FULL TRANSCRIPT: Trump Town Hall in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

That’s what we’re going to do, so thank you.

MODERATOR: Honestly, the fact that you chose to go there today and take the time, and I heard a couple of stories of people saying, thank you for taking time for the little people, and your answer …

DONALD TRUMP: To me, they’re big people. I think they’re … I think everyone’s … They’re all the same, you know? But they said it was so successful. Honestly, the McDonald’s just hit the rockets. I mean, you have to see everything. They said, sir, you don’t have to do this stuff. I said, are you crazy? I’m not going to do this. They said, you can avoid this. Can you imagine that? I said, who’s going to tell these people? I’m not telling.

Hey, maybe we can make this more exciting than the McDonald’s stuff. How about that? But there’s no way. There’s no way I wasn’t coming. I know this area very well, maybe better, and some of the greatest people, so it’s great to have such a crowd. They have an overflow crowd. They have people outside trying to get in, and I was going to suggest, if anybody would like to give up your seat? Anybody? One hand? I’ve never had anybody raise a hand saying yes. Anyway, thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Setting the Stage

MODERATOR: Not happening today, but I thank you so much for making that trek from outside of Philly and now here in Lancaster, and then you have a busy night because they got some football to watch in Pittsburgh. Stop all you Eagles fans. We can cheer for the Steelers tonight as well.

I want to just give you a quick rundown. I mean, this is going to be — you know, Mr. President, he is as organic as it gets, right? So we are going to go everywhere tonight on all different kinds of topics. You may notice there’s no teleprompter. Not necessary. We don’t need that here. I’m just saying.

So we have questions from the audience. We also have questions from a few of the lovely people behind me as well. We’re going to go back and forth and take turns. So are you ready for this town hall? Let’s go. The first question is someone, I believe, who is behind me. So you’re going to have to tell me — I didn’t get to meet you all. Bob, where are you?

Hi, Bob. Here we go. Come on up. I like —

DONALD TRUMP: I like that outfit. Oh, that’s beautiful. Where did you buy that? I want to get one of them. That’s pretty cool, actually.

MODERATOR: Can you help him out with an outfit?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Absolutely. Absolutely. I got just your size.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

First Question: Social Security and Medicare

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Mr. President, let’s start the night — start the afternoon off. My name is Bob. I’m a retired union worker from Hazleton on a fixed income. Many Americans in my position struggle to make ends meet. Will you commit to helping protect Social Security and Medicare benefits?

DONALD TRUMP: A great question. The answer is yes. And, you know, when you say fixed income, because of Biden and Kamala, nobody knows her as Harris. You know, I can’t use the word Harris. And, by the way, it’s her 60th birthday, so I want to wish her a happy 60th birthday. Right? No? No. Happy birthday. And many more. And I mean it. So, you know, I do mean it, actually.

I’m just looking at this gentleman. You don’t look like you’re retired to me. You look like you’re in the prime. You could be if you wanted to be, right? You’re doing great. Look at the size of the arms of this guy. I don’t know. He looks — he looks pretty healthy.

So, people on fixed income have been decimated by the Biden and Harris regime. This has been horrible, what’s happened to them, because we have — I think, in history — I think they’re the greatest in history. They say, no, it’s 48 years. But I think we had the greatest inflation just about in the history of our country. They don’t include everything. They don’t include interest rates going from 2 percent to 10, but you can’t get the money at 10, so, therefore, it’s much higher.

But people — the people that are hurt the most are people on fixed income, like Bob. And we’re going to do a lot of things. For one thing, no tax on — you know, on Social Security benefits for seniors. Are you getting Social Security? You don’t look — you’re — what is your — what is your age?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: 57.

DONALD TRUMP: You look a lot younger than that. Doesn’t he look handsome? He’s — he’s a much better-looking guy than I am. And look at him. You look good. And you have a good family, great family?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I’ve got a great family.

DONALD TRUMP: That’s great. So, you were hurt, though, because of the inflation. I mean, people were hurt because of the inflation and especially the people that are in fixed income.

And here’s what we’re doing. Number one, no tax on Social Security for, you know, for our seniors. That’s a big deal. No tax on tips, also, as you know. And no tax for all different groups we’re covering, right? And no tax on overtime. So, if you work overtime — that’s been the big sleeper. And you know another good one?

I think something that’s going to be really good is you can fully deduct your interest payments when you buy a car. We never did that. And a Wall Street — Bob, a Wall Street genius called me up. He said, whose idea was that? It sounds pretty simple, right? But we’ve never done that. So, you buy a car, you’re going to be able to fully deduct your interest payment. That’s a big deal.

So, you go out and buy a car. So, we’re going to do that for you. Also, we’re going to — that’s a big thing. Also, very importantly, we’re just going to make the economy better. Do you plan on working a little bit in terms of part-time jobs or any of that?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Yes, sir, I still do.

DONALD TRUMP: But one of the biggest things we’re going to do is the economy is going to get good. But we have more liquid gold. You know, this is what caused the inflation. They blew — we had the best — we were energy independent. First time, I think, ever. We’re energy independent.

And now we’re getting oil from Venezuela. We’re getting tar from Venezuela because it comes out as tar. We have to heat the hell out of it. And it’s done — there’s only one place in the whole world that can do it, and that’s in Houston, Texas. So, for the environmental people, that stuff is going up in smoke in our territory. And we have the best, cleanest — the most oil and gas of any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia, including — including Russia, Saudi — all of them. And we’re going to be using it.

But here’s the thing. We will get your energy bill — everybody in the audience, including businesses — down by 50, 5-0 percent from one year from when we take office. And when that happens, everything else is going to follow. You know? So, Sage, it was — it was energy that caused — Bob, it was energy that caused the problem. And it’s going to be energy that leads us back into the promised land. The energy went up. And also, they’re spending — they’re stupid spending. They spend money on the Green New Scam at levels that nobody’s ever seen before. They just, like, thrown — they could have thrown it out the window. It would have been fine.

So — and thank you for doing this. This is great to have you. I’ve seen so many great stories about this woman. She’s a brave woman, a great woman. Beautiful, too, but I’m not allowed to say that. That could be the end of your political — you know, if you say that a woman is beautiful today, don’t be a politician. It is the end of your political career. But she’s beautiful. So thank you for doing this. Thank you.

Economic Policies and Promises

MODERATOR: Thank you. And what I love about what you said there is not just the promises — which, by the way, who was the first person to talk about not taxing tips?

DONALD TRUMP: I’m just saying.

MODERATOR: Yes, you were the first.

DONALD TRUMP: In fact, they’ve never said it again. She made it — like, a couple of months later, she said, and by the way, there won’t be — well, in the meantime, they’re passing legislation that makes it very hard for people to skip or will, you know, ruin their lives a little bit.

A waitress — I was in my building in Las Vegas, and a waitress came over to me and said, hi, hi — I said, how you doing? The government is killing me. They’re after me all the time about tips and tips and all this. And I said, well, that’s very interesting. And she said, like, there shouldn’t be a tax on tips. I said, that’s an interesting idea. This is my consultant. There’s a good waitress. She was great. And I said, that’s an idea.

I thought about it for about 15 minutes, and I said, what a good idea. But, you know, they then came out, like, a month or two later. They made the statement they got blown away because, by that time, they’re not going to be able to do it. They’re not going to do it.

