I didn't get to watch Donald Trump's Presidential campaign announcement speech, but when I heard some of the snippets coming out, I just knew that I had to get my hands on the transcript at some point.
And boy, can I just say, What A Delight.
There are so many great gems of, to borrow a bit of Colbert, Trumpiness™, in this speech, that many have doubtless fallen through the cracks of all the reporting. First of all, apparently he was making a lot of these statements off the cuff, and because of that there is a lot of meandering at times. But as Robert Frost might say, it is these meanderings that his rhetoric takes that tend to be the most entertaining.
For instance, there has been a lot of fallout over The Trump™'s statements on Mexicans, but after reading through the transcript, there are so many other groups that should probably take offense, as well. The Chinese, Japanese, Saudi Arabia, our military, our Congress, and Ford's CEO, just to name a few. And probably Iran, though I think by now they have as a nation collectively grown numb to all the Republican trolling.
Furthermore, fact-checking all the statements, in itself, is quite the monumental task. Even the pros have a hard time covering them all. But full diaries could be written on some of the doozies in here.
Listening to him talk, it's not surprising to me that so many Republican voters have such a high impression of him. While I don't think reasonable people should consider it likely, barring some insane developments, that The Trump ends up in the White House, one thing is clear: his inclusion in the race for the Republican nomination will definitely be a problem for all the other candidates. I wouldn't be surprised if GOP operatives are working round the clock to get him to bow out as soon as possible. Neither would The Trump, I assume, as he employs some of the "smartest negotiators in the world." Clearly, he is only going to stay in the race until someone offers him a really great incentive to bow out, and every minute he doesn't, he will continue to be a thorn in the side of Jeb! and all the other hopefuls.
Anyways, I just thought I would share with you all some of the great nuggets of Trumpiness that stuck with me, with some thoughts of my own.
When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.
But I speak to border guards and they tell us what we’re getting. And it only makes common sense. It only makes common sense. They’re sending us not the right people.
Enough has been made of these statements, that I do not have much to add. Just easing everyone into the crazy.
Islamic terrorism is eating up large portions of the Middle East. They’ve become rich. I’m in competition with them.
They just built a hotel in Syria. Can you believe this? They built a hotel. When I have to build a hotel, I pay interest. They don’t have to pay interest, because they took the oil that, when we left Iraq, I said we should’ve taken.
As Wapo notes, "This curious statement appears to be based on
unconfirmed reports that the Islamic State is operating a luxury hotel in Mosul, Iraq." So, he got the wrong country, Iraq not Syria, and ISIS didn't build it, just took over a pre-existing hotel, that they are using as a hotel.
Iran is going to take over the Middle East, Iran and somebody else will get the oil, and it turned out that Iran is now taking over Iraq. Think of it. Iran is taking over Iraq, and they’re taking it over big league.
...
And we have nothing. We can’t even go there. We have nothing. And every time we give Iraq equipment, the first time a bullet goes off in the air, they leave it.
So digs at both Iran and Iraq. But hey, guess they didn't represent many golf memberships, huh.
Last quarter, it was just announced our gross domestic product— a sign of strength, right? But not for us. It was below zero. Whoever heard of this? It’s never below zero.
Apparently The Trump has never heard of a recession? I'd like to see the quarterly GPD growth during the Great Depression.
Oh wait, you can, here. So, the idea that this is the first negative quarter being false probably would be caught by anyone with even a semester of high school economics.
Again, as Wapo notes.
The GDP did shrink in first quarter 2015 by a 0.7 percent annual rate. But Trump is simply wrong when he asserts “it’s never below zero.” After all, two negative quarters in a row is a standard indicator for an economic recession. First quarter GDPs also are tied to unusual winter weather that can hurt certain industries. Bureau of Economic Analysis data show that since the second quarter of 1947, there have been at least 40 quarters when the GDP shrank.
Back to the Trumpiness.
And our real unemployment is anywhere from 18 to 20 percent. Don’t believe the 5.6. Don’t believe it.
According to the
Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the seasonally adjusted unemployment for last month was 5.5 percent, using the standard U-3 measure. However, the highest measure used, U-6, which measures both unemployed and underemployed and even people who are not actively looking, is only at 10.8%. It actually hasn't been lower
since before the Recession.
