FULL TRANSCRIPT: Trump’s ‘Believers and Ballots Faith’ Town Hall in Georgia

President. And I know you have another — a big event tonight in Duluth, Georgia. Obviously Georgia’s going to play a pivotal role. I was on an interview earlier this morning, and they were asking me about the closing next 12 days, next 12 to 13 days.

And I told them that while your opponent is doing programs like The View and Howard Stern to try to close out the event — And taking vacations. You —

DONALD TRUMP: She took off. She took off yesterday. Who takes off when you have 13, 14 days for the — she took off. She needed to — she needed to rest. She needed to rest.

BURT JONES: You have chosen to close out the deal by going around the country and speaking to religious leaders, talking in places of worship like here in Zebulon, Georgia. And I — and we have a saying here in our state that people who show up for church on Sundays go to the polls on Tuesdays.

Trump’s Rally in Miami

BURT JONES: And I think that’s — I think that’s true all over. So we — I talk about — a little bit about the event you had yesterday in Miami with the Latino pastors and all of that.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we did. We had a tremendous thing at Doral in Miami. And it was a beautiful day. And we had pastors. We had a lot of Hispanics. And we’re setting every record with Hispanics. Nobody’s ever seen anything like it. Great people, very industrious, hardworking, smart, beautiful people. And we’ve really — I guess we’re setting the record already. It’s going to be set.

And we have actually something — a couple of polls just came out. We’re at 56 percent. You know, normally, like, guys like Romney — anybody like Romney? Guys like Romney were getting just a few points, and we’re getting — here we are with the potential to actually win, which hasn’t been done maybe forever, almost forever, with the Republican Party.

Border Security

DONALD TRUMP: All along the border and all along in Texas and other places, along the line where — by the way, they’re working very hard to keep some very bad people out of our country, some — if you take a look at what they’ve done with our border, it’s so bad. I think it’s the biggest — actually, just to skip over to it, I think it’s the single biggest problem we have. We talk about inflation, and it’s horrible, and the economy. But if you take a look at inflation — and the biggest problem to me is the border, where they allow murderers into our country, they allow prisoners into our country, they empty out their prisons from all over the world.

And to me, it’s the biggest problem that we have. I think it’s the number one thing. And we’re going to do something. We’re going to do something to stop it very quickly. We built hundreds of miles of wall. We were doing great, and we had the greatest. We had the most successful. The day I left office — you’ve seen that very famous chart. I love that chart. I love it. I love that. But — well, there it is.

But if you take a look. Look at that. That’s pretty good. They do a very good job back there. They never know when I’m going to introduce it. But — and usually, I don’t. You know, usually I don’t introduce it. But I did that one day, and I turned to the right to look. And I’m glad I turned. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be with you right now. But —

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you, sir. Thank you.

Trump’s Accomplishments on Border Security

DONALD TRUMP: But if you look at the arrow in the bottom — the arrow in the bottom, that was the day I left office, and that was the lowest day we’ve had in terms of illegals coming into our country. And that included drugs and human trafficking and — usually — mostly in women, by the way.

And that was — we had it really going. And then you take a look at what happened right after I left. What they’ve done to our country is just not describable.

BURT JONES: Well, we’re glad you’re here, too. You made it through that, too, as well, Mr. President.

Burt Jones’ Story about Trump’s Hurricane Relief Efforts

BURT JONES: And what we’re going to do today — and I want to — before we start with our first question here in this town hall, I want to brag on you a little bit, because, you know, people only get to see you from afar, and there’s very few of us that get to interact with you one-on-one. I want to tell you, this is a great guy to be around. I mean, he’s a guy’s guy right here. And he — and he also — he also has a big heart, and I just want to tell you a quick story that the national news media never covered about him.

But when we had the hurricanes that hit — we had Hurricane Helene that hit southeast Georgia a couple of weeks ago, number one, he was the first person on the ground in Valdosta, Georgia, right after the storm. And after I got to — after I got to go and look at some of the communities that were hit, and they were hit hard, it was generational change there, I said to myself, I’ve got to do something about this.