Just like he was going to do the educational thing, you know, with the debt. With debt, you borrow money to go to college, and they were going to just write it off. He’s been talking about it for three years. It’s totally dead. They won’t get anything passed. We’re going to get it all passed. We’re going to get it done very, very quickly. So those things.

But from your standpoint, Bob, the Social Security is a big deal. So we’ll take care of you.

MODERATOR: And I love the fact that Mr. Trump said, within the amount of time, he said, give us a year. It’s not just a promise. It’s OK. Give us a year to get this done. So thank you. That is for all Americans.

DONALD TRUMP: I have to say that this — that’s right. You said 15 days. That’s right. It’s hard to believe. Fifteen days until we get to be great again. Right. But we have. Look, what they did is terrible because this guy won the nomination. He got 14 million votes. I’m not a fan, but he got 14 million votes, many more votes than anybody else. He had 22 people running. Kamala was running, too, and she was the first one to drop out. Shockingly, he picked her to run, which, you know, I think he wished he had that decision to do over again.

And they took it away from him. They took the presidency away. This is the first time in the history of our country. I mean, it was taken away like you take candy from a baby. And I don’t use the word. You know, there are a lot of words to describe it. It’s a coup and it was they took the presidency of the United States away from him. And honestly, they shouldn’t be doing it.

Threats to Democracy

DONALD TRUMP: And, you know, they keep talking about a threat to democracy. They’re a threat to democracy. And she’s a threat to democracy. What they did is a terrible thing.

And just to finish, I believe that Joe Biden likes me more than he likes Kamala. And who would think that? And, you know, look, the bottom line. So we had a debate, Joe Biden. We had a debate. And he didn’t do great in the debate, but that’s understood. He didn’t do well. And his poll numbers went down. But that’s okay because you come back from that stuff.

And what happened is incredible. Nancy Pelosi, crazy Nancy, went in and Schumer and all these guys went in. They said, we’re taking it away. Nobody’s ever seen that before. Nobody’s ever done it before. And it should honestly should never happen again. It was a terrible thing.

MODERATOR: I think at the end of the day, all anyone wants, even if your man or woman doesn’t win the race, win the competition, it’s just for it to be done fairly. That’s all that people want. So here we go. 15 days, 15 days and counting. We were talking momentarily here about taxes and no taxes on tips, et cetera. And I believe our first question from the audience is on that topic as well. Where’s the microphone? Right here.

Question on Taxes and the Economy

MODERATOR: Hello. Here we go.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hello, Mr. President. My name is Suki. We’ve actually met before. I have the tattoo. I have the tattoo, the portrait tattoo on my leg. We met September 14th in Jim Worthington.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, good. He’s a good man.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: And I have your portrait on my leg every single day. I get to show everyone. I love and honor you.

MODERATOR: Go ahead with your question.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Okay, Mr. President. Again, my name is Suki. I have worked as a server bartender. I am a mom of four boys. My oldest is headed to medical school. My oldest son is a professional boxer. And two of my boys are MMA fighters.

DONALD TRUMP: Wow. Ooh. That means she’s got those good fighting genes. That’s what it means. Wow. Are they good? Are they pretty good? How are they doing?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: He’s all over TV.

DONALD TRUMP: Wow. That’s great.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I am a proud mom. Most of my income comes from tips. Making ends meet in the economy is hard. Can you tell me, can you tell us your plan to lower taxes for working Americans like myself?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, number one, we’re going to make the economy much better. I mean, that’s bigger than anything we can do is make the economy better. We’re not going to let foreign countries come in and steal our businesses, our jobs and everything else, which has been happening for years. And I must tell you, and I always tell them, why didn’t you do something? When we were there, I did a lot about that.

We had the greatest economy in the history of our country. We had the strongest border in the history of our country. I don’t know if they have the chart because this is such a different forum from a, you know, from making a speech or doing a rally. But we have a chart that’s an amazing chart. In fact, it’s probably my favorite chart of all time because I wouldn’t be here without that chart. And, oh. Good. We wouldn’t be here. We definitely wouldn’t be.

But if you take a look, see the arrow on the bottom? That arrow is my final day in office, and we had the lowest illegal immigration that we’ve had, I guess, probably in history, certainly in recorded history, and it was going lower. And we’re going to let people in. We want to have people come in, but they have to come in legally. We have to know they love our country. We don’t want people coming in that were up for murder. And not only up for murder, convicted.

We have 13,099 convicted murderers that were released into our country from the prison systems, penitentiaries in other countries. And the last count, 180 countries when you think of it. And we just can’t let that happen. Were also drug dealers, gang members, everybody.

And if you look at Venezuela, if you look at a lot of these countries where they came from, they opened up their prisons and they allowed the people to come out. And honestly, I would have done the same thing if I was there. It’s called open borders. They heard we were open. They took them out.

Thank you. Oh, so cute. Look at her. She’s very politically wise at that young age, right, both? These are young kids. Everybody’s liking politics nowadays. Well, we better win or they’re not going to like it too much, I can tell you, right? They’re not going to like it.

So we can’t let that happen. We’re going to make our economy great and you’re going to really come along with it. And all of those other things that they’re talking about, including no taxes on tips, all of that’s going to be just something very special for you. That’ll be a great thing.

Thank you. And tell your boys to do great. I’ll be watching, okay?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Ethan Mercado, look out for him.

DONALD TRUMP: Okay, we’ll be watching. We’ll be watching.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Thank you, President Trump. I love you.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you. Congratulations. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Suki. And I think that is something that has not been talked about enough, we will get there a little bit later in this town hall as well, but the effects on the economy because of the open border, yes, safety, but also the financial drain and every aspect. We’ll get into that a little bit more as well.

Economy and Border Security

DONALD TRUMP: I have to tell you that, you know, if you look at the polls, they’ll tell you that the biggest thing is the economy. Second thing is the border. But, you know, I think this is bigger than the economy. I think when you talk about the economy, I think you have to include inflation in the economy because the inflation is the worst we’ve ever had. I think it’s just absolutely, you know, in the old days, they used to call inflation a country buster.

You go back hundreds of years, Germany had big inflation, it was destroyed. Other countries were destroyed by inflation. With all of that, I think what’s happening at our border, where they’re allowing millions of people to come into our country every year, totally unchecked and unvetted, coming from prisons and mental institutions and coming in as terrorists, we have the highest level of terrorism, highest level of terrorists that we’ve ever had. We’ve never had this many terrorists come in.

We had one year where the, and I don’t even believe this myself, the border patrol made these charts. And in one year in 2019, I guess it was, they had zero were allowed. Now, I think it’s probably wrong. I must’ve been some, but zero, they put it down as zero. And this was not from me, this was from them. And the following year it was 11. And now we have thousands of terrorists coming into our country. And nothing good can happen with that. Nothing good is gonna come out of that.

So I really think it’s a big part of the economy too. But I think the number one threat that we have, and I actually think the thing that people are gonna be voting on most is what’s happening on our Southern and other, but our Southern border. And I think it’s the number one thing that people wanna talk about.

MODERATOR: Yeah, I totally agree. And we love that chart too. We love that chart too.

DONALD TRUMP: I sleep with it, I kiss it when I go to bed.

MODERATOR: That’s a great visual, Mr. President. Let’s keep it going on the topic of safety. Our next question is also from the audience here. His name is Chris. Chris, yell out, where are you? Here we go. Same spot as Suki, hi.

