Remarks for Night Three of the Republican National Convention – Part Two
President Trump’s 2020 Convention honors the great American story, the American people that have written it, and how President Donald J. Trump has empowered them to succeed. The convention highlights the progress that has been made under President Trump’s leadership, the hardworking Americans that make it possible, and how he will continue to make America great. While Democrats attack our country and sow division, President Trump is implementing an agenda that puts the American people first.
Lara Trump
Remarks as Prepared:
Good evening, America, I’m Lara Trump.
Daughter of Bob and Linda Yunaska, sister to Kyle, mother to Luke and Carolina and the daughter-in-law of our 45th President, Donald J. Trump.
But tonight, I come to you simply as an American.
My life began like many in our country. I grew up in Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina. My parents were small business owners and worked hard to make sure that my brother and I had everything we needed but not everything we wanted.
My parents raised me to believe that, in America, I could achieve anything with hard work and determination. That the opportunities available to me were limited only by the size of my ambition. That I should dream big. And, I did.
Those very dreams are what led me to New York City. I’d heard the adage, “if I could make it there, I could make it anywhere” — and, I intended to do just that.
Never in a million years did I think that I would be on this stage tonight, and I certainly never thought that I’d end up with the last name Trump. My 7th grade English teacher, Mrs. B, used to tell us “believe none of what you hear, half of what you read and only what you’re there to witness firsthand.” The meaning of those words never fully weighed on me until I met my husband and the Trump family.
Any preconceived notion I had of this family disappeared immediately. They were warm and caring, they were hard workers, and they were down to earth. They reminded me of my own family — they made me feel like I was home.
Walking the halls of the Trump Organization, I saw the same family environment. I also saw, first-hand, the countless women executives who thrived there, year after year. Gender didn’t matter, what mattered was someone’s ability to get the job done. I learned this directly when, in 2016, my father-in-law asked me to help him win my cherished home state — and my daughter’s namesake — North Carolina. Though I had no political experience, he believed in me and supported me — he knew I was capable even if I didn’t.
So, it didn’t surprise me when President Donald Trump appointed the most women to senior level positions of any administration in history. The Secretary of the United Nations, Secretary of the Air Force, the first female CIA Director, the first African American female director of the Fish and Wildlife service and countless ambassadors, just to name a few.
Under President Trump’s leadership women’s unemployment hit the lowest level since World War II. 4.3 million new jobs have been created for women — in 2019 alone, women took over 70% of those new jobs. Female small business ownership remains at an all-time high. And 600,000 women have been lifted out of poverty, all since President Trump took office.
He didn’t do these things to gain a vote or to check a box — he did them because they are the right things to do.
One hundred years ago today, the 19th Amendment was ratified, granting the right to vote to every American woman. And, since that day, incredible strides have been made by women in America. From Amelia Earhart to Rosa Parks and Sally Ride, women shaped our history and are part of what has made our country the most exceptional nation in the world.
I often think back to my 24 year old self, driving alone in my car from North Carolina to New York City. And, I think about what I would tell myself now as we head towards the most critical election in modern history.
This is not just a choice between Republican and Democrat or left and right — this is an election that will decide if we keep America America, or if we head down an uncharted, frightening path towards socialism.
Abraham Lincoln once famously said “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
While those words were spoken over 150 years ago, never have they been more relevant.
Will we choose the right path and maintain the unique freedoms and boundless opportunities that make this country the greatest in the history of the world? The choice is ours.
I know the promise of America because I have lived it, not just as a member of the Trump family, but as a woman who knows what it’s like to work in blue collar jobs, to serve customers for tips and to aspire to rise.
Now, when I look at my son Luke and my daughter Carolina, I wonder — what sort of country will I be leaving for them, for our future generations?
In recent months, we have seen weak, spineless politicians cede control of our great American cities to violent mobs. Defund the police is the rallying cry for the new, radical Democrat Party. Joe Biden will not do what it takes to maintain order. To keep our children safe in our neighborhoods and in their schools. To restore our American way of life.
We cannot dare to dream our biggest dreams -- for ourselves or for our children -- while consumed by worry about the safety of our families. President Trump is the law and order President -- from our borders to our backyards.
President Trump will keep America safe.
President Trump will keep America prosperous.
President Trump will keep America America.
If you’re watching tonight and wrestling with your vote on November 3rd, I implore you: tune out the distorted news and biased commentary and hear it straight from someone who knows.
I wasn’t born a Trump. I’m from the South. I was raised a Carolina girl. I went to public schools and worked my way through a state university.
Mrs. B from my seventh grade English class was right — what I learned about our President is different than what you might have heard.
I learned that he is a good man. That he loves his family. That he didn’t need this job.
That no one on Earth works harder for the American people. That he’s willing to fight for his beliefs, and for the people -- and the country -- that he loves.
He is a person of convictions. He is a fighter and will never stop fighting for America.
