Photo of Donald Trump

Remarks at a Rally in Wilmington, North Carolina

September 23, 2022

TRUMP: Thank you very much. And hello, Wilmington. Hello, Wilmington. I'm thrilled to be back in the beautiful state of North Carolina. We won it twice and we won it big and we won it easily with the thousands and thousands of proud, hardworking American patriots. There are a lot of people here. That's a lot of people. That's a big crowd, Ted. Great, Ted Budd. That's a big crowd. You gotta be happy. Seven weeks from now the people of North Carolina are going to vote to fire the radical left Democrats [cheers and applause]. You're going to send the great Ted Budd to the U.S. Senate. You're going to elect an incredible slate of true American First Republicans up and down the ballot. And together we are going to end crazy, Nancy Pelosi's political career once and for all [cheers and applause].

This election is a referendum on [Joe] Biden, Pelosi, [Chuck] Schumer, the radical left Democrat Congress that's destroying our country, that's brought our country really to the brink of ruin. You know what's happening. You know it better. And by the way, did you see the stock market today? [booing]. It wasn't good. It wasn't good. Markets– years later, and the market's lower than when I left it. I'll tell you, we had the greatest success in the history of any country.

Since I left office the price of electricity is up 19%. Gasoline is up 82%. Fuel is up 91%. Milk is up 22%. Eggs are up only 46% [booing]. Health insurance is up 24%. The 30-year mortgage rate has more than doubled and real wages have declined 17 months in a row. Otherwise, we're doing quite well. Thank you very much [crowd laughs]. Household well fell by a record $6.1 trillion last quarter. It's a record, never happened. The stock market has shed $7 trillion in value this year. Think of that. How are your 401ks doing folks? [booing]. They must be beautiful. Must be beautiful. Mark [Robinson], your Lieutenant Governor, how are the 401ks, Mark? Not too good. Not too good.

Over five million illegal aliens have flooded across our borders and the number I think is a lot more than that. Drug overdose deaths have risen in North Carolina at a level that nobody's ever seen before, at least 26%. And the murder rate is the highest in 25 years and probably the answer is 49 years. This choice, this November is very simple. If you want the decline and fall of America, then you should vote for the crazy radical left Democrats [booing]. And that's what they are. If you want to stop the destruction of our country and save the American dream, you must vote Republican [cheers and applause]. Joe Biden and the Democrat arsonists do not care one bit about the pain and suffering they're causing you, your family or our once great country. Remember I was going to say, I was going to use an expression, we have to keep our country great, but it's not. For some reason it's just not great anymore. And we can name those reasons and we're going to discuss them tonight.

Now, just out of curiosity, we have a one hour speech, we have a two hour speech, we have a three hour speech. What do you want me to do? [cheers for '3' and applause]. He says three. He says three. Uncle Sam says three. Look at Uncle Sam. We love Uncle Sam [cheers and applause]. They're trying to ban Uncle Sam, not allowed to use him. They don't want Uncle Sam representing our country anymore. They think it's racist. I don't know. Uncle Sam, are you a racist? I don't think so.

The only thing these deranged leftists care about. The only thing they talk about is trying to destroy your favorite president, me. Have you ever heard of me? [cheers and applause]. And our great patriotic movement, that's true. There's never been a president that's gone through the crap that I'm going through left and right. Left, you feel like a fighter left and right and then you get up and you knock the hell out of them [cheers and applause].

And I'm glad we put on the piece from Jesse Watters. You saw that just before, about the document hoax. We have a document hoax. Their talking about me with documents and then they go back over the last five presidents, you take a look at that hoax. There's no better example of the left's chilling obsession with targeting political opponents than the baseless, abusive and depraved lawsuit against me, my family, my company by the racist Attorney General of New York State, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James [booing]. This raging maniac campaigned for office ranting and raving about her goal. Her only goal is we got to get Donald Trump, we're going to get him. She knew nothing about me. I never heard of her. In fact, I was watching it and I said, boy, that woman's angry. I don't think she likes me too much [crowd laughs]. Or without having any evidence, she knew nothing about me.

Before she had even begun her phony investigation, she went around boasting her plan to weaponize her office against me probably working with the federal government, of course. Declaring, I look forward to going into Office of Attorney General New York State every single day and suing him. I'm going to sue him. And then I'm going to go home and I'm going to be so happy because I sued him. She further screamed that, his days are numbered, and proclaimed that nothing else matters other than, defeating Donald Trump.

This is a gross prosecutorial misconduct. And it's coming in so many different forms, whether it's in Atlanta, whether it's from Washington DC, whether it's January 6th, coming from many different forms. There's never been a period of time like this. And I thought actually, because Liz Cheney was so badly defeated [booing], I thought that January 6th would go away. And I think it is going away actually, because that really was the sentiment of a great group of people. She got, I think it was the largest defeat in the history of politics as a congressperson [cheers and applause]. And that was a referendum on what they're doing in a fair country, instead of harassing me, the Biden Justice Department would be investigating Letitia James for her appalling and malicious abuse of power. We won't even mention Hunter [Biden] [booing]. We're not going to mention that because that would be disrespectful. No. It's too long to talk about it. We'd be talking about it– thankfully, the latest poll show that 'Peekaboo' James is losing to her Republican challenger this fall [cheers and applause]. He's very good too. He's a great guy. He's a real crime fighter.

CROWD MEMBER: We love him.

TRUMP: And we wish Michael [Whatley] a lot of luck because he's representing a lot of people that want to see New York change. It's a crime-ridden place. But she doesn't just deserve to lose. She deserves to be removed from office, immediately disbarred and banished from the legal profession forever [cheers and applause]. And that goes for others also, because these prosecutors, these Democrats are out of control. They've gone crazy. They've gone crazy. The Republicans don't fight that way. And I'm not saying they should. I'm not saying they shouldn't. But you know what? It's that big difference.

On Letitia James's watch, New York has become a cesspool of violent crime. Homicides in New York are up 52%. Robberies are up 38% and carjackings are up, listen to this one, 286%. That's the new thing. You get in your car, oh, I love my car so much, darling, Thank you so much for buying it, then a gun goes through the window. They say, give me that car, 286% up. Rather than spending all of her time going after me and my family, Ivanka. Think of it, Ivanka [Trump] is a very good person. Don [Donald Trump] Junior, he's a good person [cheers and applause]. Eric [Trump], Eric, these are good people.

This crazy radical leftist nut job, James, should be going after the killers, the gang bangers, drug dealers and MS-13 Savages who are ravaging the state of New York. But the radical Democrats don't care about prosecuting violent criminals. They only care about persecuting Republicans or conservatives. We got to remember this. We got to remember, as we have seen in recent years, our opponents have shattered every principle of justice, ransacked every institution, abused every power and unleashed every weapon of the deep state, the fake news media. And there they are, right there. They're so fake [booing]. Look how many, look how many there are [booing].

And the Silicon Valley census, all to try and stop us. But it's not going to be easy to stop us because there's many, many more of us than there are of them [cheers and applause]. And I don't even say Republicans or Conservatives. You know what I call us? People with common sense [cheers and applause]. People with common sense. We don't want open borders. We want low taxes. We want good education. We want military, good, strong military. We want all of the things that just common sense. It's really not conservative, Mark. I don't think so. It's common sense. But no matter what these left-wing tyrants throw at us, no matter what the sick Washington establishment does to us, we keep on going. We keep on fighting and we keep pushing forward. We have no choice [cheers and applause].

