Photo of Donald Trump

Remarks at Luedecke Arena in Austin, Texas

August 23, 2016

On November 8th, we are going to declare our independence from special interests, corrupt politicians, and from a rigged system that benefits only the insiders.

We are going to declare our independence from media executives that don't care about us, and politicians who don't listen to us.

We are going to declare our independence from rising crime, soaring poverty and crushing debt.

We are going to declare our independence from failures of the past and create a New American Future.

Once again, we will have a government of, by, and for the people.

Americanism, not globalism, will be our credo.

It's going to be America First from now on.

Let me tell you what this new future looks like.

We are going to cut taxes and create millions of new jobs.

We are going to repeal and replace Obamacare.

We are going to appoint judges who will support, defend and uphold the Constitution of the United States.

We are going to save and cherish the 2nd amendment.

We will ensure every Veteran in this country has the right to seek medical treatment at a VA facility, or with the private doctor of their choice.

We're going to eliminate job-killing regulations.

We are going to unleash an American Energy Revolution.

Let's talk about another issue that is important to our future, and the future of our children.

That's the issue of crime. Violent crime is rising across the country. More than 2,700 have been shot in Chicago alone this year.

No American should consider this level of crime acceptable. Every American has the right to live in safety and peace.

A Trump Administration is going to restore law and order.

Let me take this opportunity to thank our wonderful police and law enforcement officers. This state has known unbelievable heartache in recent days after the murder of 5 police officers, and the wounding of another 7, in the assault on Dallas. We pray for the families, and hope for the speedy recovery of the wounded.

To all law enforcement in America: we are with you, we support you, and we will always stand with you.

Together, we will create a safe community for every citizen in the land – but especially those who have not known safety in a very, very long time.

That includes appointing an Attorney General and a Secretary of Homeland Security who are completely committed to upholding the law.

I will appoint federal officials and investigators who will work hand-in-hand with police and citizens to dismantle gangs, cartels and criminal syndicates terrorizing our people.

I will appoint prosecutors who will go into the most dangerous communities in America and work to liberate our citizens from violence and fear.

All citizens deserve to be protected. No American left behind.

I want every African-American parent in this country – and all parents in this country – to be able to raise their kids in safety.

And I want to ensure every African-American child in this country – and all children in this country – are put on the American ladder of success: a good education, and a good-paying job.

We are going to have school choice, charter schools, and merit-pay for teachers. My opponent, Hillary Clinton, discriminates against African-American students by opposing school choice because she is owned and paid for by the education bureaucracy.

No one owns me. I answer only to the American people.

In a New York Post column, Deroy Murdock, published data confirming what I've been saying about the devastating economic conditions in the African-American communities. Murdock confirms these facts:

"The overall labor force participation rate for black Americans has slipped from 63.2 percent to 61.2 percent — down 3.2 percent.

This metric also slumped for black teenagers, from 29.6 percent to 27.7 percent — down 6.4 percent.

The percentage of black Americans in poverty has grown under Obama, the Census Bureau reports, from 25.8 percent in 2009 to 26.2 percent in 2014 — up 1.6 percent.

The number of blacks on Food Stamps soared under Obama — from 7.4 million in 2009 to 11.7 million in 2014 — up 58.2 percent.

Also, from Obama's arrival through last June 30, the percentage of black Americans who own homes plunged from 46.1 to 41.7 percent, the Census reports — down 9.5 percent."

Nearly 4 in 10 African American children live in poverty. 58 percent of young African Americans are not employed.

Homicide is up nearly 50 percent in Washington D.C. and up more than 60 percent in Baltimore. Violent crime rose 17 percent in the fifty largest US cities.

This is the legacy of President Obama and Hillary Clinton.

To those suffering I say: what do you have to lose by trying something new?

Let me also tell you what you have to gain: more jobs, higher wages, and a massive reduction in the terrible crime plaguing our inner cities.

We are going to turn it all around. Success must be created for everyone, and available to everyone.

That is how we are going to create a New American Future.

But to make every American safe and prosperous, we must address one of the most vital issues of all: Border Security.

We are going to build a wall.

We are going to enforce the law.

We are going to protect your jobs and wages.

And we are going to keep our country safe.

According to the Texas government, nearly two hundred thousand illegal immigrants were booked into Texas jails between 2011 and 2016. Collectively, those arrested were responsible for more than half a million criminal offenses, including 1,055 homicides, 5,516 sexual assault charges and more than 50,000 charges of either burglary or theft.

Yet, Hillary Clinton wants a totally, completely open border.

She wants catch-and-release.

Obamacare for illegal immigrants.

Massive amnesty in her first 100 days.

She wants to gut immigration enforcement.

She supports Sanctuary Cities.

She wants to let people overstay their visas without removal.

One lawless order after another.

We must not let it happen.

Hillary Clinton also wants a 550% increase in Syrian refugees. There have been hundreds of immigrants and their children charged with terrorism inside the United States since 9/11, and a number of terrible attacks like the Boston Bombing, San Bernardino and Orlando. Yet Hillary Clinton wants to fling open the floodgates even wider.

I want to create safe zones in the Middle East. My plan suspends visas when we can't perform effective screening, and it puts forward a new ideological screening program to keep out people from our country who don't support our values. After all, that is what taking the oath of citizenship is all about.

This election will decide whether or not we have a border.

This election will decide whether or not we have a country.

Today I met with the moms of American children killed by illegal immigrants as a result of the policies Hillary Clinton supports. Hillary Clinton will never meet with these families, she will never hear these stories.

