The annotated Donald Trump

Suitable for the social-media age, Donald Trump’s brand of demagoguery is a flurry of lies, flung like so many impulsive tweets in speeches larded with self-congratulation and personal insults — a barrage designed to overwhelm any attempt at a tidy media report packaged for the 24-hour news cycle.

The presumptive Republican nominee for president made a campaign stop in Greensboro on June 14 — his 70^th birthday — and turned in a speech in less than an hour that was characteristically heavy on fearmongering, a loose regard for facts, and the real estate developer-turned reality TV star-turned politician’s peculiar, rich-guy populist schtick. Here were lies that have long been debunked like the one about the United States giving Iran $150 billion, and spontaneous creations such as the unsupported assertion that protesters outside the event were burning American flags. Most of the fibs, distortions and manipulations echoed points made in his response to the Pulse nightclub shooting during a speech in New Hampshire the day before, while anticipating his frontal attack against Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton a week later in New York.

And, it must be noted, Trump is an extraordinary candidate in an extraordinary election year, and some claims that seem outlandish or dubious are actually true.

Hover your cursor over the highlighted text to read the commentary.

Donald J. Trump, Special Events Center at Greensboro Coliseum Complex, June 14, 2016

This place is packed. This is beautiful. Not a lot of notice either. We just wanted to be here. You know, we won North Carolina. That put us right over the top, thank you everyone. Thank you. And we’re gonna put our country over the top. We’re gonna make America great again, believe me.

So, I walked in, and there’s this great man, great guy that I’ve been — ‘happy birthday,’ oh, don’t tell me about…. Thank you. Thank you, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. This is a nice crowd, I’ll tell you what. I love you folks. Thank you, folks. I love you. I have a lot of property in North Carolina, and I like that. Have a lot of employees, and we pay ’em money big league. We have healthcare. We have education. We take good care of our people, I want to tell you that.

They’re great people. Great people. You know, I walk in and — I’ve been a fan of this man for a long time. And he wanted to come over and endorse, not only me, but you because this is a movement that we have going, folks. We have a movement going. And you people may have heard of him. He’s got a lot more courage than all of us. He won 200 races — King Richard Petty. [Petty briefly appears onstage.] He’s a great guy, I’ll tell you. So I said, ‘Richard, you want to speak.’ He said, ‘No, no. I want to drive. I want to drive.’ You know, now, politicians are all talk, no action, right? Richard Petty is the exact opposite of that.

So again, North Carolina’s a special place. And, you know, we went through a weekend the likes of which we should never have to see again. And I wrote a few things down that I want to read, because we can’t let this happen anymore. We have to be so tough, we have to be so strong, we have to be so vigilant. We can’t be led by weak, ineffective people. They’re weak and they’re ineffective. And, believe me, Hillary Clinton — weak, ineffective. I don’t know if you know she has 550 percent more people she wants to come in than Obama from a certain area where we just don’t know what’s going on. We don’t know who they are, where they’re coming from. There’s no documentation.

And the governors — I just left some great governors, including your, by the way, Pat, your governor — he’s doing a fantastic job. But I just left a whole group of governors, and they say these people are being put in their communities, and they don’t even know who they are. They don’t know where they’re being put. They’re like being snuck into certain communities. And government and governors don’t even know who’s coming into their community. What a mess we have. What a mess we have.

And I just wrote some of this down. We gotta do it. Because normally I talk about jobs. Which nobody can compete with us on jobs, believe me. We’re gonna bring ’em back from all these countries that have ripped us off like nobody’s ever been ripped off before. We’re gonna bring our jobs back, and guess what? We’re not gonna let our companies leave anymore. There’s gonna be a little bit of a repercussion when they start to leave. There’s gonna be repercussions. [Crowd chants, “USA, USA.”] Right.

So… [reading from a script] the killer’s parents emigrated from Afghanistan. As the Washington Times reported, the children of Muslim immigrant parents, they’re responsible for a growing number — for whatever reason — a growing number of terrorist attacks. The killer’s Afghan father supported the Taliban, which believes in violently oppressing womings [sic] and gays. Violently. We’re not talking anything else. We’re talking violently. Once again, we’ve seen that political correctness is deadly. They don’t want to talk about the problem. And I watched President Obama today. And he was more angry at me than he was at the shooter. And many people said that. One of the folks on television said, “Boy, has Trump gotten under his skin.” But he was more angry — and a lot of people said this — the level of anger — that’s the kind of anger he should have for the shooter and these killers that shouldn’t be here.