DONALD TRUMP: Hi, Chris.

Question on Law Enforcement and Public Safety

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hi, hi, Mr. President. Thank you for coming to Lancaster. As the Lancaster County Sheriff, I’m committed to upholding public safety and reducing crime in our community by working closely with local law enforcement and other partners. How does your plan for law and order in your next term support local sheriffs like myself to ensure we have the resources needed to protect our communities?

DONALD TRUMP: Great question, are you the current sheriff?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I am. Yeah, yes sir.

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, that’s pretty good, you look like it.

MODERATOR: Can I, real quickly, this is a statistic that I know you know, Chris. In the Commonwealth, 49 of 67 county sheriffs have endorsed Donald J. Trump.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I was one of them.

DONALD TRUMP: And the rest are coming because nobody’s endorsing. We have the endorsement of almost every law enforcement agency group in the country, so it’s good. They have none, I don’t think they have any. So thank you very much, I’ll give you an answer to that.

So we have to protect our law enforcement. We have to indemnify them against the bad things. You know, if you do your job, if you do your job well, oftentimes they go after you, they want your house, they want your pension, they wanna fire you. We can’t have that, we have great people and we have people that have to be given back their authority and their respect because our cities are blowing up. We had the worst crime that we’ve ever had in the last year.

Remember the other day, not, you know, pretty recently were at the debate, where I was debating with David Muir of ABC Fake News. And I said, we have crime at a level that we’ve never had it. And a lot of it’s migrant crime. Now the migrants are coming and they’re causing crime and they’re tough as hell. And they’re causing tremendous, they’re taking over like Aurora in Colorado. And I mean, they’re taking over buildings. They’re in the real estate business all of a sudden, but they’re vicious people and they’re taking over.

And he said, no, no, the crime is down. Crime is down. I said, crime’s not down. No, no, it’s down. The following day, they released the figures and crime is up 45%. And I haven’t gotten this guy, David Muir, everything I said, he kept, I said, who am I debating here? I had two of them from ABC and I had her. She was the easy one, but they were terrible. They never questioned her on one thing, but they said, he said, crime is down. I said, no, no, crime is way up.

And the FBI, we have to look at this because the FBI put out charts that crime was down initially because they didn’t report certain little areas of the country, like the worst areas in the country for crime. And it turned out that their stats were very wrong and very misleading, but he was wrong because it’s up like at least 45%.

That’s an incredible, you take a look at Venezuela, take a look at some of these countries that have taken all their gang members and their criminals off the streets and giving them to us. Their crime is down 40, 50, 60, 70%. So we’re gonna give you back the dignity and the respect. You know, we have great respect for you and we’re not gonna let this happen. You can stop crime. You just have to be given the go ahead.

When they take, when you go to Chicago, you go to a lot of cities and they rob a department store and guys are walking out with refrigerators. They have it on their back with two friends and air conditioning and everything. And they literally are stripping and the police are standing outside and they’re shaking out of anger because they really wanna do something, but they’re told to stand down, stand down. And they’re watching these criminals walk out. We’re not gonna have that happen. We’re not gonna let that happen. So thank you very much, Sheriff. I appreciate it.

MODERATOR: You know, I think unfortunately, since you left office in certainly 2020 and COVID and George Floyd, I mean, it has been tough. And that’s why I think we’re all so grateful for the men and women in blue because you do put your lives in the line every single day. So thank you, Chris, honestly, and for being a leader there. But I’m sure that that is something that these sheriffs have to worry about to encourage men and women to come back to the police force, that they will be supported on a federal level.

Dangers Faced by Law Enforcement

DONALD TRUMP: It’s become more and more dangerous. I mean, I visited a great family in Long Island where a policeman who was killed said, please open the door. They opened the door and they start firing. The windows were darkened. They opened the door and they start firing. There’s not a thing you could do, even if you were allowed and they’re not allowed, to open the door with a gun in your hand, you’re still not gonna make it because you can’t beat that kind of speed. I mean, he’s got a gun and they started firing. He died.

I went to the funeral. He died and I paid my respects to the most beautiful family and they can’t even believe it. But the wife was telling me that she was so afraid it was gonna happen. And things are happening today. It’s a very dangerous profession.

Of course, being president is a very dangerous profession. You know, we were going over that the other day. One 10th of 1% of race car drivers, that’s pretty dangerous, right? One 10th of 1% race car drivers die. One 10th of 1%, these guys that ride the bulls, I mean, say what you want. They are very brave. But one 10th of 1%, similar to like the race car stuff.

With presidents, it’s a lot of them. If you think about it, if you think about it, you know, you had Lincoln and Kennedy and McKinley and this and that, or get shot at, many shot at, Reagan and Ford. This is a very dangerous profession, but I wouldn’t change it for anything because we’re gonna turn our country around. We’re gonna turn our country around and we’re gonna do it, we’re gonna do it fast, fast.

Wall Street Journal Interview

MODERATOR: And it does start with Americans being able to feel safe in their cities and towns every single day. It’s interesting because this, was it just this past week when you sat down with the Wall Street Journal and called them out on a couple of things I think it’s safe to say. Is that the best way to describe it?

He let them know what he thought about the ways that they had reported things and certainly the way that even questions were being asked. And if you look back at that factually, whether it be terrorists, whether it be crime, like we were just discussing, whether it be the border, whether it be COVID, they were wrong about a lot of things and you called them out on that. In particular, with what we were talking about with the Southern border.

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we have to take care of our border. Our border is so important. And you look, it’s just common sense. People are coming through that are criminals. You’re gonna have more crime.

And if you remember where Kamala was saying, no, no, the people that come into our country, they don’t commit crime. They are far tougher. The one thing nice, our criminals look like very nice people by comparison that these people are vicious. The level, you just take a look at some of these gangs that are coming in. So our criminals look much nicer than they used to. That’s the only thing we can say, but that’s not much.

The Wall Street Journal was interested. I did, I had like a two and a half hour meeting with them. And it was a great meeting. I respect the Wall Street Journal a lot. And we had with the editorial board and they did, they actually wrote a beautiful story about it. But the one thing they said that was great, we’ve watched this guy for 20 years. The one thing we know is that he’s got no cognitive problem. I have no cognitive. She may have a cognitive problem, but there’s no cognitive problem. It was nice that they actually said that.

They said, you know, if anyone has any questions, we were grilling this guy for two hours or two and a half hours, got no cognitive. In fact, if anything, he’s maybe better. I don’t even know if I like this. Maybe he’s better than he was 20 years ago.

Cognitive Tests for Presidential Candidates

DONALD TRUMP: So anyway, no, it’s, and I actually call for a cognitive test for all people wanting to run for president. I think not based on age, you know, some of the greatest leaders in the world, and I’m not 80 and I’m not that close to 80, but in the Biden case, he’s 81 or 82. And you know, that’s okay because I know people that are unbelievably successful. By the way, a man who’s very successful is Rupert Murdoch, and he’s 93 or 94.

He was at a meeting that I had the following day and he’s sharp as you can be. I mean, he’s the same guy that I’ve known for 25, 30 years. He’s sharp and he’s in his nineties. We’ve had some of the greatest leaders in world history that are in their eighties, but it was very interesting because in reading the article, it was a great article, but I appreciated that they said that it’s very nice that they say it.

