Still no word on the turrets and sharks with lasers idea, but we’re holding steady…

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A U.S. judge on Tuesday sided with President Donald Trump’s administration and rejected an attempt by the state of California and environmental groups to stop the government from building a wall on the U.S. border with Mexico.

The lawsuit filed in a San Diego federal court alleged that Trump’s proposed wall violates federal environmental standards, as well as constitutional provisions regarding the separation of powers and states’ rights.

The plaintiffs asked U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel to stop the administration from pursuing the barrier until it demonstrates compliance with environmental laws.

The wall, a key item for Trump’s political base of supporters, has become a sticking point in talks to keep alive a federal program that protects from deportation young people who were brought to the United States illegally as children.

In his latest budget proposal to Congress, Trump requested $23 billion for border security, most of it for building the wall.

Curiel said his decision on Tuesday was not based on whether the underlying decisions to construct the wall “are politically wise or prudent.” Rather, Curiel said the Trump administration had not exceeded its legal authority in pursuing the project.  (read more)

Earlier today President Donald Trump announced that he’s running for re-election in 2020 and Brad Parscale has been named campaign manager.

In an announcement posted on the president’s campaign website, his son, Eric Trump, called Parscale “an amazing talent” who was “pivotal to our success in 2016.” Top Trump adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner said that Parscale “was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run.”

NEW YORK, NY – Today, President Trump announced the appointment of Brad Parscale as the Campaign Manager for his reelection committee as the advanced planning for the 2020 race begins.

Mr. Parscale is a longtime digital marketing strategist for President Trump, first with the Trump Organization and then with the successful 2016 presidential campaign, who has continued to lead digital strategies for the campaign and the Republican National Committee.

In addition to focusing on building its infrastructure for the 2020 race, the Trump Campaign will be engaged in the 2018 midterm elections this year, providing candidates with general support, endorsements, and rallying the support of the political grassroots by engaging Trump supporters in districts and states.

Eric Trump said, “Brad is an amazing talent and was pivotal to our success in 2016. He has our family’s complete trust and is the perfect person to be at the helm of the campaign.”

Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, said, “Brad was essential in bringing a disciplined technology and data-driven approach to how the 2016 campaign was run. His leadership and expertise will be help build a best-in-class campaign.” (read more)

An additional Press Release includes:

NEW YORK, NY – On the first day in his new role as the Campaign Manager of President Trump’s reelection campaign committee, Brad Parscale announced the appointments of top leadership roles, selecting two leaders who have played senior roles in the campaign committee since it was formed in early 2017.

Earlier today President Trump spoke candidly with the White House assembly of U.S. Governors about the critical need to re-evaluate their position(s) on trade.  President Trump’s remarks were direct, but also remarkably nuanced toward the audience.  However, if you follow Trump’s process, you’ll note the familiar indications.

Next, far less subtle and yet following along the same predictable process, the Wall Street Journal is reporting President Trump now promoting his economic guru Peter Navarro to be Assistant to The President.   Navarro is a brilliant and strategic trade hawk who has a long track record of supporting the same trade principles as Donald Trump.

A NAFTA decision/announcement looms. ♦ As expected and predicted, a recent phone call by Mexican President Pena Nieto to POTUS Trump didn’t end well. ♦ USTR Lighthizer blasted Canada at the end of round six NAFTA renegotiation. ♦  Placing Pete Navarro inside the circle puts him directly in the right place to speak on behalf of President Trump for an upcoming announcement.   All of these NAFTA exit indicators are great news.

Our wolverine team is growing.  Now we have Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Asst. To POTUS Peter Navarro, all assembled.

WASHINGTON—The White House plans to promote an adviser known for his hawkish views on trade policy, giving economic nationalists a stronger voice in internal debates as the Trump administration nears decisions on high-profile trade issues.

Peter Navarro, an economist who helped shape Donald Trump’s 2016 protectionist campaign platform, will be named an assistant to the president, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Vice-President Mike Pence introduces President Donald Trump during a White House conference with the nation’s governors.  After opening remarks by both the Vice-President and President, President Trump asked governors for their input and questions.

This is an important discussion between the President and Governors because of the looming battle with the institutional republican political apparatus (GOPe) over a necessary NAFTA exit.

On the key topic of the economy the President remarked about the growing GDP and future of trade deals, trade negotiations and how important it is to break the cycle of trade agreements that do not advance the best interests of the entire nation.  Another big topic of the larger discussion was school security and proactive measures to protect.

[Transcript] State Dining Room – 10:53 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, everybody. Thank you very much. And I want to thank our Vice President for that really lovely introduction. That was very nice, Mike, and I appreciate it.

This is a time of great opportunity for our country. We’ve created nearly 3 million jobs since the election — a number that nobody would have thought possible. You go back and take a look at what they were saying just prior to the election. Nobody thought it was even possible.

And we’ve done many other things, as you know. And I won’t go over them because I want to be hearing from you today, but many other things that, frankly, nobody thought possible. GDP — 3.2, 3, 3. I think we’re going to have another really big one coming up this current quarter, maybe a number that nobody would have thought would ever be hit. But I think we’re going to have a very good number because of the stimulus, because of the massive tax cuts that we’re all benefitting — whether you’re a Republican or Democrat, you’re benefitting tremendously from those tax cuts.

Apple is investing $350 billion in the United States. And you look at what’s going on, it’s really quite something. You just read, a week ago, Exxon is now coming in with $50 billion — and many, many companies.

Also, something that nobody expected — they’re also coming in with massive bonuses for their workers. Nobody thought in terms of that. We know that everybody is going to get a lot more income, and we’ve seen that as of February 1st. Everyone is saying, “Wow, I have an extra $250 in my paycheck.” And that’s pretty good stuff. So we knew that was going to happen.

We didn’t know that hundreds and hundreds of companies, millions and millions of people were going to be getting large bonuses because of what we did.

And one of the things we’re working on is fair and reciprocal trade deals. We’re not being treated fairly. You, as governors, are not being treated fairly. And when I get too tough with a country, you’re always calling, “Oh, gee, don’t do that.” But I must say, it’s more senators and congressmen and women that call. You haven’t been calling so much. You want to see great deals.

But we have to make the deals fair. You know, with Mexico, as an example, we probably lose $130 billion a year. Now, for years, I’ve been saying — for the last year and a half, I’ve been saying $71 billion, but it’s really not. And they have a VAT tax of 16 percent, and we don’t have a tax. And, at some point, we have to get stronger and smarter, because we cannot continue to lose that kind of money with one country.

