A Constitutional Republic, where the First Amendment is Essential to OUR Survival
Remarks by President Trump at the 2019 House Republican Conference Member Retreat Dinner
Press Release:
Marriott Waterfront • Baltimore, Maryland • September 13 • 8:02 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) That's a group. Some group.
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. That's fantastic. A lot of power in this room. Wow. A lot of power.
Thank you, Kevin, for your friendship and for your devotion to our nation.
I'm delighted to be here with so many terrific Republican members of Congress. You really are terrific people. I especially want to thank our amazing leadership team: Republican Whip, and one of the bravest men I know, Steve Scalise. Steve, thank you very much. (Applause.) Conference Chair Liz Cheney. (Applause.) Thank you, Liz. NRCC Chair Tom Emmer. Tom. (Applause.) Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. And Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson. Great job. (Applause.) Thank you, Drew. Great job.
I also want to proudly welcome our newest Republican congressmen - two people that fought a big fight for the last number of months, and they're winners. They reacted so incredibly under pressure. The whole world was watching. A lot of people were hoping for the opposite outcome, but many more people were hoping for the outcome that we had. A man who wasn't expected necessarily to win, and then he got in gear and he was brutal and brilliant, and he did a great job. Now, soon to be, and now Congressman Dan Bishop - for many years. Thank you, Dan. (Applause.) Dan, thank you. What a great job. (Applause.) What a great job, Dan.
And another man who fought so hard and he was supposed to win by a little tiny bit, a couple of points, and he won by a lot of points. That was a big victory, and I want to just congratulate you. Greg Murphy is going to be with you folks for a long time. (Applause.) These two people are special people.
North Carolina - thank you, North Carolina. (Applause.) They were some crowds that turned out. They turned out, and they turned out like people never expected. And they were - that was just a great evening of television. I wouldn't say the fake news was too happy with the outcome, but that's okay. That's okay. We did it. And we worked together as a team, and it was very inspirational for a lot of people to watch.
Everyone here tonight has a critical role to play at the vital crossroads of our nation. Democrats in Congress have embraced an extreme, destructive, and dangerous agenda: radical socialism and open borders.
Democrats are determined to replicate the most catastrophic failures of world history right here in the United States. They've never learned. They haven't watched. Each of you in the House Republican Conference is on the frontlines defending American freedom, American security, American prosperity, and the American way of life. You're the ones - you're doing the defense. Hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens are counting on us, and, so help us God, we will never, ever let them down. (Applause.)
Together, we're going to fight historic battles, and we have historic battles ahead of us. Going to make our country even greater. And we're going to win overwhelming victories for the American people. The spirit that we have in the Republican Party, I don't believe, has ever been this high.
Over the past two and a half years, we've already delivered unprecedented progress for citizens of every background and every walk of life. Now we must go directly to the American people to share the story of what we have achieved and to explain our bold vision for the future.
Working with Republicans in Congress, we slashed 30,000 pages of regulations from the Federal Register. (Applause.) And that is an all-time record, and we did that in a lot less years. That's an all-time record, no matter how long a President was there. We saved an average American household $3,000. Earlier today, my administration formally repealed the horrible, dangerous, anti-everything Waters of the United States rule. (Applause.) Thank you, Louie. Thank you, Louie. I would say the only thing that had going for it that was good was the title. (Laughter.) That was - I said, "I'm the only one that would sign this." But it was a good thing we did. Right, Louie? It was a good thing we did. Government will no longer try to micromanage every rain puddle and every drainage ditch on private land. They took your land away from you.
Together, we enacted the VA Accountability Act, so that anyone who mistreats or abuses our great veterans can be promptly fired. (Applause.) There was a time you couldn't fire anyone, no matter how they treated our veterans, whether they stole or they were sadists. And we had some of them too. You couldn't fire them, and now we can do it very, very quickly and easily. They don't treat our veterans well. We get them out.
Since then, we've removed more than 7,600 employees who failed to give our vets the care they so richly deserve. We're also very proud to tell you that the Veterans Choice, which is something special - so special; they've been trying to get it for decades and decades - Choice - so that more veterans have the right to see a private doctor, if they have to wait on line, instead of waiting for two weeks or three weeks or five weeks, or numbers that you wouldn't even believe. Think of it. You're sick, you're not feeling well, and they tell you, "Come back in four weeks."
Now you go outside, you go to a local doctor of your choice, by the way - unlike somebody else, where they said, "You can have your doctor and you can have your plan" 28 times. That didn't work out too well. (Laughter.) You go out and you see a doctor of your choice. We pay the bill. And it's been an incredible thing. I'll tell you, what's happening at the VA has been really something special. If you look and - you just see it. All you used to see and read about is how bad the VA was run, how horrible it was. And you don't hear those stories anymore.