Now there are reports that the wife knew about the attack — the second wife. Knew about the attack, but may have not told the authorities. Nobody really knows. Her family reportedly is from Afghanistan. According to Pew — it’s a Pew report, 99 percent of the people in Afghanistan support oppressive sharia law. Immigration from Afghanistan has increased five-fold. We don’t know what we’re doing, folks. Every year, we bring in more than 100,000 lifetime immigrants from the Middle East, and many more from Muslim countries outside of the Middle East. A number of these immigrants have hostile attitudes, and it doesn’t take a big percentage. Look what one wackjob — look at this one wack, this one horrible savage — look what he did in a short period of time to great young people. Look what he did, and look at the carnage and devastation and destroyed families that he’s caused. So a number of these immigrants have hostile attitudes towards women, toward gays and people of different faiths. And that includes everybody. They’re hostile.

If you’re not with them, it’s like forget it. Hillary Clinton’s immigration plan would bring in millions of un-vetted immigrants or very poorly vetted. And how can you vet somebody when you have no idea where they come from, you have no idea about the paperwork. Frankly, they have better passports than we do because they stole our passport machines

How that happened is pretty amazing. All right? Including those who hate gays, women, Jews, Christians, everybody. How does this kind of immigration make our life better in this country? How does it do it?

We’ll fix it. He just said, “Fix it.” We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna fix it. Because you know [what] the truth is? We’ve had enough. We’ve had enough. We’ve all had enough. And you know what? With our weak leadership, it’s going to get much worse before it gets better — you watch. Sadly. You watch. Since 9-11, the United States has admitted more than a half a million immigrants from countries where being gay is punishable by death.

Hillary Clinton — crooked Hillary, as we all know her by — crooked Hilary, which is what she is — wants to increase these immigration numbers very, very substantially. She’s no friend of women. And she’s no friend of LGBT Americans. No friend, believe me. And how can you be a friend when you take many, many millions of dollars from these countries — $25 million from one country, they think. And how can you be a friend when these countries are oppressing to LGBT, when they’re oppressive to everybody? How can you be a friend? How can you be a friend to women when you take that kind of money from people who enslave women? And then women like Hillary better than Donald Trump? I don’t think so, I’ll be honest.

She wants a 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into our country [boos]. Where do they come from? This could be the all-time great version modern day of the Trojan horse, folks. Remember that. Hillary’s plan for resettling hundreds of thousands of refugees will cost the United States hundreds of billions of dollars, which we don’t have. We owe $19 trillion — we’re going to $21 trillion. Now we’re gonna spend billions and billions of dollars in bringing in people, people that we don’t know, we don’t know enough about. And what I want to do — let’s get the Gulf states — we don’t want to put up the money because we don’t have any money. Our infrastructure’s going to hell. Our country’s going to hell. Our military is in such trouble, It’s so unbelievably depleted. Our jetfighters are old. They need new parts. They take ’em from plane graveyards and museums. Jetfighters. Terrible. So this is what we do. We’ve admitted four times more immigrants — remember this — than any other country in the world.

We can’t do this. We can’t do this. Not surprisingly, wages for people working in our country — real wages, real numbers — haven’t increased in 18 years. And then they wonder why I have packed houses all over the place.

Hillary Clinton just yesterday used the term “radical Islam.” Sort of used it, right? They all said, “Oh, Trump forced her.” I shouldn’t be forcing anything. If you don’t know what the term is, and if you don’t discuss what the problem is, and if you can’t say the real name — we have a radical Islamic terrorism problem, folks. We can say we don’t. We can pretend, like Obama, that we don’t. Obama spent a long time talking about it. And nobody at the end of that speech understood anything other than that, “Boy does he hate Donald Trump.” That’s about the only thing.

Hillary said — and this is an exact quote — and just so you understand I have many Muslim friends. These are amazing people. They’re great people. The problem we have is whether it’s 7 percent or 9 percent or 11 percent or 1 percent, we’re having a tremendous problem in our country. We don’t know. There doesn’t seem to be assimilation. We don’t know what’s going on. And there’ no reporting. As an example, in San Bernardino, people saw this horrible married couple where they became radicalized — he probably became radicalized through her, but whatever happened — there’re bombs on the floor. They had all sorts of weaponry. People knew that bad things were gonna happen, and they didn’t report it. We have to have people report it….

