Friends, delegates and fellow Americans: I humbly and gratefully
accept your nomination for the presidency of the United States.
Together, we will lead our party back to the White House, and we
will lead our country back to safety, prosperity, and peace. We will be a
country of generosity and warmth. But we will also be a country of law
and order.
Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation. The
attacks on our police, and the terrorism in our cities, threaten our
very way of life. Any politician who does not grasp this danger is not
fit to lead our country.
Americans watching this address tonight have seen the recent images
of violence in our streets and the chaos in our communities. Many have
witnessed this violence personally, some have even been its victims.
I have a message for all of you: the crime and violence that today
afflicts our nation will soon come to an end. Beginning on January 20th
2017, safety will be restored.
The most basic duty of government is to defend the lives of its own
citizens. Any government that fails to do so is a government unworthy to
lead.
It is finally time for a straightforward assessment of the state of our nation.
I will present the facts plainly and honestly. We cannot afford to be so politically correct anymore.
So if you want to hear the corporate spin, the carefully-crafted
lies, and the media myths the Democrats are holding their convention
next week.
But here, at our convention, there will be no lies. We will honor the American people with the truth, and nothing else.
These are the facts:
Decades of progress made in bringing down crime are now being
reversed by this Administration’s rollback of criminal enforcement.
Homicides last year increased by 17% in America’s fifty largest
cities. That’s the largest increase in 25 years. In our nation’s
capital, killings have risen by 50 percent. They are up nearly 60% in
nearby Baltimore.
In the President’s hometown of Chicago, more than 2,000 have been the
victims of shootings this year alone. And more than 3,600 have been
killed in the Chicago area since he took office.
The number of police officers killed in the line of duty has risen by
almost 50% compared to this point last year. Nearly 180,000 illegal
immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are
tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens.
The number of new illegal immigrant families who have crossed the
border so far this year already exceeds the entire total from 2015. They
are being released by the tens of thousands into our communities with
no regard for the impact on public safety or resources.
One such border-crosser was released and made his way to Nebraska.
There, he ended the life of an innocent young girl named Sarah Root. She
was 21 years-old, and was killed the day after graduating from college
with a 4.0 Grade Point Average. Her killer was then released a second
time, and he is now a fugitive from the law.
I’ve met Sarah’s beautiful family. But to this Administration, their
amazing daughter was just one more American life that wasn’t worth
protecting. One more child to sacrifice on the altar of open borders.
What about our economy?
Again, I will tell you the plain facts that have been edited out of
your nightly news and your morning newspaper: Nearly Four in 10
African-American children are living in poverty, while 58% of African
American youth are not employed. 2 million more Latinos are in poverty
today than when the President took his oath of office less than eight
years ago. Another 14 million people have left the workforce entirely.
Household incomes are down more than $4,000 since the year 2000. Our
manufacturing trade deficit has reached an all-time high – nearly $800
billion in a single year. The budget is no better.
President Obama has doubled our national debt to more than $19
trillion, and growing. Yet, what do we have to show for it? Our roads
and bridges are falling apart, our airports are in Third World
condition, and forty-three million Americans are on food stamps.
Now let us consider the state of affairs abroad.
Not only have our citizens endured domestic disaster, but they have
lived through one international humiliation after another. We all
remember the images of our sailors being forced to their knees by their
Iranian captors at gunpoint.
This was just prior to the signing of the Iran deal, which gave back
to Iran $150 billion and gave us nothing – it will go down in history as
one of the worst deals ever made. Another humiliation came when
president Obama drew a red line in Syria – and the whole world knew it
meant nothing.
In Libya, our consulate – the symbol of American prestige around the
globe – was brought down in flames. America is far less safe – and the
world is far less stable – than when Obama made the decision to put
Hillary Clinton in charge of America’s foreign policy.
