On Monday, President Donald Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) held a solo rally at his hometown of Middletown, Ohio.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Wow, wow.
00:24Um, well, I love you guys too, just because we're in Middletown.
00:36I can say that, right?
00:38And it is so good.
00:40It is so good to be back home for once, isn't it?
00:43Wow.
00:45Um, we had, we had an amazing crowd here.
00:49We have an amazing crowd here.
00:50We had hundreds of people outside that couldn't even get in.
00:52And I'm just so grateful to Middletown for welcoming me home.
00:55It is good to be here.
00:56Thank you guys.
00:57God bless you.
01:05Now, where can I get a good fried bologna sandwich right now?
01:14All right.
01:14This is the guy.
01:15This is the guy who makes it.
01:17All right.
01:17Before we get started here, I have to say a few things.
01:19First of all, I want to take a moment to thank some outstanding Republican
01:23leaders that we have today.
01:25Uh, if you can stand and be recognized, I'd appreciate it.
01:27Attorney General Dave Yost.
01:29Where's Dave?
01:32Okay.
01:35The great Congressman representing Middletown, Ohio, Warren Davidson.
01:38Where's Warren?
01:45We've got the Ohio GOP chairman.
01:47I call him Alex T.
01:48I'm probably going to butcher your name, Alex.
01:49Alex Triantafillou.
01:51Pretty good.
01:53Got it.
01:53All right.
01:54I've learned.
01:56Of course, the next Senator for the United States of Ohio, Bernie Marino.
02:10Don't get too excited.
02:11This is my event, not Bernie's event.
02:13We got Orlando Sanza, a great congressional candidate, got a good
02:18chance of winning a very tough race.
02:20If you can, if you can help out Orlando, please do.
02:23And look, every single one of these officials, state and local.
02:26If I didn't, if I didn't see anybody or didn't remember anybody, I apologize.
02:30We've got a great slate of state and local officials who are ready to make this state
02:34in this country.
02:35Great again.
02:36God bless you guys.
02:37God bless you for your service.
02:38And thank you for stepping up.
02:41Thank you for stepping up.
02:48I got to say hello, Middletown, Ohio.
02:51Hello to the great Middletown Middies.
02:53I'm so grateful to be here.
02:55I'm so grateful for this turnout.
02:59You know, so many of you know my story, but I graduated from Middletown, Ohio
03:04school in 2003, 21 years ago.
03:11And a lot of, you know, the story of my family.
03:14A lot of you, I mean, hell, a lot of you are my family.
03:16Actually, we're probably, if you count fourth and fifth cousins, half of you are
03:20probably related to me in this room.
03:23But you know, this town was so good to me and I could tell so many stories about, you
03:29know, my, my mamaw, my grandmother.
03:31I could tell stories about my mom and my sister.
03:34I could tell stories about Aunt Wee.
03:35I know Aunt Wee's here.
03:37Um, we, we've got so many great, I think all of those people were here, actually.
03:41I think Cheryl, where's Cheryl?
03:42You here, Cheryl?
03:43I love you, Cheryl.
03:44My stepmom.
03:45We just got so many good people who've been so good to me.
03:48But even if you cast a wider net, you know, uh, Ron Selby was my math teacher in high
03:54school.
03:54Ron's got to be around here somewhere.
03:56I know he is.
04:00Now I will tell, I will tell a story.
04:02Now, I don't know if this story is actually true or if it's just the legend of Ron
04:05Selby, but Ron, if it's not true, don't tell me because I've gone 21 years believing
04:09it and I don't want to be, I don't want to be contradicted now.
04:13But, you know, the story is that at some point, Ron, of course, was a tough teacher.
04:17He demanded a lot of his students and I was a beneficiary of that.
04:20But the story goes that at one point, Ron Selby had a student who really didn't want
04:25to take one of those world famous Ron Selby math final exams.
04:29And so somebody called in a bomb threat to Middletown, Ohio School.
04:34So everybody goes outside, of course, everybody remembers was a student at one point or
04:37another.
04:38You know, you get a bomb threat, you go stand outside, the fire department comes.
04:41But Ron was really pissed off that somebody was messing with his schedule.
04:44So he walked over, he walked to the kid's locker, got what was allegedly the bomb,
04:51threw it in a trash can and said, I know this kid, he's not smart enough to make a
04:54bomb.
04:54Let's get back to school.
05:02That's the legend of Ron Selby.
