REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AT THE 2019 CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE

Office of the Press Secretary FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 3, 2019

REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP AT THE 2019 CONSERVATIVE POLITICAL ACTION CONFERENCE Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center National Harbor, Maryland   March 2, 2019   12:17 P.M. EST THE PRESIDENT: Oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you very much also to a man named Matt Schlapp. What a job he's done. (Applause.) And to CPAC -- I actually started quite a while ago at CPAC, and came here -- probably made my first real political speech. And I enjoyed it so much that I came back for a second one, then a third. Then I said, what the hell, let's run for President. Right? (Applause.)  But it's wonderful to be back with so many great patriots, old friends, and brave young conservatives. What a future you have. (Applause.)  Our movement and our future in our country is unlimited. What we've done together has never been done in the history maybe of beyond of country, maybe in the history of the world. They came from the mountains and the valleys and the cities. They came from all over. And what we did in 2016 -- the Election, we call it, with a capital "E" -- it's never been done before. And we're going to do it, I think, again in 2020, and the numbers are going to be even bigger. (Applause.)  AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!  THE PRESIDENT: And we all had to endure, as I was running. So you had 17 Republicans, plus me. (Laughter.) And I was probably more of a conservative than a Republican. People just didn’t quite understand that. They didn’t understand it.  I think now, with what we've done with the judiciary and so many other things, I think they get it very well. And it's driving the other side crazy. (Applause.) But we all had to endure, remember? How many times did you hear, for months and months, "There is no way to 270"? You know what that means, right? "There is no way to 270." They couldn’t get me there. We might as well have just given up. But there wasn’t any way to 270.  In fact, I actually went up to Maine to get one, and I did win the one. But we didn’t need the one. (Applause.) We didn’t need it. We won Maine. We won our half of Maine, remember? You have Nebraska. We won both in Nebraska. We won the half we had to win in Maine. So we got the one, but we didn’t need the one, because we didn’t get 270; we got 306 to 223. (Applause.) 223-306.  A state called Wisconsin, a state called -- (applause) -- Michigan, where -- by the way, where Fiat Chrysler just announced a $4.5 billion incredible -- (applause) -- expansion and new plant, doubling their workforce. Many, many car companies have moved back to Michigan and are continuing to do so. (Applause.) Big numbers. Nobody every thought they'd see that happen.  So I think we're going to do even better in 2020. I think we're going to do numbers that people haven’t seen for a long time. (Applause.)  The men and women here today are on the frontlines of protecting America’s interests, defending America’s value, and reclaiming our nation’s priceless heritage. It's true. (Applause.)  With your help, we are reversing decades of blunders and betrayals. These are serious, serious betrayals to our nation and to everything we stand for. It's been done by the failed ruling class that enriched foreign countries at our expense. It wasn’t "America first." In many cases, it was "America last." Those days are over. Long over. (Applause.)  America is winning again. (Applause.) America is respected again. (Applause.) And the world knows it. When I meet with prime ministers, when I meet with presidents -- and I get along with them -- because they know that what's taken place over many years -- not just the Obama administration; long before that -- they can't believe, themselves, that they got away with it. They can't believe it. An impossible thing. And they like me. (Applause.)  And the reason they like me -- they tell me; they say, "Mr. President…" I said -- as an example, President Xi of China, I have great respect. We have a great relationship. I say, "How is it possible that you got away with this for so long?" (Laughter.) And he said, "Because nobody ever asked us to change." It's true.  When they charge 40 percent tariffs on our cars going into China, and we charge them nothing coming into our country; when they raise their tariff from 10 percent to 25 percent and then to 40 percent -- and they said to me, "We expected that somebody would call and say you can't do that." (Laughter.) "Nobody called, so we just leftit." And I don’t blame them. We should’ve been doing the same thing to them. But we didn’t. (Applause.) True. Right? Hard to believe. It's hard to believe. But now things are different. Now we're negotiating with China. They wouldn’t negotiate with previous administrations. But I found some very old laws from when our country was rich -- really rich. The old tariff laws -- we had to dust them off; you could hardly see, they were so dusty.  But, fortunately, they weren’t terminated. We started getting politically correct, even back then. But I said, when we were doing the great things, what happened to those laws? And I checked, and I found 301 and 382. I found one, 1938, where we can do what we have to do.  But, you know, they had a debate in -- it was really a tough time in our country because we had so much money we didn’t know what the hell to do with it. Tough, tough, tough. It was called the Great Tariff Debate. Mark Levin will look this up. (Laughter.)  