I am certain it is a decision he truly regrets. Her bad instincts and
her bad judgment – something pointed out by Bernie Sanders – are what
caused the disasters unfolding today. Let’s review the record. In 2009,
pre-Hillary, ISIS was not even on the map.
Libya was cooperating. Egypt was peaceful. Iraq was seeing a
reduction in violence. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Syria was
under control. After four years of Hillary Clinton, what do we have?
ISIS has spread across the region, and the world. Libya is in ruins, and
our Ambassador and his staff were left helpless to die at the hands of
savage killers. Egypt was turned over to the radical Muslim brotherhood,
forcing the military to retake control. Iraq is in chaos.
Iran is on the path to nuclear weapons. Syria is engulfed in a civil
war and a refugee crisis that now threatens the West. After fifteen
years of wars in the Middle East, after trillions of dollars spent and
thousands of lives lost, the situation is worse than it has ever been
before.
This is the legacy of Hillary Clinton: death, destruction and weakness.
But Hillary Clinton’s legacy does not have to be America’s legacy.
The problems we face now – poverty and violence at home, war and
destruction abroad – will last only as long as we continue relying on
the same politicians who created them. A change in leadership is
required to change these outcomes. Tonight, I will share with you my
plan of action for America.
The most important difference between our plan and that of our
opponents, is that our plan will put America First. Americanism, not
globalism, will be our credo. As long as we are led by politicians who
will not put America First, then we can be assured that other nations
will not treat America with respect. This will all change in 2017.
The American People will come first once again. My plan will begin
with safety at home – which means safe neighborhoods, secure borders,
and protection from terrorism. There can be no prosperity without law
and order. On the economy, I will outline reforms to add millions of new
jobs and trillions in new wealth that can be used to rebuild America.
A number of these reforms that I will outline tonight will be opposed
by some of our nation’s most powerful special interests. That is
because these interests have rigged our political and economic system
for their exclusive benefit.
Big business, elite media and major donors are lining up behind the
campaign of my opponent because they know she will keep our rigged
system in place. They are throwing money at her because they have total
control over everything she does. She is their puppet, and they pull the
strings.
That is why Hillary Clinton’s message is that things will never
change. My message is that things have to change – and they have to
change right now. Every day I wake up determined to deliver for the
people I have met all across this nation that have been neglected,
ignored, and abandoned.
I have visited the laid-off factory workers, and the communities
crushed by our horrible and unfair trade deals. These are the forgotten
men and women of our country. People who work hard but no longer have a
voice.
I AM YOUR VOICE.
I have embraced crying mothers who have lost their children because
our politicians put their personal agendas before the national good. I
have no patience for injustice, no tolerance for government
incompetence, no sympathy for leaders who fail their citizens.
When innocent people suffer, because our political system lacks the
will, or the courage, or the basic decency to enforce our laws – or
worse still, has sold out to some corporate lobbyist for cash – I am not
able to look the other way.
And when a Secretary of State illegally stores her emails on a
private server, deletes 33,000 of them so the authorities can’t see her
crime, puts our country at risk, lies about it in every different form
and faces no consequence – I know that corruption has reached a level
like never before.
When the FBI Director says that the Secretary of State was “extremely
careless” and “negligent,” in handling our classified secrets, I also
know that these terms are minor compared to what she actually did. They
were just used to save her from facing justice for her terrible crimes.
In fact, her single greatest accomplishment may be committing such an
egregious crime and getting away with it – especially when others have
paid so dearly. When that same Secretary of State rakes in millions of
dollars trading access and favors to special interests and foreign
powers I know the time for action has come.
I have joined the political arena so that the powerful can no longer
beat up on people that cannot defend themselves. Nobody knows the system
better than me, which is why I alone can fix it. I have seen firsthand
how the system is rigged against our citizens, just like it was rigged
against Bernie Sanders – he never had a chance.
But his supporters will join our movement, because we will fix his
biggest issue: trade. Millions of Democrats will join our movement
because we are going to fix the system so it works for all Americans. In
this cause, I am proud to have at my side the next Vice President of
the United States: Governor Mike Pence of Indiana.