05:04You know, I could go through half an hour and longer just talking about so many of you
05:10who made me who I am and I'm so grateful to you.
05:13And I said at the RNC convention, which was the craziest speech in the craziest
05:17environment I've ever given.
05:18It's like all of you times 100 people, right?
05:22They were just as excited as you guys are times about 100 people.
05:25You could barely hear yourself think.
05:26But I said, I will never forget where I came from.
05:30Ladies and gentlemen, I came from Middletown, Ohio.
05:32I am proud of it and I will never forget where I came from.
05:44And in fact, I might make the Secret Service take me to Central Pastry afterwards to
05:49get some.
05:52I'm dead serious, they get nervous.
05:54They do not like an unexpected.
05:58And I love Milton's too, of course, both.
06:00I love both.
06:03But Milton's is expanded a little bit.
06:04I feel you can get Milton's not just at the at the place that's there on a what is that
06:10Roosevelt? I think you can get Milton's anywhere now or at least a lot of other places.
06:14So it's it's cast a wider net anyway.
06:16We talk about donuts all day.
06:17You can tell what what I skipped lunch.
06:20So my mind's on donuts here.
06:22But I, you know, I'll tell you another story.
06:27You know, my mamaw was just an incredible woman and a lot of you knew her and a lot of
06:32you knew her personally.
06:33And I talked at the RNC convention and I'll repeat this story just because I think it
06:38illustrates how tough she was that, you know, Mamaw died in 2005 and I was a United
06:42States Marine at that point.
06:44And I was just about to leave for Iraq.
06:46And when Aunt Wee and the rest of us went through her things, they discovered 19 loaded
06:52handguns and mammals.
06:53That is not a made up.
06:54No, that's that's.
07:03That's right.
07:06Well, you know, when she introduced herself, sir, she is an Appalachian American.
07:09When she introduced herself to my my uncle, my Aunt Wee's husband, for the first time,
07:14she said, I'm from Breathitt County, Kentucky, where a woman isn't fully dressed without
07:17her gun. So that's that's that's that was Mamaw's attitude.
07:20And.
07:24And, you know, she was tough and she was disciplined and she is the reason why I've had
07:30so many of the good opportunities that I've had in my life.
07:32But people don't realize she was an incredibly sweet and kind and caring person, too.
07:37And I'll never forget, I was probably 10 or 11 years old and she picked me up from school
07:42and there was just this this very, you know, I'd never seen this person.
07:46She was probably 14 or 15, young girl who was sitting in the back of the car.
07:49And she was clearly a little freaked out and I'm going to get emotional telling this
07:53story. And I don't think that I've ever told this story before.
07:56But, you know, Mamaw said, I said, who is this person who's in our car?
08:01And Mamaw said, don't worry about it.
08:02None of your business. I said, OK, I'll shut up.
08:06Eventually, we dropped her off and then we went back home and I asked Mamaw, well, who
08:10was that? And she said, well, that was a that was a little girl.
08:14And I guess there were some some pretty big shots.
08:16And I guess there were some some pretty bad abuse in her house.
08:21And when that little girl ran away from home and tried to find a safe space, she asked,
08:26where could I go? And everybody said, you can go to Bonnie Vance's house.
08:30And that. And that is the Mamaw, but that is the
08:41Middletown that I knew you guys were always so good to me.
08:45I could talk about any number of public school teachers from Ron Selby to a number of
08:49others. I could talk about people who looked after us when we were riding our bikes
08:53around. Mamaw was you know, she was always worried about safety, but she was never that
08:58worried about safety in Middletown, Ohio, because she trusted the people who lived here
09:02and she knew they were good human beings who would look after all of us.
09:05They would look after all their kids and grandkids.
09:15I owe. Now, I got to be careful about that because Michigan is one of the most important
09:20battleground states, so I cannot give the state of Michigan any reason to vote against
09:26the Trump Vance ticket.
09:27We got to we got to work hard for every single vote.
09:29But look, I my point in telling some of these stories is just that I love every one of
09:36you and I love this town and I'm so grateful to have been formed by it because I
09:40wouldn't be who I was without it.
09:42And people will sometimes say, well, you had a tough life and in some ways things
09:46weren't always easy. But a lot of you will know a lot of you read my book.
09:49My life wasn't all that different from a lot of people who grew up in Middletown, Ohio.
09:52It was tough, but it was surrounded by loving people and it was surrounded by something
09:57that if we don't fight is not going to be around for the next generation of kids.
