Read the full transcript of President-elect Donald Trump’s remarks at the America First Police Institute gala held at Mar-a-Lago on November 14, 2024.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
Opening Remarks and Acknowledgments
DONALD TRUMP: Wow. Well, thank you, Sly. You know, Sly does not do that. He doesn’t do that stuff. And he did a beautiful job, and I want to thank you and John Boyd for being here. John. Great fight movies. I think Sly has a lot of them, and John has ‘The Champ.’ What a movie that was, right!
I want to thank everybody for being here. When Mrs. Post and E.F. Hutton, her husband at the time, when they built Mar-a-Lago many years ago, the Roaring Twenties. It was the Roaring Twenties, and we’re hotter right now than they ever were in the Roaring Twenties, I believe. And we’re going to be a lot hotter, but we’re going to keep it going.
Historical Reference and Vision
We’re not going to have 1929 happen. Although, if it would have continued the way it was, it might not have been too good. But when they built it, nobody knew what was going on. Nobody knew opulence. Nobody knew real luxury. Nobody knew poverty. They didn’t know anything, and they learned a hard lesson in 1929. They learned a very, very hard lesson.
And we’re going to turn our country around. We’re going to make it so great, so strong, so powerful. We’re going to bring it all back.
Recognition of Key Figures
I want to thank some people that have been so instrumental in doing such a great job in terms of not only policy, but people, and people love them. Brooke Rollins, who put this on, with Linda McMahon. Linda has been a great friend of mine for a long time, right, Linda? I want to thank you very much. And the America First Policy Institute, what a job they’ve done.
Policy Discussion and International Relations
But I said, you know, the policy is much more important if we do it for eight years than it is if we do it for four years. So I said, let’s do this. Don’t worry about your policy. Let’s get out, and let’s win the election. But nobody knew we were going to win it the way we wanted. That was a big one. So that was really great.
And, Javier, I’d like to congratulate you on the job you’ve done for Argentina. Your speech was beautiful, but the job you’ve done is incredible. Make Argentina great again. You know, MAGA. He’s a MAGA person. And you know, he’s doing that. He’s actually doing it. Just happens to work with EA. That one we don’t have to worry about.
Congressional Leadership Recognition
It doesn’t work so well with other countries. But you know what? I think your numbers are working also. You’ve done a fantastic job in a very short period of time. It’s an honor to have you here. That’s really great. Thank you.
Also, Speaker Mike Johnson, wherever you may be, Mike, in this very big and crowded room. Thank you, Mike. I went yesterday. Just in case, I said, look, I want to tell you, I’m behind this man 100%, and he got 100% of the vote from Republicans. Are you sure? You sure, huh? No, he’s doing a great job. Nothing easy.
Congressional Achievements and Support
We actually had one little period, four weeks where we had a majority of one. That was not pretty, right? And you handled it beautifully. He just kept that stiff upper lip. But he’s doing a really good job. And that was a great vote you got yesterday. Totally unanimous vote. Congratulations, Mike. That’s beautiful.
Members of Congress, all of whom voted for Mike, and they’ve been my friends. It’s just a small group. We have a lot of them outside, and we have a lot of them coming over the weekend. Byron Donalds… What a star. Where’s Byron? Byron, what a star. What a star. Thank you, Byron.
Notable Mentions and Achievements
Ronny Jackson, Doc Ronny. He’s been a lot of things. He was my doctor. He was a great admiral, you know, highly respected admiral, great doctor at the White House, and now he’s a very popular congressman. He won by 48 points. That’s pretty good. Of course, it was a very, very Trumpy district, but he won by 48 points.
But when he was a doctor, they asked him the question, the fake news, which is here. Look. Wow, that’s a lot. That’s a lot. We invited them in. They said, “Can we come in?” I said, we have nothing to hide as Republicans, right? We have nothing to hide.
Health Discussion and Administrative Updates
But they asked Ronny. They asked the doctor. He was up in the podium. “Who is the healthiest?” Because he was the doctor for Barack Hussein Obama, Donald Trump, and he was the doctor for Bush also. “Who is the healthiest of them all?” He said, “Without question, it’s Donald Trump.” And I said, “I like that guy.” I said, “I like that guy.” And he’s doing great.
Jason Smith is here, a great, great congressman. Wesley Hunt. Wow. And Mike Walsh, who’s going to be doing a little other work for us in the very near future. We just nominated him, and he’s going to be doing a great job in the administration.
Technology and Entrepreneurship Recognition
And I promised Mike that I wouldn’t be taking too many more before we start counting the votes, okay? He said, “Please, could you slow down a little bit?” I just like the people in Congress, Mike. I’m sorry. But no, don’t worry about it, Mike. Just relax. Just relax.
We have a man who has a seriously high IQ. You know, I’m a person that believes in high IQs, and his is about as high as they get.
He launched a rocket three weeks ago, and then he went to Pennsylvania to campaign because he considered this more important than launching rockets that cost billions of dollars. Elon Musk. Elon. What a job. What a job he does.
