Change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good-paying jobs
  • Stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many
  • Cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas
  • Lift restrictions on energy production
  • Repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare -- it is a disaster.
  • Pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs.
  • Impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the Office of Secretary of State.

There is one common theme in all of these reforms.

It’s going to be America First.



This is why the stakes in November are so great.

On election day, the politicians stand trial before the people.

The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don’t need or want another Clinton or Obama.

Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity, and sold out their country.

They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.

Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that can’t change.

My message is that things have to change – and this is our one chance do it. This is our last chance to do it.

Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams, and so much more.

Then we started thinking small.

We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people, and other institutions.

We lost our sense of purpose, and daring.

But that’s not who we are.

Come this November, we can bring America back – bigger and better, and stronger than ever.

We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet earth – the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow.

Our military will have the best technology and finest equipment – we will bring it back all the way.

Massive new factories will come roaring into our country – breathing life and hope into our communities.

Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally be rebuilt.

Construction is what I know -- nobody knows it better.

The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years -- but these wages will start going up, along with the new jobs. Hillary’s massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone.

We are also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement -- we can never forget the great job they do.

I am also going to appoint great Supreme Court Justices.

Our country is going to start working again.

People are going to start working again.

Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again – including parents in our inner cities.

Americans are going to start believing in the future or our country.

We are going to make America rich again.

We are going to make America safe again.

We are going to make America Great Again – and Great Again For EVERYONE.



“I’m With You”: What They Are Saying About Mr. Trump’s “Blistering” Clinton Speech

“Donald Trump Blasted Hillary Clinton’s ‘I’m With Her’ Slogan, Saying His Response Is, ‘I’m With You, The American People.’”



ABC News’ Tom Llamas: “Trump Gets Standing O After Contrasting [Clinton] Slogan ‘I'm With Her’ [With] His Belief ‘I'm With [You], The American People.’” (Tom Llamas,Twitter Feed, 6/22/16)


Daily Caller: “Donald Trump Blasted Hillary Clinton’s ‘I’m With Her’ Slogan, Saying His Response Is, ‘I’m With You, The American People.’” (Steve Guest, “Trump Goes After Hillary’s ‘I’m With Her’ Slogan: ‘I’m With You, The American People,” Daily Caller, 6/22/16)


Daily Caller Headline: “Trump Goes After Hillary’s ‘I’m With Her’ Slogan: ‘I’m With You, The American People’” (Daily Caller, 6/22/16)


NBC News’ Katy Tur: “Trump Hits Clinton Slogan ‘I'm With Her’ -- His? ‘I'm With You.’ It’s (The) Core Of His Message: He's Repping The Voters, She's Repping Washington.”(Katy Tur, Twitter Feed, 6/22/16)


Commentary’s Noah Rothman: “That's A Good Line.”Rothman Tweet: “That's a good line. Trump contrasts HRC slogan ‘I'm with her’ by contending ‘I'm with you.’”(Noah Rothman Twitter Feed, 6/22/16)


Fox News: “Donald Trump Delivered A Blistering Attack Wednesday On Hillary Clinton's Record…”“Donald Trump delivered a blistering attack Wednesday on Hillary Clinton's record as secretary of state, accusing the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee of milking oppressive regimes of tens of millions of dollars to benefit the Clinton Foundation -- while sleeping through her own ‘3 a.m. phone call’ as terrorists were murdering four Americans in Libya, including Ambassador Chris Stevens.”(“Trump Hammers Clinton Foreign Policy Record, Foundation Donations,” Fox News, 6/22/16)


Fox News Headline: “Trump Hammers Clinton Foreign Policy Record, Foundation Donations”(Fox News, 6/22/16)


The New York Times: Trump “Delivered A Scathing Attack On Hillary Clinton’s Record…”“Donald J. Trump delivered a scathing attack on Hillary Clinton’s record on Wednesday, accusing her of being a ‘world-class liar’ and incompetent while trying to lay out a positive vision for America in a major speech intended to put his sputtering presidential campaign back on the offensive.”(Alan Rappeport, “Donald Trump Returns Fire, Calling Hillary Clinton A ‘World-Class Liar’,” The New York Times, 6/22/16)