10:01And that's opportunity.
10:02Middletown had opportunity and we got to make sure it's there for the next generation.
10:12You know, I when President Trump asked me to be his running mate, I really had no idea
10:17what was coming. What happened is I left my home in Cincinnati.
10:22So, you know, we live not too far from here, about a 35 minute drive, 45 minutes,
10:25depending on traffic. And we went to Milwaukee on Monday morning and I had no idea.
10:30I thought maybe he was going to ask me, but I thought I might ask somebody else.
10:33There were a lot of good guys running.
10:35Marco Rubio, dear friend of mine, really great public servant, a number of other folks
10:39as well. So I had no idea what was coming.
10:41And when the president called me and asked me, he said, would you like to run as my vice
10:44presidential running mate?
10:45I said, well, yeah, of course.
10:48Right. What do you want to come all this way to say no.
10:52But he did something that was really amazing afterwards.
10:55He said, well, what do you think about the statement I'm about to put out?
10:59Of course, he put it out on social media.
11:01It's one of the things I love about President Trump is that he speaks directly to people.
11:05He doesn't allow a bunch of consultants to filter him.
11:08He is who he is. And that's why a lot of us love him.
11:15But he's talking about this statement and I've got him on speakerphone and my kids in
11:19the background, my seven year old son, we've got three kids and our seven year old is our
11:22oldest. His name is Ewan.
11:23And Ewan is talking to the background of Pokemon or some other God forbidden subject.
11:27I'm like, son, I love you. But could you please, the most important phone conversation
11:31I've ever gotten. So please stop talking about Pikachu for one second.
11:36Let me take his phone call.
11:38And my son comes over to the phone and the president hears him and President Trump says,
11:43who is that? That's my seven year old son.
11:46And he says, well, put him on the phone.
11:47I'm like, oh, God, here it is.
11:49He's going to offer it and take it back because my seven year old is going to say
11:51something really weird right now.
11:54And he reads off the statement, he reads where he talks about my military service and my
11:59business background, he says, he says, young man, what do you think about that?
12:03Do you like what I said about your dad?
12:04And my son goes, girl. And that's it.
12:07And that was that was the endorsement he needed.
12:08The statement went out three minutes later.
12:10And that that is the kind of guy that Donald Trump is.
12:15And that's the guy that the media doesn't let you see.
12:18He actually cares about people's families.
12:20He cares about my family, but he cares about your family, too.
12:23And he wants to he wants to believe that his generation left this country off in a better
12:29place than when they found it.
12:31That's why he's done this.
12:32I mean, I talk about myself all day, but let's talk about the man who was a business
12:38leader who had billions of dollars, who didn't need any of the sacrifices that public
12:44service created. And yet he went out there and he did it anyway.
12:47That's the type of people we want to become public servants.
12:50And thank God he served for four years as president United States.
13:03And now, ladies and gentlemen, after four years of Joe Biden's presidency or whoever
13:08actually is calling the shots in Joe Biden's White House, are we ready to reelect
13:13President Donald J.
13:14Trump again?
13:14Now, when I was researching what I would say at the RNC, and I mostly write my own
13:33stuff, I don't know, I'm not going off a teleprompter right now, you can probably tell
13:36that the president actually came up, he called me, he called me right before I went on and
13:41gave my speech. And he said, JD, you're going to do great.
13:44Just give me a little pep talk.
13:45You're going to be wonderful.
13:46The crowd out there is great.
13:47Just go out there and and speak from your heart.
13:50And I said, sir, that's right.
13:52That's exactly what I'm going to do.
13:53But I've got to be honest with you, if I totally screwed up, it's too late.
13:57No take backs.
13:58Right. You've already asked me, I've already accepted no take back.
14:02So this speech is just going to be icing on the cake.
14:06Thank you, ma'am.
14:07God bless you.
14:07I was.
14:15But here's the thing, I was researching what I was going to say about the president, and
14:19I realized that over a lifetime of business leadership and then, of course, a few years
14:25of public service, the country has made a lot of stupid decisions.
14:30And President Donald Trump was right about every single one being a mistake and just.
14:36You go back to 1994, I was a third grader, Roosevelt Elementary School on Central Avenue,
14:42which doesn't exist anymore with some Roosevelt people in here.
14:44God bless you.
14:45And.
14:47Nineteen ninety four.