So entire countries in the Middle East living under Islamic law — and they engaged in the worst kind of violent oppression. And now we have them coming into our country. So here’s the story, folks: We have a woman, Hillary Clinton. She’s got bad judgment. Bernie Sanders said she can’t be president because she has bad judgment, right? Bad judgement. She doesn’t have the temperament. You know, she’ll sometimes say, “I don’t like Donald Trump’s tone.” She always reads off teleprompters. “I don’t like — oh, wait a minute…. I don’t like Donald Trump’s tone. I don’t like his temperament.” Let me tell you, folks: I built a great company, unbelievable company. I filed the papers. They’re unbelievable. These dishonest people in the back [pointing towards the media section] — in fact, we just took — they are so dishonest [“boo”] — we just took — they’re so dishonest we just took the press credentials away. I love it! We just took the press credentials away from the dishonest Washington Post [cheering]. I said, “Why should I have people following me around, sitting up there like big shots and they write very untruthful stories?” They write very untruthful stories. So I did it with the Washington Post. I said, “I’m so happy. I don’t…” I said, “You can come in.” Where’s the Washington Post? They’re probably somewhere — maybe they’re in the back, in the back bleachers; I don’t know.

Now look, our federal authorities spend billions of dollars and deploy thousands of agents tracking and disrupting terrorists and people that are not really up to any good. We’re gonna stop it, folks. We’re gonna stop it. Just remember what I said: If I got elected, we’re gonna be fair. We are gonna be so totally straight down the middle — straight down the middle in terms of justice, but we’re not going to let people take advantage of us. We’re gonna go to the movie theater. We’re gonna go on aeroplanes. We’re gonna lead our lives like we’re supposed to lead our lives. We’re gonna be straight down the middle. Everything’s gonna be fair. There’s gonna be total justice. But we can’t continue to live this way. We can’t continue to live this way. People are gonna be afraid to go out — they already are. I mean, if you think you feel safer now than you did eight years ago — I think there’s probably not anyone in this room that feels that way.

So I just want to read something. Did anyone ever hear me do “The Snake”? I think maybe I’ve never seen a time maybe ever where this is so appropriate. It’s so appropriate. Now, you have to think of this in terms of Islamic terror. You have to think of it in terms of our border. You have to think of it in terms of all the people that are crossing, that are criminals, that are killing people and hurting people. We need borders. If we don’t have borders we don’t have a country. We need borders. We need to have our country back. We want to get our country back. We want people coming into our country, but they have to come in legally. They have to come in legally. [Crowd chanting, “Build that wall!”] “Don’t even think about it — we’re gonna build that wall. Don’t even think about it. And who is going to pay for the wall? [Crowd: “Mexico!”] Who? [“Crowd: “Mexico!”] 100 percent, okay? 100 percent.

You know, when I had the debates — the big debates, right? Now what did I know about debating? I’ve been building and employing and building up a great company and having lots of fun. I didn’t want to do this, folks, I’ll tell you. I don’t know about you, but up here it’s about 110 degrees right now. I didn’t want to do this. I would have been very happy had Obama been a great president. I would have been very happy. You know what? If he were a great president — I’m a Republican, I’m a conservative — had he been a great president, I would have been very happy, and most of the people in this room would have been happy. But you know what? He’s been one hell of a lousy president. He’s done a terrible job. Terrible job. He has done a terrible job.

And we’re running through weakness, and people are laughing at us. All over the world they’re laughing at us. And when China has a trade deficit — we have a trade deficit with China. Think of it: We have a trade deficit: $505 billion a year. Mexico: $58 billion a year. Japan: So much we don’t even know what the hell the number is. Everybody. Vietnam is hot. They’re all hot. Every country does great. When you negotiate against the United States, if you can’t win you don’t have much goin’. You don’t have much goin’. And we have to turn it around.