CBS News: “Donald Trump Delivered A Blistering Rebuke Of Hillary Clinton…” “Donald Trump delivered a blistering rebuke of Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, attacking her actions as President Obama's secretary of state and what she did as a U.S. senator and first lady.”(Rebecca Shabad, “Donald Trump Assails ‘Incompetent’ Hillary Clinton In Fiery Speech,”CBS News, 6/22/16)


CBS News Headline: “Donald Trump Assails ‘Incompetent’ Hillary Clinton In Fiery Speech”(CBS News, 6/22/16)


Time: Trump’s “Attacks Were As Barbed As Ever.” “In a speech at the Trump Soho in New York, the presumptive Republican nominee attacked Clinton’s record on foreign policy and trade, arguing that her decisions were made on self-interest and unduly influenced by foreign governments. … But while his delivery was more restrained, his attacks were as barbed as ever.” (Tessa Berenson, “Donald Trump Accuses Hillary Clinton Of Corruption As Secretary Of State,” Time, 6/22/16)


USA Today: “Donald Trump Pulled Few Punches… In His Long-Planned Speech Blasting Hillary Clinton…”“Donald Trump pulled few punches — not that he's known for doing so — in his long-planned speech blasting Hillary Clinton on everything from Iraq to Benghazi to, well, everything.” (Cooper Allen, “5 Most Explosive Attacks Trump Leveled Against Clinton,” USA Today, 6/22/16)


ABC News: Trump “Blasted Hillary Clinton...”“Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump today blasted Hillary Clinton as a ‘world-class liar,’ saying she ‘may be the most corrupt person ever’ to run for president.” (John Santucci, Candace Smith, Paola Chavez And Veronica Stracqualursi, “Donald Trump Slams Hillary Clinton As A 'World-Class Liar',” ABC News, 6/22/16)


ABC News Headline: “Donald Trump Slams Hillary Clinton As A 'World-Class Liar'” (ABC News, 6/22/16)


Bloomberg: “A Sharply Critical Speech…” “Donald Trump tied presidential rival Hillary Clinton to the ‘rigged economy,’ the rise of the Islamic State and government corruption in a sharply critical speech on Wednesday in Manhattan.” (Kevin Cirilli, “Donald Trump Outlines His Case Against Hillary Clinton,” Bloomberg, 6/22/16)


Los Angeles Times Headline: “Donald Trump Delivers Broadside Against Hillary Clinton: ‘She Gets Rich Making You Poor’”(Los Angeles Times, 6/22/16)


The Week Headline: “Donald Trump Tears Into Hillary Clinton During Attack Speech”(The Week, 6/22/16)


Fortune: “Donald Trump Promised Us A Speech On Hillary Clinton’s Past, And On Wednesday, He Didn’t Disappoint.”(Chris Matthews, “Trump Accuses Clinton Of Helping China In Return For Cash,” Fortune, 6/22/16)



Rapid Response

ED. The Clinton side's rapid response to this speech was a bit overwhelming.  The pro-Clinton Correct The Record send out 14 emails over a period of about 5 1/2 hours:

8:01 am
MEMORANDUM: Donald Trump's 'Major Speech'

10:54 am
TRUMP’S SHADY CAREER SHOWS HIS TRUE COLORS

11:04 am
TRUMP LIES: TRUMP LIES ABOUT RECEIVING A “SMALL LOAN” FROM HIS FATHER

11:05 am
FACT CHECK: DONALD TRUMP’S ECONOMIC POLICIES WOULD COST THE COUNTRY NEARLY 3.5 MILLION JOBS

11:07 am
TRUMP KNOWS A THING OR TWO ABOUT OUTSOURCING

11:11 am
Gary Byrne was Not Charged with Directly Protecting the President, Which Makes the Claims of What He Saw Highly Suspect

11:15 am
TRUMP CRITICIZING HIMSELF? HE THINKS WAGES ARE “TOO HIGH”

11:18 am
TRUMP LIES ABOUT BEING “TOTALLY AGAINST” THE IRAQ WAR

11:20 am
Fact Check: Donald Trump’s False Claim on Russian Uranium Deal

11:24 am
TRUMP LIES: DONALD TRUMP LIED ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON’S PLAN FOR ADMITTING SYRIAN REFUGEES

11:25 am
TRUMP LIES ABOUT HILLARY CLINTON’S RESPONSE TO BENGHAZI

11:28 am
FACT CHECK: DONALD TRUMP WRONGFULLY CLAIMS THAT CLINTON’S EMAIL SERVER WAS HACKED

1:16 pm
DONALD TRUMP’S LIE-A-PALOOZA

1:35 pm
CTR Statement on Donald Trump's Speech of Lies

________________________________________________________________

Correct The Record [pro-Clinton]

TO: Interested Parties
FROM: David Brock, Founder of Correct The Record
RE: Donald Trump’s “Major Speech”
DATE: June 22, 2016

Trump’s Slow Motion Meltdown

Donald Trump’s presidential campaign is melting down.

