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FULL TRANSCRIPT: Trump Town Hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania 

Read the full transcript of former president Donald Trump’s town hall in Oaks, Pennsylvania moderated by South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem on Monday, October 14, 2024.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. It’s a nice crowd.

KRISTI NOEM: Yes, they love you. You know why? It’s because they recognize, sir, that you’re the one who fights for them. You’re the one who protects them.

DONALD TRUMP: And you know what else? They fight for themselves, and they’ve been fighting for a long time, and we’re going to make your fight easier.

That’s very important. We’re going to make it easier. Because what’s happened to our country in the last almost four years now, it’s hard to believe, but if you look at the borders, if you look at inflation, if you look at the Afghanistan disaster, the most embarrassing time in the history of our country, I think the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan, the way they did, not getting out. I was getting out with dignity, strength.

The way they got out was the most embarrassing thing that ever happened. Probably led to Putin going into Ukraine. When he looked at it, he said, these people aren’t very good, are they? He would have never done that with me.

So, you know, we’re all in this together. We’ve got to win the election November 5th.

KRISTI NOEM: Yes. And, sir, he has never yet called those Gold Star families to express his grief for the people and the soldiers that we lost that day. And who controls that airstrip now?

DONALD TRUMP: China. China. No, they have, you know, China took over. And one of the things, get out, we were there like for 20 years. I said, what are we doing here? So we get the hell out. But, you know, I had a talk with the Taliban and we didn’t lose one soldier in 18 months until this catastrophe happened when they took over.

But, you know, one of the things we, aside from everything else, we left, we spent billions of dollars years ago to build a big airbase. And you knew that one from your own time.

KRISTI NOEM: Yes, I did.

DONALD TRUMP: A big one, a really good one, powerful runways, long runways. And you know what happened, I’ll tell you, they gave it up. And it was one hour away from where China built, forget about Afghanistan, one hour away from where China builds its nuclear weapons. Would have been very nice to have. And China now occupies that airbase. So it’s terrible. It’s terrible.

KRISTI NOEM: It is. Mr. President, as you can see, we’ve got a lot of American patriots here tonight who want to ask you some questions.

DONALD TRUMP: Good.

KRISTI NOEM: If you don’t mind, we’ll move into that portion of the town hall tonight. Let’s go to our first question. Our first question is going to be from a man named Reid. And Reid, I’m not certain where you are.

DONALD TRUMP: Where’s Reid? There he is. Hi, Reid.

KRISTI NOEM: There he is, over there.

DONALD TRUMP: Nice looking guy.

KRISTI NOEM: Reid, I believe you’re a Navy SEAL, correct?

REID: No.

KRISTI NOEM: No. Okay, I got that wrong. All right, thank you very much.

Housing Affordability

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. President. My name is Reid. I’m a single father and Iraq War veteran. I dream of owning a home for me and my son, but mortgage rates under the Biden-Harris administration have made that impossible. What can you do to help make homeownership affordable again?

DONALD TRUMP: All right, good. It’s a great question. And a lot of people have this question. First of all, it’s too expensive to build the homes, and they’re building them, and they cost a fortune. And 30% of the cost in some locations is the cost of, like, planning and certificates and all a lot of nonsense they do. They make you go through hell. It takes years to get them, zoning approvals, all of the approvals you need. We’re going to get rid of a lot of that.

But most importantly, we’re going to get interest rates brought way down. You know, we had interest rates at 2%, and now they’re 10%, and you can’t get the money. We had 2%, and there was plenty of money for everybody. And, you know, I call the home part of the American dream. We’re going to create the American dream for young people and for older people, too, by the way. We’re not going to forget.

I mean, I happen to be a very young man, but we’re not going to forget the older people. We’re not going to forget the older people. By the way, no tax on Social Security benefits for the older people. I guess, you know, somebody said, oh, he’s got a conflict of interest because he benefits by that. I’ll give mine up if you want. I’d save tax. But no, we’re going to do that for the older people. That’s a big deal because you’ve been eaten alive with inflation.

And all I’m doing is getting you back to even. I think when we do that, we’re probably just getting you, you know, you have fixed income and you went up numbers like 30, 40, 50, depending on what they include. You know, they like to say it was a 20 percent increase. It wasn’t. It was 30, 40 and 50, depending on what they want to include. So we’re going to do that.

But Reid, getting back to you, we’re going to drill, baby drill. We’re going to have so much energy and we’re going to bring prices down because, you know, your prices are up. Don’t forget the damage is done. We have the worst president and the worst vice president in the history of our country by far. Let me tell you, she is worse than him. And he’s actually I didn’t think I’d ever say this about anybody.