I’ve done cognitive tests, I’ve done them twice, and I aced both of them. And the doctor in one case said, I’ve never seen anybody ace them. They’ve never seen anybody ace them, but I’d like to see cognitive tests for anybody running for president or vice president. I think it’s important in a way.

MODERATOR: And it should have nothing to do with the number, the age, in my opinion. It’s all about the test and turn them in and make that part of the requirement.

DONALD TRUMP: Everybody, you know, I did ask about it though. Why can’t they, they say it’s unconstitutional, which I think is too bad or ridiculous, but I’d like to see that. I think people would be great if we could have, you know, good, strong tests for people that are running for president, vice president. They do say, however, it’s unconstitutional. Who likes the idea of that? I do.

MODERATOR: Yeah. Well, there’s an age minimum. So add that to it, 35 years and a cognitive test. Because you could be 41 and have cognitive issues, right?

DONALD TRUMP: I’ve said it for a long time. And I think it would be a great thing if we could do it.

Border Security and Immigration

MODERATOR: Let me ask you one more time to wrap up the topic of the border, because the second you left office and Biden Harris took over, they immediately implemented changes and changed drastically. So many of these things.

DONALD TRUMP: 99 changes. Can you believe? Remain in Mexico. Like you got to remain in Mexico. That’s a little change, right? And you think that was easy to get from Mexico? I said, we want them to, and because of tariffs, I said, look, if you don’t agree, I’m going to charge you 25% tariffs. They said, we would love them to remain in Mexico. I’ll never again. They were so against it.

MODERATOR: So how quickly can these be implemented again and changes made?

DONALD TRUMP: Almost immediately. Remember, remember one thing. Remember one thing. I watched her the other night about a bill. The bill was a disaster, by the way. It was a horrible bill. Would have let people have immunity. It would have given people, millions of people would have allowed it to come in aimlessly.

It was a hopeless, horrible bill, but she always uses that. And we would institute, you know, she’s trying to get tough now on the border after four years of destroying our country. Now, all of a sudden, a couple of months ago, they went to a little bit tougher. The only thing she didn’t stop are airplanes flying over the border, loaded up. You know how many people? Hundreds of thousands of people come in by airplane. They didn’t stop that. They forgot. I think they said they forgot. They want to show a little toughness.

But look, we need strong borders. We need great elections. If we don’t have great elections and strong borders, then we don’t have a country. Those two things and other things, but those two things are at the top of the list. We have to have strong borders and we want people to come in, but we want people to come in that can really do it, that can do a job. And we’re going to, and we’re going, look, we’re going to get that.

We’re going to get that, but we have to get rid of the people. We have to get rid of the people that are now there. She is so bad. Remember what she said.

MODERATOR: I’m sorry, when you say get rid of the people who are there, some of the illegals that are here?

DONALD TRUMP: No, no, no. I’m talking about the politicians. The politicians, okay, I’m making sure. No, no, we have to get rid of the politicians. And remember what she said as she was interviewed in numerous shows that she couldn’t come up?

What would you do different? I can’t think of anything. I don’t know. She can’t think. Do you know that 325,000, now think of a stadium, a big stadium being filled up many times. 325,000 children are dead or missing under there. They came across the border or they didn’t. They’re all dead, missing, or into sex slavery or slavery. 325, many of them are dead. I’m sure many of them are dead. Probably their parents will never see their parents like any parent, they wanna see them. They get kidnapped, they get taken, and they come through an open border. They’re missing or dead or they’re in slavery. 325,000, think of that.

Think of what that means, the numbers, like unheard of. And remember, what would you do different? Nothing, I wouldn’t do anything different. So immediately she’s disqualified because he’s the worst president in our history. She’s the worst vice president in our history. And to think that she’s running for president is pretty ridiculous.

MODERATOR: I feel like you all will agree with me that this is no one here or in this country that I speak to, and you speak to a lot more people than I do, is anti-immigration. It’s about doing it the right way.

And now we sit here, and I know you hear this everywhere you go, Mr. President, where you hear people saying, send them back, send them back. That process is not easy. But we obviously cannot even take care of the taxpaying Americans in this country. So when you hear send them back, and some should be sent back based on a quote unquote resume, what is that process like?

Deportation Process

DONALD TRUMP: So let me just tell you, again, it gets down to the sheriff and local police. They know everybody in town. They know their names, their middle names. They have serial numbers. They’ve got everything. They know everything. They know all about these horrible criminals coming in from Venezuela, coming in from Colombia. They know everyone, local police. The local police will work with others.

And look, from a practical standpoint, it’s very tough because there’ll be one woman with two beautiful children who gets brought back, and there’ll be tears, and the Times, and all these crazy newspapers will do stories about one person when you’re, you know, so it’s a very difficult thing. But we start with the murderers.

We know who they are. We don’t know everything about them because they’ve been let in without being vetted. But we start with the murderers. Nobody wants to have murderers. These are people that some were getting the death penalty. They were gonna be executed in their own. Some killed more than five people. Some killed more than two people. One killed like nine or 10 people. We want them out. We start with them. We start with the drug dealers.

We start with the people that are causing, oh, by the way, you start also with the terrorists. You gotta get them out. And then we start figuring out what the hell we’re gonna do because what they’ve done to our country, what they have done, and I’ll tell you who was affected most, the black population, the Hispanic population, because their jobs are being lost. People that had jobs for years are losing their job now to people that came into our country illegally.

So that’s a really, and they’re starting to see it. You know, the black population over the last short period of time, their numbers, their unemployment numbers have just skyrocketed. The reason is people coming into the country illegally are taking their jobs. So, and I’ll tell you what’s gonna be affected very much are gonna be unions, but you’re gonna see things happening that are just, it’s just too much.

In one town in Ohio, a town of, think of this, a town of 52,000 people, they put 32,000 illegal migrants in this town, right? 32,000 illegal migrants into a 52,000 people town. In Aurora, they have people that are running in and walking down the streets carrying weapons. And the landlord to the building is saying, I don’t know what I’m gonna do here. They’re collecting the rent in the building for themselves. And this is happening all over. This is happening all over the country.

You know, we mentioned a few different places and a lot of mayors don’t wanna talk about it because it’s bad for the reputation of the state and the town or the city that they’re in. But look at New York, what’s happened. Look at Chicago, look at Los Angeles, what’s happening. Our country’s being destroyed by incompetent politicians.

Presidential Authority on Border Control

DONALD TRUMP: And you know, all they have to do, remember this, when they say a bill, a bill, she always said the bill wasn’t passed because the Senate wouldn’t wanna go against Trump. He called, it had nothing to do with me. The bill was no good. But listen, all the president has to do is she gets to the White House, wakes him up. They call because it’s after four o’clock. He sleeps after four o’clock. Get him the hell down to the Oval Office and say, President signed the bill.

All he has to do is say, the borders are closed. Tell that to the Great Border Patrol. The borders are closed and those borders, that’s what I did. I didn’t have a bill. I had the best border maybe ever. I didn’t have a bill. I just said, close the borders now. And they were closed. You don’t need a bill for that.

MODERATOR: And they have been saying that for years now that they needed to get it approved and Congress and all of that. You don’t need a bill.