And I ended up calling a good friend, Georgia native of mine, named Jason Aldean. Y’all know Jason? Jason was — Jason was doing a concert in Macon, Georgia. I said, Jason, I know — I know you’re from Macon, and I’m glad I’m coming to your concert. How about us team up together and do a little hurricane relief fund for the victims of the hurricane? And, of course, Jason agreed wholeheartedly.

But then I called this man, and at 7:30 in the morning, one ring, he picks up the phone. He goes, “Hello, Burt,” you know. And he doesn’t ever waste any time. He’s all business. He goes, “How we doing in Georgia, Burt?” you know? I said, “We’re doing great.”

I was like, look, I told him about the storm, and he was very obviously aware of it. And he — and I — immediately, I said, look, Jason Aldean and I are going to do something this Saturday night. Would you like to be a part? Without hesitation, he said, “Yes, absolutely.”

He said something to somebody in the background, said, “Hey, let’s put together something for Burt Jones and Jason Aldean. Let’s team up with them.” And I want to tell you something. They started a GoFundMe page on Tuesday, by Saturday of that same week, because of him, we had raised $7 million for the victims of the hurricane.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

BURT JONES: And that was significant. I just want to thank you in front of this audience.

DONALD TRUMP: Jason is terrific, by the way. He’s always the first to jump in, along with you. And you have a great lieutenant governor. And I have to tell you, we’ve also — and we have, and Burt and I have spoken about it — we also had a lot of help from your governor. He’s been really great.

FEMA’s Response to Hurricanes

BURT JONES: And so we appreciate that. We’ve been —

DONALD TRUMP: We’ve been all working together. You know, Georgia got hit so hard, and it worked very well over here from the standpoint of people getting together and helping.

FEMA has had a hard time. Nobody knows exactly why, but the federal government’s response was — I don’t know if it was as bad here as it was in North Carolina. I was in North Carolina yesterday, three different stops, and just — I followed it in. I actually followed the hurricane in. And I went there, and it is not even believable, but FEMA — meaning the White House — did not do their job.

They did not do their job. And we’ve got to change it. We had a great FEMA when we were doing it. We had some problems, too, when we had — FEMA came in and they handled it. But they’re not — and they spent a lot of their money on other things. You know that. They spent a lot of their money on the illegal migrants coming in — almost a billion dollars. And there was no money.

And so now they’re going to have to have a special session in Congress to try and get money. And it’s too bad. It’s too bad.

Elon Musk’s Help with Starlink

DONALD TRUMP: But you know who did help us, though? Elon Musk. He helped us. Because they needed Starlink. I said, “What’s Starlink?” They were telling me, “Sir, do you know Elon Musk?” I said, “Yeah, he endorsed me, right?” They said, “Yeah, he’s great.” He said, “You see that rocket ship come in the other day?”

Who ever saw anything like that? Only Elon. I said, “Is that yours?” Only Elon. I said, “Is that yours?” He said, “That’s fine.” That’s the only one that can do it. But anyway, but he needed Starlink. They needed Starlink badly in North Carolina. And I called him. I said, “Elon, they have a big problem. Had no communication. People were dying.” He saved a lot of lives. And he had it over there so fast. It was amazing.

They couldn’t get it because it’s hard to get. And it was sort of interesting because I was on the phone with him. And I said, “Starlink.” And we’re talking a little bit. The person called me that needed it so badly in North Carolina. During my call with Elon, I hadn’t hung up. He said, “Thank you, sir, for getting a Starlink.” I said, “How did you call them? How did you talk to them? We’re still on the phone.”

He said, “Well, I have ways of doing things.” But he got that to them right away. And it made a very big difference. Also, they got it into Georgia. So I want to thank Elon for being really very gracious.

BURT JONES: Well, Mr. President, if it’s all right with you, I know we’ve got some folks here that would love to get to ask you questions directly. It is — it is something that we’re glad to be here in the church.