Now, you know, what we'll go is these people will run out and they'll start trying to find somebody. "Who is unhappy?" Thousands and hundreds of thousands of people? "Who's unhappy? Please call us immediately." And that's the problem. But I will tell you, people are really happy. What we've done there is incredible.
We achieved record funding to restore the awesome might of the American military: $700 billion last year; $716 billion this year; and now, just approved - thank you very much - $738 billion next year. (Applause.) More money, by far, than ever before. And remember, that's all money; it's built in the USA. We build it right here.
America, I will tell you, is respected again. Our nation is stronger today than ever before. We have the greatest equipment. We have people with spirit like they haven't had. But we now have the greatest equipment. When I came in two and a half years ago, our equipment was old and tired. Our ammunition was low. Our planes didn't fly well. Many of them didn't fly at all. Now we have beautiful, new planes and jets and fighter jets and bombers. And we have everything. And hopefully we don't have to use them too much, and maybe we don't have to use them at all. But we have the greatest military we've ever had. (Applause.)
And, together, so importantly, we ended the last administration's heartless war on American energy. For all of the folks in Texas - we got a lot of you tonight - you're very happy. And plenty of other places. But you're very happy. (Applause.)
The United States is now the number one energy producer anywhere in the world, by far. (Applause.) For the first time in more than 60 years - this just happened - we are now a net exporter of American natural gas. (Applause.) And we're ending decades of foreign energy reliance to unleash the blessings of American energy independence. We are really - if you look at what's going on in certain countries in the Middle East, and you look at the Straits, and you see the ships, and they're being taken and they're being - not too often, by the way, because, frankly, Iran is a much different country than it was two and a half years ago.
But they were saying, "We don't see any American ships." There are no Amer- - number one, they wouldn't take them. They better not take them. And number two, we don't have too many there. We used to be flooded. We used to get everything there. And now it's a whole different story. We're very energy-independent.
We've invested billions of dollars to combat the opioid crisis and those struggling with addiction to find access to treatment, education, and employment. A tremendous problem. We've had tremendous success with opioid. Not that it goes away, but we're looking very strongly for something that can really take away the pain - just take away the pain without being addictive. And we're getting very close. This is a brutal - people go into the hospital for a week, and they come out drug addicts. They come out addicted. It's a terrible thing. But we're working very hard, and we're getting very close, finding a pain killer that's not addictive.
...
Read the full transcript HERE.
For the first time in three decades, drug overdose deaths have declined. Think of that. Over 30 years. (Applause.) First time.
You can visit a collection of all White House posts by clicking here.
Go Back
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. (Applause.) That's a group. Some group.
AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you. That's fantastic. A lot of power in this room. Wow. A lot of power.
Thank you, Kevin, for your friendship and for your devotion to our nation.
I'm delighted to be here with so many terrific Republican members of Congress. You really are terrific people. I especially want to thank our amazing leadership team: Republican Whip, and one of the bravest men I know, Steve Scalise. Steve, thank you very much. (Applause.) Conference Chair Liz Cheney. (Applause.) Thank you, Liz. NRCC Chair Tom Emmer. Tom. (Applause.) Thank you, Tom. Thank you, Tom. And Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson. Great job. (Applause.) Thank you, Drew. Great job.
I also want to proudly welcome our newest Republican congressmen - two people that fought a big fight for the last number of months, and they're winners. They reacted so incredibly under pressure. The whole world was watching. A lot of people were hoping for the opposite outcome, but many more people were hoping for the outcome that we had. A man who wasn't expected necessarily to win, and then he got in gear and he was brutal and brilliant, and he did a great job. Now, soon to be, and now Congressman Dan Bishop - for many years. Thank you, Dan. (Applause.) Dan, thank you. What a great job. (Applause.) What a great job, Dan.
And another man who fought so hard and he was supposed to win by a little tiny bit, a couple of points, and he won by a lot of points. That was a big victory, and I want to just congratulate you. Greg Murphy is going to be with you folks for a long time. (Applause.) These two people are special people.
North Carolina - thank you, North Carolina. (Applause.) They were some crowds that turned out. They turned out, and they turned out like people never expected. And they were - that was just a great evening of television. I wouldn't say the fake news was too happy with the outcome, but that's okay. That's okay. We did it. And we worked together as a team, and it was very inspirational for a lot of people to watch.
Everyone here tonight has a critical role to play at the vital crossroads of our nation. Democrats in Congress have embraced an extreme, destructive, and dangerous agenda: radical socialism and open borders.
Democrats are determined to replicate the most catastrophic failures of world history right here in the United States. They've never learned. They haven't watched. Each of you in the House Republican Conference is on the frontlines defending American freedom, American security, American prosperity, and the American way of life. You're the ones - you're doing the defense. Hundreds of millions of our fellow citizens are counting on us, and, so help us God, we will never, ever let them down. (Applause.)