DONALD TRUMP: I didn’t have a bill. I didn’t have a bill. I said, close the borders. You know, my father used to tell me when, like we’d hire some guy and, sir, could I have a letter of authorization that I got this job? And my father always used to say to me, you know, son, every time they need a letter, they never work out to be any good. The guys that don’t need a letter, those are the ones that you want. Because when they ask for a letter, that means they don’t have it.

So what happens is you call up the head of the border patrol, you call up the group and you say, effective immediately, the borders are closed and they close up. And that’s what I had. I didn’t have a bill. I closed up the borders.

MODERATOR: And the billions of dollars that are being spent across the country to pay for the education, the healthcare, the rent, the insurance for illegal aliens can go to Americans, can go to minorities, can be spent on veterans who are on the streets homeless. So I have hope and we’re gonna hold you to this.

DONALD TRUMP: But you know, it’s not financially feasible or sustainable for us to be paying for hundreds, not for hundreds, for millions and millions of people. It’s estimated now that the number, the real number is over 21 million people in three and a half. 21 million people came into this country. Many of them are seriously bad people. I was wondering who that was. It’s the fake news. No, these guys are great. These are the photographers. When they take good pictures, I like them.

DONALD TRUMP: When they take bad pictures of me, I don’t like them. They usually turn out to be not so nice, but that’s okay. Here’s a man. Pulitzer Prize, Doug, Pulitzer Prize. It’s the only thing good about the New York Times is Doug. Pulitzer Prize, everybody. Pretty good. He’s good. He’s a good guy. They’re all good guys. Very talented guys. Good.

MODERATOR: Yes, we pay extra close attention to any movement up near the 16th base, don’t we?

DONALD TRUMP: I was looking. I was getting ready. Put up your Dukes. Here we go. Here we go again, yes.

Question from Paul

MODERATOR: Back to the audience. Where is Paul, for a question?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. President.

MODERATOR: I gotta get to work. He’s behind me.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Hi. Ma’am, I need to kind of talk a little more about the border. My name is Paul, and I serve in the United States Army and the Pennsylvania Army National Guard.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you.

MODERATOR: We gotta get you on camera, you know? Go ahead.

DONALD TRUMP: Let me get up. These are the most uncomfortable chairs, but I think we’ll get up. There is no chair like that chair.

MODERATOR: I’m so glad you said it.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Nice to meet you, President. Sir, right now, members of the National Guard are mobilized because of the crisis at the border. How soon will the wall get finished if you’re elected?

Border Wall Construction

DONALD TRUMP: So the wall, we built hundreds of miles of wall, more than I said I was gonna be doing. And again, I had a hard time with Congress on the wall. I took it out of the military because we rebuilt the military. We had a lot of money in the military. We took out billions because I considered it an invasion of our country. It was very easy.

And we then got sued by Nancy, Crazy Nancy, and all the Democrats, and we got sued 11 different times. We won all the suits. It took, it was brutal, but we were sued a lot. And we got hundreds of miles of wall built.

And then I said, let’s add some more. And one of the reasons we did have the great success is because I got the wall built. I was building wall at levels that nobody had ever seen. And we were going through tremendous obstacles. It was hard. We got it done. And then I said, let’s add 200 miles because it was certain areas. You know, it’s interesting when you add wall here, you gotta add a little more wall here. And it was just one, it’s like water. It’s like water.

And we did, we were ready to do that. We ordered 200 miles. It was ready to be thrown up. It could have been thrown up in three to four weeks. And then we had a very unfortunate election. And these characters took over. And I said, you know, something’s going on. They’re not putting up the wall. They have to put up the wall. It would have been unbelievable, totally secure, very hard to get through the wall.

That was the wall specifically that Border Patrol and all of them wanted. This is the one that they wanted. It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to have concrete plank going up 30 or 40 feet. They said it has to be steel, has to have, you know, have to be able to see through it, et cetera, et cetera. And this is a combination of steel, concrete, and then rebar in the middle, each one of those pieces.

And then they have, I told this here, they have an anti-climb panel on the top. And I hated it because I didn’t like the way it looked when these things were so beautiful. And we had to put the anti-climb, but I said, no way I’m going to do that. I hate it. It was costly, but I hated it. And then we had people climbing and it’s true. The anti-climb panel is exactly what it is. It was much harder. So I said, all right, we’ll do it.

But this is exactly what they wanted and they didn’t want to put it up. And that’s the first time that I realized that they actually want an open border. Who would want an open border? It’s like, who would want an open border? Who would want men playing in women’s sports? Who would want all these transgender operations on your children?

So we built a tremendous amount of wall and we were going to do another 200, but I got Mexico to come in and they gave us thousands and thousands of troops while we were building the wall. That was hard to do. Remember, I always said Mexico will pay. They paid much more than what I was talking about. They gave us troops. They did a really good job. They didn’t want to do it.

They said, no way. And I said, way, way, way. And they said, no, we’re not doing it. And I said, if you’re not doing it, I’m going to charge you a 25% tariff. And they said, these tariffs are the, I’m telling you, it’s my favorite word in the dictionary, outside of love and religion, love and religion. But so I said, we’re going to charge you. And we got the troops from Mexico free of charge. And they were, you know, it really did the trick. We had great success.

But the net result is all of this wall that we built, they ended up selling for 5 cents on the dollar. Very expensive stuff too. Not all of it, but a lot of it. And Texas wanted to use it. Arizona wanted to use it. And the federal government wouldn’t sell it to them. And they sold a lot of it for 5 cents on the dollar.

These are people that hate our country. I’m convinced of it. There’s something, you got to vote them out. We got to get back to common sense, right?

MODERATOR: How, how immediate is that process? We talked about sending certain individuals back. How immediate is the wall process? Can they begin building right away?

DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, the wall. I’ve become very good at building walls, actually. Remember, there’s only two things that work. Everything’s obsolete. Other than that, see their cameras? Look at these beautiful cameras they have. In two weeks, they’ll be obsolete, right? Everything, the computers are going to be up. Two things, what are the two things? Wheels and walls. Wheels and walls. They’re not obsolete. They always work. And you can always have a wheel and a wall, right?

Look at her. She was the one that was crying. If she was crying, that means she likes, you like Trump. Look, uh-oh, she’s crying again.

MODERATOR: She’s crying again. Here we go.

DONALD TRUMP: Stand up, stand up. Show everybody. Aw. Very nice. Thank you, sweetheart. Are your friends as passionate as you? Yes, well, oh, boy, I’m glad they have those good seats. Thank you, darling, appreciate it, thank you.

MODERATOR: We call these, don’t we call these happy tears? These are happy tears, of course, yeah.

DONALD TRUMP: Those are tears that are happy tears.

Question from Olivia

MODERATOR: Okay, let’s keep it going. Olivia, I’m not sure, is Olivia in the audience, or is Olivia on, hello, Olivia. Come join us, you get to stand in the middle here. Go right ahead.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. President. My name is Olivia, and I’m a first-time voter from Stevens and a college student. Based on the inflation and weak job market, it seems like a big stretch that I’ll ever be able to own a home. What is your plan to help bring down inflation and make life more affordable for Americans like me who are just starting off?

DONALD TRUMP: And a home is a big deal, right? You know, you can’t have the American dream, because I’m giving the American dream. I gave up so much — during that four-year period we had the greatest economy. We had the greatest everything, and people were back to a thing called the American dream. I’m so glad you used the term.