14:49This country gave a sweetheart trade deal to Mexico that sent hundreds of thousands
14:55of good manufacturing jobs, many of them in our communities, not just in the United States.
15:01Hundreds of thousands of good manufacturing jobs, many of them in our communities to Mexico.
15:07That was a bad idea.
15:08We shouldn't have done it.
15:09And Donald Trump said it was a bad idea.
15:12Right. The current administration, by the way, supported it in 2000.
15:16Towards the end of the 1990s, I should say we gave a sweetheart trade deal to the communist
15:21Chinese. We allowed them to build their middle class off the backs of the American middle
15:26class. And you know who supported it?
15:28The current people in power.
15:29You know who opposed it?
15:30Donald J. Trump.
15:40And in 2003 and look, it was a Republicans, Republicans and Democrats, a lot of people
15:45supported this. I'm not just beating up on the other side, but in 2003, we went to war
15:51in Iraq and remember it was supposed to be just a few weeks, few weeks, and then everything
15:55would be over. And I was an 18 year old kid.
15:57I supported it and I was wrong.
15:59And you know who was right?
16:00President Donald J.
16:02Trump. He knew.
16:07He somehow knew, even though he was a real estate developer in New York, that this thing
16:11would become a quagmire, it would cost thousands of lives and trillions of dollars.
16:15And I think we want the kind of president who sees around corners, who doesn't follow
16:20the stupid conventional wisdom right off the cliff, who fights for American citizens,
16:25puts them first and has the wisdom to know how to lead this country.
16:30Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
16:42That's right. He probably does have an IQ of 270.
16:45But don't tell him that.
16:48Don't tell him that. So.
16:52The problem is when our leadership makes all these dumb decisions, we know exactly who
16:57suffers the consequences.
16:59It's the people right here in this room and the communities that we live in.
17:09So I want to say, and I know there's some TV cameras here, and I'm sure this rally is
17:12being covered in any number of media channels.
17:16I want to talk about the future and I want to talk about what a President Trump and
17:21Vice President Vance ticket will mean for the American people, who we're going to fight
17:25for and how exactly we're going to do it.
17:27So let's start with who we're going to fight for.
17:29Number one, we're going to fight for every single worker in this country.
17:34If you work hard and play by the rules, you ought to be able to put a good dinner on the
17:38table and send your kids to whatever vacation and whatever school you want to work
17:43hard and play by the rules.
17:44You get a good life. It's that simple.
17:46Number two, we're going to fight for every single parent to send their kids to a school
17:58where they get a good education and not an indoctrination.
18:01Right now, what?
18:10Now, I got a great education at Middletown High School.
18:13I graduated in 2003.
18:15I joke that I got a Ph.D., a public high school diploma, and I'm very proud of it.
18:23And there are great there are great school teachers in public and private schools all
18:28across our country.
18:29But for some reason, the federal Department of Education is trying to lean into
18:34indoctrination at our schools instead of teaching, reading, writing and arithmetic at
18:40our schools. Let's get back to common sense for our teachers and the students.
18:45They depend on.
18:53God bless you, sir.
18:55Now, look, we fight for the grandmothers who are raising the grandfathers and the aunts
19:02and the uncles who are raising a generation of grandkids that they didn't expect to
19:06raise. That is who we represent and that is who we fight for.
19:16And one of the coolest things, you know, my book came out in 2016, and one of the
19:20coolest things about my book is I heard from a lot of Americans from all walks of
19:26life, but especially from black Americans who would come up to me and say, our story
19:31is your story, whether it's the drug epidemic or whether it's this epidemic of
19:36crime and violence that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris unleashed in our country.
19:41We have got a lot of grandparents, white, black and every skin color that are raising
19:47kids that they didn't expect to raise, and they're doing it because it's the right
19:50thing to do and they do it because they love their communities.
19:53My.
20:00My message to them is simple, I will fight for you because if it wasn't for a
20:05grandma like that, I would not be standing here today getting to run as your next
20:09vice president of the United States.
20:21And and to and to those grandmas and grandpas, the nanas, the mammals and the
20:26papaws, let me just say from a from a kid who was, you know, not not as grateful as
20:32I should have been when I was 15 and 16 years old.
20:34Kids, when they're that age, I hear they're not that grateful.
20:37I'm sure I'll learn the hard way here in a few years.
20:39But let me just say that from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
20:43You may never hear it from the kid that you're raising, but trust me, in their
20:46heart, they appreciate it and they know they wouldn't be anywhere without you.