A very wealthy and successful man saw me two days ago and I talked a little bit. I don't know if anyone saw Sean Hannity last night. But for the last two nights he's done an interview with me. He did very well with the ratings. He's very smart. And I told him that there was a man that came up to me. But this happens a lot, a lot. And he came up, and so you know that tractor out there? All that buzzing means is that it's going backwards, but it'll stop it. It just stopped. It's amazing. That tractor's a long way. I know a lot about tractors.

But a man came up to me, very successful, powerful man, and I said, how you doing? How have you been? He said, very good. But could I ask you a question? How do you take it? These fake prosecutors. You went through the impeachment, you went through this. And you know our poll numbers today are the strongest we've ever had, ever by far [cheers and applause]. He said, how do you do it? And you know what I said to him? Do I have a choice? No. These people are crazy. They're crazy. But we're on a mission to rescue the America we love and restore the republic to greatness and we will not fail [cheers and applause]. We're not going to fall. We're not going to fail.

For six straight years, it has been one witch hunt after another. The Russia, Russia, Russia scam. Remember that? Set up by the Democrats and crooked Hillary Clinton [booing]. They spied on my campaign. Think of it. And it wasn't the Russians that were spying, it was the Americans that were spying. Can you imagine, take Obama, can you imagine if one of us spied on his campaign? Would they call for the death penalty or something slightly worse than that?

Impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, the un-select committee on January 6th. It's an un-select committee. I love that term. I made it. You know, they call it the select. I said, oh, I love the term un-select. They are. That's Liz Chaney and her band of terrible people.

How about Adam 'Crying' Kinzinger? He's another great Republican. By the way, and out of the 10 that voted to impeach, eight are gone and the other ones will be gone very soon [cheers and applause]. These were all races that couldn't be lost. And you're going to meet a couple of people today that won.

Russell, congratulations, Russell. What a good job, Russell [cheers and applause]. Where the hell is Russell? Russell Fry, what a job. He beat his opponent so badly, [Tom] Rice, right, he beat him so badly that it was the biggest single defeat for a congressperson in history. He lost by 26 points. It doesn't happen to a sitting person. Sometimes they get out, they have scandal, they have problems, they get out. But nobody's ever lost by that much. Until Liz Cheney, who lost by 40 points. I'm sorry. Liz Cheney lost by 40. That's the biggest defeat. And then you turn on the fake news and they say, she's got a brilliant future. I wonder what her next move is going to be. I said, no, she lost by 40 points. They're talking about her brilliant future. She's not got a brilliant future.

This week it has even been revealed by a whistleblower that the FBI is taking resources away from fighting crime and using them for partisan political investigations to falsely label MAGA, Make America Great Again, MAGA. Remember what, you know they say MAGA, MAGA, MAGA. They don't want to say what it means. It means make America great again, Uncle Sam [cheers and applause]. They want to call us domestic terrorists. Do you believe it? [booing]. I'm not a terrorist. But you know what? There's great anger in this country right now. There's great anger in this country. Never forget all of this torment, persecution and oppression is not happening because of anything we've done wrong. It's happening because of everything our movement is doing so right and so brilliantly [cheers and applause].

The corrupt– yeah I mean you know. I mean we did win two elections, right, in a row, by a lot [cheers and applause]. Did much better the second time than we did the first, Uncle Sam, got millions and millions more votes [cheers and applause].

The corrupt political class in Washington DC hates us because we beat their rigged system. We topple their entrenched power structures and we expose their lies. We reveal their failures, and we laid bare their betrayals. We ripped up their globalists. Those horrible globalists trade deals, those stinking, rotten deals that we got USMCA instead of NAFTA. And we made a deal with China that's so great and with Japan that's so great, and with South Korea, all countries that were ripping us off. They don't like me too much. We stood up to their open borders insanity. We confronted their sellout to communist China. We rejected their ridiculous mandates, those mandates were bad. We ended their endless wars. We were the first one in many, many decades. We didn't go into wars, we got out. But we were respected more than we were ever respected as a nation. We didn't play games. We got along with all of them, but they knew we were America first, America first all the way [cheers and applause].

This November, the American people are going to show this repulsive political class exactly what we think of their lies, their witch hunts and the corruption by voting in overwhelming numbers to throw them the hell out of office starting [cheers and applause], with this disgusting human being, Letitia 'Peekaboo' James [booing]. We're going to drain the swamp. We're going to save our country. We are going to drain that damn swamp [cheers and applause]. And I'll tell you, I did a hell of a job. But that sucker is deep. That's deep. It's deep. They're bad people. They happen to be bad people.

A lot of people say, can you bring the country together? I'll tell you, before COVID came in, a gift from China, commonly known as the China virus [audience laughs], I mean to be a COVID. What the hell is COVID? It's called the China virus. You know, Biden's afraid to say it. They don't want to say China virus. It's China virus.

But before it came in, we had a country that was doing so well, Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, women, men, young kids without a high school diploma, with a high school diploma, first in your class from MIT, first in your class from Wharton, first in your class from Harvard. It didn't matter, every single group had the best numbers they've ever seen. And I will tell you, people were starting to come together. I will say that [cheers and applause].

I was getting calls from people on the left, to put it mildly, some of them would say the radical left lunatics, but I don't want to say that because I want to be respectful, but they were calling to get together.

And then we had the horrible China virus float in, came from the Wuhan labs. Remember when they looked at me, they said, how do you know that came? We think it came from Italy. Remember they started to blame poor Italy? It came from Italy, then it came from France. And they actually said it came from us. No. It came from China. It came from the labs. They either made a mistake. You know, they have incompetent people too, probably it was incompetence, maybe it wasn't. I hope it was incompetence, but maybe it wasn't, but they're going to pay a big price. But it came from the labs.

But we were doing better than ever before and our country was actually coming together and people that would not necessarily be calling me were calling me to say unbelievable job. But that got destroyed quickly. And then we rebuilt it and we handed over a stock market that was higher than before. Think of it. The virus came in, it was higher. And today it's now lower than it's been in years and it seems to be heading south. It's a shame. None of this should have happened. It was based on a lot of bad decisions. But none of this should have happened.

The war in Ukraine should never have happened, it wouldn't have happened. You could take the five worst presidents in American history, put them together and they would not have done the damage Joe Biden has done to our nation in less than two short years. It's true.

Two years ago when I was in office, gas, gasoline, the famous beautiful gasoline was $1.87 cents a gallon [cheers and applause]. And it even hit $1.50, if you remember at one point. Now gas is $5, $6, seven and it's going up a lot higher than that. And you know they're using the strategic reserves, which I topped out. I bought 75 million barrels of oil from the oil companies when we were at an all-time low. I was so proud of it. I said, when are these fakers going to write a story that I made a good deal? Because it started to go after that. But I topped it out, first time in 52 years that the reserves were topped out. And you know what happened? This guy, four weeks ago said, we're going to start taking it, because we want to keep the gasoline low before the election. But after the election, it's going to go up like you've never seen before. It's a shame. I mean, think of it, we topped it out, and that was not for election purposes, that was not for cars, that was for military purposes we need these strategic reserves. It's not supposed to be used for that reason.

