Remarks by President Trump at the Faith and Freedom Coalition “Road to Majority” 2019 Conference | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Our nation is uplifted by incredible Americans like Katie who fight for the dignity of all humanity. My administration has also taken historic action to protect Americans' rights enshrined in the Constitution.

    Democrats are determined to pack the courts with radical-left judges who will impose their own far-left views on the American people. That is why I will soon appoint my 145th judge to interpret the Constitution as written. (Applause.)

    You know, normally, when a President assumes his position in the White House, you have no judges. You come as they retire. They get sick, they pass away, things happen, and they leave and you'll get one, two, three. I inherited 138 empty spots - 138. I said, "This is impossible." Because President Obama either didn't get them through or couldn't get them through or something happened. But I said, "How many judges do I have?" "Sir, you have 138." Federal judges - 138 - which is, percentagewise, going to be a record. But the only one that has a record greater than mine, percentagewise, is George Washington. (Laughter and applause.)

    I'll never beat that record. He had 100 percent. But I have more. (Laughter.) The only thing - we have more, but he had 100 percent. He appointed everybody. (Laughter.)

    But think of that, 145 judges we're up to. I had 138, and then through attrition and things, we picked up some additional - and we're putting fantastic people on the courts and it makes such a big difference. Nobody would believe.

    And we have two new Supreme Court Justices: Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh. (Applause.)

    And exactly a year ago today, in a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court upheld the First Amendment rights of pregnancy care centers. (Applause.)

    And just last week, the Supreme Court ruled 7-2 that the Peace Cross - wasn't that nice, right? (Applause.) There's one that would have come down. In a memorial - a beautiful memorial in Maryland which honors our heroes of World War One - but it's in the form of a cross, and they said it can stand on public land for all to see. Isn't that nice? (Applause.)

    It's so beautiful and it takes up such an important place in that area, in that whole state, and they wanted to rip it down. They wanted to take it down because it was a cross. And we won that one just two days ago in the Supreme Court. Isn't that great? (Applause.)

    Americans' belief in God has forged the character of our country and made our nation a light unto the world. We are respected again as a nation, I will tell you that. And I'm not only talking about from a religious standpoint. Our country is respected again. (Applause.)


    Today, we are excited to be joined by hundreds of college students, including eight students from Liberty University - great school - who just got back from a mission trip to Oklahoma. Where are you? Stand up, please. Wow. (Applause.)

    That's fantastic. It's a great school and Jerry Falwell is a friend of mine. And he was with me right from the beginning, and he's so happy about it. (Laughter.) I could tell you stories. He said that he was so honored to be there. He understood from the beginning what was going on. And he does say - and so did Pastor Robert Jeffress, a great friend of mine - he would say, "Our President may not be the best at the Bible." (Laughter.) "He may not have read it 2,000 times, but he's the best for us." And that's good. That's good. (Applause.) That's good.

    AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much everybody. Thank you.

    And who are those 17 percent, right? (Laughter.) Ralph asked that question. I do - I want to talk to them. (Laughter.)

    As one of the great students, Phoebe, recently said, "Every day on the trip is a chance to love others the way Christ loves us." Where's Phoebe? Stand up, Phoebe. Thank you very much. Very nice. Beautiful. (Applause.)

    So I want to thank Phoebe and I want to thank the students who are here with us today from all over the country. You're really - incredible what you're doing.

    And I think people have no idea the numbers we're talking about. You know, you see all of this stuff on television and they're noisy, they're loud, they're rude, they disgrace us in so many ways, and they get publicity. But they don't realize that we have more than they do. (Applause.) They really don't. People don't realize it. We have more than they do.

    I see it all the time - the young people that come. The other day, in Orlando, we had a rally that was unbelievable. It filled up - we had thousands and thousands of people outside of the Orlando Magic arena, where they play the big basketball games. The floor was packed. And it was an incredible thing to see.

    And then outside, there were - I mean, literally tens of thousands of people couldn't get in. And then there were thousands that we said, "Don't come." We actually were putting out notices: "Please don't come." There's something going on. That's a great thing. It's continuing, I think, even stronger than that great November day in 2016. I really believe it's stronger. (Applause.)


    And, you know, the media likes to talk about the energy the Left has. I don't think they have energy. They're trying to destroy themselves. (Laughter.) And it's negative energy. It really is. It's like a negative energy, when you see what they want to do. And I think we have more energy than we've ever had.