The only way you get the Trump's figure of 20% is if you count some hella-young people. Guess he wants to go back to the age of child labor?
That’s right. A lot of people up there can’t get jobs. They can’t get jobs, because there are no jobs, because China has our jobs and Mexico has our jobs. They all have jobs.
Again, Wapo debunks this Trumptistic. "According to the
Bureau of Labor Statistics, 'the number of job openings rose to 5.4 million on the last business day of April, the highest since the series began in December 2000.'"
Our enemies are getting stronger and stronger by the way, and we as a country are getting weaker. Even our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work.
It came out recently they have equipment that is 30 years old. They don’t know if it worked.
Politifact debunks this statement.
In reality, the United States has been spending $35 billion a year to upgrade its nuclear stockpile, and officials tasked with certifying the safety and reliability of the current arsenal have consistently given their seal of approval. We rate Trump’s claim False.
On speaking about Obamacare, Trump includes this nicety:
I have so many websites, I have them all over the place. I hire people, they do a website. It costs me $3. $5 billion website.
While WaPo has debunked the $5 billion claim...Trump claims websites only cost him
three dollars? First of all, whoever your IT people are, even if he's paying them minimum wage, that means it takes one of them, what, 20 minutes to make one of his websites? Or is he counting those websites that split content up in between dozens of pages, and dividing up the total cost he pays per webpage. Either way, someone get those kids some want ads.
I like them. And I hear their speeches. And they don’t talk jobs and they don’t talk China. When was the last time you heard China is killing us? They’re devaluing their currency to a level that you wouldn’t believe. It makes it impossible for our companies to compete, impossible. They’re killing us.
Apparently, a lot of The Trump's rhetoric on how China is beating us in the global economy is tied to how they "devalue their currency." Here is
an article from Business Insider explaining why this reasoning doesn't make sense for at least two reasons.
First, it is doubtful that it would deliver the desired economic outcome. Despite talk of currency wars, Asian countries have so far avoided full-scale hostilities over their exchange rates. If the region's biggest economy launches an offensive, others would surely follow, wiping out any advantage it hoped to gain.
In fact, a devaluation might hurt the economy. A falling yuan might spur the outflow of capital. It would certainly endanger China's companies, which have amassed $1 trillion in foreign debt, which would become more expensive to service if the yuan lost ground.
Second, the politics of devaluation would harm China. In the short term, there would be renewed complaints in America about Chinese currency manipulation, raising the possibility of countermeasures. In the longer term, it would hamper China's efforts to make the yuan a rival to the dollar.
Back to The Trump. And just like that, he goes from attacking China to attacking Obamacare again:
We have to repeal Obamacare, and it can be— and— and it can be replaced with something much better for everybody. Let it be for everybody. But much better and much less expensive for people and for the government. And we can do it.
Is The Trump calling for Obamacare to be replaced with Universal Health Care?
So I’ve watched the politicians. I’ve dealt with them all my life. If you can’t make a good deal with a politician, then there’s something wrong with you. You’re certainly not very good. And that’s what we have representing us. They will never make America great again. They don’t even have a chance. They’re controlled fully— they’re controlled fully by the lobbyists, by the donors, and by the special interests, fully.
Yes, they control them. Hey, I have lobbyists. I have to tell you. I have lobbyists that can produce anything for me. They’re great. But you know what? it won’t happen. It won’t happen. Because we have to stop doing things for some people, but for this country, it’s destroying our country. We have to stop, and it has to stop now.
So here we have The Trump, a donor, a special interest, someone who has a lot of lobbyists, complaining that politicians are too controlled by these people. So, he says, we have to stop because it's destroying our country. Stop what, exactly? Stop him and what he's doing, presumably.
You know, when President Obama was elected, I said, “Well, the one thing, I think he’ll do well. I think he’ll be a great cheerleader for the country. I think he’d be a great spirit.”
He was vibrant. He was young. I really thought that he would be a great cheerleader.
He’s not a leader. That’s true. You’re right about that.
But he wasn’t a cheerleader. He’s actually a negative force. He’s been a negative force. He wasn’t a cheerleader; he was the opposite.
We need somebody that can take the brand of the United States and make it great again. It’s not great again.
We somebody that literally will take this country and make it great again. We can do that.
Literally, he says.