Final Acknowledgments and Future Plans
And he happens to be a really good guy. You know, he likes this place. I can’t get him out of here. He just likes this place. And you know what? I like having him here, too. He’s good. Unbelievable entrepreneur. He’s sort of everything. I’m asking him, “What do you do best?” And we were not able to figure it out, but it’s a lot of things.
Another one who’s another great mind and a great guy and so popular. And I think he’s right. He wants to make people healthy. It’s driven him pretty wild over the last number of years. The Democrats didn’t treat him well. He was doing fantastically well. And I think they came out with some rule like you had to get 70 or 75 percent of the vote to qualify to be in the primary. That was a pretty tough thing to get.
And he was doing incredibly well, and he decided he can’t do it. Went independent. Now he’s with us all the way. And today I nominated him for, I guess, if you like health and if you like people that live a long time, it’s the most important position, RFK Jr. Bobby? And I just looked at the news reports. People like you, Bobby. Don’t get too popular, Bobby. You know, you’ve reached about the level now.
We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time, and I think you’re going to do some unbelievable thing. Nobody’s going to be able to do it like you, and boy, does he feel it in his heart. So congratulations also to your family.
And a woman who was a Democrat and was independent. She went independent, and last week she said, “I want to be a Republican because this is what I stand for.” And I’ve always admired her, and I’ve admired her because she was loaded up with common sense. And it’s all about common sense.
I mean we are conservative in this room, but we can understand the other side. But what we really are is people with common sense, and I think that’s why we won with the numbers that we won by. Tulsi Gabbard. Thank you, Tulsi. Great comment sense.
And you have Vivek Ramaswamy. It’s taken people a long time, and now that name is emblazoned into their brain. But Vivek, wherever you may be, where are you, Vivek? Thank you, Vivek. Good. He’s working with Elon on efficiency. They’re working on efficiency, among other things, and they’re going to be saving a lot of money and making our country stronger and better, and they’ll be coming out with individual reports, but a big one toward the end.
And you put those two together, it’s going to be really great. So we look forward to seeing you working with Elon, and that will be a great experience. You’re going to learn something from Elon, I think, right? It’s going to be great.
Personal Reflections and Political Journey
Thank you very much, Vivek, and great job. What you’ve done is fantastic. And somebody that I’ve admired for a long time, but I’ve really gotten to know him in my political life, but especially, I think, over the last year, more than maybe ever before, maybe more than even in the first four years, because we had a tremendous success through my first term, and then bad things happened, and we had to wait. I couldn’t wait.
I was going, I was saying, we’ve got to, they’re not going to do it, they’re not going to help us, they’re not going to save this country, and it really dawned on me. About 10 days out, I said, wait a minute, with 10 days, I waited four years, three years, two years, all of a sudden it’s 10 days, and then every day seems so long, but I knew by the crowds we were getting it was really something.
Recognition of Support and Historical Achievement
And Newt Gingrich got up, and he said, this is a very special thing that’s happening, because nobody has ever had crowds, and they just wanted hope, they wanted something, they just didn’t want what they had, and nobody expressed it more beautifully than Newt Gingrich, and thank you Newt very much, it was really beautiful. And Calista, thank you very much. Thank you, Calista.
But the American people have just delivered really something very amazing, the biggest political victory in 129 years, can you believe that Newt? 120, they said the most consequential election, I love that word, it’s a beautiful word, most consequential election in the last 129 years, wow, that’s something.
Electoral Achievements
So we swept all swing states, we won the popular vote, oh I love that. You know, in the last one, in my first term, they said he won the election, but they always followed by “he didn’t win the popular vote,” that’s what they say, I don’t even know if it’s true or not, who knows. But they would say he didn’t win the popular vote, and we won the popular vote by records now, nobody can say that anymore about us, nobody can say that, because we won the popular vote. And I didn’t win it, the people won it, the great people of our country won the popular vote.
Historical Significance and Demographics
And that’s what they wanted, and this was something really special, won the White House, recaptured the Senate, and now, as of today, recaptured the House, thank you very much, Congressmen. And on track, looks like we have it, the largest margin in the national vote in presidential years, since 1928.
That’s a long time ago, well, that’s interesting, that’s when this House was built, 1928, it took a lot of years. But that was when it was completed, and something that I just read here, and I saw from one of our friends from the news, from the media, we won, I didn’t know this, we won 49 out of 50 states, shifted toward the GOP significantly, that’s a big, that’s a big number.
Demographic Victories and Border Issues
So we won the largest share of black and Hispanic votes of any Republican in the history of our country, recorded history of our country. We won, think of that, we won the largest share of black and Hispanic voters, that’s so incredible, they’re unbelievable people, we respect them, we admire them, they’ve been through a lot, and they like us, and it wasn’t easy, it wasn’t easy.
But on the, if you take a look at the border of Texas, the governor called me, Greg Abbott, who’s a great guy, called me up, he said, “You won every single town on the border, and these towns were always blue, they were a dark, strong blue, and we won every single town up and down the border in Texas.”