We’re gonna get the greatest — we have in our country the greatest negotiators in the world. We’re not gonna make an Iran deal where we give $150 billion. We shoulda never given that money back. We shoulda never, ever given that money back. Those prisoners shoulda been released years ago before we ever started the negotiations, folks. Years ago. We shoulda gone in — do you ever see a negotiation, by the way, take so long? Listen. Especially since we lost every single point. We never once walk. Every time I hear — I say, ‘Oh great, Secretary Kerry’s gonna finally walk.’ He didn’t walk. The only thing he did is go into a bicycle race at 73 years old, and fall and break his leg, then walk around [imitating a person on crutches]. Never walked. But you know, had he walked we woulda made a much better deal — had he walked, had he known what he was doing. The Persians are great negotiators. The Iranians are great negotiators.

Not only, by the way, did they make a great deal there, but as sure as — and I was against the Iraq war from the very beginning. You know, Hillary said, “Oh, can you trust him with the button?” She’s the one that wanted to go into Iraq. I’ve been against it. I said, “Iraq, if you obliterate their military, you are going to totally destabilize the Middle East, and that’s exactly what happened. The Middle East became totally destabilized. And what happened? We got ISIS outta the whole deal. I mean, the thinking that we’ve had — for a long time — and the way [Obama] got us out. He gives a date: “We’re gonna be out by X date?” Who the hell would ever say the date? In fact, the other side didn’t believe him. Because they said, ‘Nobody could be so stupid to give a date.’ And then it turned out to be true. So he got out the wrong way. Came out the wrong way. [If you remember a few years ago, I said, “Keep the oil.” Shouldn’t-a been there, but keep the oil. If you remember a few years ago, I said, “Keep the oil.” Shouldn’t-a been there, but keep the oil. Well now, ISIS has the oil. Iran is going to have the oil. They’re all going to have the oil. And instead of just a surgical strike in Syria and Libya and all these different people — I mean, look at Libya — a surgical strike maybe. But the highest grades of oil in the world — who has the oil, folks? ISIS has the oil. We don’t even do anything to blockade them. They’re selling the oil. They’re making a fortune. They cannot believe how lucky they got. If I get elected, they’re not gonna be so lucky anymore, folks. They’re not gonna be so lucky. And when we get out we should have taken — remember this — when we got out she should have taken the oil. I’ll never forget, some of the pundits — most of them don’t have the brains they were born with — they said, “They’re talking about a sovereign country.” Iraq! Crooked as hell. How about bringing baskets of money, millions and millions of dollars and handing it out? I want to know: Who’re the soldiers that had that job? Because I think they’re living very well right now, whoever they may be.

But think of it — the money that went out. We spent probably — probably — $4 trillion over the last 15 years in the Middle East. We build a school; it gets blown up. We build it again, and again, and again. But if we want a school in Greensboro, if we want a school in Brooklyn, if we want a school in Los Angeles we have no money. We’re flat broke. No longer, folks. No longer. America first. America first. Remember that. It’s America first. It’s America first.

We’re no longer going to be the stupid people. And we’re [gesturing to crowd] not the stupid people. But we’re led by the stupid people, and that’s gonna end, folks. That’s gonna end. And you know, I’ll tell you something: We will have a better relationship with Mexico and China and India and Japan and Vietnam. And all of these countries that are taking advantage of us like we’re a bunch of dummies — you know, we send in our political hacks to negotiate with the smartest people in those countries. And this is what the result is. That’s what the result. We have the smartest. We have the greatest. We have the best negotiators in the world. And we’re gonna use them to make these massive deals. And we’re gonna bring our wealth back to our country. And we’re gonna save our Social Security and our Medicare. And we’re gonna save our jobs. And we’re gonna start making product again. I mean, I know what happened in North Carolina after NAFTA was signed. And by the way, who signed NAFTA? Right. Bill Clinton signed NAFTA. So people said, ‘Oh, the economy is pretty good.’ Except the person that happened to follow him and for many years thereafter we got killed because he signed NAFTA, and our jobs and our manufacturing left this country like nobody would believe. And all you have to do is take a look at North Carolina. And all of these old places where you see the buildings today, and those people have been gone for many years. That was NAFTA that was signed by Bill Clinton.