You know, all of my life, I’ve heard that a truly successful person, a really, really successful person and even modestly successful cannot run for public office. Just can’t happen.
More than half the members of Congress are millionaires. Just saying.
I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created. I tell you that.
He'll have
quite the competition if that's what he thinks he'll be.
I’ll bring back our jobs from China, from Mexico, from Japan, from so many places. I’ll bring back our jobs, and I’ll bring back our money.
Right now, think of this: We owe China $1.3 trillion. We owe Japan more than that. So they come in, they take our jobs, they take our money, and then they loan us back the money, and we pay them in interest, and then the dollar goes up so their deal’s even better.
How stupid are our leaders? How stupid are these politicians to allow this to happen? How stupid are they?
On how stupid our leaders are, I certainly cannot comment. However, he seems to be basing his statements somewhat in part on the US dollar's status as a
reserve currency, so we can at least judge for ourselves whether or not we would consider this arrangement stupid.
The dollar’s role as the world’s primary reserve currency helps all of us Americans by keeping interest rates low. Foreign countries buy United States Treasury debt not just as an investment, but because dollar-denominated assets are the best way to hold foreign exchange reserves.
...
What does the dollar as a world reserve currency mean to us in the United States? First, it triggers substantial demand for our securities. About 30 percent of U.S. debt outstanding is owned by foreign countries in their currency reserves. Without that demand for our treasury bonds, the interest rate that the U.S. Treasury pays would be significantly higher. That would likely mean that even private sector borrowing costs would be higher, as consumer and corporate debt compete with public debt for investors’ holdings.
After this, The Trump then goes back to attacking Obama on the deals he has negotiatied.
Number one, the people negotiating don’t have a clue. Our president doesn’t have a clue. He’s a bad negotiator.
He’s the one that did Bergdahl. We get Bergdahl, they get five killer terrorists that everybody wanted over there.
We get Bergdahl. We get a traitor. We get a no-good traitor, and they get the five people that they wanted for years, and those people are now back on the battlefield trying to kill us. That’s the negotiator we have.
Looking at
what Bergdahl has been charged with... nope, don't see any charges of treason.
Take a look at the deal he’s making with Iran. He makes that deal, Israel maybe won’t exist very long. It’s a disaster, and we have to protect Israel. But…
Almost sounds like a mobster. Is The Trump saying that if we make a deal with Iran, they will destroy Israel...or he will? "Eh...you wouldn't want something bad happening to your precious Israel, would you?" Guess when someone is being clever about threatening you, it's best to leave it vague.
So we need people— I’m a free trader. But the problem with free trade is you need really talented people to negotiate for you. If you don’t have talented people, if you don’t have great leadership, if you don’t have people that know business, not just a political hack that got the job because he made a contribution to a campaign, which is the way all jobs, just about, are gotten, free trade terrible.
Seems like The Trump regressed back into caveman speech there towards the end. It sounds like: Free trade good, unless leader bad, then free trade bad.
After this, he brings up some story about a friend trading with China.
Hey, I’m not saying they’re stupid. I like China.
Apparently, the latter statement is supposed to redeem the former. Kinda like with his words on Mexico. Someone needs to inform him that this doesn't seem to be a good method.
I sell apartments for— I just sold an apartment for $15 million to somebody from China. Am I supposed to dislike them? I own a big chunk of the Bank of America Building at 1290 Avenue of the Americas, that I got from China in a war. Very valuable.
Not a war between The Trump and China, mind you. But
between him and his business partners. The Great Negotiator at work, I suppose.
But their leaders are much smarter than our leaders, and we can’t sustain ourself with that. There’s too much— it’s like— it’s like take the New England Patriots and Tom Brady and have them play your high school football team. That’s the difference between China’s leaders and our leaders.
Does this analogy include
the cheating scandals?
Now they’re going militarily. They’re building a military island in the middle of the South China sea. A military island. Now, our country could never do that because we’d have to get environmental clearance, and the environmentalist wouldn’t let our country— we would never build in an ocean. They built it in about one year, this massive military port.
So this idea of militarized islands, that's the problem you focus on? Environmentalists? That's the biggest problem you see with us building military islands?
Trump concludes his China trade story, as one would expect, then moves on to the bigger fish.