And the problem is, with Mark, if I make a little mistake, he'll let us know on Sunday night. (Laughter.) I got to be very careful when I talk about this.  But it was the Great Tariff Debate of 1888. And the debate was: We didn’t know what to do with all of the money we were making. We were so rich. And McKinley, prior to being President, he was very strong on protecting our assets, protecting our country. And he made statements that, "Others cannot come into our country and steal our wealth and steal our jobs, and build their country and not defend our country. We can't do that. We can't ever allow that to happen." (Applause.) And, you know -- I don't know, maybe you know. You know I'm totally off-script, right?  AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.) THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, darling. (Laughter.) You know I'm totally off script right now. And this is how I got elected, by being off script. (Applause.) True. And if we don’t go off script, our country is in big trouble, folks. Because we have to get it back. And when I look at what's happening on the other side, I encourage it. I say, "No, no…" -- I think the New Green Deal, or whatever the hell they call it -- AUDIENCE: Booo -- THE PRESIDENT: The Green New Deal, right? Green New Deal -- I encourage it. I think it's really something that they should promote. (Laughter.) They should work hard on. It's something our country needs desperately. They have to go out and get it. But I'll take the other side of that argument only because I'm mandated to. I'm mandated. But they should stay with that argument. Never change. (Laughter.) Never change. (Applause.) No planes. No energy. (Laughter.) When the wind stops blowing, that's the end of your electric. (Laughter.) Let's hurry up. "Darling" -- "Darling, is the wind blowing today? I'd like to watch television, darling." (Laughter and applause.) No, but it's true. So the Great Tariff Debate of 1888 -- and then we had so much money we could do whatever we wanted. We built forces up that were incredible. Then, in 1913, they ended tariffs, okay? They ended tariffs. Somebody got stupid and they ended tariffs. They said, "Oh, it's okay for other nations to come in." I won't use a certain words because it's not politically -- but everybody knows the word I'd love to use. Should I use it? I won't do it. (Applause.)  Our great First Lady always said, "Don't use certain words, please." I said, "But the audience wanted me to do it." She said, "Don't do it." And the problem is, if I do do that, they won't put the little preamble that we just went through. They'll just use the word, and they'll said, "Isn't that terrible." So I won't use it. (Laughter.) I've learned. Because with the fake news -- AUDIENCE: Booo -- THE PRESIDENT: -- if you tell a joke, if you're sarcastic, if you're having fun with the audience, if you're on live television with millions of people and 25,000 people in an arena, and if you say something like, "Russia, please, if you can, get us Hillary Clinton's emails. Please, Russia, please." (Applause.) "Please get us the emails. Please!"  AUDIENCE: Trump! Trump! Trump! THE PRESIDENT: So everybody is having a good time. I'm laughing, we're all having fun. And then that fake CNN and others say, "He asked Russia to go get the emails. Horrible." (Laughter.) I mean, I thought -- like, two weeks ago, I'm watching and they're talking about one of the points. "He asked Russia for the emails." These people are sick. (Laughter.) And I'm telling you, they know the game. They know the game, and they play it dirty -- dirtier than anybody has ever played the game. Dirtier than it's ever been played.  But the thing that we've done is very special. Because, on trade, and because of tariffs -- and I know there are people in the Republican Party and people -- really, even conservatives -- good conservatives -- they don’t like tariffs. I'm not liking or not liking. The minimum, the greatest negotiating tool in the history of our country.  Do you think China would be sending their top representatives over? Right now, China is paying 25 percent tariff on $50 billion worth of technology goods. I was then going to charge them 25 percent on $200 billion. Not like $200 million -- that's a lot. This is 200 with a "B" -- billion. Two-hundred billion. So -- but I was nice, because we're having a very strong negotiation, which if it weren’t for tariffs -- and I tell this to President Xi; this is nothing to hide. I would never be talking like this because, in theory, it could hurt your negotiating position. But in my case, it can't, because it's true.  I was nice, and I left it at 10 percent on $200 billion. And here's the beauty: We've lost so much money with China -- $500 billion a year. And on trade, it's such a disaster; it's $507 billion a year. China -- just one country. We lose with everybody, almost. But China is one country. $507 billion, for many years.  So the beauty is this: I have $250 billion more to put tariffs on. The numbers are staggering. Billions of dollars, right now, are pouring into our Treasury. And for those of you that haven’t done the research, if you look, of the 25 percent, our country -- as it's turned out, because it's now been on there for a long while. Our -- and I'm in no rush because I'm fine with it. I'm fine with it. Of the 25 points, we've paid for 4 points, and China has paid for 21 points. Okay? Twenty-one. That’s what the numbers are. It's very simple. You know, everyone said, "Oh, it's a tax on our…" It's not really. And what China and other countries do sometimes is they will subsidize it. So the tax really is incredible. But what it is, beyond everything else, I can negotiate.  