20:50So God bless you guys for stepping up.
20:52God bless you.
20:52And thank you.
21:00You know, we're going to fight for the energy worker in this country who doesn't
21:04understand why Kamala Harris and Joe Biden want to buy energy from tin pot
21:09dictators all over the world, but won't buy it with our own citizens, from our own
21:13citizens and from the hands and from our own land.
21:26You know, we drill baby drill.
21:29It's a very, very simple concept, but it's profound because we've got great energy
21:33workers in Pennsylvania.
21:35We've got great energy workers in Ohio and all across our country.
21:39They want to do a good job.
21:41They want to earn a reasonable wage and they want to power the American economy.
21:46Why don't we have a president that lets them do exactly that?
21:48Ladies and gentlemen, unleash American energy, drill baby drill, and let's turn
21:54the page on this craziness.
21:59And it's not just about the energy workers.
22:01It's about workers all across our country, because, you know, I happen to believe in
22:06this crazy thing that we ought to make more of our own stuff in this country.
22:10Right.
22:10And I know President Trump agrees.
22:14But think about this, you know, we're 95% of the ibuprofen Advil, 95% of, you know,
22:21where it's manufactured?
22:22China.
22:23You know, where the gross majority of the antibiotics that we put in the bodies of
22:27our children come from?
22:28China.
22:29Now, I don't know if you were alive the past five years, but you remember maybe why
22:34we shouldn't trust the Chinese attitude towards public health?
22:47I got to be honest with you, I don't trust a damn plastic toy coming from China.
22:52I sure as hell don't trust the drugs that we put in the bodies of our children.
22:56Let's make our own stuff, my friends.
23:05But you can't manufacture anything unless you've got low cost energy, which we've got
23:11it. We are sitting on the Saudi Arabia of natural gas.
23:15The next 100 years, we could be energy dominant, which helps our people pay lower
23:21energy costs.
23:22It helps our citizens who work in the energy sector and it helps our manufacturers make
23:27more of our own stuff and become more self-reliant in our own country.
23:31It's a win-win.
23:33We just got to get the current crop of crazies out of there and replace them with
23:36President Trump.
23:44That's right. We do need to do that.
23:47We need voter ID in this country, ladies and gentlemen.
23:50If you're going to cast a ballot, show a piece of identification.
23:58It is the weirdest thing to me.
23:59Democrats say that it is racist to believe.
24:03Well, they say it's racist to do anything.
24:06I had a diet Mountain Dew yesterday and one today.
24:09I'm sure they're going to call that racist, too.
24:10But it's good.
24:18I love you guys.
24:21But these people were telling jokes up in the front row.
24:24You guys might not be able to hear it, but I'm I'm I'm getting caught up in it.
24:28But look, but look, here's here.
24:32Here's the very simple thing.
24:35We believe that we want to make more of our own stuff and we believe that we want to
24:40have secure elections and we believe we want to have schools that don't indoctrinate
24:43our children. That's not racist.
24:44Ladies and gentlemen, it is common American Middletown sense.
24:48And I'm proud to be from this town and to take the wisdom from it.
24:59Now, let me talk just a little bit about how we're going to do it.
25:01The number one thing that we're going to do, because you can't do anything unless you
25:04get there to govern, is we are going to win this election, ladies and gentlemen, over
25:07the next four years.
25:09Over the next four years, we are going to do a lot of good for people all over this
25:13country. Well, sir, let's not get ahead of ourselves, knock on wood, we got to win this
25:17race first. But but to get there the next four months, we've got to do everything that
25:23we can. And I'd ask you, all of you, if you can find something to do to get involved,
25:29please do it. There are doors that we can knock on and we can knock on and we can
25:33knock on. There are people that we need to deliver to the polls. There are people who
25:36are going to vote for President Trump and Vice President Vance and for Bernie Marino.
25:41But we got to get them to the polls. Right. So that's one thing you can do is remind
25:48your friends to get out there and vote and make sure they get to the polls.
25:50The second thing that we have to do is push back on every channel that we can.
25:55The media is never going to be fair to President Trump.
25:58But you're going to be fair. So use the voice that you have. Use it on Facebook and Instagram.
26:03Go on social media and actually make the case for President Trump and Vice President Vance.