So, are you ready? So this is called “The Snake,” right? Al Wilson. Great Al Wilson. And it’s really sort of amazing because it just works. What you have to do is think about what we’re getting into. We’re letting in hundreds of thousands of people into our country. We don’t know anything about ’em. We do know though it’s gonna be trouble. And again, it doesn’t take a lot. It doesn’t take a lot. It takes 2 percent, 1 percent. It takes two people. It doesn’t take a lot. But it’s gonna be much more than that. And we are gonna see things over the next number of years like you’ve never seen, I really believe — unless I’m elected president. I really believe that. Because we’re gonna be very, very smart. And we’re gonna be very strong. And we’re not gonna be the fools anymore.

This is called — this is called “The Snake.” Who, by the way — I rarely do it, but who has heard it? Should I do it again? So think of your border. Think of people pouring in. Think of people pouring in who you know are going to be trouble at some point, okay? You know they’re going to be trouble, alright? All right. Let’s go. Ready? Are you ready? [Noticing a protester] That’s right, get ’em out. Get ’em out. [Audience: “Boo!”] I love our protesters. The only way the cameras show what massive numbers of people we have is if we have our protesters. Take care of our protesters. Please don’t hurt our protester. It’s a single protester. That’s right, go home to Mommy. Bye. Okay, let’s go. Ready? Think about your border, folks. Think about your border. Think about people coming into your country. We’re gonna protect our country.

[Reading from the text] “On her way to work one morning down the path along the lake, a tender-hearted woman saw a poor, half-frozen snake. His pretty, colored skin had been all frosted with the dew. ‘Oh well,’ she said, ‘I’ll take you in, and I’ll take care of you.’ ‘Take me in, oh tender woman. Take me in, for heaven’s sake,’ sighed the broken snake. She wrapped him up all cozy in a curvature of silk, then laid him by the fireside with some honey and some milk. Now she hurried home from work. That night she soon arrived….” [spotting another protester] Ah, don’t worry about it. Get ’im out. [Crowd: “USA! USA!”] USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! [crowd: “USA!”] All right. Get ’im out. Thank you. Thank you, officer. Thank you. Don’t hurt him! Don’t hurt him. No, no. You know, I get criticized every once in a while. They think Trump is too tough. I’m not tough. Please don’t hurt that person. That’s a very nice person. Okay. Gone? Gone? Are they gone? Yeah? All right, good. [returning to text] “Now she hurried home that night. As soon as she arrived she found that pretty snake she’d taken and it had been revived. ‘Take me in, oh tender woman. Take me in, for heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh tender woman,’ sighed the broken snake. Now, she clutched him to her bosom. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she cried, ‘but if I hadn’t brought you in by now, my gosh, you would have died.’ She stroked his pretty skin and then she kissed him and held him tight. But instead of saying, ‘Thank you,’ that snake gave her a vicious bite. ‘Take me in, oh tender woman. Take me in, for heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh tender woman,’ sighed that vicious snake. ‘I saved you,’ cried the woman, ‘and you bit me. Heavens why? You know your bite is poisonous, and now I’m going to die.’ ‘Oh, shut up, silly woman,’ said the reptile with a grin. ‘You knew damn well I was a snake before you took me in.’”

So folks, I mean, we know what we’re getting into, and we keep doing it because we don’t learn. But we know what we’re getting into. And we can’t let it happen. We can’t let it happen.