We lose a lot with Canada. People don’t know it. Canada is very smooth. They have you believe that it’s wonderful. And it is — for them. Not wonderful for us; it’s wonderful for them. So we have to start showing that we know what we’re doing.

World Trade Organization — a catastrophe. China became strong — you look at it. It was going like this for years and years and hundreds of years, it was going just like this. I’m a great — I have great respect for President Xi, by the way. So I’m not blaming them. I’m not blaming Mexico. I’m not blaming anybody. I’m blaming us because we did such a poor job for so many years.

I’m not just talking about President Obama. I’m talking about many, many, many Presidents — for 30 years, 35 years. But the World Trade Organization makes it almost impossible for us to do good business. We lose the cases, we don’t have the judges. We have a minority of judges. It’s almost as bad as the 9th Circuit. Nothing is as bad as the 9th Circuit. (Laughter.) It’s almost as bad.

Speaking of that, DACA is going to be put back into the 9th Circuit. You know, we tried to get it moved quickly, because we’d like to help DACA. I think everybody in this room wants to help with DACA. But the Supreme Court just ruled that it has to go through the normal channel. So it’s going back in, and there won’t be any surprise.

I mean, it’s really sad when every single case filed against us is in the 9th Circuit. We lose, we lose, we lose, and then we do fine in the Supreme Court. But what does that tell you about our court system? It’s a very, very sad thing. So DACA is going back, and we’ll see what happens from there.

So we want fair trade deals. We want reciprocal trade deals. Scott Walker has a wonderful company called Harley Davidson in Wisconsin. Right? Great. So when they send a motorcycle to India, as an example, they have to pay 100 percent tax — 100 percent.

Now, the Prime Minister, who I think is a fantastic man, called me the other day. He said, “We are lowering it to 50 percent.” I said, “Okay, but so far we’re getting nothing.” So we get nothing, he gets 50 [percent], and they think we’re doing — like they’re doing us a favor. That’s not a favor. And you know what I’m talking about.

It’s a great company. When I spoke with your chairman or the president of Harley, they weren’t even asking for it because they’ve been ripped off with trade so long that they were surprised that I brought it up. I’m the one that’s pushing it more than they are, but it’s unfair. And India sells us a lot of motorbikes.

So when they have a motorbike — a big number, by the way — they have a company that does a lot of business. So they have a motorcycle or a motorbike that comes into our country — the number is zero. We get zero. They get 100 percent, brought down to 75; brought down, now, to 50. Okay.

And I wasn’t sure — he said it so beautifully. He’s a beautiful man. And he said, “I just want to inform you that we have reduced it to 75, but we have further reduced it to 50.” And I said, “Huh.” What do I say? Am I supposed to be thrilled? And that’s not good for you people, especially as governors. It’s just not right. And we have many deals like that.

Now, with all of that being said, let’s talk China. Because China, we probably lost $504 billion, last year, on trade — $504 billion. I think that President Xi is unique. He’s helping us with North Korea — who, by the way, wants to talk, as of last night; you heard that. They want to talk. And we want to talk also, only under the right conditions. Otherwise, we’re not talking.

You know, they’ve been talking for 25 years. Other Presidents should have solved this problem long before I got here. And they’ve been talking for 25 years. And you know what happened? Nothing. The Clinton administration spent billions and billions of dollars. They gave them billions. They built things for them. They went out of their way, and the day after the agreement was signed, they continued with nuclear research. It was horrible.

The Bush administration did nothing — both. The Obama administration wanted to do something. He told me it’s the single biggest problem that this country has. But they didn’t do anything. And it would have been much easier, in those days, than it is now. I think most people understand that. But we’ve been very tough with them.

China has been good, but they haven’t been great. China has really done more, probably, than they’ve ever done because of my relationship. We have a very good relationship, but President Xi is for China, and I’m for the United States. And Russia is behaving badly because Russia is sending in what China is taking out.

So China is doing pretty good numbers, but Russia is now sending a lot of stuff in. But I think they want to see it come to an end also. I think everybody does — talking about tremendous potential loss of lives; numbers that nobody has ever even contemplated, never thought of.

So they want to talk. First time — they want to talk. And we’ll see what happens. That’s my attitude: We’ll see what happens. But something has to be done.

Today, I want to hear your ideas on a number of critical issues. But, most importantly, we want to discuss the public safety in schools and public safety, generally. But school safety. We can’t have this go on.

I’m grateful that Governor Rick Scott is here, and we thank him for his leadership in the aftermath of the terrible tragedy in Parkland, Florida. Horrible. Our nation is heartbroken. We continue to mourn the loss of so many precious, innocent young lives. These are incredible people. I visited a lot of them.

But we will turn our grief into action. We have to have action. We don’t have any action. It happens, a week goes by, “let’s keep talking.” Another week goes by, we keep talking. Two months go by — all of the sudden, everybody is off to the next subject. Then, when it happens again, everybody is angry and “let’s start talking again.” We got to stop.

By the way, bump stocks — we’re writing that out. I’m writing that out myself. I don’t care if Congress does it or not. I’m writing it out myself, okay? (Applause.) You put it into the machine gun category — which is what it is — it becomes, essentially, a machine gun, and nobody is going to be able to — it’s going to very hard to get them. So we’re writing out bump stocks.

But we have to take steps to harden our schools so that they are less vulnerable to attack. This includes allowing well-trained and certified school personnel to carry concealed firearms. At some point, you need volume. I don’t know that a school is going to be able to hire a hundred security guards that are armed. Plus, you know, I got to watch some deputy sheriffs performing this week. And they weren’t exactly Medal of Honor winners. All right?

The way they performed was, frankly, disgusting. They were listening to what was going on. The one in particular, he was then — he was early. And then you had three others that probably a similar deal a little bit later, but a similar kind of a thing.

You know, I really believe — you don’t know until you test it — but I really believe I’d run in there, even if I didn’t had a weapon. And I think most of the people in this room would have done that, too, because I know most of you. But the way they performed was really a disgrace.

Second, we must confront the issue of mental health. And here is the best example of mental health. This kid — they had 39 red flags. They should have known. They did know. They didn’t do anything about it. That was really a bad time, I have to tell you. Nobody bigger for law enforcement than I am. But between the people that didn’t go into that school and protect those lives, and the fact that this should have been solved long before it happened — pretty sad.

So we have to confront the issue, and we have to discuss mental health, and we have to do something about it. You know, in the old days, we had mental institutions. We had a lot of them, and you could nab somebody like this. Because, you know, they did — they knew he was — something was off. You had to know that. People were calling all over the place.