26:09That is the thing that every single one of you can do. And if you take the people in
26:13this room and you magnify it by 100, which you can do with your own platforms and your
26:18own voices, that is way more powerful than the lion media and the media that you have
26:23with your own platforms and your own voices. That is way more powerful than the lion media
26:28and the corrupt democratic establishment. Let's get to work, ladies and gentlemen.
26:32Let's win this thing.
26:43You know, I would not be here if it were not for the generosity and the incredible opportunity
26:52of this country. And I just want every single kid, every single parent to know that because
27:00they live in America, they can dream big dreams. I remember, my friends, so many moments in
27:08Middletown, Ohio, riding my bike down, you know, well, Central, which Mamaw was kind
27:13of OK with, and then down University, which she was not OK with. If you've got kids and
27:16you know this town, you know what I'm talking about. But I just remember looking to the
27:22future. And the thing that I wanted most in the whole world, I just wanted to be able
27:27to give my kids a little bit of stability and comfort that I didn't have when I was
27:30growing up. That's all I really wanted. And when I think about the American dream, I don't
27:35think about writing a book. I don't think about becoming a business guy. I don't even
27:39think about running for vice president of the United States, even though it is pretty
27:42cool to do that. I think about becoming a husband and a father, and that is the way
27:47in which this community and this country was best to me.
27:58And while we're talking about it, did my wife do a good job the other night or what?
28:03Didn't she do great? There she is. She's too embarrassed to stand up, but get used
28:20to it, honey. It's going to be four months of me embarrassing you. That's what we do.
28:23But I just think, when I consider how good this country has been to me, I just think
28:32about how much I owe to it. That gratitude should come with a sense of responsibility.
28:39And when I think about Kamala Harris, who I guess is our vice presidential candidate
28:43officially, but I guess she's going to run for president now because Joe Biden dropped
28:46out of the race. You know, when I see, when I take bets here, when I start a betting pool
29:00just in this auditorium, but I, I, I wonder when I see her give a speech and she talks
29:09about the history of this country, not with appreciation, but with condemnation.
29:14And look, of course, every country, just like every family, certainly mine has its
29:20pockmarks, right? Not everything's perfect. It's never going to be. But you, if you want
29:24to lead this country, you should feel grateful for it. You should feel a sense of gratitude.
29:28And I never hear that gratitude come through when I listen to Kamala Harris.
29:42And that's what we've got to do. Fundamentally, you're going to agree, I hopefully, with,
29:47since you're here, you're going to agree, hopefully, with most of what President Trump
29:50and I want to do. We want to, we're going to drill, baby drill. We're going to shut down
29:59that border. We're going to put America's citizens first because that's what America's
30:03citizens are going to elect us to do. It's common sense. But thank you, sir. But even
30:20when you disagree with us, nobody's ever perfect, no politician is perfect, certainly not me,
30:27but you deserve to be led by people who are grateful, who are grateful for the community
30:32they came from, who are grateful for this country and its boundless opportunities,
30:37who are grateful for the service of our veterans and the people who put their lives on the lines
30:42from police and firemen on down. I believe that you deserve to be led by people who are grateful,
30:56and I know that President Trump is grateful for this country, and I know that I am,
31:00and I know we're never going to stop fighting to give you the same opportunities that we got.
31:05That's what this whole thing is all about. Now, look, I'm going to go really off script here,
31:10and, you know, all my communication staffers back there are going to get a little nervous.
31:16You know, I was hanging out with my kids yesterday. We're actually swimming at the
31:20swimming pool, and somebody brought over their phone and showed me the news that Joe Biden had
31:26announced he was dropping out of this race. And look, I don't like Joe Biden, and I don't like
31:31his policies, and I'm not a Democrat primary voter. I never have been, and I never will be,
31:36unless something goes really wrong, ladies and gentlemen. But look, what is going on in this
31:42country is absolutely disgraceful. Let me get a little philosophical here. I imagine most of you
31:48did not vote for Joe Biden, and if you did, welcome aboard. We're glad to have you.
31:54But if you want to run for president, you've got to make your case to voters. You make your case
32:00to voters. That's what President Trump did, even though he would have already been the president,
32:05and even though he was by far the most popular person in the Republican Party,
32:09he ran for the Republican presidential nomination, he faced some good competition,
32:14and he made his case to voters. The idea of selecting the Democrat Party's nominee
32:21because George Soros and Barack Obama and a couple of elite Democrats got in a smoke-filled room and
32:28decided to throw Joe Biden overboard, that is not how it works. That is a threat to democracy,
32:33not the Republican Party, which is fighting for democracy every single day.