He will uphold our values. He will preserve our families. And he will build on the great American edict that our union will never be perfect until opportunity is equal for all -- including, and especially, for women.
God bless you all, and God bless America.
Sam Vigil
Remarks as Prepared:
My name is Sam Vigil. There is a hole in my heart since my beloved wife Jackie was taken from me. This is her story.
There were two things Jackie loved to do every day: go to the gym and Tweet out Bible verses to her friends. On November 19th, the tweets stopped.
It started out like any other day. She left for the gym early in the morning. I heard the garage door open. But seconds later, I heard the car horn. I went outside to see if she had forgotten something. What I saw was a Jeep blocking her car in the driveway. I noticed a bullet hole in Jackie’s window. I saw someone jumping into the Jeep and speeding away. Jackie had been shot and killed in cold blood. We think it was a car-jacking gone wrong. Very wrong.
Every time I open the garage door or stand in the driveway, I hear that horn. I see her slumped in the seat. When I go to bed at night, that sound and that image haunt me. That’s my life sentence. It’s a sentence being served by too many families left behind by senseless killings.
Albuquerque, where we live, is one of the most violent cities in the country. Fewer than 50 percent of homicides are solved. It is a sad irony that Jackie immigrated to the U.S. to escape the violence of her native Colombia - only to be gunned down in her own driveway.
For over eight months, there were no arrests and no leads in connection with Jackie’s murder. The police were overwhelmed. They needed help.
Help arrived when President Trump launched Operation LeGend in July of this year. Almost immediately, the FBI took over Jackie’s case. In a matter of days, they arrested four men. The fifth - the suspected killer - is in a Texas jail on unrelated charges. He is an illegal alien with a criminal record. He had been deported in September and had come back in October to terrorize our community.
I am extremely grateful to President Trump and the FBI for their efforts to deliver justice for Jackie and all the other innocent victims of violent crime. I am honored to support the President because he is supporting us. I know he will never stop fighting for justice, for law and order, and for peace and security in our communities.
Clarence Henderson
Remarks as Prepared:
Greetings, my fellow Americans. I am Clarence Henderson.
There have been movements that have changed the course of history. Among the most extraordinary was the Civil Rights Movement.
Sixty years ago, segregation was legal and enforced.
The simple act of sitting at a lunch counter could lead to physical harm, jail time, or worse.
I know from personal experience.
Walking into the Woolworth Department Store on February 2, 1960, I knew it was unlike any day I’d experienced before. My friends had been denied service the day before because of the color of their skin. We knew it wasn’t right. But when we went back the next day I didn’t know whether I was going to come out in a vertical or prone position . . . in handcuffs or on a stretcher -- or even in a body bag.
By sitting down to order a cup of coffee, we challenged injustice. We knew it was necessary. But we didn’t know what would happen.
We faced down the KKK. We were cursed at and called all kinds of names. They threatened to kill us. And some of us were arrested.
But it was worth it.
Our actions inspired similar protests throughout the South against racial injustice.
And in the end, segregation was abolished and our country moved a step closer to true equality for all.
That’s what an actual peaceful protest can accomplish!
America isn’t perfect. We’re always improving. But the great thing about this country is that it’s not where you come from, it’s where you’re going.
I was born on what some would call the wrong side of the tracks. I don’t even have a birth certificate.
I never attended an integrated school and am the only one out of my immediate family who graduated from college – an HBCU.
I’m a military veteran and a civil rights activist.
And you know what else? I’m a Republican. And I support Donald Trump.
If that sounds strange to you, learn your history.
It was the Republican Party that passed the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery; it was the Republican Party that passed the 14th Amendment giving black men citizenship; and it was the Republican Party that passed the 15th Amendment giving Black men the right to vote.
Freedom of thought is a powerful thing. There are African-American voters all over the country who the media is trying to convince to conform to the same old Democratic talking points. You know what that’ll get you? The same old results.
Joe Biden had the audacity to say if you don’t vote for him “you ain’t black.”
Well to that, I say, if you do vote for Biden, you ain’t smart!
Donald Trump is not a politician. He is a leader. Politicians are a dime-a-dozen; leaders are priceless.
The record funding Trump gave HBCUs is priceless too. So are the record number of jobs he created for the black community--and the investment he drove into our neighborhoods with tax incentives in Opportunity Zones. And so are the lives he restored by passing criminal justice reform where 91% of the inmates released are black!
These achievements demonstrate that Donald Trump truly cares about black lives. His policies show his heart. He has done more for black Americans in four years than Joe Biden has done in 50!
Donald Trump is offering real and lasting change . . . an unprecedented opportunity to rise . . . a country that embraces the spirit of the civil rights movement of the ‘60s . . . a place where people are judged by the content of their character, their talents and abilities, not by the color of their skin.
This is the America I was fighting for 60 years ago.
This is the America Donald Trump is fighting for today.
Let’s all join in this fight by re-electing President Trump on November 3.
Thank you.