And, in my opinion, the new China, believe it or not, in terms of trade, is Mexico.
So this man tells me about the manufacturing. I say, “That’s a terrible story. I hate to hear it.”
But I have another one, Ford.
Here we go, another one of his trade stories. For the sake of continuity, I have arranged the pertinent excerpts together.
So Mexico takes a company, a car company that was going to build in Tennessee, rips it out. Everybody thought the deal was dead. Reported it in the Wall Street Journal recently. Everybody thought it was a done deal. It’s going in and that’s going to be it, going into Tennessee. Great state, great people.
All of a sudden, at the last moment, this big car manufacturer, foreign, announces they’re not going to Tennessee. They’re gonna spend their $1 billion in Mexico instead. Not good.
So I announced that I’m running for president. I would…
… one of the early things I would do, probably before I even got in— and I wouldn’t even use— you know, I have— I know the smartest negotiators in the world. I know the good ones. I know the bad ones. I know the overrated ones.
You get a lot of them that are overrated. They’re not good. They think they are. They get good stories, because the newspapers get buffaloed. But they’re not good.
But I wouldn’t even waste my time with this one. I would call up the head of Ford, who I know. If I was president, I’d say, “Congratulations. I understand that you’re building a nice $2.5 billion car factory in Mexico and that you’re going to take your cars and sell them to the United States zero tax, just flow them across the border.”
So I would say, “Congratulations. That’s the good news. Let me give you the bad news. Every car and every truck and every part manufactured in this plant that comes across the border, we’re going to charge you a 35-percent tax, and that tax is going to be paid simultaneously with the transaction, and that’s it.
The head of Ford will call me back, I would say within an hour after I told them the bad news. But it could be he’d want to be cool, and he’ll wait until the next day. You know, they want to be a little cool.
And he’ll say, “Please, please, please.” He’ll beg for a little while, and I’ll say, “No interest.” Then he’ll call all sorts of political people, and I’ll say, “Sorry, fellas. No interest,” because I don’t need anybody’s money. It’s nice. I don’t need anybody’s money.
I’m using my own money. I’m not using the lobbyists. I’m not using donors. I don’t care. I’m really rich. I (inaudible).
After I’m called by 30 friends of mine who contributed to different campaigns, after I’m called by all of the special interests and by the— the donors and by the lobbyists— and they have zero chance at convincing me, zero— I’ll get a call the next day from the head of Ford. He’ll say. “Please reconsider,” I’ll say no.
He’ll say, “Mr. President, we’ve decided to move the plant back to the United States, and we’re not going to build it in Mexico.” That’s it. They have no choice. They have no choice.
There are hundreds of things like that.
So this is the example he uses to show us what a great negotiator he is. But read that scenario closely. It doesn't read like a negotiation. It's basically just an ultimatum. Do this, or else. It reads more like extortion.
Of course he also uses this as the perfect opportunity, apparently, to attack pretty much all of Congress.
Now, here’s what is going to happen. If it’s not me in the position, it’s one of these politicians that we’re running against, you know, the 400 people that we’re (inaudible). And here’s what’s going to happen. They’re not so stupid. They know it’s not a good thing, and they may even be upset by it. But then they’re going to get a call from the donors or probably from the lobbyist for Ford and say, “You can’t do that to Ford, because Ford takes care of me and I take care of you, and you can’t do that to Ford.”
And guess what? No problem. They’re going to build in Mexico. They’re going to take away thousands of jobs. It’s very bad for us.
Hey, you know, I'm not saying he's wrong. Lord knows
he's not alone in thinking this. But, if this guy were seriously President, would we really expect someone like this to really be able to work together with Congress like a President presumably should?
So, The Trump has given us an Iran scare story, a China scare story, a Mexico scare story. What next?
Saudi Arabia, they make $1 billion a day. $1 billion a day. I love the Saudis. Many are in this building. They make a billion dollars a day.
Saudi Arabia, apparently.
Whenever they have problems, we send over the ships. We say “we’re gonna protect.” What are we doing? They’ve got nothing but money.
If the right person asked them, they’d pay a fortune. They wouldn’t be there except for us.
And believe me, you look at the border with Yemen. You remember Obama a year ago, Yemen was a great victory. Two weeks later, the place was blown up. Everybody got out— and they kept our equipment.
