So now we're waiting for a report, and we'll find out whether or not, and who we're dealing with. We're waiting for a report by people that weren't elected. We had - think of this: We had the greatest election - in all fairness, I used to hear Andrew Jackson. This was now greater than the election of Andrew Jackson. People say that. No, people say it. (Applause.) I'm not saying it. Right? This was the equivalent or greater.
You know, they used to go to Ronald Reagan, when I first started. "This is Ronald Reagan." Then we started really doing well, and they were coming from everywhere to vote. Those red hats - and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. "Make America Great Again," is what it says. (Applause.) Right? Right?
But we had the greatest of all time. Now we have people that lost. And unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple of positions, and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't be there. And, all of a sudden, they're trying to take you out with bullshit. Okay? (Laughter.) With bullshit. (Applause.)
Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the Attorney General says, "I'm going to recuse myself." (Laughter.) "I'm going to recuse." And I said, why the hell didn't he tell me that before I put him in? How do you recuse yourself? But the person that appointed Robert Mueller never received a vote. Robert Mueller put 13 of the angriest Democrats in the history of our country on the commission. (Laughter.) Now, how do you do that? These are angry, angry people. You take a look at them. One of them was involved with the Hillary Clinton Foundation, running it. Another one has perhaps the worst reputation of any human being I've ever seen. (Laughter.) All killers. In fact, it would've been actually better for them if they put half and half, and Mueller can do whatever he wants anyway, which he'll probably do.
But we have conflicts. I had a nasty business transaction with Robert Mueller a number of years ago. I said, why isn't that mentioned? He wanted the job as FBI Director. I mean, these are things that are out there; they know it. Why isn't that - and I didn't give it to him. Why isn't that mentioned? Jim Comey - Lyin' James Comey -
AUDIENCE: Booo -
THE PRESIDENT: - is his best friend. James Comey is his best friend. And those are a few of the conflicts. Other than that, it's wonderful. (Laughter.)
So - so everybody is waiting. I thought of it this morning, Mark. And I heard you made an incredible speech and statement today. Mark Levin. I heard it was incredible. (Applause.) And I was on the way. But I'll see it later. I guarantee I'll be watching it later. I have one of the great inventions in history. It's called TiVo. (Laughter.) I think it's actually better than television, because television is practically useless without TiVo, right? (Laughter.) But I'll be watching it later, Mark.
But people that got no votes. But I heard this morning, "President Trump is waiting for the Mueller report." I said, wait a minute, let me get this straight. (Laughter.) So the Attorney General recuses himself, and I don't fire him. No obstruction. That's the other thing: If you use your right, if you use your power, if you use Article 2, it's called obstruction. But only for Trump. For nobody else. (Laughter.)
So the Attorney General is weak and ineffective, and he doesn't do what he should've done. Somebody that never got a vote writes a powerful letter - horrible - about Comey. Every single Democrat said Comey should be fired, or worse, if possible. (Laughter.) Every Republican said - everybody - in fact, when I fired Comey, I said, "You know..." - First Lady - I said, "Melania, I'm doing something today. I'm doing it because it really has to be done." He's bad. He's a bad, bad - he's a bad, bad guy. That's been proven now with all of the emails and the texts.
"I'm doing something that has to be done. But you know the good news? It's going to be bipartisan. It's going to be so popular, it's going to be bipartisan." (Laughter.) Every Democrat hates him. Every Republican hates him. He did a horrible job at the FBI. Speak to the real agents, the real people. Because the people in the FBI are incredible people - not the sleaze on top. (Applause.)
And I said to the First Lady - I said, "But you know the good news? The good news is that this is going to be so bipartisan. Everyone is going to love it."
So we fire Comey. And Schumer - who called for his resignation many times - Podesta, I believe that day - because he still hasn't gotten over getting his ass kicked, okay? (Applause.) I believe that day called for his resignation. That day. Podesta, the great genius of campaigns. (Laughter.) He called for the Comey resignation. Others - almost every, I would say. Mark, would you say virtually every Democrat, virtually every - I can't think of anybody that said he's doing a good job.
So I said to Melania, "Melania, the good news, this will be a popular thing." (Laughter.) And I fire a bad cop. I fire a dirty cop. And all of a sudden, the Democrats say, "How dare he fire him. How dare he do this." And that's where we are, folks. That's where we are. We're in this swamp of Washington, D.C.
But you know what? We're winning, and they're not. We're winning. (Applause.)
So, just to finish - and I'll tell you, Matt Schlapp is loving this. (Laughter.) He's saying, "This is a lot more than we paid for." You know, normally you read a few pages and you say, "Bye, folks." But you know what I like about this? Number one, I'm in love, and you're in love. We're all in love together. We've done something that nobody has ever done. (Applause.) Right? It's easy. No, it's easy.
You know, a great friend of mine from New York, he's a stone-cold killer. He's a brutal man. He's actually not even a good friend of mine because he'd turn on me in two seconds if it was (inaudible). (Laughter.) But he's a very rich guy. And he said, "What are you going to speak about today? Like, what are you going to speak?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know." (Laughter.) He said, "I just heard that you have the biggest crowd in the history of CPAC. They're all over. By the way, not only in this giant room. They're in many hotel rooms all over the place. You're just better at real estate than they are." (Laughter and applause.) True.
But this guy - you all know his name - very rich guy. And he has a problem with a thing called public speaking. If he has to speak to more than like five people, he chokes. (Laughter.) He can't breathe. You know, juh-juh. "Are you okay?" He kills people for a living - meaning mentally and financially - but if there's like an audience of nine, it's like "augh." (Laughter.) So he said to me, "How the hell do you do that?" And I said, "It's easy." And the reason it's easy - I really mean this - there's so much love in this room, it's easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There's love in this room. (Applause.) You can talk your heart out. It's easy. (Applause.) It's easy. It's easy.
