REMARKS

Remarks by President Trump at the 2020 Conservative Political Action Conference | National Harbor, MD
Issued on: March 1, 2020

Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center
National Harbor, Maryland

February 29, 2020
3:34 P.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I want to thank you, Matt. And I’m thrilled to back at CPAC with the thousands of proud American patriots who love our country, respect our flag — (applause) — honor our history, uphold our laws, protect our Constitution, and always put America first. Right? (Applause.) Been a long time.

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And al-Baghdadi, he’s the father of ISIS, and we defeated ISIS in the Middle East. We have defeated 100 percent of the caliphate. (Applause.)

But we said to the Europeans, “Hey, take your soldiers.” We killed many, many terrorists. When I took over, by the way, it was a mess. There was so much. If they — I hate to say this, Republicans, but they had maps and it was all red. Red meant ISIS. I hate to say it. I said, “Let’s change the color.” I actually did change the color. (Laughter.) But they showed me maps and large portions of Iraq and Syria, ISIS. And we don’t want them ever to come here. And I had some great people and have some incredible generals.

And I had a decision to make, because that was just not — they were not doing it right. And we made the decision, and we took them out.

Remember, I got to 98 percent and I said, “All right, now I can bring our people home.” “Sir…” And then what happened is the press; they didn’t care. But they went crazy. “He didn’t complete the job.” I was at 98 percent, Matt. They said, “He didn’t complete the job.” I said, “General, complete the job.” And they completed the job. (Applause.)

But the Europeans should be helping us, because many of those people that we’re guarding now — thousands and thousands of ISIS fighters and others — and many of those people will go home to France and Germany and UK and others. And we say, “Take them.” “No, no, no, we don’t want to them.” See, this is it — we do things for other people and then they forget, our allies. Sometimes our allies treat us worse than our enemies. I hate to say this to you, but sometimes they do. It’s very sad. Did them a big favor, but that’s all right. It’s all working out very well.

But we took out al-Baghdadi, who everybody was after. That was — you’d see him all the time speaking with a fan. That was an old picture — he was young. He got older. But they were looking for him for 16 years. And one of the first things I said when I came in is, “You got to find this guy, al-Baghdadi.” “Yes, sir.” All of a sudden, they walk in, they said, “We have him, sir. We’re following him all over the Middle East.” He’d move from place to place to place. “We’re following him, sir.”

And then they said, “Sir, we have him.” And I had to give an order and I gave an order. And I’ll tell you what: Sixty-six of the most incredible soldiers you’ve ever seen. They went in on eight helicopters. And, you know, in modern-day warfare, you can watch. I mean, I’m watching it. I’m watching it from the Situation Room. You believe it? It was like — you can’t make a movie like this. (Laughter.) For instance, there’s no dog like Conan. No dog. (Applause.) There’s no dog like Conan, right?

In fact, Conan, after the operation, was a tremendous success. I mean, they were looking for him for a long time. And it was a lot of violent fighting, and then ultimately we got him. He was in a tunnel, at the end of the tunnel. And Conan was going after him. Conan almost was electrocuted. You know that story. But the guys went after him, and we got him.

But you wouldn’t believe how great it felt. And when you saw the professionalism that of these soldiers, I can’t even tell you. There’s — nobody has a military like we have. There’s nobody with the talent that we have. It’s incredible. (Applause.)

They got him, and he knew it. He knew it. He knew it. As soon as he heard that first little explosion — that took them about three seconds — that blew the hell out of the wall. I said, “Why don’t they go through the front door?” He said, “Sir, you go through the front door, you got a lot of bullets coming at you.” They went through a solid concrete wall. They put stuff up, boom. So fast. (Laughter.) So now they’re shooting the other guys from behind. That’s much better, right? (Laughter.) Guys are saying, “Who’s that? Who’s that?” (Laughter and applause.) Guys were unbelievable. You don’t have a movie like that.

And Conan actually — Conan was given more press than your President — I’m telling you. (Laughter.) It was like about a half-a-day story. If somebody else would have done it, it would have been the greatest thing to ever happen. But that’s all right. I do it for a different reason. I do it because we have to, to keep ourselves safe. I do it also for all of the people that they killed and wounded. Right? (Applause.) They killed and wounded a lot of people.

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THE PRESIDENT: Since my election, America has gained 7 million new jobs, 5 million more than government experts projected at the end of the last administration. They were saying the most you could possibly do is 2 million; we did 7 million. (Applause.) I never even said we were going to do 7 million. That’s a lot of jobs.

Unemployment has reached the lowest rate in over 51 years. The average unemployment rate for my administration is the lowest for any President in the history of the United States. (Applause.) That’s a good one. That’s a good one. That’s a good one.

The unemployment rate among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Asian Americans has reached record lows — all record lows. Every one, lowest ever. (Applause.)

Young people have seen their wages increased by 16 percent. A record. And their wages are rising three times faster than those wages. During the last four years of — did you ever hear of this gentleman? — the Obama administration. You ever hear of him?

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: More than 2 million millennials have gotten jobs. We have lifted 10 million people off the welfare rolls and 7 million people off of food stamps. (Applause.)

And under the so-called Trump economy, we are actually achieving the progress, hope, and change that liberals have been falsely promising for decades but utterly failed to deliver or produce. And it’s really driving them crazy. (Laughter and applause.)

That’s why we’ll probably end up with Crazy Bernie. Crazy Bernie. He’s crazy. We got some beauties. We got Sleepy Joe. We got Crazy Bernie. We got Mini Mike, but I think he’s out of it. (Laughter.)