We’re going to get interest rates way down. We’re going to, there are some places, you know, 35% of the cost of a home are regulations and nonsense that shouldn’t be between long-term zoning, where it takes years and years to get it developed. We’re going to take a lot of that out. I did, and they put a lot of it back in. The environmental approvals are terrible, just terrible, so ridiculously bad. And we’re going to get it taken care of. We’ll bring down the cost.

The biggest thing, two things. Make the economy good, so you get a lot of money, right? Make the economy good. And the other thing is interest rates. We’re going to get interest rates. Right now, you can’t get money. Even if you had a good job, you’re paying 10%, you’re paying 11%, 12%, and you can’t get it. When I was president, it was 2.2% interest, and now, and the money was all over the place, and now you can’t get the money. So we’re going to make sure that you can get the money. And who’s going to occupy that house with you?

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Right now, it’s just me.

DONALD TRUMP: But a beautiful family eventually, right? I’ll bet. Thank you, darling. Thank you.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Olivia. How about that first-time voter, Olivia? Great. Gets to ask the president a question. You go, girl. Good job.

Question from Ty

MODERATOR: Let’s keep it up. Where’s Ty? Ty, hello. Come on up here, too.

DONALD TRUMP: I like that. Do you like that, everybody? Should I do it? Should I do it? What do you think? Should I grow one of these? The goatee? He said yes. Why not? Come here.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. President. We’d like to first thank you for being here and taking questions from us. The people of Carbon County would like to thank you for your service and commitment for making America great again. My name is Ty. I’m a small-business owner. I’ve seen the detrimental effects of Kamala on the war on coal and rising energy costs. When you were president, the average price for gas around here was about $2.50. Today, at the Wawa in the corner, it was $3.34. That difference over four years adds up. What is your plan to help businesses like myself, especially with the cost of energy?

Energy Costs and Policy

DONALD TRUMP: So we actually had, and the big thing is going to be the cost of energy. Energy is so big. It’s so, like, amorphous. It’s all over the place. If you make donuts, it’s a stove and the truck to bring them to wherever they’re being delivered. The biggest thing is energy with this, with what you’re talking about. We’re going to get that way down.

And our price per gallon was actually, we had it down to $1.87 a gallon. And we had actually, the $3.50 was up to, that you had mentioned, that was up to $4, $5, and $6. And it was heading up again. And then they went back quickly. You know, they ended my energy policy and they were getting killed. And they went back to it. What they don’t say is that they went back to it. You know, they said, we’re getting killed here.

The day after the election, if they won this election, they’re going to go to a no fossil fuel deal. You’re going to have all electric and you’re going to say, oh, I can’t go far. It costs too much and they’re made in China. And, you know, we love Elon Musk and he makes all, and I think, and I will tell you, and I think these electric, what he does is incredible. What, you know, the electric cars are great, but it’s a certain application. Some people would like them depending on distances. If you want to go long distances at this moment, maybe not. But, you know, the amazing thing about Elon, you know, he’s in Pennsylvania today campaigning for me.

Electric Vehicles and Energy Policy

DONALD TRUMP: Can you believe it? And the Tesla is a great car, but I will tell you, but he will be the first to tell you. And he never called me once because I hit them hard because they have this electric mandate that in a very short period of time, everyone’s forced to have an electric car. Well, what about hybrids? What about regular gasoline propelled cars? We have more gasoline than anybody, but China has the product to make the batteries. So it’s not a good thing for us.

I’ve never had a call and I speak to him a lot. He’s incredible. How about that rocket that came down a few days ago? How cool was that? I called him up. I said, was that you? He said, yes, nobody else can do that. Russia can’t do it. China can’t do it. And the U.S. can’t do it other than it’s him. But no, he’s incredible.

But you know, amazing thing. He never once called me up and said, give you my word. He never once called me up and said, lay off the electric, would you? He gave me the greatest endorse. He understands what he’s going to have a tremendous market. There’s a great market for that, but not 100% of the market. It’s, you know, gasoline and hybrid. And there’s another one, hydrogen. Did you ever hear that? That’s a new one.

But here’s the problem. He knows. Mr. Wall, please stand up. He’s heard this before. This gentleman has come to 300 rallies. He likes me. You know, he’s a very successful guy. He just likes these rallies. He’d rather be watching this than some crummy football game, right?

But you know, what is happening is there is a lot of great technology, but hydrogen is not acceptable because it’s better than anything, except when there’s a problem. It has a tendency to blow up. And when it blows up, you are unrecognizable. They call the wife down. Would you please examine, not really the body because there’s no body. It’s just a pile of stuff. And I don’t want the hydrogen, if you don’t mind. You know, it’s one of those things that’s really wonderful, but when it doesn’t work, you’re dead. We don’t want that.

So we’ll come to another. But there’ll be other, over a period of time, there’ll be other things. We’re gonna get those interest rates down. We’re gonna, and I’m telling you, I made it. I said at the beginning, I’ll say it again. We have more liquid. Think of it. We have more gasoline and gas, and we have oil. Converted easily into gasoline. Also oil for your house, for your air conditioning, for your heating.

We will have your electric bills and all of your energy bills down by, we’re gonna cut it in half. Anything you’re paying right now, and that’s gonna make your business strong by itself. And it’ll be done within one year. Because what are we gonna do? Drill, baby, drill. Frack, baby, frack. We’re gonna frack. We’re gonna frack and drill, okay?

Thank you. Oh good, I will. I will.

MODERATOR: And Ty, what is your business?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: I own a bar and restaurant in Lehighton, Pennsylvania in the Carbon County.

MODERATOR: What’s the name of it?

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Boatyard Bar & Grill, just outside of Jim Thorpe.

DONALD TRUMP: Sounds great.

MODERATOR: Thank you, thank you. And I love this. I love this topic because we know how many small businesses were decimated, especially after COVID and what has happened since then. So Ty, we’re here for you. Go hang out at Ty’s bar. Why not?

DONALD TRUMP: The one thing, sounds good. I’ll bet it’s a good place. Got a lot of action, right?

Surprise Guests

DONALD TRUMP: Oh, Dan Meuser? Oh, I see, Dan Meuser. Is Dan here? Oh, where’s Dan? Is it that good, Dan? I thought he said Stan Musial, Stan the man, remember? Hi, Dan, how are you? Who do we have here? Look, come on up here for a second, Dan, will you? Am I allowed to do, because this is our host, so I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this, but what do you think? One of our great –

MODERATOR: This is the boss.

DONALD TRUMP: I am not in charge here. One of our great congresspeople. Come on up. You know, under this forum, we don’t really announce our Congresspeople, our senators, and you’re gonna tell me who else is here with you, Dan. Come on up. This guy is fantastic.

Welcome, come on up in the middle. Dan Meuser. How are we doing? Most importantly, Dan, most importantly, he’s very much involved with the election. How are we doing?

DAN MEUSER: We’re doing great, Mr. President, and you know why? Because the enthusiasm for you has never been higher, and hey, how about it, everyone? We have so much to thank you for. What you did as president, our country was never stronger. What you’re doing now, you and your family, what you’ve gone through for surviving, we thank you very much for that. And folks, how about, we’re gonna be thanking him so much when he truly makes America great again.

DONALD TRUMP: It’s all gonna happen pretty fast. Thank you, Dan. Lloyd, come on up here, Lloyd. Come on up here. Lloyd Smucker. Congressman, warrior. Lloyd Smucker, come on up here, Lloyd. Thank you very much. That’s great, that’s great. Hi, Lloyd. These are two warriors.