Voter Demographics and Common Sense Policies
We won with married women, what about unmarried women, what happened to unmarried women? We won with married women, we won half of all ages, think of that, more than 50% of the 18 to 29 year olds, the highest in many decades, the highest number, and again, it really has to do with common sense.
You know, people don’t want men playing in women’s sports, they don’t want it. You know, I said that during the last few weeks, I was very heavy on the common sense things, like they want a border, they want people to come into our country, they do, they don’t want to have exclusion, but they want to come in legally through a system.
Immigration and Border Security
They don’t want them coming in through prisons and through, where you dump a prison from countries all over the world, dumping prisons into our country, the prisoners dumped into our country by the millions, they don’t want that. They don’t want all of the kind of things, they don’t want drug dealers, they don’t want gang members, they don’t want people that are causing trouble, they don’t want people that the country doesn’t want.
Economic Progress and Market Performance
And they had a, I would say a truth, Elon would say an X, but it came out, and it had 12 different things, and it went down a list of things. And part of it was that the cartels were bringing in drugs, they don’t want them stopping. When you see the numbers that are going to be released, in two days, things happen to our country, this is two days as of three days ago, but things are happening to our country that we didn’t see happening for years. The caravans on the way up, 35,000 people, they’re breaking up, they’re breaking up, they’re not even, they’re not making the journey.
Market Success and Economic Concerns
And we had three or four of the highest, I guess, almost every single day, we set new records in the stock market, we set new records economically, we’re doing good. Now the only thing is, Mr. Speaker, I think it’s important, maybe you should pass a bill, you have to start my term from November 5th, okay, or November 6th, if you want, November 5th, because the market’s gone through the roof, enthusiasm’s doubled, it’s doubled in the last short while.
And I watched a liberal commentator say, “You know, whether you like him or not, there seems to be a beautiful light shining over our country, and even over the world.” I said, this guy didn’t say that, but we have to defeat inflation, and while inflation’s down, the costs are way too high.
And when I went around, I heard something that was very interesting, the word grocery, it’s sort of such a strange and simple nice word, you know, “I’m going out for groceries today,” they talked about that more than any other item, the groceries are too high. And when you think about it, that’s a very bad, bad thing, and I talked about that a lot in the last couple of weeks, and it resonated.
Future Plans and Appointments
I tell a story about a woman, she got three apples, an old woman, she had three apples, and she brought them up to the cash register, and she looked at the woman, and she said, “Is that the right price?” and the woman said, “Yes ma’am, I’m sorry, yes it is,” and she said, “Oh, that’s okay, could you wait one minute,” and she took one of the three apples. And she brought it back to the refrigeration, and she came back gently up to the cash register, and she paid for two apples instead of three. That should not be happening in our country, that should not be happening here, it’s not going to happen here.
Energy Policy and New Appointments
We’re going to slash energy costs, we’re going to get your energy bills in half, and that’s going to bring down the cost, generally speaking, and we’re going to have a whole new, we have a big, we have a big announcement. And I won’t tell you it’s, I won’t tell you the name of his, the exact name, I think he’s an incredible person, he’s got an unbelievably wonderful wife named Catherine. So I won’t tell you his name, it might be something like Burgum, Burgum, he’s from North Dakota.
Closing Remarks and Future Vision
He’s going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position. So everybody’s waiting, there he is, hi Doug, he’s going to be announced tomorrow. And we have somebody else that’s probably coming up with him to be announced, who’s a big one, and we’re going to do things with energy and with land, interior, that is going to be incredible.
And so I look forward to doing the formal announcement, although this is a pretty big announcement right now. Actually he’s going to head the Department of Interior and he’s going to be fantastic. Good Doug. Congratulations Catherine.
But we’ll make the formal announcement tomorrow, we’re going to reduce regulation, waste, fraud, and inefficiency, and these two guys are going to find a lot of it, we’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken, and failing bureaucracies. And that’s what we’re going to be doing, and we’re going to stop child sexual mutilation, we’re going to stop it because it’s time. It’s time.
It’s time and it’s not right what’s going on, people are — it is mutilation and it’s not going to happen, we have to stop it, we have to get back to a great country with low taxes and strong military. We’re going to fix our military, we did it once, now we’re going to have to do it again. We didn’t know a big chunk of it was going to be given to Afghanistan. We’re going to work on Middle East, and we’re going to work very hard on Russia and Ukraine, it’s got to stop. Russia and Ukraine’s got to stop.
Thousands and thousands — I saw a report today, thousands of people over the last three days were killed, thousands and thousands of people were killed, they happen to be soldiers. But whether they’re soldiers or they’re people sitting in towns, we’re going to work it.
So I just want to thank everybody for being here tonight. I want to congratulate Linda, you and Brooke for the job you’ve done. And it’s an honor to be here, and thank you Sly, thank you everybody, great honor, thank you very much, thank you.