Former Acting Director of National Intelligence Richard Grenell
Remarks as Prepared:
Good evening. During the Presidential primary debates 4 years ago, one outsider stood alone and said in public what most Americans thought in private.
It was 14 years after the start of the War in Afghanistan, and 12 years after the invasion of Iraq, where thousands of American troops had died, and trillions in taxpayer dollars had been spent.
And yet no candidate could bring themselves to admit that something had gone badly wrong with American foreign policy. That the American voter, the American soldier, and the American taxpayer, had all been let down.
Except for one – Donald Trump. He called America’s endless wars what they were: A disaster.
The media was shocked, because Donald Trump was running as a Republican. And yet he said out loud what we all knew. That American foreign policy was failing to make Americans safer.
After the end of the Cold War, Democrats and Republicans in Washington bought into the illusion that the whole world would start to resemble America. And so they started to pursue unlimited globalization.
They welcomed China into the World Trade Organization. They engaged in “nation-building” in Afghanistan, and tried to export democracy to Iraq. They signed a nuclear deal with Iran, and a global climate agreement in Paris.
But they didn’t ground any of it in the interests of the average American.
So for decades, while Washington politicians built a global system, American wages stagnated. Our great cities and industries were hollowed out. Entire communities were devastated, and our manufacturing plants were shipped off to China.
That’s what happened when Washington stopped being the capital of the United States, and started being the capital of the world.
As U.S. Ambassador to Germany, I had a front row seat to Donald Trump’s America First foreign policy. I wish every American could see how President Trump negotiates on their behalf.
I’ve watched President Trump charm the Chancellor of Germany, while insisting that Germany pay its NATO obligations. I was proud to witness President Trump say to foreign leaders: “I don’t blame you for wanting America to pay for your security. I actually respect you for out-negotiating the Presidents before me. But it stops with me. I won’t let the American taxpayer be taken advantage of.”
Donald Trump’s Administration has always made clear that our priority is the American people’s security.
That’s the job of all leaders – to put their people first.
And we’ve seen how this strategy has succeeded. In four short years, Donald Trump has led even some Washington Democrats to agree on the Chinese threat. On trade deals that benefit Americans first. On alliances that share responsibility.
In four years, Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars. He brought troops home. He rebuilt the military, and signed peace deals that make Americans safer.
The Washington elites want you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral. And so they call it “nationalist.”
That tells you all you need to know. The DC crowd thinks when they call Donald Trump a nationalist, they’re insulting him.
As if the American president isn’t supposed to base foreign policy on America’s national interests!
A return to the Biden way of thinking means America gives the radical terrorist regime in Tehran a plane load of cash in the middle of the night.
You see, President Trump also sent an aircraft in the middle of night to deal with Iran. But that plane was on a different mission – an air strike to take out the head of Iran’s terror machine who plotted the deaths of Americans.
But we also must be clear that when those who seek freedom take tremendous personal risks in places like Hong Kong, Tehran, or Minsk, there is no doubt who President Trump’s Administration supports. We will always stand with the people who fight for their God-given freedoms.
Don’t be fooled - the Washington establishment is trying to sell you on their candidate.
Joe Biden was first elected to the Senate in nine…teen…seventy…two.
Forty…eight…years…ago.
It’s actually the typical Washington story. Just this year, 22 Democrats ran for President. They rejected all the outsiders, and nominated the ultimate Washington insider. Someone they had to pull out of retirement.
Every time Joe Biden offers a new idea, you should ask yourself: “Why didn’t he try that over the last 48 years?”
Today, the Democrats blame a global pandemic that started in China on President Trump. And they still blame Russia for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016.
As Acting Director of National Intelligence, I saw the Democrats’ entire case for Russian collusion. And what I saw made me sick to my stomach. The Obama-Biden Administration secretly launched a surveillance operation on the Trump campaign, and silenced the many brave intelligence officials who spoke up against it. They presented bogus information as facts. They lied to judges. Then they classified anything that undermined their case.
And after Donald Trump won the election, when they should have continued the American tradition of helping the president-elect transition into the White House, they tried instead to undercut him even more.
Former Vice President Joe Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor three weeks before the Inauguration.
But that’s the Democrats. Between surveillance, classifications, leaks, and puppet candidates, they never want the American people to know who’s actually calling the shots.
But with Donald Trump, you always know exactly who is in charge.
Because the answer…is you.
You’re in charge. Not lobbyists. Not special interests. Not warmongers, or China sympathizers, or globalization fanatics.
With Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the White House, the boss is the American people.
President Trump rightly calls his foreign policy “America First.”
America First does not advance the interests of one group of Americans at the expense of any other. It has no bias about red or blue, educated or not educated, urban or rural.
America First is simply the belief that politicians should focus on the equality and dignity of every American.
And that this duty is fulfilled by promoting the safety and wealth of the American people above all else.
That’s America First. That’s the Trump Doctrine. And that, my friends, is four more years.
God bless the United States of America.