We will bring the same economic success to America that Mike brought
to Indiana. He is a man of character and accomplishment. He is the right
man for the job. The first task for our new Administration will be to
liberate our citizens from the crime and terrorism and lawlessness that
threatens their communities.
America was shocked to its core when our police officers in Dallas
were brutally executed. In the days after Dallas, we have seen continued
threats and violence against our law enforcement officials. Law
officers have been shot or killed in recent days in Georgia, Missouri,
Wisconsin, Kansas, Michigan and Tennessee.
On Sunday, more police were gunned down in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Three were killed, and four were badly injured. An attack on law
enforcement is an attack on all Americans. I have a message to every
last person threatening the peace on our streets and the safety of our
police: when I take the oath of office next year, I will restore law and
order our country.
I will work with, and appoint, the best prosecutors and law
enforcement officials in the country to get the job done. In this race
for the White House, I am the Law And Order candidate. The irresponsible
rhetoric of our President, who has used the pulpit of the presidency to
divide us by race and color, has made America a more dangerous
environment for everyone.
This Administration has failed America’s inner cities. It’s failed
them on education. It’s failed them on jobs. It’s failed them on crime.
It’s failed them at every level.
When I am President, I will work to ensure that all of our kids are treated equally, and protected equally.
Every action I take, I will ask myself: does this make life better
for young Americans in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Ferguson who have as
much of a right to live out their dreams as any other child America?
To make life safe in America, we must also address the growing
threats we face from outside America: we are going to defeat the
barbarians of ISIS. Once again, France is the victim of brutal Islamic
terrorism.
Men, women and children viciously mowed down. Lives ruined. Families ripped apart. A nation in mourning.
The damage and devastation that can be inflicted by Islamic radicals
has been over and over – at the World Trade Center, at an office party
in San Bernardino, at the Boston Marathon, and a military recruiting
center in Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were
savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist
targeted our LGBT community. As your President, I will do everything in
my power to protect our LGBT citizens from the violence and oppression
of a hateful foreign ideology. To protect us from terrorism, we need to
focus on three things.
We must have the best intelligence gathering operation in the world.
We must abandon the failed policy of nation building and regime change
that Hillary Clinton pushed in Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria. Instead, we
must work with all of our allies who share our goal of destroying ISIS
and stamping out Islamic terror.
This includes working with our greatest ally in the region, the State
of Israel. Lastly, we must immediately suspend immigration from any
nation that has been compromised by terrorism until such time as proven
vetting mechanisms have been put in place.
My opponent has called for a radical 550% increase in Syrian refugees
on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under
President Obama. She proposes this despite the fact that there’s no way
to screen these refugees in order to find out who they are or where they
come from. I only want to admit individuals into our country who will
support our values and love our people.
Anyone who endorses violence, hatred or oppression is not welcome in our country and never will be.
Decades of record immigration have produced lower wages and higher
unemployment for our citizens, especially for African-American and
Latino workers. We are going to have an immigration system that works,
but one that works for the American people.
On Monday, we heard from three parents whose children were killed by
illegal immigrants Mary Ann Mendoza, Sabine Durden, and Jamiel Shaw.
They are just three brave representatives of many thousands. Of all my
travels in this country, nothing has affected me more deeply than the
time I have spent with the mothers and fathers who have lost their
children to violence spilling across our border.
These families have no special interests to represent them. There are
no demonstrators to protest on their behalf. My opponent will never
meet with them, or share in their pain. Instead, my opponent wants
Sanctuary Cities. But where was sanctuary for Kate Steinle? Where was
Sanctuary for the children of Mary Ann, Sabine and Jamiel? Where was
sanctuary for all the other Americans who have been so brutally
murdered, and who have suffered so horribly?
