Donald Trump laid out a series of campaign promises and leveled a slew of accusations at rival Hillary Clinton on Wednesday. Read more about the speech here.
NPR's politics team (with some help from our colleagues on the international desk) has annotated Trump's speech, below. Portions we commented on are bolded, followed by analysis and fact-check in italics. We will update further.
The speech follows:
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone.
Today I'd like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this upcoming and very important election. People have asked me why I'm running for president. I built an amazing business that I love. And I get to work side by side with my children every single day. We come to work together and turn visions into reality. We think big, and then we make it happen. We absolutely make it happen. I love what I do. And I'm grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it.
So when people ask me why I am running, I very quickly answer: I'm running to give back to this country, which has been so very good to me.
When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports, or the factories moving overseas to Mexico, or to other countries, for that matter, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton. Only by me.
The fact is, we can come back bigger and better and stronger than ever before. Jobs, jobs, jobs.
Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be. But we can't solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created the problems themselves. We'll never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who have rigged it in the first place.
The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money. That's why we're asking Bernie Sanders' voters to join our movement. So together we can fix the system for all Americans. So important.
This includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals. And they are disastrous. They are destroying our country. Because it's not just the political system that's rigged, it's the whole economy.
It's rigged by big donors who want to keep wages down.
[Trump himself has said during this cycle that wages are "too high." He said it in a November debate in response to a question about raising the minimum wage, then repeated the point the next day on MSNBC'sMorning Joe. Since then, he has walked that comment back, telling Meet the Press'Chuck Todd in May, " I have seen what's going on. And I don't know how people make it on $7.25 an hour." He added that he would like to see an increase, but that states — not the federal government — should do it. — Danielle Kurtzleben]
It's rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers, and sell their products back into the United States with absolutely no consequences for them.
[Trump has expressed great outrage over trade deals leading to the offshoring of American jobs. But when it comes to his own Trump-branded products, the vast majority are made overseas . — Tamara Keith]
It's rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools. It's rigged against you, the American people. Hillary Clinton, and, as you know, most people know, she's a world-class liar. Just look at her pathetic email server statements, or her phony landing.
Or her phony landing in Bosnia where she said she was under attack. And the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers. A total and so — look, this was one of the beauts — a total and self-serving lie.
[TheWashington Post Fact Checker did an excellent piece on this. And, yes, it was a four-Pinocchio whopper. In AP video from the time, she does appear to be holding a bouquet of flowers. — Tamara Keith]
Brian Williams' career was destroyed for saying less.
[Brian Williams did lose his post as anchor ofNBC Nightly News, the network's signature program. He's now an anchor on MSNBC. Their inaccurate claims about being under fire in aircraft were remarkably similar. — Tamara Keith]
Just remember that.
Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses.
[True, she did. — Tamara Keith]
But here, and this is the way it is, is the bottom line. I started off in Brooklyn, New York, not so long ago, with a small loan and built a business that today is worth well over $10 billion.
[It depends on your definition of small. Trump says the loan was $1 million, which by most standards is not small. Additionally, theWashington Post Fact Checker finds that Trump benefited from significantly more help than that from his father, a successful real estate developer. — Tamara Keith]
And that's the kind of thinking we need in our leadership of our country. I've always had a talent for building businesses, and importantly, for creating jobs. That's a talent our country desperately needs. I'm running for president to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first. It's about time.
We're going to put America first. And we're going to make America great again. This election will decide whether we are ruled by the people or by the politicians.
Here is my promise to the American voter:
If I'm elected president, I will end the special-interest monopoly in Washington, D.C. Very important.
[Trump has said that he loves "the idea of campaign finance reform" and regularly decries the influence of money in politics, but he has yet to outline how he would "end the special-interest monopoly in Washington, D.C." His website does not list campaign finance reform, money in politics or checking the influence of lobbyists in the section devoted to issues. His campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, was formerly a partner in a successful lobbying firm. — Tamara Keith]
The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests. And, I will tell you, she's made plenty of money for them. And she's been taking plenty of money out for herself. Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others, and, really, many, many others, in exchange for cash. Pure and simple, folks. Pure and simple.
Then, when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests. And, in less than two years, secret speeches that she doesn't want to reveal under any circumstances to the public. I wonder why. Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs and foreign governments in the years since 2001.