But look at that border with Saudi Arabia. Do you really think that these people are interested in Yemen? Saudi Arabia without us is gone. They’re gone.
Wow. With this one example, he puts in all the Trumpiness from all the previous ones. The border-crossing aspects, the extortion aspects, and the beating us at economy aspect, all in one package.
But all of these politicians that I’m running against now, they’re trying to disassociate. I mean, you looked at Bush, it took him five days to answer the question on Iraq. He couldn’t answer the question. He didn’t know. I said, “Is he intelligent?”
Then I looked at Rubio. He was unable to answer the question, is Iraq a good thing or bad thing? He didn’t know. He couldn’t answer the question.
How are these people gonna lead us? How are we gonna— how are we gonna go back and make it great again? We can’t. They don’t have a clue. They can’t lead us. They can’t. They can’t even answer simple questions. It was terrible.
And here's why the Republican candidates can't love having The Trump in the ring with them. He sucker-punches.
After awhile, he starts talking about his personal wealth, as a The Trump is wont to do.
In fact, one of the big banks came to me and said, “Donald, you don’t have enough borrowings. Could we loan you $4 billion”? I said, “I don’t need it. I don’t want it. And I’ve been there. I don’t want it.”
But in two seconds, they give me whatever I wanted. So I have a total net worth, and now with the increase, it’ll be well-over $10 billion. But here, a total net worth of—net worth, not assets, not— a net worth, after all debt, after all expenses, the greatest assets— Trump Tower, 1290 Avenue of the Americas, Bank of America building in San Francisco, 40 Wall Street, sometimes referred to as the Trump building right opposite the New York— many other places all over the world.
So the total is $8,737,540,00.
Now I’m not doing that…
I’m not doing that to brag, because you know what? I don’t have to brag. I don’t have to, believe it or not.
He doesn't have to brag that banks are apparently throwing billions of dollars at him, and he's just like, "Oh Well, I guess I'll take them anyways."
How did he make all his billions?
It’s labor, and it’s unions good and some bad and lots of people that aren’t in unions, and it’s all over the place and building all over the world.
See, Bernie ain't got nothin' on him.
We have losers. We have losers. We have people that don’t have it. We have people that are morally corrupt. We have people that are selling this country down the drain.
Here I am assuming he is not reserving his passionate speech for either Democrat or Republican alone.
Gloriously statement to win over the people you are trying to join.
So, just to sum up, I would do various things very quickly. I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare.
I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively, I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.
Mark my words.
Oh, consider them marked, The Trump. Consider them marked.
I will stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons. And we won’t be using a man like Secretary Kerry that has absolutely no concept of negotiation, who’s making a horrible and laughable deal, who’s just being tapped along as they make weapons right now, and then goes into a bicycle race at 72 years old, and falls and breaks his leg. I won’t be doing that. And I promise I will never be in a bicycle race. That I can tell you.
Well, guess that's one race we can count The Trump out of. Fortunately, he's still in this Presidential one. Though honestly,
I'd take the 71-year-old Kerry over this The Trump any day of the week.
I will immediately terminate President Obama’s illegal executive order on immigration, immediately.
Fully support and back up the Second Amendment.
End— end Common Core. Common Core should— it is a disaster. Bush is totally in favor of Common Core. I don’t see how he can possibly get the nomination. He’s weak on immigration. He’s in favor of Common Core. How the hell can you vote for this guy? You just can’t do it. We have to end education has to be local.
Rebuild the country’s infrastructure.
Nobody can do that like me. Believe me. It will be done on time, on budget, way below cost, way below what anyone ever thought.
Because he builds things, you see? Just like a President is supposed to.
Save Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security without cuts. Have to do it.
Get rid of the fraud. Get rid of the waste and abuse, but save it. People have been paying it for years. And now many of these candidates want to cut it. You save it by making the United States, by making us rich again, by taking back all of the money that’s being lost.
And just like that, you've given up the fact that you're not really looking to win the Republican nomination.
Sadly, the American dream is dead.
But if I get elected president I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before, and we will make America great again.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Vote for a Zombie America. Vote...for Donald Trump.
To The Trump, it is my turn to say: Thank you, thank you very much.
Transcript taken from time.com. Apologies for the blatant disregard for copyright.