Under my leadership, we had American energy independence and we would soon have been dominant. The United States is now a beggar for energy. And Biden and the Democrat Congress have just passed a massive anti-oil and gas bill to put American energy the hell out of business. Can you believe this? [booing].

Can you believe it? Let's go buy an electric car that travels for one hour and 49 minutes and then you can spend four hours on waiting for it to recharge if you can find a charger. Let's do that. Darling. Let's take a drive around the country. That's okay darling. But the most we can go is about an hour and a half. Nah, it's sick what they're doing, sick.

We gave you the largest tax cuts and regulation cuts in American history, larger than Ronald Reagan's, bigger than the Reagan tax cuts by a lot. The radical Democrat Congress just passed one of the largest tax hikes in American history. It's the largest tax hike, in my opinion. It'll prove to be pulverizing the middle class. It's happening to your middle class.

The Green New Deal. They're spending trillions and trillions on the Green New Deal. It's like taking money and throwing it out the window and it's causing tremendous inflation. Under the Trump Administration, we had the greatest economy in the history of the world with no inflation. Nobody's ever seen like it. That's before the virus came in. Then after we got it back, we handed something off that was so good and they blew it.

And they blew it at the border because all they had to do was leave it alone. We had the strongest border ever.

Biden and the Democrat Congress created the worst inflation in more than 50 years, 9.1% and their new so-called Inflation Recession Act. Do you believe it? It's a fake name. You know, everything they do is disinformation. They say things and they keep saying them, saying them, saying them and people start even believing them or not believing them. There's not a lot of belief in this place with all these thousands of people going as far as the eye can see. Thank you very much [cheers and applause].

But it's a fake deal and it's thrown the economy into a free fall. I built our military and rebuilt our military, including our nuclear capability and the creation of Space Force which everybody said, no, no, no. But China and Russia were killing us in space that we did first time in 78 years since Air Force. They surrendered our strength and our real–

I mean our heart, our heart in Afghanistan. What happened in Afghanistan in my opinion was the greatest humiliation that our country has ever seen. I don't believe we've ever seen humiliation like that, Ted Budd, you're not going to let that happen. I don't think we've ever had humiliation like what happened in Afghanistan.

And now, we have a war between Russia and Ukraine with potentially hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people dying that would never have happened if I was president, it wouldn't have happened. I dealt with [Vladimir] Putin, I got along great with Putin. He wouldn't have done it. I guarantee you he wouldn't have done it. And he didn't do it for four years.

There wasn't soldiers built up on the border and nothing, he wouldn't have done it, didn't do it. Somebody said, well he might have done it. I said, well he didn't do it for four years and he didn't do it for really five years during the campaign we talked about, he didn't do it for five years. Two years ago, we had the strongest southern border in our history. Now, we have the worst border in the history of our country. And you know what? I believe it's maybe the worst border anywhere in the world and maybe in world history because no third-world country would allow to happen to their border, they'd get out there with sticks and stones if they have to. They wouldn't let it happen. They wouldn't let their country be destroyed like is happening to the United States of America [cheers and applause]. Under my leadership, we ended catch and release. We deported record numbers of illegal alien gang members and we built hundreds of miles of border wall despite two and a half years of Democrat-inspired lawsuits, we won them all. We won every one of them.

We completely finished our original plan of the wall and then I said, let's do some more, because we needed some other areas and we got that almost finished. Three more weeks, we would've had it finished. And then when Texas and Arizona wanted to finish it, they took the wall, which was sitting there waiting to be put up, they took it away. They put it away where Texas and Arizona can't get to it. In other words, they want open borders.

Ensured the election was rigged and stolen and now our country is being destroyed. It's being destroyed. What's happened? I ran twice, I won twice [cheers and applause], and did much better the second time than I did the first. Getting many millions more votes– thank you [cheers and applause].

CROWD: [chanting] USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.

TRUMP: Getting millions and millions more votes in 2020 than we got in 2016. Everybody says, oh, you did so well in 2016. I said, we did much better in 2020. You know, we got 12 million more votes. I was told if we get the same number of votes, the same number, we can't lose. We got 63 million votes.

I said, what happens if we get more? Well then you definitely can– we got more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far, far more than [Barack] Obama, far more than anybody [cheers and applause]. But the good news is now we're leading Biden by a lot and we're leading all of these Republicans by numbers that they've never even seen before, record numbers, and we may just have to do it again, right? We may have to do it again [cheers and applause]. We may have to do it again [cheers and applause]. But first we have to win a historic victory for the Republican party this November. We have to swamp them.

The best way we can stop them from cheating, because they're cheaters, they're dirty rotten cheaters, the best way we stop them from cheating is to swamp them. It gets harder and harder. Among our highest priorities must be to end the nightmare. Joe Biden and congressional Democrats have deliberately created at our southern border. We're going to end that. We cannot continue to allow millions and millions and I believe, Ted, it's 10 million people and probably more.

You know, they say, three million, two and a half million. It's not, I believe it's many times that number. It's numbers like nobody's ever seen before. There's never been a country ever abused like this. It's an invasion. This week it was reported that border patrol agents have received an intelligence bulletin stating that Venezuelan Dictator [Nicolás] Maduro is opening up all of his prisons and sending vicious convicts, and these are tough ones, charged with murder, rape and other heinous crimes straight across the border and into our wide-open USA. Our beautiful USA is being poisoned. They're allowing their prisoners to come into our country. They're pushing them in and indeed, this is an invasion [booing]. And the only thing that surprised me about Venezuela is what took 'em so long because other countries all over the world are doing it. Last year, we were invaded by 129 different countries. Think of it, 129 people coming in, pouring in. And many of those countries during the course of this year, they opened their prisons.

I don't know what took Venezuela so long, but they've opened their prisons and they let the roughest toughest people that you'll ever see. You'll never see people like this. You don't know about people like this in North Carolina. You have tough people too, but they're people that like obeying the laws. They're people that love their police and respect their police and love their military [cheers and applause]. These people don't love their police and they don't respect their police.

Last month, a sadistic, illegal alien criminal in Texas was sentenced after committing a wild spree of home invasions, brutal robberies and carjacks in which he handcuffed victims, beat them, and in many cases, in four cases, beat them so badly that they died. He held guns to the head while they were dying. Right here in North Carolina, a single day this year, illegal aliens were charged with two dozen sexual assaults, including one illegal alien predator charged with over a dozen sex crimes including incest of a child, a very young child, four-years-old, and two counts of crimes against nature.

Unfortunately, your radical Democrat Governor, Roy Cooper, has vetoed legislation [booing] requiring authorities to turn over illegal aliens to ICE. We love ICE, those are tough guys. They go into those packs, they call them packs, and they just go and they start swinging. Ya know, I know some of your people in these early rows and I know some of them are tough. Would anybody like to join ICE and end up in fist fights for the rest of your life? They end up, they go into, they call 'em packs, packs of very tough people, MS-13 people, they have knives. They use knives to kill people because it's much more punishing, much more, takes longer. They like that because they say they use knives to kill people and these ICE patriots, they go in there and they just start swinging out there. They swing and they swing and they swing and all of a sudden you see ICE coming out and they put them in the patty wagon and they take them out of the country. And you know, the other countries wouldn't allow 'em back.