It started on May 19th, when CNN reported that, in 2006, Trump had said he hoped that the housing market would fail “because then people like me would go in and buy.” The story marked the beginning of a series of self-inflicted wounds and devastating revelations about Trump's past that paralyzed his campaign. A week later, Trump attacked New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez, the most prominent Republican Latina politician in the country and the leader of the Republican Governors Association, for her poor performance as governor. The New York Times called the comments "a rocky start" to the general election and Republican leaders like Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker strongly defended Martinez from Trump’s attacks.

The next week, U.S. Judge Gonzalo Curiel, the presiding judge in the Trump University lawsuit, released court documents showing that former Trump U employees called the business a predatory “fraudulent scheme” and a “lie.” Under fire for allegedly defrauding hundreds of former students, Trump responded with a series of racist and incendiary attacks against Judge Curiel. Trump insisted that Curiel’s “Mexican heritage” (he was born in Indiana) made him biased, called the judge a “hater” and ominously suggested that “they ought to look into Judge Curiel.”

The comments have fueled a crisis in the Republican Party. In early June, Republican Senator Mark Kirk (IL) announced he would no longer support Trump. The party’s top two elected officials denounced the comments. House Speaker Paul Ryan called Trump’s remarks “racist.” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell even suggested he may withdraw his support from the presumptive Republican nominee. And a number of Senators continue to refuse to endorse him, including up-and-coming Republicans like Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, Nebraska Senator Ben Sasse and Arizona Senator Jeff Flake. There is now even open discussion about a “delegate revolt” against Trump at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland.  

The loss of support among Republican elected officials comes at the worst possible time for the Trump campaign. Recent reporting has revealed the campaign remains a top-down, one-man show, that promotes Trump products and financially benefits the candidate and his companies to the tune of at least $6.2 million. As of the end of May, the campaign has less cash on hand than the top 50 House campaigns and remains skeletal, lacking even the most basic infrastructure needed to run a general election. There is no real data team or field operation and few or no staff in many key battleground states. RNC staff members charged with leading outreach to black and Hispanic voters have both resigned in the past few months. Trump himself admitted the campaign would be unable to meet his fundraising goals. On top of all of that, the epic power struggle between Trump senior advisor Paul Manafort and campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, in part, led to Trump’s firing of Lewandowski on Monday.

Even the campaign’s attempt to “pivot” on June 9th was an unmitigated disaster. As his family painfully watched at his side, Trump used a teleprompter to give the worst speech of his campaign. As former Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm memorably described it, Trump was “low energy.” It was a bad night for Donald Trump—but somewhere Jeb Bush must have been smiling.

Today’s Speech
Here is what we know about this morning: Trump will be depending on widely-discredited sources like right-wing books Clinton Cash, which was panned by many for a lack of evidence and many errors, and Crisis of Character, which has been denounced by Secret Service veterans because the author was too low-ranking to have seen any of what he claims. Trump will also lie about Hillary Clinton today as he has lied about her before. There have been at least a dozen fact checks calling out Trump for lying about Clinton—on the issues, on the polls and on Benghazi. You name it; he’s lied about it.

Trump asserted that Hillary Clinton “started” the birther movement, resulting in Four Pinocchios from The Washington Post, a “False” from PolitiFact, and being called “false” by FactCheck.org. He claimed Clinton “doesn’t do very well with women,” earning a Pants on Fire from PolitiFact. He earned another pair of Pants on Fire for saying Clinton wants to “release the violent criminals from jail” and that “she wants them all released.” FactCheck.org said Trump “distorts the facts” when he claimed Clinton wanted “to abolish the Second Amendment.” Trump has repeatedly lied about Clinton’s leadership during the Benghazi tragedy, claiming that she decided to “go home and sleep” during the attacks and ignored hundreds of calls for help from U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens. The comments have earned Trump Pinocchios and a “no evidence” rating. (For more Trump Lies, visit trumplies.com)

Trump is also a practiced conspiracy theorist who recently reached a new low. He was a leading voice in the birther movement and, earlier this year, peddled tales about Ted Cruz’s father’s involvement in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Incredibly, following the Orlando attack that killed 49 Americans last week, Trump insinuated President Obama sympathizes with terrorists. In interviews the day after the shooting, Trump suggested about Obama: "maybe he doesn't want to know about it…there are many people that think maybe he doesn't want to get it." He also warned "there's something going on" with Obama because he refused to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism.”