These wounded American families have been alone. But they are alone
no longer. Tonight, this candidate and this whole nation stand in their
corner to support them, to send them our love, and to pledge in their
honor that we will save countless more families from suffering the same
awful fate.
We are going to build a great border wall to stop illegal
immigration, to stop the gangs and the violence, and to stop the drugs
from pouring into our communities. I have been honored to receive the
endorsement of America’s Border Patrol Agents, and will work directly
with them to protect the integrity of our lawful immigration system.
By ending catch-and-release on the border, we will stop the cycle of
human smuggling and violence. Illegal border crossings will go down.
Peace will be restored. By enforcing the rules for the millions who
overstay their visas, our laws will finally receive the respect they
deserve.
Tonight, I want every American whose demands for immigration security
have been denied – and every politician who has denied them – to listen
very closely to the words I am about to say.
On January 21st of 2017, the day after I take the oath of office,
Americans will finally wake up in a country where the laws of the United
States are enforced. We are going to be considerate and compassionate
to everyone.
But my greatest compassion will be for our own struggling citizens.
My plan is the exact opposite of the radical and dangerous immigration
policy of Hillary Clinton. Americans want relief from uncontrolled
immigration. Communities want relief.
Yet Hillary Clinton is proposing mass amnesty, mass immigration, and
mass lawlessness. Her plan will overwhelm your schools and hospitals,
further reduce your jobs and wages, and make it harder for recent
immigrants to escape from poverty.
I have a different vision for our workers. It begins with a new, fair
trade policy that protects our jobs and stands up to countries that
cheat. It’s been a signature message of my campaign from day one, and it
will be a signature feature of my presidency from the moment I take the
oath of office.
I have made billions of dollars in business making deals – now I’m
going to make our country rich again. I am going to turn our bad trade
agreements into great ones. America has lost nearly-one third of its
manufacturing jobs since 1997, following the enactment of disastrous
trade deals supported by Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Remember, it was Bill Clinton who signed NAFTA, one of the worst economic deals ever made by our country.
Never again.
I am going to bring our jobs back to Ohio and to America – and I am
not going to let companies move to other countries, firing their
employees along the way, without consequences.
My opponent, on the other hand, has supported virtually every trade
agreement that has been destroying our middle class. She supported
NAFTA, and she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade
Organization – another one of her husband’s colossal mistakes.
She supported the job killing trade deal with South Korea. She has
supported the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The TPP will not only destroy
our manufacturing, but it will make America subject to the rulings of
foreign governments. I pledge to never sign any trade agreement that
hurts our workers, or that diminishes our freedom and independence.
Instead, I will make individual deals with individual countries.
No longer will we enter into these massive deals, with many
countries, that are thousands of pages long – and which no one from our
country even reads or understands. We are going to enforce all trade
violations, including through the use of taxes and tariffs, against any
country that cheats.
This includes stopping China’s outrageous theft of intellectual
property, along with their illegal product dumping, and their
devastating currency manipulation. Our horrible trade agreements with
China and many others, will be totally renegotiated. That includes
renegotiating NAFTA to get a much better deal for America – and we’ll
walk away if we don’t get the deal that we want. We are going to start
building and making things again.
Next comes the reform of our tax laws, regulations and energy rules.
While Hillary Clinton plans a massive tax increase, I have proposed the
largest tax reduction of any candidate who has declared for the
presidential race this year – Democrat or Republican. Middle-income
Americans will experience profound relief, and taxes will be simplified
for everyone.
America is one of the highest-taxed nations in the world. Reducing
taxes will cause new companies and new jobs to come roaring back into
our country. Then we are going to deal with the issue of regulation, one
of the greatest job-killers of them all. Excessive regulation is
costing our country as much as $2 trillion a year, and we will end it.
We are going to lift the restrictions on the production of American
energy. This will produce more than $20 trillion in job creating
economic activity over the next four decades.
My opponent, on the other hand, wants to put the great miners and
steel workers of our country out of work – that will never happen when I
am President. With these new economic policies, trillions of dollars
will start flowing into our country.