But then you have senators and a few congressman, but not Mark Meadows. Where is the great Mark Meadows? He's here someplace. (Applause.) Man, has he been good. Mark and Jim Jordan, and --(applause) -- I want to name every one of those couple of hundred people. Because we do have a lot. I want to name every damn one of them. They have been incredible. They've been fighting. And I just see Mark in the audience. They've been fighting -- with Deb, much more important. His wife is incredible. What an asset. He would be nowhere without her. (Laughter and applause.) Right?  But they fight so hard on this witch hunt, this phony deal that they put together; this phony thing that now looks like it's dying. So they don’t have anything with Russia. There's no collusion. So now they go and morph into, "Let's inspect every deal he's ever done. We're going to go into his finances. We're going to check his deals. We're going to check…" These people are sick. (Laughter.) They're sick. (Applause.)  I saw little Shifty Schiff yesterday. No, it's the first time. He went into a meeting and he said, "We're going to look into his finances." I said, "Where did that come from?" He always talked about Russia -- collusion with Russia. The collusion delusion. (Laughter and applause.) So now we're waiting for a report, and we'll find out whether or not, and who we're dealing with. We're waiting for a report by people that weren’t elected. We had -- think of this: We had the greatest election -- in all fairness, I used to hear Andrew Jackson. This was now greater than the election of Andrew Jackson. People say that. No, people say it. (Applause.) I'm not saying it. Right? This was the equivalent or greater. You know, they used to go to Ronald Reagan, when I first started. "This is Ronald Reagan." Then we started really doing well, and they were coming from everywhere to vote. Those red hats -- and white ones. The key is in the color. The key is what it says. "Make America Great Again," is what it says. (Applause.) Right? Right? But we had the greatest of all time. Now we have people that lost. And unfortunately, you put the wrong people in a couple of positions, and they leave people for a long time that shouldn't be there. And, all of a sudden, they're trying to take you out with bullshit. Okay? (Laughter.) With bullshit. (Applause.) Now, Robert Mueller never received a vote, and neither did the person that appointed him. And as you know, the Attorney General says, "I'm going to recuse myself." (Laughter.) "I'm going to recuse." And I said, why the hell didn’t he tell me that before I put him in? How do you recuse yourself? But the person that appointed Robert Mueller never received a vote. Robert Mueller put 13 of the angriest Democrats in the history of our country on the commission. (Laughter.) Now, how do you do that? These are angry, angry people. You take a look at them. One of them was involved with the Hillary Clinton Foundation, running it. Another one has perhaps the worst reputation of any human being I've ever seen. (Laughter.) All killers. In fact, it would've been actually better for them if they put half and half, and Mueller can do whatever he wants anyway, which he'll probably do. But we have conflicts. I had a nasty business transaction with Robert Mueller a number of years ago. I said, why isn’t that mentioned? He wanted the job as FBI Director. I mean, these are things that are out there; they know it. Why isn’t that -- and I didn’t give it to him. Why isn’t that mentioned? Jim Comey -- Lyin' James Comey -- AUDIENCE: Booo -- THE PRESIDENT: -- is his best friend. James Comey is his best friend. And those are a few of the conflicts. Other than that, it's wonderful. (Laughter.)  So -- so everybody is waiting. I thought of it this morning, Mark. And I heard you made an incredible speech and statement today. Mark Levin. I heard it was incredible. (Applause.) And I was on the way. But I'll see it later. I guarantee I'll be watching it later. I have one of the great inventions in history. It's called TiVo. (Laughter.) I think it's actually better than television, because television is practically useless without TiVo, right? (Laughter.) But I'll be watching it later, Mark. But people that got no votes. But I heard this morning, "President Trump is waiting for the Mueller report." I said, wait a minute, let me get this straight. (Laughter.) So the Attorney General recuses himself, and I don’t fire him. No obstruction. That's the other thing: If you use your right, if you use your power, if you use Article 2, it's called obstruction. But only for Trump. For nobody else. (Laughter.)  So the Attorney General is weak and ineffective, and he doesn’t do what he should've done. Somebody that never got a vote writes a powerful letter -- horrible -- about Comey. Every single Democrat said Comey should be fired, or worse, if possible. (Laughter.) Every Republican said -- everybody -- in fact, when I fired Comey, I said, "You know…" -- First Lady -- I said, "Melania, I'm doing something today. I'm doing it because it really has to be done." He's bad. He's a bad, bad -- he's a bad, bad guy. That's been proven now with all of the emails and the texts.  "I'm doing something that has to be done. But you know the good news? It's going to be bipartisan. It's going to be so popular, it's going to be bipartisan." (Laughter.) Every Democrat hates him. Every Republican hates him. He did a horrible job at the FBI. Speak to the real agents, the real people. Because the people in the FBI are incredible people -- not the sleaze on top. (Applause.)  And I said to the First Lady -- I said, "But you know the good news? The good news is that this is going to be so bipartisan. Everyone is going to love it."  