But you used to be able to bring him into a mental institution, and hopefully he gets help or whatever — but he’s off the streets. You can’t arrest him, I guess, because he hasn’t done anything, but you know he’s like a boiler ready to explode, right? So he just — you have to do something. But you can’t put him in jail, I guess, because he hasn’t done anything.

But, in the old days, you would put him into a mental institution. And we had them in New York, and our government started closing them because of cost. And we’re going to have to start talking about mental institutions, because a lot of the folks in this room closed their mental institutions also.

So we have no halfway. We have nothing between a prison and leaving him at his house, which we can’t do anymore. So I think you folks have to start thinking about that.

Third, we have to improve our early warning response system so that when friends, family, and neighbors do warn the authorities about a violent or dangerous individual, action is taken quickly and decisively. Look, you had the one mother — you remember, in Connecticut, how horrible that was. She was begging — begging — to take her son in and help him — do something, anything, he’s so dangerous. And nobody really listened to her. And he ended up killing her, and then the rest. You know what happened. It was a horror. But she was begging to do something about her own son.

Recently, you had a grandmother that got to see the notes of her grandchild, and she reported him. And they nabbed him. He was ready to go in for a school — looked like. She reported him. And there, the law enforcement did a very good job.

Fourth, we must pursue commonsense measures that protect the constitutional rights of law-abiding Americans while keeping guns out of the hands of those who pose a threat to themselves and to others.

And fifth, we must strive to create a culture in our country that cherishes life and condemns violence and embraces dignity.

Now, with all of that, over the weekend — I cannot believe the press didn’t find this out, I can’t believe it. I think they’re getting a little bit — I could never use the word “lazy”; you don’t want to say that. We don’t want to give them any more enthusiasm than they already have. But I can’t believe they didn’t figure this one — because I had lunch with Wayne LaPierre, Chris Cox, and David Lehman of the NRA. And I want to tell you, they want to do something. And I said, “Fellas, we got to do something. It’s too long now. We got to do something.”

And we’re going to do very strong background checks — very strong. We got to do background checks. If we see a sicko, I don’t want him having a gun. And, you know, I know there was a time when anybody could have — I mean, even if they were sick, they were fighting. And I said, “Fellas, we can’t do it anymore.” And there’s no bigger fan of the Second Amendment than me, and there’s no bigger fan of the NRA. And these guys are great patriots. They’re great people. And they want to do something. They’re going to do something. And they’re going to do it, I think, quickly. I think they want to see it.

But we don’t want to have sick people having the right to have a gun. Plus, when we see somebody is sick like this guy, when the police went to see him, they didn’t do a good job. But they have restrictions on what they can do. We got to give them immediate access to taking those guns away so that they don’t just leave and he’s sitting there with seven different weapons. (Applause.) Got to give immediate access.

Don’t worry, you’re not going to get any — you won’t — don’t worry about the NRA. They’re on our side. You guys — half of you are so afraid of the NRA. There’s nothing to be afraid of. And you know what? If they’re not with you, we have to fight them every once and a while. That’s okay. They’re doing what they think is right. I will tell you, they are doing what they think is right.

But sometimes we’re going to have to be very tough and we’re going to have to fight them. But we need strong background checks. For a long period of time, people resisted that. But now people, I think, are really into it.

And John Cornyn — great guy — senator, Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan, and Kevin McCarthy hopefully are going to work on some legislation. I hope you guys — they started already. In fact, John has legislation in. We’re going to strengthen it, we’re going to make it more pertinent to what we’re discussing, but he’s already started the process. We’ve already started it. And the other thing — we need hardened sites. We have to have hardened sites.

So just in concluding, we have tremendous things happening. The country is doing well, and then we have a setback like this that’s so heart-wrenching. It’s so heart-wrenching. And we have to — we have to clean it up. We have to straighten it out.

You know, it’s wonderful that we’re setting records on the economy. We’re setting records. Black unemployment at an all-time historical low. Hispanic unemployment at a historical low. Women unemployment at an 18-year low — 18 years. And actually, I did very well with women during the election. Nobody wants to give me credit for that, as you know. But — and I’m very proud of that. To me, these are incredible statistics.

And very importantly, we’re doing — our companies are doing well. The fundamentals are beyond what — literally beyond what anyone has ever seen. This isn’t a bubble. You know, there was bubbles in the past because these companies were valued and nobody understood where — where’s their money? Where’s the money? And these are really strong companies we’re building now. We have tremendous underlying value.

I want to bring the steel industry back into our country. If that takes tariffs, let them take tariffs, okay? Maybe it will cost a little bit more, but we’ll have jobs. Let it take tariffs. I want to bring aluminum back into our country. These plants are all closing or closed.

Recently, we put a tariff on washing machines because we were getting killed, believe it or not, on washing machines and solar panels. That was two months ago. You have to see the activity on new plants being built for washing machines and for solar panels. We had 32 solar-panel plants. Of the 32, 30 were closed, and 2 were on life-to-life resuscitation. They were dead.

Now they’re talking about opening up many of them — reopening plants that have been closed for a long time. And we make better solar panels than China. One of their knocks were that their solar panels were lousy, they weren’t good. We make a much higher-quality solar panel.

So, after two months, we’re opening up at least five plants, and other plants are expanding on the washing machines — which, by the way, it sounds like, sort of, a little hokey to say washing machines. It’s a big business. It’s a very big business. But then you look and you see, like — I won’t mention — I won’t mention countries. I would never do that.

But how many Chevrolets are in the middle of Berlin? How many Fords are in the middle of Tokyo? Not too many. In fact, Ford, sort of, closed up their operation in Japan because they couldn’t get cars in there. I spoke to Prime Minister Abe, another great friend of mine — he’s a great person — but I said, listen, you’re sending us millions of cars, and if we send you one and if we make it so perfect — they actually told me a case where they made this car so good. This was — they spent a fortune. They had the best environmental, the best this, the best skins, the best — everything you can have in a car. The best safety. They brought it in, and after inspections that lasted forever, it was rejected.

You see, that’s a form of tariff, too. Maybe that’s a more deadly form of tariff. That, to me, is just as deadly as 50 percent, and 25 percent, and 100 percent — in many cases.

So we’re going to straighten it out. We’ve already started. I mean, the first year is just — we laid the seeds. You know, a lot of it is statutory, where you can’t do anything unless you go through a process. Well, now, through our great team, we’ve gone through that process. Many of the — in other words, you’ll do a rule, you have to wait 90 days. That’s, sort of, what’s happening with the bump stocks. I’m waiting for the next process, but it’s gone. Just don’t worry about it. It’s gone. Essentially gone, because we’re going to make it so tough that you’re not going to be able to get them. Nobody is going to want them anyway.