These are all forgotten Americans – they are not Hollywood or media stars, or big money special interest donors.

She is bought-and-paid-for by the special interests.

This corruption relates closely to another corruption scandal that strikes at the heart of our Democracy. Every day more and more alarming facts come out.

The scandal I speak of is the State Department's Pay-For-Play Scandal under Hillary Clinton.

If our Secretary of State can be bought, or bribed, or sell or trade government favors, then the whole American system is threatened.

It is a threat to the foundation of Democracy itself. This is what happens in a Third World country – it's the failed conditions people flee when they come to America.

America can never elect a candidate who, like Hillary Clinton, did government favors for those giving her family and her foundation massive amounts of cash.

The new revelations about Hillary Clinton's email scandal make clear we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.

Hillary Clinton is desperate to cover-up her crimes. That's why she deleted 33,000 emails. That's also why she lied repeatedly to Congress and the American public.

She said she never sent or received classified materials.

That was a lie, proved over and over again.

She claimed she used an insecure email server for the convenience of using only one device. But she used multiple devices.

Another lie.

Under penalty of perjury, she said she turned over all of her work-related emails. But the FBI found thousands she never turned over, and now just found another 15,000 more.

Another Clinton lie.

She said she sent nothing marked classified.

A total lie, unmasked to the world. And more to come.

She said her server was secure, and had no breaches. But we know now it was completely unsecure, and the FBI Director said it could easily be hacked by our foreign enemies.

More Clinton lies.

Clinton said her lawyers reviewed all of her emails before destroying them.

One more Hillary Clinton lie.

Lie after lie after lie.

Hillary Clinton is unfit to hold public office.

It is impossible to figure out where the Clinton Foundation ends and the State Department begins. It is now abundantly clear that the Clintons' set up a business to profit from public office. They sold access and specific actions by and to them for money.

It goes back to the Arkansas days, and it continued during the White House days with the sale of the Lincoln Bedroom to large donors.

But once Bill was out of office the small time Clinton business – or, more accurately, their crime enterprise – grew with the roles reversed. Bill, now an ex-President collected the money for the Clinton Foundation and Hillary Clinton had the public offices to sell; Senator, Secretary of State and for all that time a potential President. They turned this into an exponentially larger business.

But it was more than a business, it was a continuing big time criminal enterprise. It involved numerous violations of the conflict of interest and bribery laws and other serious laws of the United States.

The e-mails and phone logs show that the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Department of State were one and the same. If you donated to the Clinton Foundation or paid massive speaking fees to Bill Clinton, you got an entry to the Department of State. Together they constituted the most scandalous and certainly most profitable sale of public office since the Teapot Dome Scandal of the 1920s.

Today a phone log was released for Cheryl Mills. She was Secretary of State Clinton's Chief of Staff. You would expect the log to contain only calls concerning Department of State business. But Cheryl Mills received 148 messages between 2010 and 2012 from the Chief Operating Officer of the Clinton Foundation – no other individual or group appears to have left that many messages.

We also just learned today that more than half the people who met with Hillary Clinton from outside government while she was Secretary of State were donors to the Foundation.

This creates the nexus which is at the core of a RICO case. In other words, they merged the two into the Clinton Family racketeering enterprise.

The specific crimes committed to carry out that enterprise are too numerous to cover in this speech. I walked through two of them yesterday – the sale of U.S. Uranium to Russia, and the exemption of a telecom giant from sanctions after they paid Bill Clinton for a speech.

The UBS saga is another one. Shortly after Hillary Clinton became Secretary of State she went to Geneva and intervened in a dispute concerning secret identities of Americans.

She negotiated a very good deal for UBS and a very bad deal for law enforcement. Of the 52,000 accounts the U.S. was seeking, the government settled for only 4,450 accounts. Her intervention was described by Treasury as unusual.

Before her unusual intervention UBS had donated only $60,000 to the Foundation. After the Clinton favor for UBS, it opened its wallet for big bucks and out came a $600,000 contribution, a $32 million loan and a $1.5 million speaking fee for Bill Clinton.

This is corruption, pure and simple.

This is why I have called for a special prosecutor.

Justice is supposed to be blind. It's never supposed to be for sale.

In the long-run, there is only one way to end the corruption in our country: elect Donald J. Trump.

Hillary Clinton thinks she is above the law. Come November, the American people will show her that she is not.

You will be voting for justice, fairness and equality.

You will also be voting for a more inclusive country, where no one is left out.

Another 2 million Latinos have joined the ranks of those in poverty. Incomes for Latino households have declined by nearly $1,000 under President Obama. The number of Latino children living in poverty increased by 15 percent.

Our pro-growth, pro-jobs, pro-family agenda is going to bring hope back to every community in our nation. I will dedicate myself to restore the ladder of success to all those who live in poverty.

We reject the bigotry of Hillary Clinton, who sees communities of color only as votes, not as human beings worthy of a better future.

The era of division is coming to end. We will create a new future of American unity.

Are you ready for real American change?

It is time to emphasize what we all have in common as Americans.

We will promote our common culture, values and principles.

We will be one nation.

We will be one people.

We will share together one great future.

It's going to be America First.

Together, we will make America proud again.

We will make America prosperous again.

We will make America safe again.

Friends, citizens and fellow Americans: We will make America great again.

NOTE: As prepared for delivery.

Donald J. Trump, Remarks at Luedecke Arena in Austin, Texas Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/319615

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