They wouldn't take 'em back. They wouldn't take 'em back in Mexico. They wouldn't take 'em back in Honduras. They wouldn't take 'em back in El Salvador. They wouldn't take 'em back in these countries. And I said, why aren't you taking 'em back? Sir, they won't accept them. They won't accept MS-13. The first two days in office, I said, why? They said, they won't accept 'em. I said, why won't they? Because they don't want them back, because they sent them here. Let me tell you, they sent them here. When they come into the caravans, I think it was another name I made up, I made up bloody, like fake news, like some Republican names too but we won't mention because now they're all friends of mine, but I said to 'em, why won't they? They won't do it? They don't want 'em. I said, that's all right. Do we pay them money, Honduras? Do we pay El Salvador? Do we pay money to these– yes, Sir, you do. How much do we pay? Approximately $750 million, Sir.

I said, so we pay 750 million and they won't take them, inform those countries immediately that we're not paying any money to them anymore [cheers and applause]. We are going to not pay any money because they won't take back the convicts, the prisoners and some very bad people and terrorists that they sent over to us. So about 20 hours went by, not 24, a little bit less than 24, and I got a call from the President of Honduras and I got a call from El Salvador and I had a couple of other calls where they came in. Sir, I understand that you are not going to be sending any more money to my wonderful country. We are working so hard on economic development projects with the money that's not… you know what the economic development is? Their pockets. I said, that's right, Mr. President, I won't be sending any more money to them because you won't take the people back. They used to line up airplanes instead on their runways so that we couldn't land the plane.

And then they'd set up very strong borders for our buses where we had buses loaded up with gang members and bad people, killers, murderers, rapists and they wouldn't let them in. So I said, no, we're not going to give you any money anymore unless you decide to say we'd welcome to have MS-13 back. We look very much forward to having MS-13 come back. They said, Sir, I'd like to tell you that it would be our great honor to take them back [crowd laughs]. Please be advised that our airports are open, our borders are open. Please send 'em back. And you know the interesting thing, I still never paid them the money [crowd laughs]. It's funny [cheers and applause].

But you know what angered me more than anything, Ted? I have to tell you this. So we had done that and we were paying them very little. They were getting a lot, but they were getting $750 million. That's a lot, about three countries, primarily three countries. And then I heard the new administration comes in. Then I heard they were going to give them $4 billion. Four billion.

And I said, why? Because they want economic development to take place because this way people won't come in. Can you believe they– the stupidity of this? So instead of 750 million, they're now giving them $4 billion [booing]. And you know what? I didn't check this, but I'll bet they don't take the gang members anymore also, okay? I'll bet you that. When Republicans take back Congress, we should immediately pass the bill introduced by Ted Budd allowing the victims of sanctuary cities and states to sue for damages when a loved one is hurt or killed as a result of these deadly people and deadly policy [cheers and applause]. Great debt. North Carolina should be a sanctuary for law abiding Americans, not criminal aliens [cheers and applause]. We are going to make America great again and our first task is to make America safe again, right? [cheers and applause]. Safe.

Just recently, a young 18-year-old man from North Dakota, I'm sure you read this over the last two days, named Cayler Ellingson, a young man, so handsome, so handsome, beautiful, 18-years-old, was targeted and killed, run down in cold blood with an SUV by a radical left maniac. He was a radical left stupid person simply because he was a Republican and he was so proud of being a Republican. And this guy ran him down, and not one mainstream media network has even mentioned this horrible crime. Think of it.

Now think of it the other way, think of it the other way. Supposing a MAGA person ran down somebody on the other side, it'd be the biggest story you've ever seen to disgrace, you people should be ashamed of yourselves. You should be ashamed of yourself [booing]. And our hearts go out to the parents and the friends, this young boy, this was a young man of wonderful with a great future and I'm just telling you, just so handsome and so beautiful and so great. And he got run down by a radical left nut job.

Here in North Carolina, the radical Democrats have unleashed violent and hardened criminals to prey on innocent women and children. You know that, they're releasing them all the time. Four weeks ago, a pregnant woman was viciously shot in the head in a road rage incident in Raleigh. You know Raleigh? Do we all know Raleigh? Just hours after learning she was going to have a baby, she had just learned this and she was shot in the head.

Recently, a young mother was carjacked in broad daylight in a mail– I mean right by a post office, right by a mall, an open parking lot in Durham as her 10-month-old son was sleeping in the backseat, killed. And in Charlotte a few weeks ago, or 48-year-old mother of four and grandmother of three was ruthlessly gunned down and killed in a robbery after she stopped at an ATM machine to get some money to buy groceries.

Much of the crime wave is caused by drug dealers who during the course of their lives, and you have to remember this because it's always tough to say what I'm about to say, but it's a great thing, a drug dealer will kill an average of 500 American citizens during his or her life. They'll destroy, kill 500. Not to mention the destruction of millions and millions of families that are so badly hurt.

And I'm calling for the death penalty of drug dealers and human traffickers which will [cheers and applause], [inaudible], reduce drug distribution and crime in our country on day one by 75%. And I think Ted Budd would head it up. I think Ted Budd would head it up. You know when I went to China, I've told this at a couple of rallies, our rallies are bigger than ever. Look at this rally [cheers and applause]. If you get out and vote for Ted Budd, Ted, you're not losing, I can tell you that. You're not going to be losing.

But I went to China and I got along very well with President Xi [Jinping] until the virus came in, then I said the hell with it. But I got along well. But I went to China, 1.5 billion people. I said, President, do you have a drug problem? He looked at me like, what kind of a stupid question is that? No, no, no, no drug problem. I said, really, you don't have– no, no, no. Probably thought I was not very sophisticated. He said, can you believe the stupidity of a question like that?

And I said, so you have 1.5 billion, second to India, catching up with India actually. But those are the two biggest at about that number. I said, so you have no– why don't you have a drug problem? Quick trial. I said, quick trial. Let's see, I think I know what that means. Quick trial. He said, yes. When somebody drugs– when somebody in our country sells drugs, we take a trial, it's a very quick trial, it goes very quickly. And if they're guilty, that person is executed immediately and we have no drug problem. [cheers and applause]. And he said what happens is we had a tremendous drug problem he said in China, tremendous. In fact, China was reduced to a weak country a century ago because it was all drugged out with the fields, the opium and the different fields and different kinds of drugs.

And I also told him, by the way, don't send any fentanyl to the United States anymore. Don't do it. We had it way down and then as soon as I was out there sending in record numbers, they're killing hundreds of thousands of people in our country. But I learned from that. And then Singapore, the same thing in other countries.

And we have blue ribbon committees, blue ribbon committees made up of socialites and nice people, but they don't really understand what this is all about. Remember this, if you do the death penalty for drug dealers, you will cut crime in this country I think by more than 80% immediately [cheers and applause]. If it's a meaningful death penalty, it'll take place immediately. And the only places that don't have a drug problem are the places that have the death penalty for drug dealers. So I know it's tough to say, I sort of didn't want to say it. I've said it for the last couple of weeks.