MODERATOR: He had no idea he was being called on stage, did he?

LLOYD SMUCKER: No, not at all, but I can tell you, this is the district that I represent, and there’s a room full of people who love you, Mr. President.

DONALD TRUMP: They love him, too.

LLOYD SMUCKER: And I’ll also tell you, the enthusiasm is higher than four years ago and even eight years ago right now. We’re seeing volunteers like we haven’t seen before. We’re gonna win this area big.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you both. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, guys. Thank you, man. Thank you. Thanks, Lloyd. Thank you. Good. Oh, I’m lucky. Oh, you have no idea the hell that I’d have to, if we would have said goodbye and these two warriors weren’t introduced, I would have had a problem. I would have felt very badly good. Is there anybody else? You’re gonna go for McCormick? I know that, David.

MODERATOR: You know what I enjoyed watching was the expressions on the faces of the Secret Service as he’s inviting people on stage, right?

DONALD TRUMP: They’re not happy. They don’t get too happy, that’s right. They’re saying, excuse me, sir, they won’t be allowed on the stage.

Criticizing Political Opponents

DONALD TRUMP: Anyway, this has been really great.

MODERATOR: I think you ended the question with Ty about Frack Baby Frack.

DONALD TRUMP: She is not gonna frack, by the way. She’s been against fracking. She wants to confiscate your guns and she will do it. You know, with a politician, take a look at their initial record. That’s what they go back to.

She’s only doing this because of the election. She just changed all these, she changed 15 different policies. She wanted the transgender operations, I mean, almost at will. And a lot of them, though, the taxing, she wants to do a capital gains tax on, think of this, on unrecorded values. Think of this. If it goes up, you don’t have any cash. It goes up, she’ll put everybody out of business. She wants a capital gains tax that’s gonna destroy the country.

She wants to raise your taxes to 70 or 80%, kill all your jobs, chase everybody out to other countries. You know, businesses today, they will leave our country. They’re international businesses, the big ones. And you wanna get cute, everyone’s gonna pay. They say, one day, I’m going to Asia, I’m going to Europe, I’m going to Germany, let’s say, I’m going someplace. We can’t do this.

She wants capital gains taxes that have never been even tried before. They will destroy the country. This woman is so incompetent, she’s so bad. You cannot, and I would normally not like to speak like it. If they get chosen, our country’s finished.

You know, Elon Musk is a very smart guy. You gotta see his endorsement. He said, if this election isn’t won by Donald Trump, our country is essentially finished. That’s a hell of a statement for him to make. And he’s a totally brilliant guy.

Praising Elon Musk

DONALD TRUMP: This guy’s got so much, and I have to say, and I’ve said it before, I said it yesterday at a rally, he makes something, Starlink, that I’d never heard of it, but it’s great, it’s communication. North Carolina, Georgia had some areas that were not, basically, it’s communication. It’s a communication system, but especially North Carolina. The job, it was just totally demolished. They had no communications. People were dying. The federal government failed. Worse than Katrina, they did nothing.

The White House, her and Biden did nothing, and they needed to get Starlink. They said, do you know Elon Musk? He said, I do, because I was there. They said, is there a way we could get Starlink? So I called him up, and he had that to them so fast. It was unbelievable, and you can’t get it. The congressmen know this, and so I just want to thank Elon Musk.

But when you look at his endorsement, where he endorsed me, I mean, he’s not going around all over Pennsylvania day and night, day and night. It’s like he’s running. He just feels that our nation, if it doesn’t win this election, the nation is not going to survive. Not going to survive. So I want to thank Elon.

MODERATOR: Yes, it has been a blessing to watch him. Without the First Amendment, we have nothing, and Elon Musk has come. Buying Twitter was an incredible thing to do, and I think all of us are so grateful for him, appreciating what America was founded upon.

Fracking and Campaign Promises

MODERATOR: I will say about the frackings to wrap that part up, fortunately, we do have something called videotape, and in 2019, several times since Kamala Harris has said she would ban fracking, and now we come back, and a lot of flip-flopping on that. So just like with the border, when I asked timing and how quickly, we’re in the Keystone State. We’re in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania fracking. I mean, this is a gold mine right here.

DONALD TRUMP: Do we have one of those fracking statements that she made? Because here, you know, we put it up sometimes, but Pennsylvania specifically, it’s about fracking. Can they put that fracking tape up if they could do it? I don’t know if they can do it. This is a different forum. But if they can, put up the frack, frack, frack.

[Video playback of Kamala Harris]

[“KAMALA HARRIS: I’m committed to passing a Green New Deal and finally putting an end to fracking once and for all. If they can’t, after several years of this, I’m prepared to get rid of the filibuster to pass it over to you. I’m offering a Green New Deal that has been described as one of the most aggressive and progressive in the history of the United States of America. It is a revolution. I believe that the underlying principles of mining are now the important ones. What is the solution for owners who have jobs and interests in the fossil fuel industry? We’ll give you the workers that know what they can do into the jobs that they can do.]

Fracking and Energy Policy

DONALD TRUMP: So there you heard it. Good job backstage. Give me my watch. I said, give me that fracking statement.

No, she doesn’t want fracking. She’s never wanted fracking. And by the way, she destroyed one of the greatest cities in the world, San Francisco. Destroyed it. It’s not even livable. She destroyed it. And she destroyed, along with Gavin Newsom. Have you heard of him? Terrible. One of the worst governors. He’ll go down as one of the worst governors in history. Gavin Newsom. But the two of them destroyed California. How do you destroy California?

The ocean, the temperature, everything. It’s like the perfect place. They’re destroying it. They had more people leave it. Think of it. Then come in. First time, I think, ever. It’s an incredible place. And they have virtually destroyed it. And she’s not going to. We’re not going to let her destroy America. That’s all there is to it.

MODERATOR: Fracking. How soon? How quickly?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, we have to go. You know, what you’re doing is fracking. But you can do much more. You can do double and triple what you’re doing right now. You’re restricted by so many different things that they put on. So we’re going to let them frack, frack, frack, like a duck. Frack, frack, frack. You can do three times what you’re doing now. And even four times, and you can do it. And it won’t have any impact on you. It’s not going to have any impact. And tremendous money.

It can lower your taxes for the state. Great for the country. But you’re in a state that has tremendous capability that you wouldn’t even think. You don’t think of Pennsylvania. When you think of Pennsylvania as a commonwealth and having to do with fracking, 20 years ago you wouldn’t have thought. But now it’s your biggest, most important thing. It’s five. The commonwealth of Pennsylvania produces 500,000 energy jobs. They’d be wiped out. They’d be wiped out. And they can actually do a lot more if they wanted to, if they were allowed. I will allow them to do a lot more.

We’re going to get your energy bills down at a level that you haven’t seen before. It’s going to make a big difference.

Final Question from Sarah

MODERATOR: And here we go. We have time for one final question. Sarah, come on up, girlfriend. Hi, Sarah.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: Good evening, Mr. President. My name is Sarah. I’m a veteran, U.S. Marine veteran.

DONALD TRUMP: Great.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: And I’m a Purple Heart recipient.

MODERATOR: Wait, wait, wait. They didn’t hear this part. This is very important. Please say it again, Sarah.