You know, bump stocks — you shoot rapidly, but not accurately. I don’t know if you have ever heard what a bump stock does. The bullets come out fast, but you don’t know where the hell they’re going. That’s why nobody even, really — too much — came to its defense. But he used it in Las Vegas. He was using bump stocks in Las Vegas, as you know. So we’re getting rid of them.

So you’re going to ask questions. I’m going to help you folks. We’re going to get all of the things that we want to do, whether it’s transportation, whether it’s safety, whether it’s law and order.

One of the things that the past administration would not do is give this incredible equipment that we have — excess military equipment. Wouldn’t give it to your police. Would not give it to your law enforcement. They didn’t like the idea — the administration — of armored vehicles. I guess, maybe, they’d rather have — look, why wouldn’t they want that? People were in danger, people were being killed, people were being shot, people were being hit with rocks during some bad times and some rough places.

And we’ve given out hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of our excess military equipment to your police forces. And I will tell you, every time I go to one of your cities, they come up to me — the police — and they say, “Thank you so much for that equipment. We feel so much safer.” Where they can go in an armored van up to a site and not worried about being shot or hit in the head with a rock. And to me, it’s common sense. But, you know, what can I tell you? But I will say this: Your group really appreciates it.

So with that, I’m going to ask Brian to say a couple of words and then we’ll go around, we’ll take some questions. Maybe we’ll have Rick Scott come up second. And I’m here as long as you need me. Let’s get it all out. We want to help the governors, we want to help our states, and we want to make our schools safe.

Brian? Please. (Applause.)

GOVERNOR SANDOVAL: Mr. President, thank you. And I truly appreciate you. I appreciate all the members of the Cabinet. On behalf of all the governors, I want to thank you for your hospitality and the First Lady’s hospitality yesterday evening. It was an extraordinary night and truly a privilege to be able to visit and enjoy fellowship.

Mr. President, I appreciate, again, your having us all today. We can talk about issues with regard to infrastructure, workforce development, combatting opioids, prison reform, agriculture, healthcare, workforce — all these different issues. And those are things that we all need to talk about.

But the issue of the day is school safety, is public safety, Mr. President. You know, I shared this last night, Mr. President: After the massacre in Las Vegas — the mass shooting, where we lost 58 people, over 500 people were injured — this was a person who used those bump stocks. And I personally want to thank you for taking action to eliminate those, because it, essentially, was a killing field down there, where we had 20,000 people who were simply helpless. And that is an important first step.

You mentioned, in your remarks, school safety and public safety. And we need to have this national conversation with regard to what we’re going to do. I suppose you were looking for some suggestions, some ideas, and it will come in the form of questions, as well.

But I would suggest, Mr. President, with regard to the scope of the FBI background checks, if we could broaden those, Mr. President. Because I know, in my state, our background states are much broader. When we do an FBI background check, it does not include an adjudication of mental illness. It does not include an adjudication of a domestic violence protection order or a conviction for domestic violence. I think those are things that absolutely need to be included, and there are other categories that would be included in an expansion of FBI background checks.

We talked about this at dinner, with regard to Governor Scott. And again, my heart goes out to you and to the victims there in Florida, and Texas, and everywhere else where this has happened. And we need to have this national conversation. We need to bring the strength, the wisdom of all the governors and everyone else across the country to have this conversation.

Something else that we have done in Nevada, with regard to school safety, is, I included in my budget more money for social workers in the schools. We’ve had shootings where we’ve had bullied students that didn’t have access to resources at the schools, so now we have a social worker in every school. So somebody come to that — Mr. President, we talked about that last night, and that’s something else that we can do.

But again, having a room together like this, there’s no problem that we cannot solve. Every one of us brings a unique experience that we can come to solve this problem. You’re right, Mr. President — as a parent of a daughter who attends a middle school where there was simply a rumor that something could happen, and, one day later, half the school was absent — we can’t have parents living in fear. We can’t have students living in fear. They can’t teach, the kids can’t learn, and it’s just no way for our education system to operate.

So I know that I’m going to offer my experience to you, Mr. President. And I think I can speak for all the governors of the United States of America that we are here to solve this problem, once and for all. You are right, we need to take action now. The status quo is unacceptable.

So, with that, God bless you, Mr. President. God bless our great country. Thank you. (Applause.)

GOVERNOR SCOTT: Well, the first thing I want to do is I want to thank the President for making something happen. All of us, as governors, know, in any jobs we’ve had, you have to get something done. If you — anybody that has gone through one of these — and if you’ve gone to the funeral of a 14-year-old girl that her parents just loved her, you know that you have to make a change.

So what we’ve done in the last — I guess, it’s a little less than two weeks — we’ve looked at what other governors have done. We’ve brought people together. I’m very appreciative of what the President has done by bringing us all together to talk about this, and also what he did last week by bringing people together because it has created momentum to make sure something happens this time, that we don’t go through this and nothing happen.

So, in our state, the way I’ve done this is I’ve broken it down into three things. Number one, we’re going to have school safety. No parent in our state is going to say, “I’m concerned whether my child can go to school safely.” If you go to school in Florida, you’re going to know that your child can come home safely. If you’re a teacher, if you work at one of these schools, you’re going to know you’re going to come home safely. That’s step one.

We’re going to spend $500 million. I have two weeks left in my legislative session; I’m not waiting for the federal government. We’re going to invest $500 million, and we’re going to have significant law enforcement presence at every public school in our state.

We’ve already been investing dollars in hardening our schools. We’re not only going to invest a lot more state dollars, but we’re going to say any local dollars that go to capital outlay by our school districts, the first thing all those dollars have to be spent on is school hardening. It’s the most important thing we can do, is harden these schools. So we’re going to do it.

And, by the way, the way it’s going to happen is our sheriffs are going to oversee how all the money is spent to make sure that the money is spent the right way. There will be a plan annually, and the money will be spent the right way.

Number two, mental illness. We’re going to have mental health counselors in every school to make sure that all of our students can go through counseling or meet with a mental health counselor as often as they want. We’re going to do it.

We’re also going to have threat assessment teams. Virginia did that after their shooting. We’re going to have that in all of our schools, where you’ll have children, families, juvenile justice, teachers, principals, local law enforcement, all together, and say, “What are the threat assessments in our schools?” And we’re going to do that.

