Presidential Candidates - #8 Donald Trump

At the Santorum meeting and later at another Huckabee townhall, we met Andy Cable of the GOP State Central Committee.  We mentioned we were planning to see Trump at the Electric Park Ballroom in Cedar Falls, Iowa, and that we were wondering how early we'd have to get there (4 AM?) to get a front row seat.   Andy asked if we'd be interested in volunteering to increase our chances of meeting The Donald.  My sister, mother, and I said yes.

Mr. Cable asked Chris Hupke of the Donald Trump campaign if he needed a few volunteers, and sure enough, next thing we knew we were at the volunteer meeting.  

We were told to have fun, smile, tell guests how happy we were to see them, not to engage in confrontations, and to direct media to the correct door.  My sister, mom, and I were assigned as greeters to make sure everyone knew there was seating in the back, and to help people find chairs.  

People formed a long line at the door.  The doors opened at around 10:30.  Standing room was in the front, and there were booths and chairs in the back.  With 781 or so people in attendance, all the seating filled up, and by the time the fire marshall ordered that no more people would be allowed in, it was very difficult to even scrounge up chairs for the elderly and handicapped.  

Tana Goertz, co-chair of Trump's Iowa campaign, and runner-up on The Apprentice, gave a speech to the waiting audience at about 11:30. Fifteen minutes after the scheduled start time (at 12:15), national campaign co-chair Sam Clovis (with whom I am pictured), introduced Donald Trump!  And...Trump introduced Dan Gable who spoke a few minutes before giving the stage back to Trump.

Miscellaneous Facts: Donald Trump is 69 years old.  His mother immigrated to the United States from Scotland, and his paternal grandparents were German immigrants.  He's a Presbyterian.  He has been married to Melania Knauss since 2005, and they have one son.  He has 4 other children from previous marriages.  Trump is 6 feet 2 inches tall.

Created with www.readwritethink.org's Timeline Generator.  Click to enlarge.

Trump's Speech

We're ahead in the polls in every state.  We're winning in Florida.  We're winning in Pennsylvania.  We're winning in Ohio.  People say I should drop out of the race.  If there were good reasons for me to, I would.  I'm not a masochist; if I were doing badly, I would leave the race.  There are some candidates who rank between 0 and 1%, and they're not dropping out.  For three months I've been at the top!  Last election, Bachmann and Cain led in the polls start with, but they led for just for a week.  I'm not going anywhere.  

Politicians talk about things, but don't get them done.  I'm funding my own campaign, but it's not as expensive because I don't have to advertise much.  Since I'm at the top, I don't need to buy ads.  I'm on every tv program already!  We don't want to overwhelm viewers.

Politicians are not loyal.  Bush was a nice guy.  He mentored Marco Rubio.  Then Rubio started running against him.  If I were Bush I would have said terrible things, but Jeb, he said he loved Marco, and was happy for him when he was seething underneath.  "Marco, he's a dear, dear friend..."  that's all political speech.  

I believe in having a strong tone.  Christians heads are being chopped off.  We're losing to China economically.

We're going to have a big, beautiful wall, with a big beautiful door, across the border with Mexico.  It's going to be built.  Twelve years ago everyone wanted the wall, but supposedly we couldn't do it because it was too expensive and it would hurt the environment.  So we built little walls with ramps. 

I love the Mexican people.  And legal Hispanic immigrants love me.  I'm leading with them, doing fine.    I want to bring jobs back from China and Japan.   One poll shows I have 25% of African American support, and that will help win the election.

Our country is being taken advantage of.  We need a new tax plan.  Right now the middle income class has been forgotten.  Veterans have been forgotten.  We need to build a stronger military.  The stronger we are, the less likely we will have to go to war.  

Let the Russians bomb the ISIS!  If we confront Russia over Syria we'll start World War III.  We have no idea who we're fighting for in Syria.  Are the rebel groups we're fighting for ISIS?  We don't know.  We're getting into a quagmire.  The Soviet Union went bankrupt over Afghanistan.  

I first heard we were taking 3,000 refugees from Syria.  I thought, couldn't someone else do it?  Then I heard we were taking 10,000.  Ok.  But now we're taking 200,000 refugees?!  This will cost millions.  We owe trillions.  If we keep being stupid, we'll soon have no country of our own.  We need to start working on paying back our debt.

And with this refugee migration, we're seeing strong men who look like Dan Gable coming, not women and children!  The German women are having problems with the the Syrian refugees in their country.  The Trojan Horse could end up looking like peanuts compared to this migration.  Probably not, but why take the chance?  If I'm elected President, they'll be sent back to the Middle East.  