My people, my great geniuses that do political stuff, ya know, that we all have to suffer through, Mark, we have to listen to these people. But, by the way, how good a lieutenant governor do you have? [cheers and applause] You've got a future? You've got a future [cheers and applause]. Mr. and Mrs. [cheers and applause]. Well I'm very impressed. Oftentimes, I do that and people just don't care. They care about you too.

But if you think about it and we would cut crime in the country because a big part of our crime is drug related crime. And we have to get tough in our cities. The big thing, we have to get so tough in the cities. You know, it was up to the governors to do. And we had the governors and they don't want to do a Democrat. All Democrat run cities and states, they're the ones that are letting this happen and they're destroying our great cities. They are destroying them like never before. And I have to, as president, that I had to allow the governor to call in. And I'd call them, when are you calling in? In Minnesota, Minneapolis, when are you calling in, governor? We don't want the guard. They're burning down your city, governor. When are you calling in? And I just sent them in. If we didn't send him in, you wouldn't have a Minneapolis right now. You wouldn't have had Seattle. Remember they took out 20% of– They literally moved into Seattle and took over a big piece. And so I said, we're sending them in.

And as soon as they heard, we're sending them in, they scattered. Otherwise they'd be there today. Under a Republican Congress, we should also pass emergency funding to hire thousands and thousands more police officers nationwide and to put violent criminals behind bars and to keep them behind bars [cheers and applause]. And also, and it's so important, leave our police alone. Let them do their job [cheers and applause]. Give them back their respect. They know what to do better than anybody. We have to allow them to do it. We have to allow our police to do it. We just put the handcuffs on our police. We've reversed it. The first step– thank you very much. I love you too very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. The first step to restoring public safety in North Carolina is defeating the Democrats radical. These are radical, radical people you have. Where the hell do these people come from? This is not from North Carolina. You don't have those values in North Carolina. And we have to elect Ted Budd to the United States Senate this November [cheers and applause].

Ted is running against a weak-on-crime– sounds like Letitia, weak-on-crime. Left-wing extremist named Cheri Beasley, did anybody ever hear of Cheri Beasley? [cheers and applause]. She was a judge, Cheri Beasley was. She was a Marxist radical who personally stopped the death sentences of eight death row inmates, convicted of the most hideous crimes, including an animal who brutally raped and murdered a four-year-old girl, a man who stabbed to death, a convenience store clerk and sexually assaulted her while the knife was still in her neck, and a criminal who grabbed the Sheriff duty's gun, grabbed his gun while he didn't think he had a problem with this person, he was trying to be nice. And while he was being nice, and he executed the sheriff at point blank range. She stopped their death penalty and wants to have them get out of prison. How 'bout that?

Cheri Beasley is so far left on crime, she formed a fundraising partnership with the most militant to fund the police Democrat in Congress. A person called Cori Bush. Did you ever hear of her? [booing]. And she will support deadly sanctuary cities releasing dangerous criminal aliens into your North Carolina communities.

I have property in North Carolina, very proud of my property in North Carolina, Trump National, on the beautiful, beautiful lake. Largest manmade, woman made lake in the world I believe. It's great, Lake Norman. Did anybody ever hear of Lake Norman? [cheers and applause]. I love Lake Norman. In fact, I'd like to go from here, Ted, and go over to Lake Norman and do something [cheers and applause]. I love that property.

Cheri Beasley supports raising taxes on hardworking North Carolina families in the middle of an absolutely collapsing economy. You know, there's an expression, Trump was right about everything. And if you look, we were really, I was right about– I was right about the border. I was right about Ukraine. I was right about watch what– Taiwan. And I hope I'm not going to be right about World War III, because we have stupid people dealing and you could end up, possibly end up, better chance today than ever.

You know, Putin mentioned the N-word. You know what the N word is? No, no. It's the nuclear word. He mentioned the N word yesterday. The nuclear word not supposed to be mentioned. You could end up in World War III and this will be a war like we've never had before. It won't even be close, because we're being run by stupid people.

And worst of all, Beasley has vowed to be the 50th vote for abolishing the Senate filibuster, giving the radical left free-reign to ban voter ID, grant mass amnesty to illegal aliens. Pack the Supreme Court. They want to pack the court. I don't understand those justices. They should have shut them down a long time ago. They'll put on 22, 24, 23. You know, they said they'll go a little bit more than what they have now. No, they're not going to do that. They'll put on a lot. In fact, they'll have so many chairs there, you won't be able to go into the Supreme Court anymore. And they want to do that. And to pass every other dangerous, left-wing fantasy that you can imagine. If Cheri Beasley gets in, the squad will have total control and they will drive America right off the cliff. It's almost there now anyway, without saying it. I wanna– I love our country, but it's so sad what's happened to our country in two years.

By contrast, Ted Budd is a conservative, America-first, all-star in Congress. They love him, the congressmen, they all called, could you do us a favor? Could you endorse Ted Budd? I said, I hear he is good. Tell me about him. But a lot of people didn't know him. His area where he has been a congressman for a long time, they love him, but a lot of the people in the state, but once they got to know him, he's leading by a lot. But I don't even want to say that, because you have to get out and vote. We don't want to have, they're leading by a lot, Ted. And everyone says, oh, he's going to win. And then they don't vote. That's happened before, hasn't it to people? So we don't want to have– so let's assume he is down by one, but he will always defend your safety, your jobs, and your North Carolina values. He loves the people of North Carolina [cheers and applause].

In fact, I asked, did anyone ever hear of Lara Trump? Lara? [cheers and applause]. I said, Lara, why don't you run? I think we could get you. I think you'd be– she's so popular. She grew up in North Carolina. She's incredible, married to my son and I have [inaudible] I've got good sons, I got good sons, and good daughters.

CROWD MEMBER: They've got a good daddy.

TRUMP: Hehe, they've got a good daddy. That's true, I would say. But she's married to Eric [Trump]. And, you know I said, Lara, why don't you run? She said, because Ted Budd is going to do a fantastic job. How about that? I never even told you that. I don't know if she would've beaten you, Ted. I don't know. But I think I would've had a hard time supporting you. I would've said, Ted, remember I told you I was going to endorse you? If you don't mind, I'm going to take that sucker back. No, but she loves the state and she loves you and she thinks you're going to do a fantastic job. And I do too, I know you will.

Ted will vote to stop the radical Democrats inflation causing spending binge, and he will unlock American energy and bring prices way down. And what happens when the prices come down to where they were? Putin stops the war. He'll stop it anyway. If I decide to do this, I guarantee he will stop it very quickly, very, very quickly [cheers and applause].

Ted has been rock solid on defending our borders. He helped build the wall. He fought for me in the wall. We had to fight those Democrats like you wouldn't believe, and he fights relentlessly to get dangerous criminal aliens off your streets. Ted is endorsed by the North Carolina Troopers Association. All of the police are endorsing Ted, not like they have a choice. What's their choice? A radical left Democrat that wants to defund the police, she wants it to defund the police.

Is she crazy? How the hell do these people get votes? You know how, by cheating? That's how they get votes. And Ted is truly the candidate and is said to be the candidate of a thing called law and order. That used to be a term you're not supposed to say. We'll say it all the time, Ted. And as a gun store owner, Ted will always defend your Second Amendment [cheers and applause]. So I'd like to ask Ted Budd to come on up and say a few words. Ted Budd, thank you.