This new wealth will improve the quality of life for all Americans –
We will build the roads, highways, bridges, tunnels, airports, and the
railways of tomorrow. This, in turn, will create millions more jobs. We
will rescue kids from failing schools by helping their parents send them
to a safe school of their choice.
My opponent would rather protect education bureaucrats than serve
American children. We will repeal and replace disastrous Obamacare. You
will be able to choose your own doctor again. And we will fix TSA at the
airports! We will completely rebuild our depleted military, and the
countries that we protect, at a massive loss, will be asked to pay their
fair share.
We will take care of our great Veterans like they have never been
taken care of before. My opponent dismissed the VA scandal as being not
widespread – one more sign of how out of touch she really is. We are
going to ask every Department Head in government to provide a list of
wasteful spending projects that we can eliminate in my first 100 days.
The politicians have talked about it, I’m going to do it. We are also
going to appoint justices to the United States Supreme Court who will
uphold our laws and our Constitution.
The replacement for Justice Scalia will be a person of similar views
and principles. This will be one of the most important issues decided by
this election. My opponent wants to essentially abolish the 2nd
amendment. I, on the other hand, received the early and strong
endorsement of the National Rifle Association and will protect the right
of all Americans to keep their families safe.
At this moment, I would like to thank the evangelical community who
have been so good to me and so supportive. You have so much to
contribute to our politics, yet our laws prevent you from speaking your
minds from your own pulpits.
An amendment, pushed by Lyndon Johnson, many years ago, threatens
religious institutions with a loss of their tax-exempt status if they
openly advocate their political views.
I am going to work very hard to repeal that language and protect free
speech for all Americans. We can accomplish these great things, and so
much else – all we need to do is start believing in ourselves and in our
country again. It is time to show the whole world that America Is Back –
bigger, and better and stronger than ever before.
In this journey, I'm so lucky to have at my side my wife Melania and
my wonderful children, Don, Ivanka, Eric, Tiffany, and Barron: you will
always be my greatest source of pride and joy. My Dad, Fred Trump, was
the smartest and hardest working man I ever knew. I wonder sometimes
what he’d say if he were here to see this tonight.
It’s because of him that I learned, from my youngest age, to respect
the dignity of work and the dignity of working people. He was a guy most
comfortable in the company of bricklayers, carpenters, and electricians
and I have a lot of that in me also. Then there’s my mother, Mary. She
was strong, but also warm and fair-minded. She was a truly great mother.
She was also one of the most honest and charitable people I have ever
known, and a great judge of character.
To my sisters Mary Anne and Elizabeth, my brother Robert and my late
brother Fred, I will always give you my love you are most special to me.
I have loved my life in business.
But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our
country – to go to work for all of you. It’s time to deliver a victory
for the American people. But to do that, we must break free from the
petty politics of the past.
America is a nation of believers, dreamers, and strivers that is being led by a group of censors, critics, and cynics.
Remember: all of the people telling you that you can’t have the
country you want, are the same people telling you that I wouldn’t be
standing here tonight. No longer can we rely on those elites in media,
and politics, who will say anything to keep a rigged system in place.
Instead, we must choose to Believe In America. History is watching us now.
It’s waiting to see if we will rise to the occasion, and if we will
show the whole world that America is still free and independent and
strong.
My opponent asks her supporters to recite a three-word loyalty
pledge. It reads: “I’m With Her”. I choose to recite a different pledge.
My pledge reads: “I’M WITH YOU – THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.”
I am your voice.
So to every parent who dreams for their child, and every child who
dreams for their future, I say these words to you tonight: I’m With You,
and I will fight for you, and I will win for you.
To all Americans tonight, in all our cities and towns, I make this promise: We Will Make America Strong Again.
We Will Make America Proud Again.
We Will Make America Safe Again.
And We Will Make America Great Again.
THANK YOU.