We need to repeal Obamacare.  We're building a wall at the border, but we also need to be taking the insurance walls down.  Insurance companies want a monopoly.  They like how things work under Obamacare; they don't have to compete throughout the states.  Premiums are up.  

The next president has to be great! 

[Cheers from the audience:  "We want Trump!"]

Commentators give me great marks in speaking, but they say I have one problem: I speak through the applause.  In Dallas, I had an audience of 20,000 people, in Mobile, 35,000.  It's fun to speak!  There's such love in the room, that I don't really get nervous.  There's a silent majority, but they're not really silent.  They're aggressive and noisy.  They want results, good deals, and smart thinking.  

The Iran deal is terrible.  The Iranians get a 24-day warning before inspection, and they self-inspect.

 They say, "Death to America."  And we give them money, $150 billion.  That's a lot of money for them.  They'll use it to get nuclear weapons.  Nuclear weapons are important and devastating.  They had four of our prisoners, but we didn't get them back.  We gave up on every point.  We asked them, "Will you do this?"  They said, "No, absolutely not."  We said, "Ok."  We should have gotten our prisoners back as a prerequisite to starting negotiations.  But Kerry didn't want to "complicate things."  

I would have just said, "Good afternoon..."  Well, actually I wouldn't have wasted my time saying that.  I would have "Fellas..." (It'll take them another 150 years before they figure out women are smarter than men.  But the Persians are great negotiators.)  "Fellas, we want our prisoners back!"  Then they'd say, "Ok."  If they don't, we'd walk away, and double their sanctions until they come to us.  Now they want 19 of their prisoners back and many other things in exchange for our 4 prisoners.  Their negotiator is too smart for Kerry.  

I have great people.  We're going to do very well.  

I was on 60 Minutes with Putin the other day.  I'm not sure which of us got the ratings, but we were the highest rated show.

The Japanese are wining and dining Caroline Kennedy, she's going to give up everything.  The Japanese send us cars.  We send them our beef, and they send it back.  We need a trade balance.

I can build the wall for 50% of the estimated cost.  And it will be bigger and more beautiful.  Bush and Rubio are weak on negotiating.  We need to get rid of politicians.

We need a trade balance with Mexico.  50% of drivers' licenses in Los Angeles are issued to illegals.  We give Mexico billions of dollars.  It only will cost $7 billion to build the wall.  Mexico can afford to build it because they get $45 billion every year as a trade imbalance.  

Anyone who doesn't believe in the Second Amendment should just look at Chicago.

We have a $400 billion trade imbalance with China.  They are taking our jobs and our money, and we owe them $1.5 trillion.  We fight in Afghanistan, but who takes their minerals and purchases the Iraqi oil?  China.  Our leaders don't know what's happening.  They don't know how to break even.  But it's so easy.  We need to have free trade, not dumb trade.  The Chinese manipulate and devalue their currency, and tax our imports.  We have better negotiators than they do, but we don't use them.  We have politicians do it.

I don't take contributions from people.  Maybe that's not smart.  I can't send back the $5 an old lady sends in to help, but I'm not taking the millions.  Everyone else takes donations.  

I'm writing a new book, Crippled America.  Our country is in serious trouble.

If I'm elected President...not when, I don't want to be known for braggadocio....If I'm elected president, you will be so proud of our country.  It will be run smartly.  We can take our country back.  We have the people.  We can make America great again, better than ever before.   

Further Resources: Visit Donald Trump's website to learn more about him and read his stance on the important issues.  You can also read about him on Wikipedia.  You can find a list of books by Donald Trump here.

My Remarks:  It was definitely interesting working as a volunteer.  I enjoyed it for the most part, but by the end of the day I was so tired of being nice to people that I felt like I had used up all my "niceness" for the entire month!  I mean, seriously, how many people can you smile at in one day and say you're glad to see?!  My sister and I almost got our pictures with The Donald...but I didn't have my camera quite ready, and his staff whisked him away; so we had to be content with photos with him in the background.  Yes, that's Donald Trump waving behind me.

Disclaimer: Candidates' speeches are reconstructed from my imperfect notes.  If you notice any mistakes, just let me know.  I would not intentionally misrepresent anyone's position.  I am not endorsing any candidate or candidate's position at this time, and no candidate has endorsed me.  And yes, I do realize that often speeches are to some extent propaganda, but it's interesting to me to see the points candidates consider as most important.
For my personal political views, please see this article.