TED BUDD: Wow. Mr. President, I think I can speak for all of us here who are glad to have Donald J Trump back in North Carolina [cheers and applause]. Mr. President, and I can also say that we are ready to stop the Biden/Beasley agenda and make America great again [cheers and applause]. We all know that the Biden/Beasley agenda makes our life worse, but our plan, Mr. President, it did and it will again make our life better. When it comes to the America First Agenda, President Trump didn't back down. And when you endorsed me, you said, Ted, it's because you didn't back down. So I want to let you know that I'm not going to back down either friends [cheers and applause]. Mr. President, we just want to say thank you. We want to thank your whole family as well. Now let's go win this for our country.

TRUMP: Thank you Ted. Thank you very much Ted. Great, great gentleman. He's going to represent you long and hard. Everybody needs to get out. Remember, it's November, you gotta get out, we don't have a choice. We're not going to have a country left, we're not going to have a country left. You got to get out, you got to swamp them.

We're also joined by several terrific new candidates for Congress and these are great people. I've endorsed them all. Bo Hines, from North Carolina's 13th Congressional District [cheers and applause]. Bo. He's handsome and he was a very good football player. Usually I don't like endorsing handsome people. I don't like it, but I have no choice. Great, Bo, and I hear you doing fantastically, it's looking really good. So good. Go out and get him.

Sandy Smith from North Carolina's 1st Congressional District, Sandy [cheers and applause]. And you have my total endorsement and you get out and win that race and you have a lot of congressmen, I'll tell you, including [Tim] Scott. He called me so many times, I said, just stop calling me. But he loves Sandy, so good luck. Okay? Good luck. She's going to be terrific. Thanks, Sandy.

And a man I'm really fond of, because he beat one of the impeachers. Right? He beat Congressman [Tom] Rice, and Congressman Rice suffered a big, big loss that wasn't even– it was an unexciting evening because, I guess the polls closed at 8:00, and at 8:01 they said, Russell Fry has won the election. Took one minute, it was a slaughter [cheers and applause]. South Carolina's 7th Congressional district, big Trump district. And it's an honor to have you as my friend, and you are a professional and your staff, I just met backstage, and I really want to congratulate you on a great win. I want to get rid of all those impeachers. We got almost all of them out [cheers and applause]. They're almost all gone. Thank you. What a great job. You're gonna be there a long time.

Thanks as well to, I think one of the hottest politicians in the United States of America and has become a friend of mine. Lieutenant Governor Mark Robinson, thank you Mark. Thank you, Mark [cheers and applause]. Great. Your incredible, incredible wife, thank you very much, Mrs. [Yolanda] Robinson.

Congressman David Rouzer [cheers and applause]. David Rouzer, I want to put the proper pronunciation, but he's great and he's a warrior. David, you've been a warrior. You've been such an incredible friend. Thank you very much.

Speaker of the North Carolina House, Tim Moore. Tim, thank you very much [cheers and applause]. Great job Tim.

And a friend of mine, we won the state twice and we did great both times, and I never had a problem because you have in North Carolina, a GOP Chairman named Michael Whatley, who's fantastic [cheers and applause]. Where's Michael? Michael, thank you, Michael. It was easy elections, right? How's Ted Budd doing?

MICHAEL WHATLEY: He's doing great.

TRUMP: Good, I think so, huh? How's Mark doing? I think Mark's not going to have too much problem. Whatever the hell– hey, by the way, whatever you're running for, let me know. I want to give you a real early endorsement. I don't know. But you have great people and you do a fantastic job and we appreciate it. I think very much. Thank you. And the ambassador friend of mine is here, highly respected.

I gotta say this. Do you have any football fans? Yeah, I guess, right? [cheers and applause]. The craziest game I ever saw was the Jet game last week. Is that right? So there's a minute and 37 seconds left. They're down by 13 points and they were having a tough game and they don't even have the ball. I think the chances of them winning was 1/100 of 1% and nobody would take the bat. And they got some kind of a fumble. They threw a long pass, it was caught. They got seven, and then they got an onside kick. This took place over about a minute and a quarter, and they received– so they got an onside kick. And they went for a touchdown and they won the game, because the other field goal kicker missed a field goal somewhere during the game.

And they got 14 points, they needed, they need 14 points, they got 14 points like in a minute and 12 seconds. It was the craziest thing. And I called the coach, 'cuz I think the coach is a great guy, general manager too. I said, Coach, you're greater than Vince Lombardi. Because, Vince Lombardi never did that. He was never able to pull out a game like that. Because that was the craziest thing I've ever seen. The game was done, it was over.

And the owner of the Jets is here with his incredible wife, Woody Johnson and Suzanne Johnson. And they are so happy [cheers and applause]. Where the hell are they? Where are they? What a job that was. That was, I'm telling you, I told the coach, he's better– he's better than anybody. The greatest coach in America. He's a great guy. But that was, that was some game, Woody.

I know you expected to win when you're down by 13 and you don't have the ball and there's a minute and a half left. But Woody Johnson's a great guy and his wife is even better. Okay? So thank you both, and thank you for being here Woody. And Summers, thank you for being here. Where's Summers? Summers Spark [unknown] is our friend. She captivates New York, captivates it.

This is also the home state of someone who I said before, is very special. Lara, we love you Lara. I'm glad you didn't run. I'm glad we didn't need you. We got Ted. But Lara, how good is she on television, by the way? [cheers and applause]. She's fantastic. So thank you very much. Thank you everybody.

And I just want to go on to say, we're wrapping up, but we have a country that is in such bad shape. With the help of everyone here today, over four incredible years, we achieved more for the people of North Carolina than any administration in history. And Mark knows this, they all know this. North Carolina lost half of its manufacturing jobs after the twin disasters of NAFTA, the worst trade deal ever, which I terminated, and China's entry into the World Trade Organization. But after decades of false promises and bitter betrayals from other politicians, I ended NAFTA. They said I couldn't do it, and Mexico was not happy and Canada was not happy. And I replaced it with the USMCA. That's Mexico and Canada, the best trade deal we ever made in our country's history. A giant win for North Carolina as you all know, and the workers and farmers and manufacturers.

In fact, the deal is so good that Mexico and Canada are right now, trying to renegotiate the deal with the Biden Administration. Don't do it. Don't do it, Joe. Don't do it. Don't allow it to happen. Because they took advantage of us for 30 years. I withdrew from the job-killing trans-pacific partnership, would've destroyed your state. To protect American workers, I placed stiff tariffs on foreign aluminum and steel and saved your steel industry, saved your aluminum industry. You wouldn't have a steel plant anywhere in the United States right now. I put 50% tariffs, China was dumping steel all over the place. I don't think they like me too much. We live by two simple, but critical rules, buy American and hire American, buy and hire [cheers and applause].

And I stood up to China like no president in history, taking in billions and billions and billions of dollars and tariffs and taxes. No other president took in 10 cents. They never did anything. They came in and they raped and pillaged our country, and we never did anything.