And we do thank Pastor Billy Smith. I tell folks all the time that we’re you know, we’re not complicated here in Georgia. We love our God. We love our country. And we love college football. You know, right. And we know prayers can be answered because the good Lord gave us Kirby Smart at University of Georgia. And I think he’s going to deliver you back to the White House for us.

Matthew’s Question on Encouraging Christians to Vote

BURT JONES: So he’s doing a good job. I’ve got a young man, Matthew. Matthew has a question. There he is.

MATTHEW: Thank you. President Trump is an honor. First of all, please know that me and my family and I know so many other Christians here in Georgia are praying for you, praying for your family and praying that the Lord will deliver you.

BURT JONES: Amen. Amen.

MATTHEW: We’re praying that the Lord will deliver you back in the White House very soon. Just recently, a study came out from Arizona Christian University showing that 35 percent of Americans will not be going to the polls to vote this year. If you could share a final message to those Christians to encourage them to go to the polls, what would your message be?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, you know, it’s interesting, Matthew, that if you look over the last 30 years or so, for whatever reason, Christians are not tremendous voters in terms of percentage. If they were, we’d never lose an election. We wouldn’t have had these people in office. We would never lose an election.

And I think they are. I think we’ve really energized a lot of people this time because they’ve seen how bad it is. This last four years has been – it’s been a horror show, an absolute horror show. And I think – I think we’re going to see those numbers go way up. I’m almost sure of it, and I’m even hearing that from – statistically, because you see what’s coming in. And by the way, record numbers of votes are coming in, so that’s supposed to be a good thing for us. And we have to make sure – too big to rig. We want to make it too big to rig, right?

But if they did – if they did, we would literally never lose an election. And you know, there’s persecution going on, and especially – I don’t know if you’ve heard – with Catholics. I don’t know what’s going on with Catholics. Why are they after Catholics?

But the Catholics are being persecuted. School boards are being persecuted. Parents. This group is not a nice group of people. You know, you think they’re stupid, and they are really pretty dumb. When you look at what the policies – what they’ve done to this country – but they’re vicious people. They’re vicious, vicious people. And people are being persecuted – people of religion.

And you saw it a little bit during COVID, where you’d have a service outside, everybody’s five yards away and everything, and they’re coming and arresting people. It’s very bad. But I think you’re going to see a big change. I think you’re going to see it now.

And hopefully, we’re going to keep it going. You know, without religion, it’s like the – it’s like the glue that holds it all together. This would be a different country. The religion and all of it, virtually all of them, are going – if you look at a path – it wasn’t helped by COVID, by the way.

When you had COVID, all of a sudden, people started thinking a little bit differently, and they got used to a different way of life for a long period of time, and maybe it didn’t quite come back. But it’s going this way. If we ever had it going up, it would – and I think we’re going to get it up. I really believe it.

I think this election is important for even that reason, for everything. It’s so important. It’s such a good question. You know who else are hard voters are NRA people, rifles and guns, people that own guns. They vote in a very small proportion. If they ever voted, you could never lose. And in fact, the Democrats, the radical left, used to fear them, and now they don’t feel – fear them any longer because they don’t vote to the extent that they should. And look, Second Amendment – I think everyone in this room is Second Amendment and Second Amendment people.

BURT JONES: Thank you, Matthew. Appreciate it.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

Early Voting Records in Georgia

BURT JONES: Thank you, Matthew. And, Mr. President, we have had a lot of early votes, over 2 million early votes as of today.

DONALD TRUMP: Right.

BURT JONES: It’s a record. Those who have not voted, please go and vote. Get your family, get your friends. If you don’t have any friends, go make one and go vote because it’s too important right here.

Jake’s Question on Supporting Israel

BURT JONES: So, I’ve got Jake. Jake. What’s next? There’s Jake right there.

JAKE: Mr. President, it’s an honor. Thank you. My name is Jake Ayers. I’m the mayor for the city of Hogansville, a small city in Troop County, Georgia, just next door.