The corrupt, unscrupulous Donald Trump is in no position to question the ethics of others.  Allegations about Trump U by his own staff continue to dog Trump’s campaign. Newspaper editorial boards called for investigations into reports that Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi accepted a $25,000 donation from Trump around the time she declined to investigate Trump U in 2013. Wrote Miami Herald columnist Fred Grimm, “When Donald Trump buys himself an attorney general, he gets his money’s worth.” Further, the Trump Foundation has been accused of operating as a political slush fund rather than a charity. He has tried to make money off of dictators, worked with shady foreign governments and done business with gangsters. Throughout his career, Trump has both sought to curry favor with sworn enemies of the United States and surrounded himself with convicted criminals.

Here are just a few examples:
  • Donald Trump sought to do business with notorious Libyan dictator Muammar al-Qaddafi. “Overlooking terrorism that killed Americans, including the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, Donald Trump sought investment partnerships with Muammar al-Qaddafi and the Libyan regime. He rented his Westchester estate to the dictator, tried to set up a face-to-face meeting, and took the Libyan ambassador golfing.” [Buzzfeed, 6/7/16]

  • Donald Trump did business in Azerbaijan with the son of a notoriously corrupt official suspected of laundering money for Iran.  “Six months before he entered the presidential race, Donald Trump announced a new real estate project in Baku, Azerbaijan. His partner was the son of a government minister suspected by U.S. diplomats of laundering money for Iran’s military and described as ‘notoriously corrupt.’” [AP, 6/4/16]

  • Donald Trump’s top aide and his lobbying firm have represented dictators, guerilla groups, and despots with no regard for human rights. Top Trump aide Paul Manafort and his lobbying firm have represented “dictators, guerilla groups, and despots with no regard for human rights—including one man responsible for mass amputations, and another who oversaw state-sanctioned rape.”  According to the Daily Beast, “Manafort and the partners at his firm made a fortune repping some of the most despicable dictators of the 20th century.” [“Top Trump Aide Led the ‘Torturers’ Lobby,’” Daily Beast, 4/13/16]

  • Donald Trump was “eager” to meet with Vladimir Putin, and he and his family have traveled to Russia to pursue numerous business opportunities in the country since the 1980s. “Trump was especially eager for the presence of another honored guest: Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump tweeted Putin a personal invitation to attend the pageant, and a one-on-one meeting between the New York businessman and the Russian leader was scheduled for the day before the show. Putin canceled at the last minute, but he sent a decorative lacquered box, a traditional Russian gift, and a warm note, according to Aras Agalarov, a Moscow billionaire who served as a liaison between Trump and the Russian leader. […] Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities, and they have relied on Russian investors to buy their properties around the world.” [Washington Post, 6/17/16]

  • Donald Trump has been involved in development deals with convicted criminals at least twice. “At least twice, Trump has been involved in development deals with convicted criminals. In 2001, Trump announced he was partnering with developer Leib Waldman to build a massive condo and hotel tower in Toronto. Two months later, Canadian newspapers revealed that Waldman had fled the United States after pleading guilty to bankruptcy fraud in the mid-1990s. His extradition sent the project into a tailspin. […] In the early years of the last decade, Trump also struck an alliance with Bayrock Group LLC, an upstart property development firm that had recently moved into the Trump Tower. As a partner, Bayrock didn't have much of a track record. The firm was created in July 2001. Its two top officials were Tevfik Arif, a former Soviet hospitality minister whose previous development experience had been in Turkey, and Felix Satter. Digging into the background of Satter wouldn't have turned up much because Satter did not actually exist. But a man with a similarly spelled name, Felix Sater, had been sentenced to prison for stabbing a man in the face with a broken margarita glass and barred for life from selling securities.” [AP, 6/4/16]