And we then gave $28 billion to our great farmers, because our farmers were hit hard during the negotiation. China said, we're not going to do anything. They thought that out-bluffed me and say, we're not going to do anything for the farmers. And the farmers came in. I'll never forget, they came to the White House, and I said, don't worry. We're going to help you out. I'll get some subsidy for you during this. They said, Sir, we don't want subsidy. Only group that ever said that to me were the farmers. We just want a fair playing field, the level playing field.

I'll never forget that. I had 32 farmers and they said, all we want is a level playing field. And I made the best deal ever made, for farmers and manufacturers, and that was the deal with China. But then, when COVID came in, I don't talk about it. I don't even talk about it, but it's been an incredible deal for the farmers. We wanted to do– I asked Sonny Perdue, the Secretary of Agriculture, how much have they hurt us and what kind of numbers have they done? Sir? They've hurt us $ 12 billion the first year, about 14 to $16 billion the second. So I said, that's okay. So I charged China $28 billion and I gave it to the farmers, $28 billion [cheers and applause]. And we had– and we had hundreds of billions left over, hundreds of billions of dollars, which came into the treasury. We fought for North Carolina and we won for North Carolina. And this November, we're going to fight and win for North Carolina once again [cheers and applause].

One of the first things we will do is to stand up for parents' rights [cheers and applause]. It's time to finally and completely break the radical-lefts, corrupt education cartel. Think of it. I'm standing up here I guess, as a politician. I'm a politician. I never thought of myself as a politician, but I guess I am, right? But think of it, I'm actually talking that we're going to stand up for parents' rights. Can you imagine saying that 10 years ago? They'd say, he said he's going to, of course he's going to stand up for parents' rights. Today it's somewhat politically incorrect to even say it. We are standing up for parental rights [cheers and applause]. Can't believe I have to even say it. Can't believe I have to say it. Our children are captives to unhinged, Marxist educators who are pushing inappropriate sexual, racial, and political material on our children from the youngest possible age. At long last, every part and every parent in America must be empowered to opt out of indoctrination and send their child to the public, private, charter, religious, or homeschool of their choice.

They're going to do that [cheers and applause]. In addition, we will get critical race theory, another beauty, out of our schools, out of our military. I took it totally out of our military. They put it back in, and out of every part of our federal and state and local governments. We will also keep men the hell out of women's sports, right? [cheers and applause]. Keep men out of women's sports. We're going to keep men out. You see those records that are being broken at numbers that nobody ever could think of. The weightlifters are hitting. If they picked up one ounce, they'd be thrilled after years, but we're breaking records by 150 pounds. We're breaking the swim records at numbers, 1/8 of a second, she won it. You know the story. I've told it, I won't bother telling it tonight, but 1/8.

CROWD MEMBER: Tell it.

TRUMP: He says, tell it. One-eighth of a second, but he broke the record. This giant, this giant man, she's looking over. She said, who is this? She doesn't remember swimming against her. And she looks at this giant. He had a wingspan like Wilt 'the Stilt' Chamberlain, and he broke the record by 38 seconds. She just wanted to break it by 1/8 of a second. And no teacher should ever be allowed to teach transgender to our children without parental consent [cheers and applause].

Another one of our highest priorities under a Republican Congress, will be to stop left-wing censorship and to restore free speech, in America, we don't have it [cheers and applause]. We are fake news. We get a lot of fake news. And go out and sign up right now, with Truth Social. How good is Truth Social? [cheers and applause]. It's doing good. They're constantly trying to kill it, these fakers. It's doing great. It's a hot platform. I think it's the hottest platform. And I wouldn't say Twitter's doing too good. He just said, it's killing Twitter. I wouldn't say Twitter is doing too good right now, but Truth, sign up for Truth. We want the truth. The radical-left Democrat Party is not a 50% party within our country. They're against God, guns, oil, law enforcement, voter ID, tax cuts, regulation cuts, the Constitution, and they're against our Founding Fathers.

Other than that, I really think they're terrific. Aren't they, Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam thinks they're fabulous. The way they win is to cheat in elections. I really believe that. How can you be against all of those things and then say, oh, we just nipped out Trump. We just whipped out– it doesn't happen. No, they cheat like hell. Everywhere, the Republican party has a chance, we must pass critical election integrity reforms including universal voting ID. Can you imagine? They don't want voting identification. And yet, when they had their big convention, they had like placards in their front, fingerprints, pictures, the nose 15 different ways, side, but they don't want voter ID because they want to cheat. Now, think of it. Can you imagine? They don't want voter ID. Citizenship confirmation, they don't want that either. We don't want to know whether or not they're a citizen. They don't have to be a citizen, Ted. Not too many of those people are going to be voting for you, Ted or Mark or any of you. We want no more fake drop boxes. Four hundred and seventeen million went into those fake drop boxes and a lot of bad decisions are coming out on the courts about the legality of those drop boxes.

And I have to tell you that Wisconsin, the state of Wisconsin, has been incredible. What they've done on showing the election fraud has been incredible. And so have other states. No private money pouring into local election offices anymore. And ultimately, we need same day voting with only paper ballots [cheers and applause]. Okay? Uncle Sam. Same day voting. That's what we want. Same day voting.

You know, I have some ladies from North Carolina over there. They've attended 92 rallies. Stand up please. These people. They're so beautiful. I'm not supp– you know you're not allowed to say that anymore, but you are. You know, you're not allowed to talk about a woman's beauty because it's politically incorrect but look at them over there. They come from North Carolina, and I can be in Nevada, I can be in Texas, and they've attended 92. I don't know what it's doing for your marriages. They're married women with handsome husbands. The husbands are here a little bit less, but they come too, but they're incredible. And I'm in your state, so I figure I have to give you a shout out. 92 rallies they've attended [cheers and applause]. And I think they're very rich actually. I think they have to be rich to attend– But look at the way they're dressed. Look at the way they're fantastic women. And we will see you soon. Okay? We're working on something. They want to come to Mar-a-Lago. I said I think I'm going to let them. What the hell? We'll have dinner, right? [cheers and applause]. Are you bringing your husbands? Leave them home. To hell with them.

Now, these are great people. We're just seven weeks away. Where's Front Row Joe? Oh, front row. He's– how many have you been to? You know, they're looking at 92 as being like peanuts. That's great. Thank you, darling. Thank you very much. Front row. These are the Front Row Joes. They wait in line for five, six days to get in. Can you believe? Because they want to be. You believe this, Ted? People got here five days ago. Are you exhausted? These are all the front row. We love you. Thank you very much, everybody.

We are just seven weeks away from the most important midterm election in American history, and we need a landslide so big that the radical left just cannot do it. They cannot steal it. This is the year we're going to take back the House. We're going to take back the Senate. We're going to take back our country. We're going to take back America [cheers and applause]. And in 2024, most importantly, I got to say Ted, I'm sorry, but most importantly– I shouldn't say that Ted, but most importantly, we're going to take back our magnificent White House. We're going to take it back [cheers and applause].

CROWD: [chanting] USA. USA. USA. USA. USA. USA.