AUDIENCE QUESTION: I’m a U.S. Marine veteran and a Purple Heart recipient of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Many veterans face significant challenges, such as accessing quality health care, mental health support, and transition assistance back into civilian life. Will you commit to making the VA Choice program that you open up permanent?

VA Choice and Veterans’ Care

DONALD TRUMP: So we had VA Choice. And this was something that was so important. That’s where you have a choice of getting a doctor if you can’t get fairly quick service. And I will say, we have great doctors. The doctors are incredible. But the administration of it is not good. And as you know, four years ago, we had the best, the highest rated VA ever. We were at 92% approval rating. And I got two things done.

I got VA Choice. And that was, basically, you wait. And if you don’t have a doctor within 48 hours, you can go outside, get a doctor. We pay the bill. And you get yourself taken care of. People were waiting. People were waiting for four and five months to see a doctor. And they were not feeling well. But literally, it was a minor thing. And they end up being terminally ill because of it. Think of it. Terminally ill.

The other thing we did, we had a lot of people that, because of civil service and unions and other things, you couldn’t fire them under any circumstances, no matter what they were. And they were sadists. And they were thieves. They were a lot of bad people. Right? You couldn’t fire anybody. So they were living with people that were horrible. And these were both authorized by Congress. One was 52 years they couldn’t get it. The other was 58 years. I got the right to fire bad people that didn’t take care of our veterans. Right? You know that.

And we fired 9,000 people and replaced them with great people, with loving people. And those two things. And we had a 92% approval rating. And it’s never been even close to that.

Now, here’s the bad news. They’re very rapidly breaking the system up. They’ve hired a lot of the people back that were terrible and that we fired. One of the problems, it’s just unbelievable. You know why? Because they don’t know what the hell they’re doing. And the other thing is they’re slowly getting rid of choice. So they’re making it so tough that you almost can’t use it. We were actually saving money on choice. Because you save, a doctor would fix them up and get them back and beautiful. Instead, they were getting sicker, sicker, and sicker. And many of them became terminal.

Right to Try

DONALD TRUMP: You know, I did one other thing. I have to say, right to try. That’s where you have a right to try medicines that won’t be approved for another four or five years. They’ve been trying for 50 years, more than that, to get it approved. And, you know, the insurance companies didn’t want it. The country didn’t want it. Nobody wanted it. The doctors didn’t want it because they didn’t want to be sued. And I said, here’s what we’re going to do. I sat down in a room with all of them, the labs. And I said, we’re going to make a deal.

They’re going to sign a document saying they’re not going to hold anybody liable. And we’re going to get the right to try. And nobody really wanted to do it, but we did it. I forced it on them. We have saved thousands and thousands of lives. And even the labs now and the doctors like it because we’re finding out that, you know, some of these things are incredible. They’re taking people that were terminally ill and they’re getting better. Some of them are getting totally better.

And we’ve saved thousands and thousands of lives. It sounds so simple. I love the name right to try. People used to go to Asia. They’d go to Europe. They’d go all over the world looking for a cure or they had no money and they couldn’t do that. They’d go home and they’d just die. Now they sign a simple document and we’re using space age things that won’t be approved for another few years by the FDA.

And we move that time up. But we they won’t be approved for a little while. You know, you have to go through a very extensive testing. But if people are willing to sign that we have saved so many thousands of lives.

So I think you understand. But we’re going to go back to choice very rapidly. Immediately. We’re going back to choice. And we’re also going to get rid of the bad people that don’t love you. OK.

MODERATOR: Thank you, Sarah. And thank you for your service. My goodness. Army brat here. That is where that’s where our roots are. Our servicemen and women are first responders. That’s where it is. And so thank you, Sarah. Thank you so much. And congratulations.

Closing Remarks

MODERATOR: I want to wrap up on this if I could. I had the opportunity a few months ago to talk to your lovely daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, on my show. She is incredible. She’s an incredible woman. She is obviously so committed to bringing you back to where you belong. She’s an incredible mother. I’ve been traveling with her a lot lately and she’s amazing.

And one of the things we talked about on my show was the why with you. Because you have a lot of other things you could be doing right now. Your bank account looks pretty good. You have a few golf courses around the country. You have a few buildings here and there. You had four incredible years. You have grandchildren. You have another one on the way. Congratulations to your daughter, Tiffany.

One of my favorite moments with you was watching the RNC and watching your daughter, your granddaughter, 17 years old, on the stage and what that must have felt like for you. So there’s so much that you have. And then you come out here and you just said it’s such a dangerous job. And you choose to continue to do this when you don’t have to. It’s safer. It’s cheaper. All of the things to not do what you’re doing today. Why? Why?

DONALD TRUMP: So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. So, I probably am asked that question more than any other question. They say… Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, everybody. I think I’m asked that question maybe, like, why do you do this? Or if you had it to do again, sort of a similar question, would you do it over? And the answer to that is so easy and so emphatic, yes.

But the reason is… I was saying to, you know, in a sort of kidding fashion the other night at a rally with these great rallies. And I was saying, you know, I didn’t have to be here. I was in the middle of a little bit of a rough area. And I loved every minute of it. We had, I think, 28,000 people. We had 101,000 people in Butler. You know that. We had 107,000 people in California the other day. And I said, here’s the story. I could be anywhere I want. I could be on the finest beaches having that sun go over that very white skin that hasn’t seen sun in years.

I could be hit in the face with beautiful waves of salt and beautiful salt water. I could be wherever I want. And I have great properties all over. Or I could be here with you people. And you know what? I would rather be here with you than any other thing that I can do because you have a lot of people that are rich or wealthy. And they can do what they want to do. But we’re doing something that’s unique.

This is the greatest movement of all time. We’re going to turn our country around. Our country is really, it’s a failing nation. I don’t care what you say. I mean, we’re not, we’re laughed at all over the world by other leaders. Four years ago, we were respected by everybody. China, Russia, Russia would have never gone into Ukraine. Israel would have never been attacked on October 7th.

We would have never had the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, which is you saw what happened in Afghanistan, the Taliban. We would have never had, think of it. We would have never had Afghanistan. We were getting out, but we’re going to get out with dignity and strength.

And we’re going to keep the big air base, Bagram, because it’s one hour away. Spent billions and billions of dollars, just about the biggest, most powerful, longest runways in the world. We gave it to China. They gave it to China. China is now opera. We were one hour away from where China makes its nuclear weapons. We gave it up. Would have never happened.

All of these things. We wouldn’t have had inflation because our energy was so good. Energy caused the inflation, what they did with energy. But I said to myself, you know, sometimes I think I say, you know, I get hit with all these lunatics that we have with the radical left lunatics where they make up stories about Russia, Russia, Russia.

In the end, I wouldn’t change what we’ve done for anything. We’re going to make America great again, greater than ever before. And we can’t do that sitting on a beach, right? We can’t do that sitting on a beach.

So I wouldn’t change it for a thing. And I just want to thank you. You’ve really done a great job tonight. And you have a tremendous understanding. You know, I thought that I know — I know you through sports and through other things, but you have really got an understanding of both the good and the bad of where this country is. And I appreciate you being here very much.

MODERATOR: Thank you. I’m an American. That’s all it is. I just love this country. And I love that you love this country. This is what we need. And he does choose to do this for all of us. So help me give him a grand exit off the stage here because he has football to go watch. The 47th president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you. Get out and vote, everybody. Thank you very much.

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