[According to CNN , the Clintons did earn $153 million in speaking fees since 2001. Bill Clinton earned the bulk of that money. Hillary earned $21.7 million TOTAL. According to CNN it was just $1.8 million — still not tiny — which came from big banks. It's unclear where the rest came from (Trump would argue it was all some sort of "special interest"), but it seems the bulk was not from Wall Street, as Trump is clearly implying. — Will Huntsberry]
They totally own her. And that will never, ever change. Including if she ever became president, God help us.
The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests or surrendering, really, the last scrap of independence to the total and complete control of people like the Clintons. Those are the stakes: Hillary Clinton wants to be president. But she doesn't have the temperament, or, as Bernie Sanders said very strongly, the judgment to be president. She does not have the judgment. She believes --
She believes she's entitled to the office. Her campaign slogan is "I'm with her." You know what my response is to that? I'm with you, the American people.
Thank you very much. She thinks it's all about her. I know it's all about you. I know it's all about making America great again for all Americans. All Americans. Our country lost its way when it stopped putting the American people really first. We have to go back to putting our American people first. We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism, focusing on what's good for America's middle class, to a policy of Globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries, all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy itself.
We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed. They get punished. This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats. This is a wave of globalism that wipes out our middle class and our jobs along with it. We need reform, and we have to reform our economic system so that once again we can all succeed together and America can become rich again. We have to make America rich again.
And that's what I mean by America first.
Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again. Bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to the shores.
[According to a report from Michael Hicks, Ball State professor, 9 out of 10 manufacturing jobs have been lost to mechanization, not trade policies. " No matter how you measure it, 2015 was the record year for manufacturing production in the USA. Right now manufacturing in Indiana and the USA is at record levels. There's no ambiguity on this. ... To be sure, our trade deficits have cost us manufacturing jobs. The high-end estimates are that today we have 1.5 million fewer manufacturing jobs across the nation because of foreign trade. All the other 6 million or so lost manufacturing jobs are due to mechanization, better technology and better production practices. Today's typical factory workers make twice as much 'stuff' in an hour as they did in 1977. For every manufacturing job lost to trade, nearly 9 have been lost to machines. But trade also creates jobs. We have 7 million more transportation and logistics jobs alone, likely attributable to trade, since the 1970s." — Will Huntsberry ]
I mean, we have to bring our manufacturers back to the United States. Desperately needed. Desperately, we need those jobs. And we need it even from our psyche.
One of the really great things and one of the first major bills that George Washington signed was — amazing, when I saw this for the first time — the encouragement and protection of manufacturing in America. Our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying: The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people. In other words, we have to protect our country. I have decided and visited cities and towns across America, all across America, and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton. And it's total devastation. All over New York. All over Pennsylvania. All over New England. All over the country.
Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton's disastrous and totally disastrous NAFTA. Just like she supported China's entrance into the World Trade Organization.
[ It's very hard to tease out the exact effects of NAFTA because of the many economic factors at play. However, by several nonpartisan analyses, it is not "disastrous." In 2003, the Congressional Budget Office characterized the 1994 agreement as having a "very small positive effect on U.S. gross domestic product." A 2015 study from the Congressional Research Service likewise characterized the effect on the economy as "relatively small" and also noted that it's difficult to put exact numbers on the effect. They added, "In reality, NAFTA did not cause the huge job losses feared by the critics or the large economic gains predicted by supporters."
One additional bit of context: It's true that trade deals, broadly speaking, are sometimes disastrous on the micro level — that is, a trade deal can be disastrous for a person whose job is moved to another country. But on the macro level, trade deals often provide broader, less readily visible benefits (like cheaper goods for U.S. consumers). — Danielle Kurtzleben]
We've lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed.
[U.S. employment in manufacturing has dropped by 27 percent since January 1994 when NAFTA took effect. Since 2010, jobs in manufacturing have seen a slight uptick. — Tamara Keith]
Among the worst we've ever done. Among the most destructive agreements we've ever signed.
Our trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Hillary Clinton's time as secretary of state. A disgraceful performance for which she should not be congratulated but rather scorned.