And we've had that from the day I came down with your First Lady on the escalator in Trump Tower. It's been easy. (Applause.)
And you know what? We never had an empty seat. We went out and helped Ted Cruz. We went out and helped so many people. And I'll tell you what: If we didn't do those 32 rallies - and it wasn't easy. When you're doing rallies with 25-, 30,000 people - in Texas, we had 109,000 people sign up. We used the Houston Rockets arena; it holds 22,000. Tens of thousands were outside. We were sending notices, "Please don't come." That's a little different. Usually, people are begging. "Well, yeah, like can somebody come?" (Laughter.) We never had an empty seat. Of course, the Washington Post - a guy named David Weigel - he wrote an article, some arena -
AUDIENCE: Booo -
THE PRESIDENT: No, listen to this. He wrote an article. He got there four hours early. He took pictures of an empty arena. He then put out a note - something to the effect, "Not very good crowd size, Mr. President." And I never saw it because I don't follow the guy. But thousands of people that were in that arena that was packed with 25,000 people outside that couldn't get in - he got there four or five hours early because he doesn't fly private. You know. (Laughter.) And maybe it's because of the carbon footprint. You think maybe that's it? (Laughter.) Maybe. Must be the carbon footprint. He just doesn't want private.
But he got there hours early. And, you know, the place hadn't started taking in people. They weren't going to take them in. So there were virtually nobody. And, you know, whatever it was - 18,000 - when you have nobody, it's a little scary-looking. So he took pictures. And you know who really got even? Our people. Because they were incensed. We had people sitting on the stairwells. We had people sitting in every seat. I don't think we've had an empty seat since we announced. And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don't believe we've had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. It's been an incredible thing. And that's why I say this has never, ever happened before, and now we have to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory. (Applause.)
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, just to finish that story, the great Sarah Huckabee and Mercedes, who is incredible, sitting right here - (applause) - Mercedes, thank you. They always say - you know, they're good people, right? Much better than I am. They always say, "Don't bring it up. Don't fight. Don't fight. Everyone understands." I said, "They don't understand." If I don't explain it, how are they going to understand?
So remember the arena one, right? And then it was shown. And the Washington Post had to do - and this particular writer - had to do a - I thought he was going to get fired. I mean, if that were a conservative, he would've been fired on the spot. He would've been humiliated for what he did. Because it was fake news. Nobody was in the arena. There were thousands outside but they hadn't opened the gates yet.
They did the same thing at our big inauguration speech. You take a look at those crowds. And I watched one of the evening shows that are ridiculous, how horrible they are, how mean - how horrible. And I watched it by mistake. (Laughter.) And they showed - they showed from the White House all the way down. They showed from the Cap- - they showed - there were people. Nobody has ever seen it. The Capitol down to the Washington Monument - people. But I saw pictures that there were no people. (Laughter.) Those pictures were taken hours before. Right? And they always mention crowd size. "He talks about crowd size."
So I'm constantly bugging Mercedes. Whenever we have a slow moment, I say, "Mercedes" - and Sarah - "show them the pictures. Show them. And compare them with what they put on television. Those pictures were taken hours before." And remember this also - not that Obama would ever do this: But we had fencing all the way down to the Washington Monument. And it was raining and it was wet, and the grass was wet. And women and men - and I consider them totally equal, so I'm not going to say it's harder. (Laughter.) In fact, it's probably, with the men I know, it's actually easier for the women to make the walk, right?
AUDIENCE: No!
THE PRESIDENT: But they had to walk all the way down. They had to walk with high heels, in many cases. They had to walk all the way down to the Washington Monument and then back. And I looked, and I made a speech, and I said, before I got on - I said to the people that were sitting next to me, "I've never seen anything like this. Look at that crowd." And it was wide. Wide.
We had a crowd - I've never seen anything like it. And I have to live - I have to live with "crowd size." It's all a phony deal. But I saw a picture just the other night of practically no people. It was taken hours before our great day. That was a great day for us. That was a great, great day. People came from all over. (Applause.) People came from all over.
So, Sarah said, and Mercedes said, "Sir, it doesn't matter. Nobody cares." I said, "But I care." (Laughter.) And people care. People care.
So what I'm going to do is I'll give it to the great one. I'll give it to Mark Levin. And I'll give him the picture. Then I'll show you where they showed, just the other day, an empty field - like nobody on it. And you'll see the sun. You know, you can see it's very dark, because the sun is like starting to rise, right? (Laughter.) And you can have some fun. You're going to get big ratings on your show, I'll tell you that. Sunday night, everybody. Sunday night. (Applause.) Huh? Ten o'clock, right? Sunday night at 10 o'clock.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)
THE PRESIDENT: (Laughs.) Thank you. I knew that, actually. But thank you.
All right, now let's get back to what I'm here for. (Laughter.) And don't fall asleep. Don't fall asleep, right? Don't fall asleep. You know, somebody said, "Oh, the speech you made, sir, the State of the Union speech was incredible." (Applause.) They said it was incredible. They said that was so great.
And I said - I said - I did; I got great reviews, even from some of the really bad ones out there. (Laughter.) Of course, by the following morning, they had to change because the head people called up, "What are you doing?" (Laughter.) A lot of it is not the people on television, you know. A lot of it is their bosses - which someday we're going to have to figure out why, Meadows, why that is. Because, you know, if you're building a great country, you have the best employment and unemployment numbers we've ever had. More people are working today in the United States than ever before in the history of our country. (Applause.)
And you say, why are they upset by that? Why? Why are they upset by that?