Next, we’re going to invest more dollars in mental health in our Children and Families Program. We do that around our state, but we’re going to invest more dollars to make sure we have youth teams all around our state to help them.

Finally, we’re not going to have — you’re not going to, in Florida, have access to a gun — if you struggle with mental illness, are you going to make violent threats — you’re not going to have access to a gun in our state. You shouldn’t have access to a gun, and you’re not.

So what we’re going to do is we’re going to have a violence threat restraining order that a family member, a mental health individual, or law enforcement can go to the court system — there will be due process — but they can make sure that you don’t have access to a gun.

If you’ve been involuntarily committed because you’re a threat to yourself or others, you will not have access to a gun. You’ll have to give those guns up. There will be due process. You can get those guns back, but we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.

We’re going to make sure, as you do background checks, all this information is out there so we can make sure we know who has the guns.

So, in our state, we are going to get all this done, and we’re going to get it done in the next two weeks. I’ve been talking to my legislative leadership every day. They’re committed to be a partner. But in Florida, I want to make sure every parent knows that their child is going to come home safe and sound every day.

Thank you, Mr. President. (Applause.)

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Rick, and thank you, Brian, very much. Great job you’ve done, too, as chairman. Thank you.

Okay. Would you like to say — I think I can bring this over. It might be easier just to pass this around.

GOVERNOR IVEY: Thank you, Mr. President. Like you, I believe that the local officials have an awful lot of insight into what each school needs to provide public school safety. So as I mentioned a little earlier to this group, Mr. President, I suggested that we give our local folks a list of things that they can do quickly, like limit the number of entrances that a school has to enter the building. And then, equip every child above the 6th grade with a chip-activated card to enter that entrance.

And also, you can consider putting in a metal detector at one or two or three entrances, since you’re limiting the number of entrances. Also, a surveillance system. And that surveillance system can be tied to the virtual Alabama Visual Center at the Education Department, so it’s instant information all at the same time.

Certainly, training in mental health situation is fine, but for the immediate, I just think we need to give some guidance to our local people, and limit the access to entrancing, and equip with surveillance systems, metal detectors, or whatever they choose to do. Where is the money coming from? They’ve got some local money, but, in our state budget, there’s been a technology fund. And a senator and I are working, and he introduced the bill last week, to be able to free up some of that money for use for school safety.

So these are not costly things, but they are things that can be done immediately to improve school safety.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kay.

How about going around the room. Anybody has some great ideas or suggestions? Governor?

GOVERNOR INSLEE: Thanks, Mr. President. Two comments. One from the state of Washington. Thank you.

We have a program called the Extreme Risk Protection Orders System that has been supremely effective in allowing family members that realize there’s a risk, to have them separated from their firearm. It involves a judicial decision. It involves a hearing. And it has saved lives, and I’m sure, in the state of Washington.

And I would commend it to you for national attention, because it makes sure that when you have an uncle that might be — you have concern about depression — it allows law enforcement to separate your uncle, and depressed uncle, from his firearm. If you have somebody in your family that might have some violent tendencies, after a hearing and a potential ex parte order, you get an order to actually allow law enforcement to remove them. It’s been in operation for a year. It’s been extremely successful. I would commend it to you.

Second issue. Now I know that you have suggested arming our teachers. And I just —

THE PRESIDENT: No. No, no. Not your teachers.

GOVERNOR INSLEE: Not your teachers.

THE PRESIDENT: Arming a small portion that are very gun adept, that truly know how to handle it. Because I do feel, Governor, it’s very important that gun-free zones — you have a gun-free zone, it’s like an invitation for these very sick people to go there.

I do think that there has to be some form of major retaliation if they’re able to enter a school. And if that happens, you’re not going have any problems anymore, because they’re never going to the school. You’re never going to have a problem.

So it would just be a very small group of people that are very gun adept. Anyway, go ahead, Governor.

GOVERNOR INSLEE: If I may respond to that. Let me just suggest, whatever percentage it is — I heard at one time you might have suggested 20 percent — whatever percentage it is, speaking as a grandfather, speaking as the Governor of the state of Washington, I have listened to the people who would be affected by that. I have listened to the biology teachers, and they don’t want to do that, at any percentage. I’ve listened to the first-grade teachers that don’t want to be pistol-packing first-grade teachers. I’ve listened to law enforcement who have said they don’t want to have to train teachers as law enforcement agents, which takes about six months.

Now, I just think this is a circumstance where we need to listen, that educators should educate, and they should not be foisted upon this responsibility of packing heat in first grade classes.

Now, I understand you have suggested this. And we suggest things, and sometimes then we listen to people about it, and maybe they don’t look so good a little later. So I just suggest we need a little less tweeting here and a little more listening. And let’s just take that off the table and move forward.

THE PRESIDENT: All right. Thank you very much. You know, we have a number of states right now that do that. And I think, with that in mind, I’ll call on Greg Abbott, the great governor of Texas. Greg.

GOVERNOR ABBOTT: Sure. Texas authorized schools to adopt policies to implement a school marshal program where individuals would be trained to have a weapon and to be able to use that weapon. And we now have well over a hundred school districts in the state of Texas where teachers or other people who work in the school do carry a weapon, and are trained to be able to respond to an attack that occurs.

Now, it’s not always a schoolteacher. It could be a coach, it could be an administrator, it could be anybody who works in that school. But it’s a well-thought-out program with a lot of training in advance. And, candidly, some school districts, they promote it. Because they will have signs out front — a warning sign: “Be aware, there are armed personnel on campus” — warning anybody coming on there that they — if they attempt to cause any harm, they’re going to be in trouble.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think that’s great. And so, essentially, what you’re saying is that when a sick individual comes into that school, they can expect major trouble. Right? Major trouble. The bullets are going to be going toward him, also. And I think that’s great. And you know what’s going to happen? Nobody is going into that school, Greg. That’s a big difference.

That was really well said. Thank you very much. Anybody? Governors are so quiet, I can’t believe it.

GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON: Mr. President —

THE PRESIDENT: So well behaved today. I can’t believe this. (Laughter.)

GOVERNOR HUTCHINSON: We’ll start acting up soon. (Laughter.)

Mr. President, I just want to say that, in Arkansas, we have a very similar situation or program as what Greg has described in Texas. I have the belief that no teacher should be compelled, and most of them want to teach and focus on that. But others are concerned about their students and have training and specific capacity as you have described.

And so we have licensed certain school districts and those who want to be trained more significantly so that they can handle an active shooter situation. And so we have over 13 schools in Arkansas that can’t afford a school resource officer. They prefer to have those either in the classroom or an assistant coach or somebody that would have a response capability. And that’s the key thing. So that flexibility.