TRUMP: Thank you. Together we will fight for more jobs for North Carolina families, fair trade for North Carolina workers and more for North Carolina than North Carolina could even imagine. Just like we were doing before, factories will be forging more products stamped with that beautiful, beautiful phrase, 'Made in the USA.' [cheers and applause]. We will shut down Biden's border disaster, reinstitute our strong remain in Mexico policy, strengthen the Patriots of ICE and border patrol. Border patrol, what people they are too. They're incredible people. And we will, again, end catch and release. We will end chain migration. All things we did before. They just had to leave it alone. We will end the visa lottery, which is a disaster. We will clamp down on illegal immigration, just like we did less than two years ago when we had, again, the greatest, strongest border in the history of our country.

We will stop the crime wave in Democrat run cities, and we will give our police the power they need and the respect they deserve [cheers and applause]. And we will never, ever take legal protection away from our police. They want to take legal protection. They want our police to go out and hire their own lawyers. Can you believe these people?

We will restore a thing called Law and Order in America [cheers and applause]. We will hold China accountable for unleashing the virus upon the world. We will defend our constitution. We will defend the Second Amendment and we will proudly uphold the Judeo-Christian values and principles of our nation's founding [cheers and applause]. We will restore patriotic education to our schools and we will teach our children to love their country, honor our history, and to always respect our great American flag [cheers and applause].

In conclusion, our MAGA, Make America Great Again, movement to make America great again, I told that the other day I was saying, please tell Biden don't hit MAGA. It means make America great again. What's to hit? Can you imagine they go after Make America Great Again? But that tells you, sir, it's by far the greatest political movement in the history of our country, probably in the history of almost all countries. Together we are standing up against some of the most menacing forces, entrenched interests, and vicious opponents our people have ever, ever seen. Despite great outside dangers from other countries, our biggest threat remains the sick, sinister, and evil people from within our own country.

But no matter how big or powerful the corrupt radical left Democrats are, we are fighting like nobody's ever fought before. I really believe that right now we are fighting like nobody has ever fought before. And you must never forget this nation does not belong to them. This nation belongs to you [cheers and applause]. You. You. And you. Belongs to you. This is your home. This is your heritage. And our American liberty is your God given right. They want to take God out of politics. No, we're not taking God. From Asheville to Charlotte, from Greensboro to Raleigh, and from Kitty Hawk to right here at a place called Wilmington. Have you ever heard of Wilmington? [cheers and applause]. This state was forged by some of the toughest men and some of the strongest women ever to walk the face of the Earth.

Our American ancestors were back country farmers and frontier settlers, incredible people, woodsmen and craftsmen and workers and warriors who poured their love into this land for their families. And above all, they were proud citizens, fiercely independent North Carolina Patriots who blazed their own trail and took orders from nobody. They forged the pathways, they climbed the mountains, they fought the battles, they conquered the dangers, and they tamed the unknown wilderness. They built the factories, and they gave everything they had to make America into the greatest and most powerful nation in the history of the world [cheers and applause].

[Instrumental music begins to play in background]. But now we are a nation in decline. We are a failing nation. We are a nation that has the highest inflation in 50 years and where the stock market finished the worst first half of the year since 1872. Likewise, we are a nation that has the highest energy cost of its history. We are no longer energy independent or energy dominant, as we just were two very short years ago. We are a nation that is begging Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries for oil. Please, please, please help us, says Joe Biden. And we have more liquid gold right under our feet than any other country. We are a nation that is consumed by the radical left's Green New Deal, yet everyone knows that the Green New Deal will lead to our destruction.

We are a nation whose leaders are demanding all electric cars even though they can't go far, cost too much, and whose batteries are produced in China with materials only available in China when unlimited amounts of gasoline are available inexpensively right under our feet in the United States, but not available anywhere in China. We are a nation that ended oil exploration and production in the United States, just as the price of oil reached an all-time high. We are a nation that surrendered in Afghanistan, leaving behind dead soldiers, American citizens and 85 billion worth of the finest military equipment anywhere in the world. And we are a nation that allowed Russia to devastate a country, Ukraine, killing hundreds of thousands of people and it will only get worse. It would never have happened with me as your commander in chief. And for four long years it didn't happen. And China, with Taiwan, is next.

We are a nation that has weaponized its law enforcement against the opposing political party like never before. We've got a Federal Bureau of Investigation that won't allow bad election-changing facts to be presented to the public, where Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation when they knew it wasn't, and the Department of Justice that refuses to investigate egregious acts of voting irregularities and fraud. And we have a president who is cognitively impaired and in no condition to lead our country, which may very well end up in World War III.

We are a nation that no longer has a free and fair press. Fake news is all you get, and they are the enemy of the people. We are a nation where free speech is no longer allowed, where crime is rampant like never before, where the economy has been collapsing, where more people died of COVID in 2021 than in 2020. We are a nation that is allowing Iran to build a massive nuclear weapon, and China to use the trillions and trillions of dollars it has taken from us to build a military to rival our own. And just two years ago, we had Iran, China, Russia and North Korea in check. They weren't going to do a thing against us, and everyone knows it.

And perhaps most importantly, we are a nation that is no longer respected or listened to around the world. We are a nation that in many ways has become a joke, and we are a nation that is hostile to liberty, freedom, and faith. We are a nation whose economy is floundering, whose stores are not stocked, whose deliveries are not coming, and whose educational system is ranked at the bottom of every single list. We are a nation whose once revered airports are dirty and a crowded mess, where you sit and wait for hours and then are notified that the plane won't leave, and they have no idea when it will. A nation where ticket prices are through the roof. They don't have pilots to fly the planes. They don't want or seek qualified air traffic controllers and they don't know what they're doing. We are a nation that has lost its confidence, willpower and strength. We are a nation that has lost its way, but we are not going to let this continue. Two years ago, we were a great nation, and we will soon be a great nation again [cheers and applause].

It was hardworking patriots like you who built this country, and it is hardworking patriots like you who are going to save our country. We will stand up to the radical left lunatics and the RINOS and we will fight for America like no one has ever fought before. There is no mountain we cannot climb. There is no summit we cannot reach. There is no challenge we cannot meet. There is no victory we cannot have. We will not bend, we will not break, we will not yield. We will never give in. We will never give up and we will never, ever, ever, ever back down [cheers and applause].

As long as we are confident and united, the tyrants we are fighting do not stand a chance because we are Americans and Americans kneel to God and God alone [cheers and applause]. My fellow citizens, this incredible journey we are on together has only just begun, and it is time to start talking about greatness for our country again. We are one movement, one people, one family, and one glorious American nation.

So with the help of everyone here today, and citizens all across our land, we will make America powerful again [cheers and applause]. We will make America wealthy again [cheers and applause]. We will make America strong again [cheers and applause]. We will make America proud again [cheers and applause]. We will make America safe again. And we will make America great again [cheers and applause]. Thank you. God bless you. Thank you very much, North Carolina. Thank you. Thank you very much [cheers and applause].

NOTE: Former President Trump spoke at approximately 7:00 pm at the Aero Center. Additional speakers included Ted Budd: Republican nominee for U.S. Senate from North Carolina, Mark Robinson: Lieutenant Governor of North Carolina, David Rouzer: U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 7th Congressional District, Bo Hines: Republican nominee for U.S. Representative for North Carolina's 13th Congressional District, and Michael Whatley: Chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party.

C-SPAN video available at: https://www.c-span.org/video/?522967-1/president-trump-rally-wilmington-...

Donald J. Trump (1st Term), Remarks at a Rally in Wilmington, North Carolina Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/374938

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