So when I started on this quest [spotting another protester] — yeah, get ’em out. They’re a little noisy over there. Get ’em outta here. Get ’em out. So, so far in a crowd of like nine or ten thousand people, we have two people that made a little noise. Front page of every paper: “Trump rally….” Let me tell you, folks: My rallies are the safest place on earth. The safest. So when I started this quest — and I didn’t know I was gonna do it — and I was helped by a lot of people — and do you remember Indiana? Remember? Bobby Knight said, “I want to endorse you, Mr. Trump. You’re what we need as president.” And, boy, was that gonna be the firewall. Boy, did we win Indiana, big league, right? That was like Richard Petty. That was something. But we started. And who knew what it would be? We had all these people, like this Charles Krauthammer — ugh — forget it. [crowd: “Boo!”] Before I announced — before I announced I listened to Charles Krauthammer. And it’s like a month before I announced. I told my wife: “Boy, this sounds tough.” He said, “This is the single finest group of Republican leaders perhaps in the history of the Republican Party. This is a great, great group of people.” And then I think he might have said, “Donald Trump’s not gonna run, is he?” So I said, “If these…” — I didn’t know most — I said, “If these people are so good, then what am I running for?” And then, one by one — boom, boom, boom, boom. We start off with 17 people. Boom. Sixteen. Fifteen. Twelve. Nine. Then we go eight, seven. Then we go five. Then we go four. Then we go three. And we had three left, and I’ll never forget: I had one state where I won like 38 percent of the vote. And Krauthammer and some others said, “He has not broken 50 percent.” I mean, I had, like, I think, 14 or 15 people. Right? How the hell do you break 50 percent? I must have gotten a record. You have 17 people You’re down to 15 or 14, and then you get this massive number, whatever it might be, and they said, “He has not broken 50 percent?” Who the hell — ? Abraham Lincoln could not have broken 50 percent. So then I won, and I kept winning and winning. And then we get to New York. And you know what’s nice about New York? New York is tough and they know me, right? Isn’t it nice that the people who know me the best — the people from New York — they give me a massive victory, and we still have three people. We still have three people. And I got almost 62 percent of the vote — with three people. You know, in politics, with two people, if you get 55 to 45 they call that a massive victory. You know that, right? In almost every county. But before that I had Florida. You remember Florida, right? So Florida — and I was against Marco Rubio, sitting senator, and very, very low-energy Jeb Bush, right? I only say that because he signed the pledge, but he hasn’t endorsed me. Of course, I don’t really want his endorsement. Folks, when you sign a pledge, you’re supposed to live up the pledge. Even if you don’t like Donald. He’s got good reason not to like me, I guess. Don’t forget: He raised in his fund — his PAC — $168 million. So think of this: I spent the least and I got the best result in a landslide. Isn’t that what you want in a president? I spent the least and I got the best result.

I remember New Hampshire. I love New Hampshire. In fact, I just gave — yesterday I was in New Hampshire — gave the speech on what happened — this horrible, horrible weekend in Orlando. And New Hampshire’s been a special place because that was my first victory. And I remember so vividly talking to these massive crowds — it’s different because you don’t have rooms as big as this, for the most part. But people — thousands of people were in the room and then standing outside. And I’d meet with smaller groups, and I’d say, “Well, what’s the big problem?” They’d say, “Heroin.” I’d say, “Heroin? What, are you kidding? Heroin?” They’d say, “It’s a massive problem in New Hampshire.” It’s a massive problem all over, and it comes in through the southern border. And that’s why we’re going to build the wall.

And by the way, the border patrol agents — 16,500 border patrol agents — four weeks ago endorsed Donald Trump. The first time in history that they endorsed a presidential candidate.

So I’ll never forget it: I said to the people of New Hampshire, ‘We are going to work hard. Number one, we’re gonna stop it, and number two, we’re gonna work hard to get your youth and everybody else hooked on this crap — get them better. Because we have to make ’em better. There’s so many people. And it comes in, and it pours in.

And so you know, I was saying before — so during the debates, I didn’t know about debating, I didn’t know — and yet I was center stage for every single debate — and according to Drudge, who, by the way, is an incredible man, an incredible guy — according to Drudge and Time magazine and Slate, and like seven others — they do polls now for everything — I think I’ve like made polling a very important thing — you never used to hear about polls — because I like polls. But according to all of these online polls that are taken immediately after the debates I won every single poll of every single debate. How did that happen, okay? And again, I was center stage. It used to make me very angry when Fox and CNN — [spotting a protester] get ’im out. Get ’im out. Get ’im outta here, folks. You can get him out. Thank you. Don’t hurt him. Be very kind. Be very, very gentle. We get criticized. We want to be very gentle. Unlike the people that we see outside, where they’re burning the American flags, folks. They’re burning the American flags. [crowd: “Boo!”] You can get him out. Thank you very much. Unless he wants to stay. He’s got a very weak voice. Very weak voice. If you want, you can stay. Thank you. Thank you. [From the crowd: “We love you Donald.”] His parents are going to be so angry at him tonight.

So I was center stage and I was a little bit upset. Whether it be Fox or CNN or any of them. ABC. I said, “Look, if I’m center stage the only thing I ask for is I want an odd number. I don’t want an even number. Because if it’s an even number then we have two people center stage and that’s not fair. So I thought — I’ve done something — because I am the messenger, I’m not, I don’t even want to say the leader of this group — we have this all over the United States — wherever we go — we went to Dallas. 35,000 people in Mobile, Ala. No matter where we go we have the biggest crowds. Far bigger than even Bernie Sanders, who was, by the way, second, in all fairness. But we have the biggest crowds. And what I am is the messenger. We have got a movement going, and it’s a movement based on taking our country back and running our country intelligently, smartly and being respected all over the world again. Because we’re not respected right now by anybody. We’re not respected by anybody.