[The U.S. trade deficit with China grew by approximately 39 percent from 2009 to 2012, the years that Clinton was secretary of state. However, it would be hard to put much responsibility for U.S. trade policy and the imbalance on the secretary of state. — Tamara Keith]
As the AP pointed out when Trump attacked Clinton on the U.S.'s trade deficit with China, "In her role as the nation's top diplomat, Clinton had no direct control over the difference in the cost of U.S. imports from China versus its exports to the nation." — Danielle Kurtzleben]
Then she left China — so true.
Then she left China and what happened is billions and billions of dollars in our intellectual property, and China has taken it. And it's a crime which is continuously going on and is going on right now. They are stealing billions and billions of dollars of our intellectual property. Hillary Clinton gave China millions of jobs, our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich. The book Clinton Cashby Peter Schweitzer documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family at America's expense. She gets rich making you poor.
Here is a quote from the book: At the center of U.S. policy toward China was Hillary Clinton. At this critical time for U.S.-China relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters. These funds were paid to the Clintons' bank account directly while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States. Tell me, folks, does that work? She sold out our workers and our country for Beijing. Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas and give up congressional power to an international foreign commission.
Now, because I pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she's pretending that she's against it.
[Proving causation here would be nearly impossible. But it is highly unlikely that Trump's criticisms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership had anything to do with Clinton's movement on the matter. Bernie Sanders was putting pressure on Hillary Clinton to oppose the TPP as well as fast-track authority before Trump even announced he was running for president. Labor unions whose support Clinton sought strongly oppose the deal as well. As a candidate, Clinton resisted taking a position one way or another on TPP until negotiations were completed. Then, in October, one week before the first Democratic presidential debate, her campaign weighed in, saying she couldn't support it in its current form. — Tamara Keith]
She's given, and deleted, as you know — and most people have heard about this. Have we ever heard about her deleting anything? No, I don't think so — s he deleted the entire record from her book.
[This has been widely reported, including here. — Tamara Keith]
And deletion is something she really does know something about, because she's deleted at least 30,000 emails. Which, by the way, should be able to be found.
Should be able to be found, because the government — I will say, I've always heard, you can never really delete an email. So it should be able to be found, if they really wanted to find them. But I don't think they want to find them. This is the latest Clinton cover-up, and it doesn't change anything.
If she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans-Pacific Partnership.
[Clinton has said she is opposed to the TPP — or, more clearly, her campaign has said she's opposed to it "in its current form," and that it needs changes to bolster jobs, wages and national security. However, she wasn't always opposed to the agreement. As secretary of state, she had characterized it as "the gold standard" of trade agreements. In October 2015 , when she came out against the deal, CNN counted 45 instances in which she had previously spoken in favor of the deal. — Danielle Kurtzleben]
And we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She'll do this and, just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career — and it will be even worse than the Clintons' NAFTA deal, and I never thought it could get worse than that — we will lose jobs, we will lose employment, we will lose taxes, we will lose everything. We will lose our country. I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and for our workers.
We don't make great deals anymore. But we will once I become president. I promise you that.
It's not just our economy that's been corrupted but our foreign policy, too. The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars and unleashed ISIS across the world. No secretary of state has been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton.
Her decision spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched. Among the victims of our late ambassador Chris Stevens — I mean, what she did with him was absolutely horrible. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed. When the phone rang, as per the commercial, at 3 o'clock in the morning, Hillary Clinton was sleeping.
Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds and hundreds of requests for security. They were desperate, they needed help. Hillary Clinton's State Department refused them all. She started the war that put them in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die. To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about the video being the cause of death, the famous video.
[In marathon testimony to a congressional committee last year, Clinton said she had "lost sleep" and had been "racking my brain over what more could have or should've been done." But she said she relied on lower-level officials to make determinations about a security presence at the compound and had not personally denied any requests for more security there. — Carrie Johnson]
All a lie. Another Hillary lie. Here's what one of the victim's mother had to say: I want the whole world to know it. She lied to my face. And, you know, this person cannot be president. She cannot be president.
In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world. Libya was cooperating. Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence, believe it or not. Syria was under control. Iran was being choked by sanctions. Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty Israel. Something very nice because, by the way, Israel has been totally mistreated by the United States. ISIS wasn't even on the map. Fast forward to 2013. In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East. Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to ISIS — the barbarians. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East and on the road to nuclear weapons.