I think what the governors want to say is that there can’t be, necessarily, a national security plan, but the states can develop this.

And we did make some recommendations back in 2012, though, in reference to federal grants. Some of the biggest expense is training. Some of the biggest expense will be hardening of our schools, as Governor Ivey suggested. And so I hope that your Department of Homeland Security — in looking at some of the grants that come from DHS in terms of security, fighting terrorists — some of that money can be utilized by local jurisdictions, as well, for the protection of the number-one priority of protecting our students and our schools.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. And, Governor, you know how well we’re doing. It’s a never-ending quest. But with respect to MS-13, and these people are really causing havoc in certain communities, and with schoolchildren, and people walking home from school — what’s going on. And we’re moving them out by the thousands.

But we have to get immigration laws that allow us to do what we have to be able to do. They are so soft. No country in the world has immigration laws so soft like we do. So that’s also a part of it.

I appreciate what you said. Thank you very much, Governor. Yes, Paul.

GOVERNOR LEPAGE: Mr. President, I would ask that you address the Congress and ask them to look at the HIPAA laws, particularly with mental illness. Because we need help from the federal government to loosen up the laws so that we can do the truly good background checks on people.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. And that’s what we’re going to be doing. And as you know, Paul, we’re really, I think, going to have the support of the NRA having to do with background checks — very strong background checks — and a very heavy section on mental health, far different than what we’ve had in the past.

Thank you, Paul. Yes, ma’am. Yes.

GOVERNOR MARTINEZ: Thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us, the governors, to participate and give our perspectives, as each of our states are different. And as I’ve thanked you before, this was not something that we were engaged in before with previous administrations.

I do see that there is a huge pool of retired law enforcement officers where municipalities and counties have actually invested a lot of money into training them, and now they’re retired. And often, because they are receiving a public retirement, they cannot go back into that similar kind of retirement plan. If they go into an educational plan, they can actually work for a school, be trained. The school doesn’t have to train them. But, also, they can learn and figure out where cameras and different security pieces need to be implemented within the schools, because of their experience and training.

And so this is a pool of folks that we can immediately put out without having to expend great amount of dollars, and keeping our schools and our school personnel safe.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s well said. The fact is that, if you have a teacher, or you have a coach, or you have somebody that’s very adept — only adept, because a lot of people don’t have anything; they don’t know what it looks like; they can’t lift it. But only adept at weaponry and guns. And only a small number; you don’t need that many.

But we all learned a lot over the weekend, or last week, when you saw a man that was properly armed standing outside, probably afraid to go in. And now it turns out that there were probably four of them. They don’t love the students; they don’t know the students. The teachers love the students, and they want to protect those students.

The other thing is cost. The school in Florida was so large, Rick. Such a big school. You would have had to have 100, 150 guards. I mean, you would have had to have a lot of guards to have that building properly manned. Then you have an armed camp. Whereas, doing it like I think you’re suggesting it, and like many people in this room agree with, it costs almost nothing. I would actually give a bonus to every coach, teacher, et cetera, because they should go through training. As good as they are, they should go through a very strong, strenuous training. But I would like to give them a bonus.

So let’s say you gave them a thousand-dollar bonus for the year, and you’d have 50 or 60 of them in the school — compare that to paying $40,000, $50,000, $60,000 each. Where are the schools going to get that kind of money?

Somebody suggested last night, “We’re going to harden the doors. We’re going to make it impossible to get in.” I said, “That’s good, except in one instance: if the killer gets in and he closes the doors and you can’t get into the school.” They said, “Ah, I never thought of that.” Don’t forget, I was in the real estate business. And when you harden those schools, you’re not going to get in. But if they get in, then you’re not getting in. Law enforcement is not getting in.

Somebody else said, “Oh, we have something that we’re working on.” Wait until you see the cost of these things. Smoke fills into the school. Smoke. So you have a guy standing there with a weapon, and now he’s getting crazy because there’s smoke all over. All he’s going to do is shoot endlessly. He’s going to go nuts. This is another plan; this is a new one, I’m sure, put out by some company that wants to make a lot of money: “Smoke is going to fill the room and fills the hallways.” That’s not going to help. And then law enforcement is going to go and fight through the smoke. They’re not going to know what they’re shooting. This is a serious plan. And I think I talked that particular person out of it.

But I really — I do — when you talk about hardening. The other thing is this: Harden. You harden. The cost to your schools, and your communities, and the federal government, will be astronomical. When you start putting in main doors, closing other doors, changing hallways around, changing — you’re talking about hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars. And you can do it for nothing.

As you, and myself, and our great Governor from Texas and others — I think there are nine states that do it that way, and they’re thrilled. They’re thrilled. And you know what it says? “Come on in, folks. Come on in.” But they’re not coming in, because they don’t want to get shot.

Look at this guy, Cruz. He leaves with the students. He tried to sneak away. And I’ll tell you, one policeman who did a good job was the one that caught him a couple of communities away. It wasn’t even, Rick, in that community. I know all those communities. But it wasn’t in that community. It’s sort of far away.

And he said, “That’s the guy, I think, that maybe did it, based on a description.” And he went out and he got him. Now, they would have gotten him anyway, I guess, but who knows how much more damage would have been inflicted? So he did a great job.

Look, law enforcement is great. But we all learn something when we saw Peterson standing outside of that school. He wanted no part of it. He heard the power, and he heard, probably, the screaming and the bullets, and he wanted no part of it. And then three other guys came to help. They wanted no part of it. That was a terrible, terrible job. The only worse job is that they didn’t nab this guy earlier, because you had 39 red flags. That was a worse job.

So we — I think we learned a lot. But if you don’t have retribution, if you’re not going to do something very serious to these guys when they walk in, they’re going to keep walking in. You’re going to have this all the time. You’re going to have it — they have to know, they walk in, they’re going to probably end up dead. And if they know they’re going to end up dead, they’re not going into that school.

Question? Yes, Matt?

GOVERNOR BEVIN: I don’t beg to differ with most of what has been said here. But most of what we’re talking about are things that are costly — have monetary cost.

I do think it’s important for us to start, at every level, with your office, with our respective offices as well, to seize the bully pulpits that we have to talk about the culture in this society. And I would challenge those in the media who would want to mock and ridicule this, and would want to say that anybody who advocates for this, to find some fault in that person as a reason why that person should not be the one advocating for a higher level of moral authority or higher mores, to think twice, because these are your children and grandchildren as well.