DONALD TRUMP: Is he a good mayor?

BURT JONES: Yes.

JAKE: While you were president, you delivered a significant grant that greatly impacted our community. And I think I can speak on behalf of every small town in Georgia. We are very thankful for your support of rural Georgia and rural America. And we’re very proud of you.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

JAKE: However, I think one of the most pressing things on a global scale is your support for Israel. So, how do you plan to support and protect Israel and the Jewish community now when you become the next president?

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. Good question. And it’s so interesting.

But evangelicals and so many people support Israel so much more. It’s not just Jewish people. It’s so many Christians are so supportive of Israel. And you know, they say, and I would agree with this 100 percent, nobody’s done what I’ve done for Israel.

We, as you know, Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. We even built the embassy by moving the embassy. That became somewhat automatic. Golan Heights gave them jurisdiction, and we gave Golan Heights, which was a big thing. We did the Abraham Accords, which was a very, very big thing. They were trying to get it for 72 years or something, and I got it for them. We’ve done a lot. And the single biggest thing I did was, you want to know, is get out of the Iran nuclear deal.

The Iran nuclear deal was a disaster. And unfortunately, Biden and Kamala, nobody knows her as Harris. Do you ever know? I talk about it all the time. I talk about Harris. Everyone says, who is that? The vice president. Can you believe she’s the vice president?

She came in last. He picked her. She came in last, and now she’s running. You know, think of it just for a second, Mr. Mayor, because I’m going to get right back to Israel, because there was one other thing, and that was the Abraham Accords. That was one of the most incredible things of all. We would have had peace in the Middle East, and we still will. We’ll fill that out.

We’ll get them all in. We have the four, but we’ll fill it out. But if you look at what’s happened and what’s happening with our country and what’s happening, the lack of respect for the two of them, we can’t have that any longer. We have to be respected.

Think of it. We were energy independent four years ago. We had — I saw the new number, $1.84 a gallon gasoline, and now you have three and a half and four. And you had five for a while, and you had six and seven even for a while. But a lot of things. So, we’re going to take care of Israel. We work with Israel. They say that, in Israel, I could maybe run — if things didn’t work out here, you could run for prime minister of Israel, and I’d get 97 percent of the vote.

So — and I, of course, I kid, because you know what happens when you do the little sarcasm and the kidding. They go, well, he said he’s running for — you know, that’s the fake news doing that. And that’s a lot of fake news you have back there. That’s very impressive.

That’s very — that’s very impressive. So, we’re going to do a lot for Israel, and we’re behind them. And the big thing — we want to have peace in the Middle East. We want to have Russia stop with Ukraine. We’re going to get that done. That was another thing that would have never happened. You wouldn’t have had inflation. You wouldn’t have had Russia attacking Ukraine. You wouldn’t have had October 7th, which was Israel. And the horrible, most embarrassing moment in the history of our country was Afghanistan. The way — not that they pulled out. We were ready to pull — the way they pulled out with — it was so bad.

They moved the military out first. No, you moved the military out last. I think it was one of the most embarrassing. I think that’s why, actually, Putin went into Ukraine. But we’re going to take care of Israel, and they know that. Bibi called me yesterday, called me the day before. We have a very good relationship. And I have to say, they’ve done — fortunately, they didn’t listen to Biden, because if they listened to Biden, they’d right now be waiting for a bomb to drop on them.

And they did their own work. They did not listen. They couldn’t listen, because what he was asking — in fact, just the other day, they said to him, are you okay with what they’re doing? Well, I don’t want them to attack the nuclear, and I don’t want them to attack the oil. I said, you know, that’s sort of the opposite. If you go and take the exact opposite for 40 years of Biden’s foreign policy, you would be one of the greatest. Just take the opposite, you’d be one of the greatest in the history of foreign policy. So we’re going to work with them very closely.