32:49This is not okay, ladies and gentlemen. You cannot, for three and a half years, take a guy
32:55who clearly didn't have the mental capacity to do the job. Kamala Harris lied about it.
33:01My Senate Democratic colleagues lied about it. The media lied about it. Every single person who
33:06saw Joe Biden knew that he wasn't capable of doing the job, and for three years, they said nothing
33:12until he became political deadweight. That is not a way to run a country. That is not a way
33:18to run a political party. That is an insult to voters. And so...
33:29And I really believe, even though I think the leadership of that party is corrupt, I really
33:33believe that most Americans are fundamentally good, whether they're Democrat, Republican,
33:38or independent. My life has taught me to put my faith in people because they put their faith in me
33:43and gave me a lot of opportunities. So my message to Democrats who are disgusted by this process,
33:51disgusted by how anti-democratic it is, you are welcome in the Republican Party,
33:56where we think we should persuade voters and not lie to voters. Come on in. The water's warm.
34:14USA! USA! USA!
34:26Thank you guys. I just, you know,
34:30we love you too, ma'am. God bless you. I just got to say,
34:35this entire system of ours is about, you got to persuade voters. You got to win their votes,
34:40votes, you don't decide who the president is in smoke-filled rooms with billionaires
34:45and senior elected officials, you let the people decide.
34:49That's what we believe in this room, and that's what we're going to fight for, I promise you.
35:00So I just, and by the way, let's talk about take-backs.
35:05I was told I was going to get to debate Kamala Harris, and now President Trump's going to
35:08get to debate her.
35:13I'm kind of pissed off about that, if I'm being honest with you.
35:26So I just, I just, so I just want to say to Middletown and a lot of forgotten communities
35:41all across our country, because we really have been forgotten in Middletown, Ohio.
35:46They think that we're backwards.
35:47They think that we're bad people.
35:49They think that we don't know how to do anything, and we do, ladies and gentlemen.
35:53This is where things are made.
35:55This is the source of America's greatness, but I just want to say, I promise you this,
36:06I will fight every single day to restore an America that works for Americans.
36:22I will fight for policies that lower the costs of your groceries, lower the costs
36:27of your housing, make life more affordable, not less affordable, as it has been under
36:32the Democrats.
36:37I will fight for energy policies that make it easy to heat your home in the winter and
36:43cool it in the summer, because I lived with a mammal who sometimes worried whether there
36:47was money enough to heat the house in the winter.
36:58I will fight for every single one of your children, when they lay their head down at
37:02night before they fall asleep, to dream about the future as one of hope and possibility.
37:08Your children deserve the inheritance of this country, and the inheritance of this country
37:14is that their lives will be better than their parents' and their children's lives even better
37:18than that.
37:19That is the American dream that we fight for, and I will never stop fighting for that America
37:24dream.
37:34And I really believe this, my friends, the best way to do it, the best way to bring energy
37:40and food and housing costs down, the best way to seal that border and stop the fentanyl
37:46and the poison from coming into our communities, the best way to bring common sense back to
37:50our education system and our foreign policy is to re-elect Donald J. Trump, President
37:56of the United States.
38:15And you know, it's so funny, the media says, well, you know, J.D. said some critical things
38:20about President Trump 10 years ago, and Kamala Harris, of course, called Joe Biden a racist
38:26and then ran with him two months later.
38:29And I think, my friends, because I was critical of President Trump in 2016, I realized two
38:36things.
38:37One, the media lies about this guy nonstop.
38:39They really do.
38:40It's unreal.
38:41He's a good husband.
38:42He's a good father, good grandfather.
38:44All of his family from Melania on down, they love the guy.
38:47And that's why, by the way, we were so scared last Saturday when an assassin almost took
38:51him from us.
38:52But he cares about human beings.
38:54He is not the caricature or the lie that the media has told you that he is.
38:59He is a person who believes this very simple thing, and they call him a radical for it,
39:04but it happens just to be common sense.
39:05His radical idea is that America should make more stuff in its own country for its own
39:11citizens and that the American nation belongs to the American people.
39:16Let's re-elect Donald J. Trump.
39:18Let's get this country back on track.
39:20Middletown, I love you.
39:21I wouldn't be here without you.
39:22I wouldn't be here without you, and I will never forget where I came from.
39:26Go Middies, and God bless you guys.