So I’m running against a person that I think is totally unfit and unqualified — and Bernie Sanders said this — totally unqualified to be president. Now, a new book just came out by the Secret Service, the person that was with her. You have to hear what he said. I mean, I hope the books sells. I’m sure the mainstream media won’t be writing much about the book. It’s a new book, and it says she doesn’t have the judgment, she doesn’t have the character, she was like a screaming maniac. Folks, we would be making one hell of a mistake. I’ll tell you what: If Hillary Clinton becomes president I don’t know that our country will ever, ever come back. I mean it.

Now remember one thing. So important. Judge Scalia — Justice Scalia, who was a great guy — he died unexpectedly. So we have one, we have one slot already. And if the liberal Democrats get in and put the people that they want in there, it’s a whole different world. Including guns, by the way. You can forget about your guns. You can forget about your guns. The NRA endorsed me. The NRA a few weeks ago endorsed me. I believe it’s the earliest endorsement in the history of these races. And we are going to protect our Second Amendment. We are going to protect our Second Amendment. [cheering, “Trump, Trump, Trump”] Thank you.

Hillary Clinton effectively wants to abolish the Second Amendment. She wants to take your guns away. [Crowd: “Boo!”] And believe me, she’s trying to get out of that position. Take a look at what she said, just like what she said before I went to West Virginia. A few weeks before, she said, “We’re gonna take away the mines and we’re gonna take away the jobs from the miners.” How about that for brains? Four weeks later she’s in West Virginia and she didn’t register too well there, folks. We’re gonna bring back our miners. We’re gonna bring back our jobs into this country. We’re gonna bring back our jobs into this country, big league.

So here’s a story: We have a country that we love. But we have a country that’s gone astray. We don’t win anymore. We don’t win with Sgt. Bergdahl. Remember Sgt. Bergdahl? [crowd: “Boo!”] Remember. We get Bergdahl. This is a typical Obama trade. I call him ‘the five for one president.’ We get Bergdahl and they get five of the worst killers that they wanted for nine years, who are now back on the battlefield trying to kill everybody, including this group right here. I’m not gonna let it happen, folks. This is the deal we make — and by the way, probably five and maybe six people — wonderful, young military people were killed looking for Bergdahl after he deserted, okay? Think of it. Now, in the old days you know what would have happened to him, right? [miming someone in a firing squad pulling the trigger on a rifle] In the old days. Ten years ago it wouldn’t have been pretty but he would have lived. And today they’re talking about maybe nothing’s gonna happen to him. Because this is where we’ve come. This is where we’ve come to. We cannot continue to be politically correct. We cannot continue with what’s happening to our country — is devastating folks. It’s devastating, and it’s embarrassing, and our lives will never be the same. That’s why what we have to do is in November — we have to get out and vote.

This state’s looking very good. I have to tell you. North Carolina, we’re looking very good. Just like we did in the primary. I remember. I remember the primary. I wasn’t really favored to win, but I remember I went to make a speech in North Carolina — in the Charlotte area — and the crowd was like unbelievable. I came back to my people and I said, “You know, I think we’re gonna win. That’s not like a second-place finisher crowd.” And we won easily, as we did in many, many other states. And by the way, speaking of that, we — we, not me — we have received more votes in the primaries than any other person in the history of the Republican Party. Pretty amazing. Pretty amazing. Almost 14 million votes. We’ve received almost 14 million votes. Think of it. I mean, that’s pretty good. I’m very proud of that. Ronald Reagan, who we love — we received many more than Ronald Reagan. More than Nixon, more than Bush. More than Eisenhower, Dwight D. Eisenhower. I mean, he won the Second World War, folks, you know, I mean…. So we’re very proud of that. In addition to that, the Republican Party was up almost 70 percent in terms of voter turnout

And the Democrats, despite all you hear about Bernie — by the way, it looks like Bernie’s gone, folks, he’s gone, looks like he’s gone. Crazy Bernie, I guess he’s gone. So now we’ll only have Pocahontas to think about. I think maybe it could be Pocahontas. I hope so. I hope it’s Pocahontas. They said, “Mr. Trump, that’s a terrible thing. Would you apologize?’ ‘Now they want me to apologize. They want me to apologize. I have to.” [Crowd: “No!”] But I did. I did. Can you believe it? I apologized. I said, ‘I’d like to apologize to Pocahontas.’ It’s true. The great Pocahontas.