We’re going to work with all nations. We’re not going to have World War III. We’re closer to World War III right now than we have been ever, maybe, ever. And that will be a war like no other, because the power of the weaponry — nuclear weapons, the power is — it’s indescribable, and you don’t even want to think about it.

And it’s mentioned all the time. You know, I never mention nuclear. I never like — we rebuilt our military. We rebuilt the military. We had to give — these people gave a lot of military to Afghanistan, if you can believe it. They have parades to show it. And those are very embarrassing moments for our country. But we’re going to take good care of — frankly, we’re going to take care of everything.

We’re going to straighten out the world a little bit. One thing, if I could, somebody that a lot of people respect a lot, Viktor Orban from Hungary. So he’s the prime minister, and he made the statement. He said, when Trump comes back as president, everything is going to be perfect. And it was for four years. And I know exactly what he was talking about. Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

JAKE: Thank you very much.

Introduction to Stephanie’s Question

BURT JONES: Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Jake. That crowd you were pointing to, they’re not regular members. That crowd back in the back, they’re not regular members.

BURT JONES: That’s overflow.

DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, that’s overflow. That’s right.

BURT JONES: As they would say, they’re not from around here, you know. We do have a local business owner here, Mr. President, a local restaurant owner, Stephanie. Great food, great place, very popular place. And she has a question for you here, Mr. President.

DONALD TRUMP: Hi, Stephanie.

STEPHANIE: Hello. First and foremost, I want to thank God for having you and everybody here.

DONALD TRUMP: Yeah. I think we have to stand up. A woman, we stand, right? For a man, we don’t have to, right? Go ahead, please.

STEPHANIE: Well, my name is Stephanie, like he said. And my mom is actually the owner, Erica Frost. And we have been in business for almost 20 years in the beautiful city of Zebulon. And we have been serving the most wonderful customers that we have here that have been coming in and out of our doors. We have been serving the most delicious and most outstanding foods that we have here.

Stephanie’s Question on Helping Small Businesses

STEPHANIE: And we have been hit these past four years with an economy that has been taking us down. So…

DONALD TRUMP: Inflation, largely.

STEPHANIE: Yes. Inflation. A large inflation. Where it has put us in a balance. So, my question to you is, how can you help these small-town businesses become great and successful?

DONALD TRUMP: So, during my four years, I’ll bet you did the best business, right?

STEPHANIE: Oh, yeah, we did.

DONALD TRUMP: Everybody says it. They all say it. In fact, now I put in the speeches at the beginning, were you better off four years ago? Everyone goes crazy. So…

So, he said I saved his business. Good. Thank you very much, sir. So, we have to understand that inflation was, in my opinion, the worst maybe ever in our country. They say 48 years. I say ever. And a lot of it was groceries and food and things like that. You know, you hear the word groceries, you say, really? But I get more complaints about groceries, everything from hot dogs to bacon and eggs and everything.

So, what we’re doing is… And what they’ve done is they screwed up our energy. We had energy that was at record lows. It was abundant. The oil companies were making money, but you were having… You were driving cars. I just mentioned $1.84 a gallon. And that’s way up. That’s double. Everything is double. Everything is double, triple, quadruple. Interest rates were 2 percent. Now, they’re at 10 percent and you can’t get the money.

We’re going to drill, baby, drill. And that’s going to bring everything down, okay? That’s going to bring everything down because it’s such a big component of the fabric of our life economically.

Oil and gas, we’re going to drill, we’re going to bring. And a pledge that I’m making now, and we’ve done this a little bit over the last month or so, we are going to bring energy down by 50 percent, 5-0 percent, 50 percent, within 12 months from January 20th. That is going to bring everything else down. Because it’s not just, you know, the damage has been done.

They say, well, we’re trying to bring it down right now. These people don’t have a clue. The damage is done. We have to get the prices down. And that’s going to bring other things down with it. We’re also going to get the interest rates down because interest is far too high right now. So we’re going to get interest. But we’re going to get the oil.