Hillary Clinton's support for violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen, while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West.
[The Arab uprisings of 2011 included peaceful demonstrations in Syria. But President Bashar Assad's security forces began attacking protesters, and the clashes rapidly escalated into a civil war. President Obama was extremely wary of direct U.S. involvement, and his administration was criticized for not taking stronger action in the first few years. U.S. forces began bombing the Islamic State in Syria in 2014, well after Clinton left her post as secretary of state. Clinton has generally supported similar, if slightly tougher positions, than Obama has. She has called for intensifying the current bombing campaign and has advocated measures such as a no-fly zone. She has opposed sending U.S. ground troops.
The Islamic State began emerging in its current form in 2013 — as Clinton was leaving office — and made its most spectacular territorial gains in Syria that year, and in Iraq the following year. — Greg Myre]
She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt, and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control. But Clinton has opened the Pandora's box of radical Islam. Then, there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS and the ISIS killers. ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made along with President Obama. ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East and peaceful Muslims across the world, who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality. And who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety. In short --
In short, Hillary Clinton's tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another. One by one, they're all bad. She's virtually done nothing right. She's virtually done nothing good. It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the war in Iraq in the first place.
Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war. And, yes, even before the war ever started.
[Politifact has rated this claim as False, saying it "didn't find any examples of Trump unequivocally denouncing the war until a year after the war began." In fact, in September 2002, he told Howard Stern, "Yeah, I guess so" when questioned as to whether he supported the invasion of Iraq. — Jessica Taylor]
But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq. Because when she got into power, she couldn't wait to rush us off to war in Libya. She lacks the temperament and the judgment and the competence to lead our country. She should not be president under any circumstances.
In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office, somebody that saw her a lot ...
[According to a Politico report, the Association of Former Agents of the U.S. Secret Service has put out a statement questioning whether that agent could possibly have been stationed where he said he was stationed, and whether he could have seen what he claims. — Tamara Keith]
... and knows her probably better than almost anybody: "She simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office. From the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true." Her leadership style, volcanic, impulsive, disdainful, and disdainful of the rules set for everyone else, hasn't changed one bit.
Perhaps the most terrifying thing of Hillary Clinton's foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam.
In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States. And that's an increase over President Obama's already high number.
[Politifact has rated this " mostly true " — Clinton said during a September 2015 appearance onFace the Nation that she wanted to increase the number of Syrian refugees allowed in to somewhere between 10,000 to 65,000 people. In 2015, the U.S. allowed in about 2,000. So that would be more than a 500 percent increase. — Jessica Taylor
As NPR's Michele Kelemen has recently fact-checked, the high number of refugees that Trump claims the Obama administration is allowing into the country is described as more of a trickle by activists working on behalf of refugees. — Arnie Seipel]
Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on Earth with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from.
[This repeats a claim that Trump made in his speech right after the Orlando attacks, which was false . There is indeed a lengthy system in place, which begins with the U.N. identifying people as refugees. Their names and fingerprints are then run through criminal and terrorism background checks, and are cross-referenced with classified material. The entire process takes about one to two years. — Jessica Taylor]
Already, hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the United States.
[A 2015 Migration Policy Institute study found that just three resettled refugees had been arrested on terrorism charges, though this depends on the definition of "refugee" — for example, it did not count the Tsarnaev brothers of the Boston Marathon bombing because they had been brought to the U.S. as kids after their parents had been granted asylum. Politifact found that "a bout 140 migrants have been charged with or are credibly believed to have been involved in jihadist extremist activity in the United States since the World Trade Center attacks. Some number more — up to a maximum of 184 additional individuals — are children of immigrants." Those are incomplete, so it's unclear how large the numbers are. — Jessica Taylor ]
The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the most repressive anti-gay and anti-woman regimes on Earth.
[In an interview with CNN , the shooter's father condemned the Taliban, and CNN reported that one of the quotes where it seemed he had sympathized with the terrorist group had been mis-translated. He called these groups "the enemy of humanity." — Jessica Taylor]
I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.
Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death. Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department. Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.
Thank you. So true.