    And I said it the other day: I think the Republicans have much more energy than the Democrats - though maybe I'm wrong, but I really believe that. (Applause.)

    And they like to talk about 2018. Well, number one, in 2018, I didn't run. I wasn't running. I was helping people. And almost everybody I helped - the governor of Ohio, he's great; the governor of Georgia, he's great; the governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, he's great; Oklahoma - (applause) - I mean, so many different places. Every place, we have such tremendous - and, remember, they were going to take over the Senate and House? Well, there's so many people in the House, but the ones - like in Kentucky, Andy Barr - the ones that we helped - the ones that I went to - won. They won their races against very tough competition.

    But we held the Senate and picked up two seats, and nobody wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it. (Applause.) And if we didn't, we wouldn't be having judges, but nobody wants to talk about that. All they want to do is say, "Oh, they lost House seats." Well, you know, there's a lot of people running in the House.

    And what I did is I campaigned for senators and we almost picked up another three. We came very close to big upsets. so I actually think we have the energy. And I'm going to be running, and it's going to make a big difference. We're going to win a lot of things that people have no idea.

    Like, for instance, in the audience the other night - so many women for Trump. So many. So many. (Applause.) But they did the same thing. They did the same thing - (applause). They did the same thing in 2016. "Women - they'll not vote for Trump. They're not going to vote." I was saying to my wife, "Do you think women are going to vote for me at all?" And we got a tremen- - I mean, the women came out and it was incredible what happened against Hillary Clinton - a wonderful woman, wonderful person - (laughter) - who dubbed us all the "deplorables."

    She actually said two words, you know. You know the other word? She said "deplorables" and "irredeemables." And I thought the word "irredeemable" was going to catch on. Shows you what I thought. (Laughter.) Because I think irredeemable is worse than deplorable, right? Wouldn't you say, Bill? Give me a definition. Isn't it worse?

    But the next day, I made a speech - I'll never forget, she used it - you know, I didn't think too much about it. The next day, I'm in this big stadium making a speech, and I see: "We're the deplorables." "We love you." (Laughter.) I'm saying, "What did that come from?"

    See? That's why politics is a tough business. One word can put you right out of business, right? (Laughter.) One word. That was not a good speech she made. I don't know who wrote it, but I don't think she'd ever want to use them again. (Laughter.) "They're deplorables." The activists -


    AUDIENCE MEMBER: They're deplorables!

    THE PRESIDENT: (Laughs.) The activists in this room - and that's what you should call yourselves. You're activists. Be an activist. They are activists. What they do is so terrible. Be activists. That's okay. There's nothing wrong with it. (Applause.)

    And the believers across our country, they strengthen our communities in countless ways - so many ways. That's why we're empowering Americans of faith to live by the Lord's calling to love their neighbors.

    We've created nearly 9,000 Opportunity Zones with Tim Scott, from South Carolina, who's been a great guy. (Applause.) Great guy. He came in with this idea, and now nobody had anybody idea it was going to work like this. There's never been anything that worked like this. It's incredible what's going with Opportunity Zones - brand new - which give churches and investors more ways to rebuild distressed communities.

    And last year, with the help of many faith leaders, I signed groundbreaking criminal justice reform into law. (Applause.)

    And, if you remember, Sleepy Joe Biden - he's the one - he was pushing it. (Laughter.) And that was a killer for Hillary Clinton. And I remember, the first time I saw people - real activists - against Hillary because of her husband and what they did on criminal justice reform, and they did nothing to fix it. What they did - it was terrible: the Crime Act. What they did was terrible to so many people. And we got criminal justice reform passed with very conservative people and very liberal people. I mean, it was an amazing thing.

    But nobody until - that was done four months ago - nobody until this time thought it could ever happen. And you had to see the people that were in favor of it - the most conservative people, some of the most conservative - even more conservative than Bill Bennett, which is hard to believe. (Laughter.) Am I right? I mean, seriously conservative. And also, very liberal people. It was a great thing. It was a great thing.

    We're glad to be joined today by the first person released from prison under the FIRST STEP Act - Matthew Charles. Where's Matthew? (Applause.) Thank you, Matthew.

    That was very unfair what happened to Matthew and many other people - many other people. And we're very tough on crime, but what happened to some people was very unfair. So it's really great that you're here, Matthew, and I hear you're doing phenomenally well, and we appreciate it. What a great, great person you are.