Remarks by President Trump at the North Carolina Opportunity Now Summit
Charlotte, NC | whitehouse.gov | February 7, 2020
THE PRESIDENT:
A man who has, without question, the greatest name in politics. I said, “If I had his name, I would have been President at least 10 years sooner.” Patrick McHenry. (Applause.) Right? Best name in politics.
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And a man whose son I probably like even more than him. (Laughter.) Alan. What a job Alan has done. Joe Wilson is tough and smart and he is there all the time. (Applause.) And his son is just like him. His son is better than him, I think. Right? And he doesn’t mind. You know, I have a lot of fathers that they don’t like it when I say that. I’ve had some: “Please don’t say that my son is better.” I say, “You’re not a good father.” (Laughter.) He’s a great father and he’s proud of his son. His son is fantastic and he’s fantastic. And thank you very much. Thanks, Joe.
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Somebody said, “How are you doing?” I said, “We’re one point down everywhere.” (Laughter.) But we’re way up. That’s what they tell me. Way up in North Carolina. Way up in South Carolina. Way, way up in South Carolina, Ralph. (Applause.) Huh? Way, way up.
So, anyway — so we just assume — that’s always good. I always say, “Pretend you’re one point down.” That way you work your ass off, right? (Laughter.) We have to do that because this is the most important election coming up.
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But you see what’s going on. You see what’s happening on the other side. They want to take everything away. They want to destroy everything we’ve built. We’ve got the most successful country in our history. They want to take it away. Not going to happen. It’s not going to happen. (Applause.)
As I said in my State of the Union Address earlier this week, our nation is in the midst of the single greatest comeback that we’ve ever had. This is a comeback. We were doing poorly.
You know, if you remember, it goes all the way back — for years, I heard that China will take over as the largest economy in the world in 2019. I kept hearing that. I hated it because I said, “If I run, 2019 is not so far away.” We are so far ahead. We are so far ahead now. (Applause.) We became a rocket ship, taking in billions and billions and billions in tariffs, giving a lot of it to our farmers and different people that were targeted.
Now we have a deal with China. I just spoke to President Xi last night, and, you know, we’re working on the — the problem, the virus. It’s a — it’s a very tough situation. But I think he’s going to handle it. I think he’s handled it really well. We’re helping wherever we can.
But we have a great relationship. It’s incredible. They respect us again. They didn’t even respect us. What they were doing to us — they didn’t even respect us. (Applause.) They respect us again and we respect them.
And we think — I think we have the best relationship we’ve had with China. But it’s really incredible. So we signed the deal. We signed the Mexico deal and Canada deal — USMCA. Signed a deal with Japan — $40 billion coming in. Signed a deal with South Korea, which had a terrible deal. That was a deal made by Crooked Hillary Clinton. She said, “250,000 jobs this will produce.” “It’s going to produce 250,000 jobs.” And she was right — for them. (Laughter.) They got 250,000 jobs. She never said that. She said “250,000 jobs.”
Anyway, we changed it around. We said, “Sorry about that, but we’re changing this deal around.”
For decades, Washington politicians put special interests ahead of American interests. They enacted disaster trade — really, and I mean disastrous trade policies. Like, it’s unimaginable, frankly. I looked at some of these deals; I said, “Who the hell would have done this? Who would have done this? A child wouldn’t have agreed to this stuff.” (Laughter.) Unbelievable.
And we’re still here. You know, it’s pretty incredible when you think of it. But I don’t know that we would have been for long. So we changed them around.
But the trade policies that shuttered our factories, gutted our communities, and shipped millions and millions and millions of jobs overseas and to other places, they spend trillions of dollars in the Middle East, but they allowed our own cities to crumble in total disrepair. You have a road. You have a bridge. You have a school. We’d build schools in Afghanistan; they’d blow it up. We would rebuild it; they’d blow it up. We’d rebuild it. But if a school in South Carolina needed money, if a school in North Carolina needed money, if a school in Florida — or any of the places — you know, right here in North, you can’t get money. But we get you the money. We get you the money.
But they’ve spent almost $8 trillion now in the Middle East. Terrible. Terrible thing. But we’re doing tremendous work, and a lot of our soldiers are coming back home. You see it. You see what’s happening: They’re all coming back. (Applause.) They weren’t meant to be law enforcement. They weren’t meant to be law enforcement; they’re meant to be soldiers, you know. (Applause.) And we love our law enforcement, but we didn’t put the soldiers over there to be law enforcement.
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After years of building up other countries, we are finally building our country. (Applause.)
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Our economy is now the envy of the entire world. It’s — you have to see when leaders come to my office — this beautiful Oval Office. I’ve had people walk into the office — it’s beautiful — but they have more beautiful, in many cases, I guess. But it’s what it represents.
They walk in — powerful people, big people — and you see them crying. I’ve seen heads of corporation walk in: “Have you ever seen the Oval Office?” “No, I haven’t.” “How many times have you been in the White House?” “Fifty-one times,” they’ve said — the head of a big car company. “Fifty-one times.” “Huh. Have you ever seen the Oval Office?” “No.” “They never took me in.” “I’ll take you in.” I like showing it, right? “I’ll take you in.”
And you see them start to cry. Tough people. They haven’t cried since they were a baby. Some of them never cried at all, even when they were a baby — (laughter) — and they start to cry when they walk into the Oval Office. Pretty amazing.
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Remember, I used to say, “What do you have to lose?” I was in a room and it started, and I’m reading off economic numbers — the worst crime numbers, worst housing ownership numbers, worst everything. It just — worst education. Worst everything. I think there were 9 or 10 different very major factors — African American.
I said, “You’ve been with the Democrats for 100 years” — 112 to be exact. But for 100 years — over 100 years — and they treat you badly and they only come around two months before the election. And then right after the election, they say, “Bye-bye. We’ll see you in two years or four years.” Right? But they come around and they work real hard. They want your vote. And then the day after the election, they’re gone. That’s the Democrats.
And I said — all these bad numbers, “What the hell do you have to lose?” I say it two ways: When I have a very sophisticated, tough group like this, I say, “What the hell do you have to lose?” (Laughter.) And when I have a very kind group — I know too many of the people in the whole place; not so kind. But I say — I say, “What do you have to lose?” It’s very much less effective when I say it that way. (Laughter.) When I go, “What do you have to lose?” It’s like “let’s fall asleep.” (Laughter.) But when I say — but I remember I said it this night; I said, “What…” — it was 25,000 people. I said, “What the hell do you have to lose?” The place went crazy.
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This year — meaning last year’s numbers just came in. First time in 51 years where drug prices, prescription drugs went down. First time in 51 years. (Applause.)
And, frankly, if the Democrats would ever negotiate, instead of wasting all their time, we could get — we could drive those prices down so low. It would be so beautiful. I mean, what’s not to like? (Applause.)
But we’re fighting for school choice and also criminal justice reform. You know, we got that done. (Applause.) Criminal justice reform — big thing, we got it done. I will not rest, I will not stop, I will not give up, until we have delivered equal and abundant opportunity for every community in our land. We are not interested — (applause) — it’s true.
No, we are not interested in business as usual; we are not interested in continuing yesterday’s failures, of which there were many; or the old ways of doing things. We want to disrupt what’s broken. I want to really disrupt this place because none of the other stuff worked.
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