We have more than anybody. I call it liquid gold. We have more liquid gold than any other nation in the world, including Saudi Arabia, including Russia. No matter where you go, we have more. We’re going to use it. You know where we’re getting a lot from? Venezuela. Why are we doing that? And it’s not good stuff either. We call it the Venezuelan tar. So we’re going to get your energy costs down. That’s going to bring everything. And you’re going to make so much money.

DONALD TRUMP: I really hope so.

STEPHANIE: I hope with your help, you’ll bring El Mariachi back up how it used to be, before four years ago.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, darling.

BURT JONES: Good job, Stephanie. Where’s Stephanie’s mother? Where’s mom? Where’s mom? Where is she? Where is she? Stand up and wave to everybody there. It’s a very popular restaurant.

DONALD TRUMP: Good job you did, mom.

Energy Driving Inflation

BURT JONES: It’s just common sense, what you’re talking about, Mr. President. The energy drives everything. And it’s been driving inflation. And there’s not a person in this room that’s not taking home less money than what they were four years ago, when you were president.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, the energy is such a big factor. And when they did that, all of a sudden, the energy is going up, up, up. And it was obvious that everything else was going to follow. But it’s going to follow it.

It’s going to follow it. It’s going to follow it. down to we have so much and we don’t use it properly. You know, they started, as you know, they were going to end it all. And they got into a bind. That’s what happened. And they got — and then they let it go back to the Trump. But if we were — that was four years ago, we would be three to four times more energy, would be selling to Asia, would be reducing debt right now.

We have $35 trillion in debt. We’re going to make this country so good. One of the things we talk about is, as an example, Detroit is doing very poorly because they’re taking our car business, other countries. We’re going to solve that very quickly. But one of the things we’re doing is interest deductions on — when you borrow money to buy a car, you get a deduction on it. And that’s great. But you only get the deduction if it’s built in America. The car has to be built in America.

Senator Marty Harbin’s Question on Shutting Down the Border

BURT JONES: We have a local — we have a —

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. I like that person. I like that person.

BURT JONES: We have a local state senator, somebody I’ve served with for a long time, Mr. — Senator Marty Harbin here, sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Hi, Marty.

MARTY HARBIN: Mr. President, we are grateful to have you here. And I have the great honor of representing Pike County in the Georgia State Senate. So we are grateful to have you.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you, Marty. And he’s wearing a beautiful tie. It’s a Trump tie, so I like it.

MARTY HARBIN: Mr. President, we have seen drugs coming into our community as never before, as we’ve watched the border as an open-door highway, if you will, to bring drugs in, which supposedly was being overseen by Kamala Harris, the border czar, which doesn’t know where the border is. My question to you is, how quickly can you shut down the border for us to stop the drugs from coming in?

DONALD TRUMP: So — So, Marty, it’s going to be the first order. It’ll be done in the first hour of the first day. And, you know — As I said, we had the safest border in the recorded history of our country. You saw the chart. That was a Border Patrol chart. We had the safest border. We had it going so well, all they had to do was leave it the way it was. We had remained in Mexico.

You couldn’t come in. We had all catch and release in Mexico, not in this country. We had the best border. It was so good and only going to get better. And now we have the worst border ever in the world. In 2016, we had a bad border, and I solved the problem pretty quickly. And it was no longer an issue in 2020. And then, in 2020, we ran — and, as you know, we got millions more votes than we did in 2016.

So you’ll explain that one. That’s why we have to get a lot of votes. We got to get a lot of votes. But we made the border really good. And now we’re going to have to do it again. The difference is, this border is 10 times, 15 times worse than it was in 2016, as you know. But we’re going to stop it, and we’re going to deport all of these criminals that have been brought into the country. Thank you, Martin.

MARTY HARBIN: It’s good. Thank you, Mr. President.

Trump’s Faith and Family Support

BURT JONES: Thank you. We got to — I know we have a big crowd out there, Mr. President, but I just wanted to close with this. I know they’re wanting me to speed this process up, but it’s been such a treat having you in this room and answering questions.