  • Donald Trump’s purported mentor was a lawyer for the mafia. New York lawyer Roy Cohn had “a long, formidable list [of clients] that included the executives of media empires, the Archbishop of New York and mafia kingpin Fat Tony Salerno, and there, too, near the top, was budding, grasping Donald John Trump. ‘He considered Cohn a mentor,’ Mike Gentile, the lead prosecutor who got Cohn disbarred for fraud and deceit not long before he died, said in a recent interview.” [Politico, 4/8/16]

  • Donald Trump hired an indicted drug trafficker to fly high rollers around Atlantic City. “Trump’s casinos retained [Joseph] Weichselbaum’s firm to fly high rollers to Atlantic City. Weichselbaum was indicted in Ohio on charges of trafficking in marijuana and cocaine. The head of one of Trump’s casinos was notified of the indictment in October 1985, but Trump continued using Weichselbaum—conduct that again could have cost Trump his casino license had state regulators pressed the matter, because casino owners were required to distance themselves from any hint of crime.”  [Politico, 5/22/16]

  • Donald Trump retained a senior advisor though it was known the man was linked to a major mafia-linked stock fraud scheme. “Donald Trump tapped a man to be a senior business adviser to his real-estate empire even after the man's past involvement in a major mafia-linked stock fraud scheme had become publicly known, according to Associated Press interviews and a review of court records.” [AP, 12/4/15]

If there is anyone who is corrupt, it is Donald Trump. This is the man who rented his land to the infamous, terror-supporting dictator Mummar al-Qaddafi and wanted a meeting with this dictator to discuss other business opportunities. Throughout his career, he has had friends and business associates who were suspected money launderers, associated with the mafia and indicted on charges of drug trafficking.

Trump’s campaign is in a tailspin, and he’s lied about Clinton so many times it is hard to keep track. He is trying to distract from the mess in his own backyard. This man is a fraud who stops at nothing—not even trying to do business with a terrorist-supporting dictator—to enrich himself. Nothing he says today, tomorrow, or in the months to come can change that fact.


*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE*                                                  
Wednesday, June 22, 2016           

CONTACT: Correct The Record

Elizabeth Shappell / Lizzy Price

CTR STATEMENT ON DONALD TRUMP’S SPEECH OF LIES

Washington, D.C.--Today, in a speech filled with conspiracy theories, lies and debunked claims, Donald Trump attacked Hillary Clinton and the Clinton Foundation. Correct The Record President Brad Woodhouse released the following statement on Trump’s speech:

“This morning, a desperate and unhinged Donald Trump tried to revive his sinking campaign with decades-old gossip, debunked lies and references to widely discredited books from disreputable authors,” said Correct The Record President Brad Woodhouse. “Today’s speech was just the latest skirmish in Trump’s life-long war with the truth.  The Trump strategy is clear: lie, lie and if that doesn’t work, lie some more.

“With his campaign in free fall, Trump is clinging to outlandish and debunked conspiracy theories and a right-wing playbook to smear Clinton. It hasn’t worked before, and it won’t work now. It’s laughable that Trump, who worked alongside convicted criminals, gangsters and foreign dictators, is now trying to remake himself as a crusader against corruption. The fact is, Donald Trump is a cheat and a fraud who will say and do anything to distract voters from his own record of lies and failure. With each day, Trump exposes himself more and more as a second-rate con-man who will stop at nothing to gain power.  All we really learned today other than the fact that Donald Trump is a serial liar is that he can read.”


Correct The Record is a strategic research and rapid response team designed to defend Hillary Clinton from baseless attacks.


Correct The Record ∙ http://correctrecord.org/Facebook@CorrectRecord

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Hillary for America

Fact Check: 15 Biggest Lies in Trump's Speech Attacking Hillary Clinton

In his speech attacking Hillary Clinton Wednesday, Donald Trump -- Politifact's reigning 'Liar of the Year' -- resorted to a litany of hypocritical attacks, nutty conspiracy theories and outright lies.

Many of the most outrageous attacks were long ago discredited by independent fact checkers, but Trump is still peddling them.

Here is a breakdown of 15 of Trump's biggest lies about Clinton in his Wednesday speech:

LIE: “Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds of requests for security. Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all.”
FACT CHECK: Trump made a similar allegation before, and the Washington Post Fact Checker called it a “whopper.”