So folks, we have to win. We don’t win anymore. We don’t win on trade. We don’t win with the military. We can’t beat ISIS. We don’t win anymore. We are going to start winning like you’ve never seen before. We are going to win with our military. We are going to kick the hell out of ISIS. We have no choice. We’re gonna win on trade. We’re gonna make great deals. We’re gonna bring our money back. We’re gonna bring our jobs back. We’re not gonna let people take our companies so easily anymore. We’re gonna win on the trade. We’re gonna win at the border. We’re gonna build a wall. Mexico’s gonna pay for it; they’re gonna be very happy to pay for it. They’re gonna be very, very happy to pay for the wall, believe me. They make so much money off us. That wall is peanuts — peanuts — compared to the money.

Don’t forget. A few weeks ago Vicente Fox — he was the former president of Mexico — and years ago he said, “They will never build a wall.” Talkin’ about me. “They will never build a wall.” Then, a few weeks ago, he said, “There is no way that we’re going to pay for that” — and then he said F-bomb. He used the F-bomb. On live television. On CNN. He used the F-bomb. Can you imagine if I used the F-bomb? It would be like the electric chair, right? I’d get the electric. He used the F-bomb. “There’s no way…” — the anger and the hatred — “there’s no way that Mexico is going to pay for that F-bomb wall.” And I was so happy. First of all, I was surprised that he used the word. I figured that this was going to be a big scandal all over the world. And the next day nobody said anything about it — that he used the word. But I said, “You know what’s the good news? A few years ago, ‘He said, ‘There’s no way that we’re gonna allow the wall to be built.’ Well, now he’s given up on that. Now all we have to do is get him to pay for it, which will be so easy, so easy.” Don’t forget: The wall is a fraction, a little fraction of the cost of these yearly trade deficits. So we’re gonna do fine. And we’re gonna have a great relationship with Mexico. We’re gonna have a very good relationship.

We’re gonna have a better relationship with Mexico and China than we have right now with all of them. Look at China. They’ve ripped us left, they’ve ripped us right. They’ve taken our jobs. They’ve taken our manufacturing. They dump their product all over the place. And they don’t even like us. And what do they do? They go to the South China Sea, and they build one of the great and big fortresses of the world; they’re not supposed to be doing that, folks. They have no respect whatsoever. Nobody respects our country anymore.

So here’s the story: We’re gonna win with our military. We’re gonna win at the border. We’re gonna win on trade. We’re gonna save our Second Amendment. So important. So important. We’re gonna appoint great judges that are going to keep our country running and running maybe even better than ever before. Because the next president could have five — probably three. Could go to four. But you could even have five judges — five justices of the Supreme Court. And I already put a list out. And everybody’s very impressed with that list. So what we’re going to do folks. We’re going to start winning. We’re gonna repeal and replace Obamacare, which is a total disaster. And if you look at your premiums, and if you looked at your deductibles it so high that unless you lead a really long, horrible death you’re never gonna get to use it. The deductibles are so high it’s a disgrace. Obamacare is a major failure. We repeal it, we replace it. We repeal Common Core, we bring our education local.

And this is for the people of North Carolina, because you folks were great to me. It was early on, and we won big. We’re gonna start winning again in this country. You’re gonna respect your president. And I don’t care so much about that, but you’re gonna again respect your country and what’s happening in your country. We are going to start winning again. We’re gonna win at every single level. We’re gonna win so much that you’re gonna beg me: “Please, Mr. President, we’re winning so much. We can’t stand it, Mr. President. We cannot stand it. Please, a little less winning, Mr. President.” I’m gonna say, “There’s no way I’m gonna do that. We’re gonna win, win, win, and we’re gonna make America great again. That’s going to happen. Thank you. I love you, North Carolina. I love you. Thank you, North Carolina. Thank you.