Here is some of really what we learned from the book in addition to what we've already discussed:
A foreign telecom giant faced possible State Department sanctions for providing technology to Iran and other oppressive regimes. So, what did this company do? For the first time ever, they decided to pay Bill Clinton $750,000 for a single speech. The Clintons got their cash. The telecom company escaped all sanctions.
[Clinton Cash author Peter Schweizer alleged a corrupt link between a Bill Clinton speech and a State Department decision. Clinton gave the speech in November 2011, and was paid $750,000 by Swedish telecom company Ericsson. The following week, the State Department said it wouldn't sanction telecom companies doing business with Iran. Schweizer qualified the allegation on MSNBC'sMorning Joe, saying, "Is there evidence of a quid pro quo [a felony] in that case? No, I'm not saying that." — Peter Overby]
Hillary Clinton's state department approved the transfer of 20 percent of America's uranium holdings to Russia, while nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton foundation — $145 million. Hillary Clinton appointed a top donor to a national security board with top-secret access, even though he had no national security credentials — although he did make a very large campaign contribution.
Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was secretary of state, plus millions more for her foundation.
[Clinton accepted the jewelry, but it went to the State Department, as required for gifts worth $350 or more that are presented by foreign governments. (It's in the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.) Brunei gave between $1 million and $5 million to the foundation. Trump's next two points also refer to foundation money. — Peter Overby]
The sultan of Brunei has pushed oppressive Sharia law, including the punishment by death and stoning if you happen to be gay. The government of Brunei also stands to be one of the biggest beneficiary of Hillary's Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she would absolutely approve if given the chance.
Hillary Clinton's book, just think of this — the book talks about it, but look:
Hillary Clinton took $25 million from Saudi Arabia, and much more from others, where being gay is also punishable by death.
[Politifact and theWashington Post have reported that the Clinton Foundation took donations from Saudi Arabia and the UAE after Clinton left the State Department. — Arnie Seipel]
Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and the LGBT citizens.
[The Clinton Foundation and the administration drew up a memorandum of understanding that Politifact reports stipulated that "the foundation would seek approval from the State Department's ethics office before accepting donations from new foreign interests that hadn't given in the past, or from past donors who upped their contributions from previous levels." Kuwait, Qatar and Oman all were allowed by the terms of that memorandum, per Politifact. — Arnie Seipel]
To cover up her corrupt dealings, Hillary illegally stashed her State Department emails on a private server. She's under investigation, but it seems like nothing's going to happen. Even though other people who have done similar things but at a much lower level, their lives have been destroyed. It's a rigged system folks. It's a rigged system.
Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments, perhaps even by her financial backers in communist China — sure they have it — putting all of America and our citizens in danger, great danger. Then there are the 33,000 emails she deleted. While we may not know what's in those deleted emails, our enemies probably know every single one of them.
[The FBI and Justice Department are investigating the security of Clinton's private server but have made no public determination about its legality. The State Department inspector general recently concluded Clinton had not sought permission for the server, and officials would have denied it had she asked. There's no evidence the server has been hacked by foreign governments, although emails contained in the IG report reflect at least two attempts by hackers to infiltrate it. — Carrie Johnson]
So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be the president of the United States. This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency. We can't hand over our government to someone whose deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies. Can't do it.
National security is also immigration security. And Hillary wants neither. Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States.
She's pledged to grant mass amnesty and, in her first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement and ...
[Depends on your definition of amnesty. From the Clinton website: "she will focus enforcement resources on detaining and deporting those individuals who pose a violent threat to public safety, and work to ensure refugees who seek asylum in the U.S. have a fair chance to tell their stories." — Tamara Keith]
... thus create totally open borders for the United States.
[Clinton is not calling for totally open borders. From her website: " As president, Hillary will fight for comprehensive immigration reform that provides a full and equal path to citizenship, treats every person with dignity, upholds the rule of law, protects our borders and national security, and brings millions of hardworking people into the formal economy." — Tamara Keith ]
Totally open borders. And, by the way, 16,500 border patrol agents have endorsed Donald Trump. First time in the history that they've endorsed a presidential candidate.
The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African-American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They're also the ones that she will hurt the most by far. Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Anne Mendoza. She lost her amazing son, police Sgt. Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of open borders and policies supported by Hillary Clinton. Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate. Here's an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza's letter:
Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harm's way. An open-door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country. Hillary is not concerned about you or I. She's only concerned about the power of the presidency and the power that it would bring. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes that she's already committed against our country.