LIE: “Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth – with no way to screen who they are or what they believe.”
FACT CHECK: Hillary Clinton has called for being “vigilant in screening and vetting refugees from Syria.” Moreover, Politifact has rated the claim that there was no way to screen refugees from the Middle East as “false.”  

LIE: “For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.”
FACT CHECK:  To date, the only financial commitment Hillary Clinton has specified along these lines is $15 million to broadly support the integration of immigrants, including refugees. And an independent analysis of the potential cost associated with resettling an additional 70,000 refugees--as Clinton proposed last year--has pegged the price tag at $582 million. By comparison, the cost to rebuild the city ofDetroit alone is $1.25 billion, according to the city's emergency manager.

LIE: “Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East, and on the road to nuclear weapons.”
FACT CHECK: Politifact rated the claim that Iran is on the road to nuclear weapons “false,” saying, “the terms of the deal expressly forbid pursuing a militarized nuclear program.”

LIE: “Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20% of America’s uranium holdings to Russia, while 9 investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation.”
FACT CHECK: According to Factcheck.org, “the author of ‘Clinton Cash’ falsely claimed Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State had ‘veto power and ‘could have stopped’ Russia from buying a company with extensive uranium mining operations in the U.S.” In fact, the State Department was just one member of a nine-agency panel that reviewed this transaction. The panel was led by the Treasury Department, not State, and Hillary Clinton was never personally involved in the consideration of the deal.

LIE: “Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans out of work.”
FACT CHECK: Comprehensive immigration reform would boost economic growth and increase the size of the labor force.

LIE: Hillary Clinton “has even deleted this record of total support [for TPP] from her book.”
FACT CHECK: According to NBC News, “The cuts were part of 96 pages of cuts made to account for the paperback's smaller size, according to a publisher's note. But not all of them were cut: there's still two pages praising the deal, or at least the idea of it.”

LIE: “Among the victims is our late Ambassador, Chris Stevens. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed -- that's right, when the phone rang at 3 o'clock in the morning, she was sleeping.”
FACT CHECK: According to Factcheck.org, “Trump is certainly entitled to his opinion, but the evidence shows Clinton was fully engaged in the immediate response, and subsequent congressional investigations concluded the government response to the attack — including Clinton’s — was appropriate.”

LIE: “She has pledged to grant mass amnesty and in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement, and thus create totally open borders in the United States.”
FACT CHECK: While Hillary Clinton has pledged to push for comprehensive immigration reform in her first 100 days, Politifact has given a ruling of “Pants on Fire” to the claim that such a plan would equal "mass amnesty." In fact, in her memoir, Hard Choices, Clinton wrote that she supported the 2013 Senate immigration bill, which included unprecedented investments in border security, along with a path to citizenship.

LIE: “To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about a video being the cause of his death.”
FACT CHECK: According to the Washington Post Fact Checker, “Clinton says that in speaking with the families, she did not blame the Benghazi attacks on the video. Most participants we interviewed (four out of six) back up her version, saying they do not recall her mentioning a video.”

LIE: “She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood.”
FACT CHECK: According to the New York Times, “Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned on Sunday that removing President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt too hastily could threaten the country’s transition to democracy.”

LIE: Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy has “unleashed ISIS across the world.”
FACT CHECK: Politifact looked at a similar claim Jeb Bush made and rated it “Mostly False.”

LIE: "To cover-up her corrupt dealings, Hillary Clinton illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server.”
FACT CHECK: Independent experts like Steven Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists have said there was no criminal aspect to her use of a private email server.  Additionally the Wall Street Journal reported that federal officials do not expect criminal charges to be filed as part of the Justice Department's ongoing review of the private email system.

LIE: “Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments – perhaps even by her financial backers in Communist China – putting all of America in danger.”
FACT CHECK: The New York Times reported that security logs show no evidence of foreign hacking.

LIE: “Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access – even though he had no national security credentials.”
FACT CHECK: Contrary to Trump's claim, the appointee in question actually serves on the Board of Directors of the American Security Project, the Foreign Policy Program Leadership Committee at the Brookings Institution, and on the Chicago Council on Global Affairs.Brigadier General Stephen A. Cheney, a member of the national security board to which Fernando was appointed, said Fernando's "expertise in cyber-security is a great asset to our national security.” Brookings executive vice president and former U.S. ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk said of Fernando: "I’ve always valued his foreign policy insights."


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For Immediate Release, June 22, 2016