DONALD TRUMP: Look at all these people. You know who they are?

BURT JONES: Yeah, yeah.

DONALD TRUMP: They’re fake news.

BURT JONES: There’s usually an offering plate. There’s always an offering plate at the exit door. That’s a lot of people.

DONALD TRUMP: That’s a lot of people.

BURT JONES: But, Mr. President, I’ll just say to close with this. You have probably been one of the most vilified individuals in American history. They’ve tried to assassinate you twice. They’ve shot you one time. They have absolutely — they’ve absolutely vilified you in the media. They’ve gone at you for almost a decade now, but particularly in the last three years.

Not just every other day, but every hour on the day. How do you lean into your faith and your family to deal with this? Because I don’t think anybody else could handle it the way you have for the past decade.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, I say this. Faith — when you have faith, when you believe in God, it’s a big advantage over people that don’t have that. It’s a big advantage. And when you have a great family — my son Eric is with us, but he’s been great. But we have such a great family and such a strong backing.

And Melania, our First Lady, has been great. She’s got the number-one best-selling book. Can you believe Melania? So, go buy the book. But I will say this. I’ve been investigated more than any human being, I suspect, in the history of our country. More than Alphonse Capone. Did anyone ever hear of Alphonse — Al Capone was the gangster of all gangsters.

Scarface. He’s commonly known as — I’ve been investigated more than Scarface. My father’s looking down from heaven. I think my father’s in heaven. I know my mother’s in heaven, but I — but my father was great. He was a strong guy, but a good — a great guy, but a strong guy. But you know, I have been, and it makes you stronger. And the fact that I had such backing from the public — these scoundrels came after me at a level that — it’s called election interference.

It’s called the weaponization of the FBI, the DOJ. They were all coming. And we’re going to get things turned around in this country because it’s so bad. They don’t do that except in third-world countries. Nobody thought it was even possible. Nobody thought it was even possible. They used to talk about it before all this stuff happened. And they’d say, well, it’ll never happen because it’s never happened before. And think of the scoundrels that are in office right now. It didn’t happen to them.

So I just want to thank you, actually, for your support, because it made me — it actually made me more popular. A woman — a great woman said to me, sir, when you first got in trouble in New York over nothing, I’ve — since then, I’ve gone to the bridge and I’ve waved the flag. Where is that woman? She was so — stand up, please. Stand up. She was so incredible.

I said — no. Thank you, darling. No, she said to me — she said, you know, I really liked you a lot, but I really loved you when they went after you so unfairly, and from that day on, there was nobody else but Trump. I remember you, okay? Thank you, darling. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Ben’s Question on Voting for the First Time

BURT JONES: Well, we have — we have time for one more question, Mr. President. Obviously, this room is packed, but there’s a huge crowd outside, and I think that last question is going to come from a young man out there named Ben. Maybe that was him we just heard, but —

DONALD TRUMP: Okay. Let’s hear what he has to say.

BURT JONES: But is Ben available? There he is. Right there.

BEN: Hey, President Trump, my name is Ben, and I will be voting for the first time in 13 days. I would — I’d like to own a home someday and start a family, and I’m even pursuing to be a pastor. And I’d like to know, what should I know before I go vote?

DONALD TRUMP: So I have an idea. Are you right outside now? Let’s go outside and talk to him.

BURT JONES: Let’s do that.

DONALD TRUMP: You know why?

BURT JONES: Let’s do that.

DONALD TRUMP: They’ve got thousands of people outside. And you know what? You guys follow us out. Let’s all go together.

Thank you very much. Let’s all go together. Thank you very much, everybody. Wow. What a crowd.

DONALD TRUMP: Thanks. Well, thanks. And this gentleman, I’ll tell you what, he’s been something very special. He’s been my friend for a long time, Burt. And I just said inside, you probably heard me, you know, I didn’t realize he was a top football player. But I was impressed before that. I was impressed with Burt before that.