That's from Mrs. Mendoza.
Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to settle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States on top of the current record level of immigration that we already have.
[Per the Migration Policy Institute, granting of legal permanent resident status is way down from its peak in the late 1980s. According to Pew, illegal immigration had leveled off as of 2014. And specifically, Mexican immigration fell dramatically from 2009-2014. — Sarah McCammon ]
For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.
Hillary's Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor, and unemployed Americans totally out of work. She can't claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage earners to compete against them and win against them. Because the system is rigged against our people.
Here are a few things a Trump administration will do for the Americans, and for the American people, but for our country. No. 1, the first 100 days, I'll appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.
Hillary Clinton's radical judges will virtually abolish the Second Amendment. Can't let that happen.
I will change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good, really good-paying jobs. We don't have good jobs anymore. These will be good-paying jobs.
We'll stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many. We'll cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas and everywhere else but our country.
We'll lift restrictions on energy production.
We will repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare. It is a total disaster.
We'll pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs and lower taxes for everyone.
And we are, by the way, the highest taxed nation in the world. Please remember that.
[Not true. Out of 34 OECD countries , the U.S. has the 16th-highest top marginal income tax rate. As a share of GDP, this doesn't stack up, either. U.S. tax revenue equals around 26 percent of the nation's GDP . The OECD average as of 2013 was around 34 percent. If Trump is talking about corporate taxes, he is closer to correct. The U.S. has one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world, according to the Tax Foundation, a right-leaning tax policy think tank. As of late 2015, the U.S. had the third-highest top marginal corporate tax rate in the world, behind Chad and the United Arab Emirates (though the UAE has discretion on which businesses pay that tax rate, per the Tax Foundation). — Danielle Kurtzleben]
We're going to impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the office of the secretary of state.
There is one common theme in all of these reforms. It's going to be America first.
This is why stakes in November are so great. On Election Day, the politicians stand trial before the people. The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don't need or want another Clinton or Obama. We just can't take it anymore. So bad for our country and our people.
Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity and sold out their country. And I mean totally sold out their country.
They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda, with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.
Hillary Clinton's message is old and tired. Her message is that things can't change. My message is that things have to change, and that this is our one chance and maybe our only chance to do that change, and if we don't do it now, folks, I don't know that we'll ever, ever have another chance. We have to have change, but real change, not Obama change.
Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams and so much more. Then we really started thinking small. Something happened. Something happened to our mentality. We started thinking small. We stopped believing in what America could do, and became reliant on other countries, other people and other institutions. We lost our sense of purpose and daring. But that's not who we are.
Come this November, we can bring America back. Bigger and better and stronger than ever before.
We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet Earth. The roads and railways and airports of tomorrow. Our military --
Our military, which has totally depleted, will have the best technology and the finest equipment. We will bring it back to the way that it must be. Strong, strong, strong.
Massive new factories will come roaring into our country, breathing life and hope into our communities.
Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally, finally, finally be rebuilt.
Construction is what I know. I say nobody knows it better.
The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years.
[Trump appears to be talking about median household income here. As of 2014, it was $53,657, a sizable drop from 1999's $57,843. That 2014 figure is the lowest median household income has been since 1996. — Danielle Kurtzleben]
But these wages will start going up along with new jobs, jobs, jobs.
Hillary's massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone. And that's what's been happening. And that's why you're seeing so many people coming to our rallies and so much unbelievable support.
We're also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement. We can never forget the great job they do.
Thank you. I'm also going to appoint great Supreme Court justices, so important, one of the most important factors in this election. Going to have many appointments. Could be as many as five, could be three, could be four. One of the really big factors in this election, we are going to appoint Supreme Court justices who will be outstanding. Outstanding. So important.
Our country is going to start working again. Jobs. People are going to start working again. Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again, including parents in our inner cities.
Americans, Americans, the people that we love, Americans. America first. Make our country great again. Americans are going to start believing in the future of our country.
We are going to make America rich again.
We are going to make America safe again.
We are going to make America great again. And great again for everyone. Everyone. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. I appreciate it.
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