And when we mock and ridicule the very foundational principles that this nation was built upon, where you treat people the way you’d want to be treated, where you respect human life, where you respect the dignity of women and of children and of people who we have increasingly degraded in our society. This culture of death is becoming pervasive.

And if it’s not addressed by all the imperfect people in this room, with a sense of purpose and a sense of aspiration, I think we’re going to see a continued trajectory that’s not good.

Many things have not changed. There have always been guns. And there were fewer restrictions. There have always been guns in homes and fewer rules. It isn’t to say that these rules and these restrictions are necessarily bad.

But what has changed is what we do or don’t do as it relates to acknowledging the value and the dignity of every human life. And when you couple that with the number of psychiatric drugs that are increasingly systemic, and that have very severe warnings associated with them related to depression and suicidal thoughts — you put all these things in a mess, and no one among us is bold enough or willing to step up and challenge the fact that this is a problem? This is why it goes unchecked.

And I would call on you, sir, as I’m calling on my fellow governors and myself, to seize the opportunities we have to call America to higher action as it relates to our mores.

THE PRESIDENT: Good.

GOVERNOR BEVIN: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Matt. And that’s why we’re here. And I think — you know, I don’t know if it’s going to be mentioned, but you have to also look at videos. They’re vicious. You look at some of these videos. I mean, I don’t know what this does to a young kid’s mind. Somebody growing up and forming and looking at videos where people are just being blown away left and right.

The Internet, movies — you look at these movies that are out today. I see, just by a commercial, the level of craziness and viciousness in the movies. I think we have to look at that, too. Maybe we have to put a rating system on that. They have a rating system for other subjects. Maybe we have to do a rating system for that.

But it has to have an impact on — it just doesn’t — it doesn’t take many minds. If it was 1 percent or less, that’s a lot. It’s all it takes. It just takes one person to do tremendous damage. So I think it’s something we have to look at, also.

Question? Yes, Governor.

GOVERNOR BULLOCK: Mr. President, again, thank you for having us. I approach this, certainly, as a governor. I approach it as a gun owner; that 11-year-old got his first deer —

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right.

GOVERNOR BULLOCK: — this past fall.

THE PRESIDENT: He’s a good boy.

GOVERNOR BULLOCK: I approach it as a victim. I had a nephew, shot and killed — an 11-year-old — on a playground. I approach it as a parent with three young kids, saying, just like every other parent and grandparent, we need to do everything we can to keep our kids safe.

I think parenthetically, sometimes the language that we use can help define some things that certainly understand the idea of hardening schools. But that seems like we’re hardening potential military targets. I think we, as leaders, need to be saying we’re going to do everything we can to make that school safe for the kids.

I think that there are steps, and many of them you begin to reference, that we could take that could make a difference. If we can look at this as a public health issue. You mentioned the NICS system. We can improve the instant check system. And we also know about a quarter of the guns that are sold don’t even get into that system. So a universal background check. We know that 10 percent of our homicides each year are in intimate relationships. So the orders of protection, the domestic violence, making sure that’s in NICS.

As Governor Scott mentioned, red-flag laws. Making sure that law enforcement and families have a way, still using due process, to actually remove guns from people that might be that imminent threat.

I applaud you on bump stocks. That’s one of those things that there is no other reason. And we could certainly look at the higher magazine capacity as well. It’s one of those things that you probably don’t need.

And I encourage you, as you go on the path of looking at what you can do in schools — I used to be attorney general and ran the law enforcement academy, too, and would graduate these police officers each and every year. I want to make sure, if somebody is armed in a school, that they have that training; that we know that he or she — it’s much more, as I think you recognize, than just carrying concealed — that they have that training that I, as a parent, can say that this person, under pressure, will know what to do with a firearm before we start introducing the firearms into our schools.

I think we’re at a unique — hopefully, we’re at a unique moment — where, certainly, as I said — you know, 43 times since I’ve been governor, I’ve been asked to lower the flags. Twelve of them have been for mass shootings in the last five years.

It’s almost, on the one hand, to the point that we’re getting desensitized, but other hand, here is a moment where everybody is talking, where we can hopefully start saying, “What could actually meaningfully impact this, not just for today, but for the future?”

So, thank you so much.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Governor.

GOVERNOR BULLOCK: And I hope that those areas, you’ll certainly take both the bully pulpit and the leadership in Congress.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Great points. It was great being with you last night.

You mentioned two words: under pressure. And a lot of people never really know what that means, because, you know, they train a whole life. Look at Peterson. Look what he did in Broward, where he thought he was probably a brave guy, but he wasn’t a brave guy under pressure. He choked. And other people choked. I mean, a lot of people choked in that case.

And we have to have people trained. We have to — you know, you have to have some kind of a budget where it works. When many of the governors happen to, you know, like the idea of trained people within schools, but the press has to get the word out honestly.

For instance, I went through a very detailed — it could be 10 percent, it could be 5 percent, could be 20 percent — these are really gun-adept people. Very few people would qualify. On top of being gun adept, they have to go to school and they have to learn, and, you know, maybe there will a bonus given to those people, and maybe there should be, frankly. Because they should go, on a yearly basis, to school. They start with training and then they have additional training every year. And I think they should get a bonus. But it’s a very small amount of money compared to what it would cost. I think it would be very effective.

But when the press covered it, the headline was, “Trump wants all teachers to have guns.” “Trump wants teachers to have guns.” I don’t want teachers to have guns. I want highly trained people that have a natural talent, like hitting a baseball, or hitting a golf ball, or putting. How come some people always make the four-footer, and some people, under pressure, can’t even take their club back? Right? Some people can’t take their club back.

And you don’t know what it is. You know, those words are hard to train for, but you want to have the number of people where people know they’re going to be — the bad guy has to understand that there’s a big price to pay when they mess around with our students. You can’t just say, “Oh, we’re going to harden our schools. We’re going to blow smoke into the rooms. We’re going to do all this stuff that is not going to work.” You have to let people know that they’re going to suffer the ultimate price.

And you know what? And I said it before — you’re not going to have incidents, they’re not going to do it, because they’re innately cowards. But I love what you said. I agree very much with what you said.

Question? Governor — Phil.

GOVERNOR BRYANT: Mr. President, October the 1st of 1997, Luke Woodham, a 16-year-old student, came into Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi after he had bludgeoned his mother to death that morning with a 30-30 lever-action rifle, killed two students, and began to shoot at others. A vice principal, who was an Army Reserve officer, went to his vehicle, retrieved his 1911 .45, and stopped that shooter before he could kill other children in Pearl, Mississippi.