So we fire Comey. And Schumer -- who called for his resignation many times -- Podesta, I believe that day -- because he still hasn’t gotten over getting his ass kicked, okay? (Applause.) I believe that day called for his resignation. That day. Podesta, the great genius of campaigns. (Laughter.) He called for the Comey resignation. Others -- almost every, I would say. Mark, would you say virtually every Democrat, virtually every -- I can't think of anybody that said he's doing a good job.  So I said to Melania, "Melania, the good news, this will be a popular thing." (Laughter.) And I fire a bad cop. I fire a dirty cop. And all of a sudden, the Democrats say, "How dare he fire him. How dare he do this." And that's where we are, folks. That's where we are. We're in this swamp of Washington, D.C.  But you know what? We're winning, and they're not. We're winning. (Applause.)  So, just to finish -- and I'll tell you, Matt Schlapp is loving this. (Laughter.) He's saying, "This is a lot more than we paid for." You know, normally you read a few pages and you say, "Bye, folks." But you know what I like about this? Number one, I'm in love, and you're in love. We're all in love together. We've done something that nobody has ever done. (Applause.) Right? It's easy. No, it's easy.  You know, a great friend of mine from New York, he's a stone-cold killer. He's a brutal man. He's actually not even a good friend of mine because he'd turn on me in two seconds if it was (inaudible). (Laughter.) But he's a very rich guy. And he said, "What are you going to speak about today? Like, what are you going to speak?" I said, "I don't know. I don't know." (Laughter.) He said, "I just heard that you have the biggest crowd in the history of CPAC. They're all over. By the way, not only in this giant room. They're in many hotel rooms all over the place. You're just better at real estate than they are." (Laughter and applause.) True. But this guy -- you all know his name -- very rich guy. And he has a problem with a thing called public speaking. If he has to speak to more than like five people, he chokes. (Laughter.) He can't breathe. You know, juh-juh. "Are you okay?" He kills people for a living -- meaning mentally and financially -- but if there's like an audience of nine, it's like "augh." (Laughter.) So he said to me, "How the hell do you do that?" And I said, "It's easy." And the reason it's easy -- I really mean this -- there's so much love in this room, it's easy to talk. You can talk your heart out. You really could. There's love in this room. (Applause.) You can talk your heart out. It's easy. (Applause.) It's easy. It's easy.  And we've had that from the day I came down with your First Lady on the escalator in Trump Tower. It's been easy. (Applause.)  And you know what? We never had an empty seat. We went out and helped Ted Cruz. We went out and helped so many people. And I'll tell you what: If we didn’t do those 32 rallies -- and it wasn’t easy. When you're doing rallies with 25-, 30,000 people -- in Texas, we had 109,000 people sign up. We used the Houston Rockets arena; it holds 22,000. Tens of thousands were outside. We were sending notices, "Please don’t come." That's a little different. Usually, people are begging. "Well, yeah, like can somebody come?" (Laughter.) We never had an empty seat. Of course, the Washington Post -- a guy named David Weigel -- he wrote an article, some arena -- AUDIENCE: Booo -- THE PRESIDENT: No, listen to this. He wrote an article. He got there four hours early. He took pictures of an empty arena. He then put out a note -- something to the effect, "Not very good crowd size, Mr. President." And I never saw it because I don’t follow the guy. But thousands of people that were in that arena that was packed with 25,000 people outside that couldn’t get in -- he got there four or five hours early because he doesn’t fly private. You know. (Laughter.) And maybe it's because of the carbon footprint. You think maybe that's it? (Laughter.) Maybe. Must be the carbon footprint. He just doesn’t want private. But he got there hours early. And, you know, the place hadn’t started taking in people. They weren’t going to take them in. So there were virtually nobody. And, you know, whatever it was --18,000 -- when you have nobody, it's a little scary-looking. So he took pictures. And you know who really got even? Our people. Because they were incensed. We had people sitting on the stairwells. We had people sitting in every seat. I don’t think we've had an empty seat since we announced. And from the day we came down the escalator, I really don’t believe we've had an empty seat at any arena, at any stadium. It's been an incredible thing. And that's why I say this has never, ever happened before, and now we have to verify it in 2020 with an even bigger victory. (Applause.)  AUDIENCE: Four more years! Four more years! Four more years! THE PRESIDENT: And, by the way, just to finish that story, the great Sarah Huckabee and Mercedes, who is incredible, sitting right here -- (applause) -- Mercedes, thank you. They always say -- you know, they're good people, right? Much better than I am. They always say, "Don't bring it up. Don’t fight. Don’t fight. Everyone understands." I said, "They don’t understand." If I don’t explain it, how are they going to understand? So remember the arena one, right? And then it was shown. And the Washington Post had to do -- and this particular writer -- had to do a -- I thought he was going to get fired. I mean, if that were a conservative, he would've been fired on the spot. He would've been humiliated for what he did. Because it was fake news. Nobody was in the arena. There were thousands outside but they hadn’t opened the gates yet.