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And 40 million American families are enjoying an average of $2,200 more in their pocket thanks to a beautiful thing that Republicans really don’t know about too much. You know, the Democrats like to take credit. It’s called “child tax credit.” We took that. That was Ivanka Trump — right, Mercedes? Ivanka Trump. She wanted that so badly. (Applause.)

We’ve cut a record number of job-killing regulations because regulation is stealth taxation, especially on the poor. We have cut more regulations in this administration in three years than any administration has cut in four years, in eight years, or in one case, longer than that. You know, who that was: good, old FDR.

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Remember this thing, “Russia, if you’re listening”? Remember, it was a big thing — in front of 25,000 people. “Russia if you’re…” It was all said in a joke. They cut it off right at the end so that you don’t then see the laughter, the joke. And they said, “He asked. He asked for help.” Right? “Russia, if you’re listening…” A very famous — they cut that thing so quick at the end because they didn’t want to hear the laughter in the place and me laughing. It was just “boom.”

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Butt-ig-ieg — (laughter) — I don’t see it. To me, every time I look at that face, I see Alfred E. Neuman. It’s true. (Laughter.) No, it’s true. It’s Alfred E. Alfred E. Neuman, Mad Magazine. See, the problem is most of you are too young. All these beautiful young women up here, they don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. (Laughter.) But the old ones — the ones with the white hair — (applause) — they know exactly — they’re laughing like hell. But it’s true. (Laughter.)

Somebody said use Howdy Doody because everyone knows — I said “No, that’s not — that’s no good. It’s got to be perfecto.” (Laughter.) And Alfred E. Neuman is perfecto, but you’re going to have to go back and get Mad Magazine, which I guess is out of business for a long time. (Laughter.) Like most other magazines, right?

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But under my administration, the great betrayal of America is over. It is no longer for sale. (Applause.)

So we started charging tariffs. They hit our farmers. I gave the farmers everything that they took out, and the money came from China because it came out of the tariffs. And we had a lot of money left over. A long, complicated story, but not really complicated. No other President ever thought of it. And now the farmers love me, and we ended up making a great deal. (Applause.)

But they loved me before. You know, the farmers, when they’d go to — CNN would go up, “Is it terrible what President Trump is doing to you with trade war?” He says, “No. It’s hurting me badly, but the trade war is necessary. And it should have been done years ago.” Every one — I’ve never heard anybody say different. (Applause.) I’ve never heard anybody say different. The farmers are unbelievable.

But I went to Sonny Perdue, our Secretary of Agriculture. I said, “So let me ask you– Chinese is tough; they’re smart. They hit them. How much did they take care out last year?” “Twelve billion dollars.” “How much did they take out this year?” “Sixteen billion dollars.” That was last year. I said, “$16 billion, $12 billion, good. We’re going to give them back the $12 billion.” Then we gave back the 16. Everything they took out. I said, “What was the best year they ever had with China?” It was $16 billion. I said, “Good. I’ll give them — I’ll reimburse them the $16 billion out of the tariffs that China is paying.”

And, by the way, you know, China respects this, just so you understand. You know, other Presidents knew that they were getting ripped off. They didn’t know what to do about it. They said, “They’ll attack our farmers. Our whole farmer — all the farmers will go bust.” They didn’t know. Charge them tariffs, pay them back, and then keep a hell of a lot more money than you’re even giving to the farmers. And we kept tens of billions of dollars. (Applause.)

And we made our first deal, and Schumer went, “It’s terrible, the deal. He got — he took the tariffs out.” No, nobody wanted tariffs until I taught them what tariffs are. But “It’s terrible. He went and took the tariffs out.” Actually, I didn’t. They’re paying 25 percent on $250 billion. I don’t even know how we pulled off that one. (Laughter.) But they’re paying —

But China is great, and now they want to negotiate phase two, because they want to stop paying the 25 percent on $250 billion. Otherwise, we have no leverage, right? We have no leverage. (Applause.)

But the farmers are the greatest. And even before they knew I was going to be able to reimburse them all that money that was being taken out of their pockets, they were — they said to me — I had 25 farmers in the White House, right in the Cabinet Room. I use the Cabinet Room. Everybody else used it only for the Cabinet. I use it for everything but the Cabinet. (Laughter.) No, I use it for farmers. We have beautiful — it’s this incredible room. Right? This incredible room.

And I said to the farmers — I said, “You know, I want to give you back money. I want to give you a subsidy.” “Oh, we don’t want the word…” — they didn’t want — everybody else, they didn’t care what I used. I could use “subsidy.” I could use “welfare.” I could use any word I wanted. The farmers hated the word “subsidies.” “Sir we don’t want anything. We just want a level playing field. It’s been this way for 20 years. And it’s been it’s been absolutely hurting us.” (Applause.)

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No, but think of that. But so now they like to say, “All right, so he’s building the wall, but Mexico is not paying for it.” Yes, they are, actually. You know what I mean, right? They are paying for it. They’re paying for it. Oh, they’re going to die when I put in this — what we’re going to do. But, no, they’re paying for it. And they’re okay with it because they understand that’s fair. But, no, Mexico is paying for it and it’s every bit — it’s better than the wall that was projected. We’re doing it at a higher level. We have so many gadgets on that wall, you wouldn’t even believe it. Sensors. We have things.

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END

4:59 P.M. EST