So Burt, thank you very much. And Ben, thank you for the question. I’ll give you a different kind of an answer, though, okay? And you’re going to be a pastor, I think, and I think that’s good.

Trump Reflects on the MAGA Movement

DONALD TRUMP: I want to be a pastor, too, but they wouldn’t accept me. They said, you can do other things, but we’re not going to let you be a pastor. We’re not going to do that. So good luck, okay?

You’re a good-looking guy. So it’s interesting. Yesterday, yesterday I was speaking, and it was amazing. We’re just all in a mood. We had a tremendous crowd. We always have tremendous crowds. There’s a spirit in this country that’s been incredible. But, you know, I realized, as I was up in front of this very massive rally — and we’re going to one with, I think, 20,000 people right now, right after that — but we’re taking care of you first.

We’re going to — I brought it up, and it was interesting, because I realized the time is coming to an end. This is the greatest movement in the history of our country, MAGA. Make America great again. Make America great again.

And in many ways, it’s sad, because we’re down to 12 days. We’ve been doing this together for nine years, and it’s down to 12 days. We had the greatest rallies. We had the biggest rallies, the most beautiful people, the most — it’s just been an amazing thing. There’s never been anything like it in the history of the country. I don’t think there’s been anything like it even in the history of the world. And, you know, when Biden would get up, we’ve got to stop MAGA. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying.

He doesn’t have any idea. He can’t put two sentences together. And by the way, she’s worse than he is. She’s worse than — she took a day off yesterday, you know? She took a day off because it was so much — when you have 13 days left, you don’t take a day off, right? You go. And then she did an interview. The interview was a total catastrophe.

If I did an interview like that, it would be the end. It would be the end of my political career. But I just wanted to say, so we’ve had this journey together that has been incredible. There’s never been anything like it.

And I realize that we’ll be doing it for, literally, just a few more days, and then it comes to an end. And then, hopefully, we’ll do another journey, and that will be the journey to make America better than it’s ever been. And that’ll be a very pleasant — that’ll be a very pleasant journey. And hopefully, that’s going to come true because, you know, the votes — I don’t know if you’re here, but the votes in Georgia — thank you, darling.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Yes, thank you. Hi.

DONALD TRUMP: That’s a friendly group. But I hope you’ve heard the votes. It’s early. But the votes in Georgia are at record levels. The votes at every state, frankly, are at record levels. We’re doing really, really well.

Plans for Fixing the Country

DONALD TRUMP: And hopefully, we can fix our country because we have a nation — we are a nation in decline. We have borders that are horrible, with criminals pouring into our country. Open borders. Think of it.

Open borders. People coming in from jails and prisons. They’re coming in from mental institutions, even insane asylums. And large numbers of terrorists are coming into our country, and we’re going to fix our country. We’re going to close the borders. First day, first hour, first minute. We’re going to close our borders. We’re going to take the criminals immediately.

We will deport the criminals. We’re going to get them out fast. We’re going to drill, baby, drill. We’re going to get our energy prices down.

We’re going to get our country back in order. And I think we’re going to have — Bert, I think we’re going to have the four greatest years in the history of our country. So, you know, this was supposed to be just a small little stop. Just a few people, just to say — just to say — but this is not a small — this is not a small stop.

I think — I think our next — well, I think our next big stop is going to have a hard time beating it. But — so I just want to give you my love. I’m going to be working for you so hard. And we’re going to turn our country around, and we are indeed going to make America great again.

And thank you very much. God bless you all. God bless you all. Bert, thank you. Thank you very much.

Related Posts

• Transcript of Jeffrey Sachs: US Prepares to Join War Against Iran
• Transcript of John Mearsheimer Vs Yoram Hazony on Israel vs. Iran – Debate
• Transcript: State Department Holds Press Briefing After Trump Issues New Threat Against Iran
• Transcript of Scott Ritter: Analysis of Israel/Iran War
• Transcript of Steve Bannon’s Interview on The Tucker Carlson Show