Together, we're going to fight historic battles, and we have historic battles ahead of us. Going to make our country even greater. And we're going to win overwhelming victories for the American people. The spirit that we have in the Republican Party, I don't believe, has ever been this high.
Over the past two and a half years, we've already delivered unprecedented progress for citizens of every background and every walk of life. Now we must go directly to the American people to share the story of what we have achieved and to explain our bold vision for the future.
Working with Republicans in Congress, we slashed 30,000 pages of regulations from the Federal Register. (Applause.) And that is an all-time record, and we did that in a lot less years. That's an all-time record, no matter how long a President was there. We saved an average American household $3,000. Earlier today, my administration formally repealed the horrible, dangerous, anti-everything Waters of the United States rule. (Applause.) Thank you, Louie. Thank you, Louie. I would say the only thing that had going for it that was good was the title. (Laughter.) That was - I said, "I'm the only one that would sign this." But it was a good thing we did. Right, Louie? It was a good thing we did. Government will no longer try to micromanage every rain puddle and every drainage ditch on private land. They took your land away from you.
Together, we enacted the VA Accountability Act, so that anyone who mistreats or abuses our great veterans can be promptly fired. (Applause.) There was a time you couldn't fire anyone, no matter how they treated our veterans, whether they stole or they were sadists. And we had some of them too. You couldn't fire them, and now we can do it very, very quickly and easily. They don't treat our veterans well. We get them out.
Since then, we've removed more than 7,600 employees who failed to give our vets the care they so richly deserve. We're also very proud to tell you that the Veterans Choice, which is something special - so special; they've been trying to get it for decades and decades - Choice - so that more veterans have the right to see a private doctor, if they have to wait on line, instead of waiting for two weeks or three weeks or five weeks, or numbers that you wouldn't even believe. Think of it. You're sick, you're not feeling well, and they tell you, "Come back in four weeks."
Now you go outside, you go to a local doctor of your choice, by the way - unlike somebody else, where they said, "You can have your doctor and you can have your plan" 28 times. That didn't work out too well. (Laughter.) You go out and you see a doctor of your choice. We pay the bill. And it's been an incredible thing. I'll tell you, what's happening at the VA has been really something special. If you look and - you just see it. All you used to see and read about is how bad the VA was run, how horrible it was. And you don't hear those stories anymore.
Now, you know, what we'll go is these people will run out and they'll start trying to find somebody. "Who is unhappy?" Thousands and hundreds of thousands of people? "Who's unhappy? Please call us immediately." And that's the problem. But I will tell you, people are really happy. What we've done there is incredible.
We achieved record funding to restore the awesome might of the American military: $700 billion last year; $716 billion this year; and now, just approved - thank you very much - $738 billion next year. (Applause.) More money, by far, than ever before. And remember, that's all money; it's built in the USA. We build it right here.
America, I will tell you, is respected again. Our nation is stronger today than ever before. We have the greatest equipment. We have people with spirit like they haven't had. But we now have the greatest equipment. When I came in two and a half years ago, our equipment was old and tired. Our ammunition was low. Our planes didn't fly well. Many of them didn't fly at all. Now we have beautiful, new planes and jets and fighter jets and bombers. And we have everything. And hopefully we don't have to use them too much, and maybe we don't have to use them at all. But we have the greatest military we've ever had. (Applause.)
And, together, so importantly, we ended the last administration's heartless war on American energy. For all of the folks in Texas - we got a lot of you tonight - you're very happy. And plenty of other places. But you're very happy. (Applause.)
The United States is now the number one energy producer anywhere in the world, by far. (Applause.) For the first time in more than 60 years - this just happened - we are now a net exporter of American natural gas. (Applause.) And we're ending decades of foreign energy reliance to unleash the blessings of American energy independence. We are really - if you look at what's going on in certain countries in the Middle East, and you look at the Straits, and you see the ships, and they're being taken and they're being - not too often, by the way, because, frankly, Iran is a much different country than it was two and a half years ago.
But they were saying, "We don't see any American ships." There are no Amer- - number one, they wouldn't take them. They better not take them. And number two, we don't have too many there. We used to be flooded. We used to get everything there. And now it's a whole different story. We're very energy-independent.
We've invested billions of dollars to combat the opioid crisis and those struggling with addiction to find access to treatment, education, and employment. A tremendous problem. We've had tremendous success with opioid. Not that it goes away, but we're looking very strongly for something that can really take away the pain - just take away the pain without being addictive. And we're getting very close. This is a brutal - people go into the hospital for a week, and they come out drug addicts. They come out addicted. It's a terrible thing. But we're working very hard, and we're getting very close, finding a pain killer that's not addictive.
...
Read the full transcript HERE.
For the first time in three decades, drug overdose deaths have declined. Think of that. Over 30 years. (Applause.) First time.
- Contact: White House
- Press Office
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