When I heard you speak of your idea, that was the concept I believed in. Find that Army Reserve vice principal, give him the training he necessarily needs, arm him, and stop this madness.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Phil.

GOVERNOR BRYANT: Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, many of these people are teachers too. They’re retired. They’re 20 years in the Marines. They can handle a weapon, world-class. They don’t even need the training, but they should get it anyway. Everybody should have very strong training.

But, you know, you have many — like General Kelly, standing back there. I wouldn’t mind if he was a teacher. I’d like him to be our teacher. And if he happened to be concealed — carrying concealed — I’d feel very good about that. That, to me, is better.

And he’s on the site. Don’t forget — the other thing, Phil, they’re on the site. They’re not outside. They’re not 20 minutes away in a police station where an alarm rings, and they go, and by the time they get there, they don’t know the school, they don’t know the floors. These people know everything intimately. I think it works.

Look, I’ve been watching this for — I’ve only been doing this for two-and-a-half years. After that, I was a civilian. And I had a nice life. I had a very easy, nice, beautiful life. I actually got great press. I was the king of getting good press, Governor. You know that? It was only when I did this that I got bad press. (Laughter.)

But you know what? I’ve been watching this, folks, from a different slant. Many of you, most of you, have been politicians for a long time. I’ve been watching you, I’ve been watching everybody — for 30 years I’ve been watching this situation. Nothing is done. It’s the same thing. Nothing is done.

They have a meeting. They all go home. Two weeks later, it’s a little bit — sadly — and I hate to say it — other than the parents who are so devastated, and the families that are so badly affected, and the people that were hit. You know, nobody ever talks about the wounded. They talk about the 17 dead. But I’ve — you know, I saw people that were so — Rick — so seriously wounded. Nobody ever talks.

The maniac on the West Side Highway that ran over eight people — they keep saying, “He killed eight people.” He just took — it’s, essentially, a park. It’s like a beautiful stretch along the Hudson River that I know so well.

He’s going down 80 miles an hour, down the West Side Highway, and he said, “Hey, look at those people. I’m going to turn it.” And he killed eight people. What they don’t talk about are the 14 people that were devastated. They go to put themselves in shape and to work out, and they’re very proud, and they end up missing a leg and missing an arm, or missing two legs and an arm.

And nobody ever talks about those people. They talk about the people, obviously, that died. They don’t talk about the people that are so devastated. And you have that — you have many people. I saw a lot of those people. Hopefully, they’re going to be okay after a long time in rehab. But a lot of them won’t be, and we got to remember them, too. Those people are great people. Got to remember them, too.

Okay. How about one or two more. Yes, Governor.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Again, thank you. I’ve enjoyed hearing from my fellow colleagues of what’s going on in their respective states. And it reminds me this is a very complex issue. There is no simple solution, unfortunately, for us. I think there’s roles to play for the federal government — some of the things you’re proposing.

But I think most of the solutions are going to come from the states. We have some states that are doing things with arming personnel inside the school system that they seem to think is working well. I know I’m working with my legislature, as recently as last night, in talking about what is the cost for education. What is the cost — you’re a businessman — to do business.

THE PRESIDENT: That’s right. That’s right.

GOVERNOR HERBERT: Some of this is, in fact, embedding law enforcement, trained personnel in whatever form or fashion you want is going to be at additional cost. That’s the result of society today. How we’ve got to this kind of society — Governor Bevin — and some of the things that are desensitizing our children, the challenges of life today, and its complexities — who knows?

But I do believe this: Each state is going to have to find their own way, based on their own culture, based on their own politics, based on their own unique demographics. And we’ll learn from each other. We’ll find what works, and we’ll homogenize, probably, together.

But the states, these little pilot programs, that’s the beauty of our concept of federalism. And these states, out there finding solutions to the problems that ail the people.

This is the problem of today: safety in our schools. I look to learn from all of you, as we tried our own way in Utah to find a solution to this very critical and timely issue.

Thanks for your leadership.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Governor. I appreciate it. And you said something very important. The states can do these various programs without the federal government also.

And we’re there to help, and we’ll help monetarily — which is very important, because a lot of the school budgets, especially, they don’t have the money. I mean, where are they going to get the money to put 100 guards into the school in Parkland? I mean, it’s very tough. It’s a tough situation.

But the federal government can help out.

But a lot of these solutions that we talk about — whether you agree with me or you agree with somebody else — you can do them pretty much by yourselves within your state. Like our great governor of Texas, Greg — we have an attitude on retribution. Because I say the only way you stop it is retribution. I don’t think you’re going to stop it by being kind. I don’t think you’re going to stop it at all. You’re going to have problems.

But if a state feels that way, I say you have to go and you have to do what you have to do. I guess we have nine states that are doing what you’re doing, Greg — at least nine. And some are coming, and they’re coming fast. But the states can do a lot of this work themselves. They can do most of it.

And we’ll back you up, regardless of what you want to do. If you agree or disagree with the state of Texas and other states that do it differently, I think that’s fine. Just go and do it yourself. We will be there to help you no matter what your solution is.

But this is largely a state issue, in terms of that school’s security. And, in many cases, it’s a local issue. You know, in many cases, you don’t even need approval from the state. You can go in as a school district and do what you have to do for the safety of your children. So my attitude is: Get it done, and get it done properly.

It is an honor to be with you. So many friends. And we’re going to see you a little bit later. But I think this was a really great meeting. And, Brian, I want to thank you very much. Fantastic job, thank you.

I appreciate it very much. I’ll see you in a little while. Thank you. Thank you. (Applause.)

END – 11:55 A.M. EST

First Lady Melania Trump delivers remarks during the annual governors spouse luncheon at the White House.

[Transcript] – 12:29 P.M. EST

MRS. TRUMP: Thank you. Good afternoon. It is wonderful to see all of you again.

The President and I enjoyed hosting everyone with the National Governors Association here at the White House last night. And I hope you all had a lovely evening.

This is the second time we have been able to spend time together at the spouses’ luncheon, and I’m honored to host you all today.

Before I begin, I want to be sure we take a moment to reflect on the horrific shooting in Florida. Our continued thoughts and prayers go out to all who were affected by such a senseless act. As a parent, I cannot imagine the kind of grief and tragedy like that brings.

And I hope, and I know, we all find ourselves wondering what we can do to help. In my year as First Lady, I have also learned that it’s oftentimes after a tragedy that you see the strength and resilience of the human spirit. I have been heartened to see children across this country using their voices to speak out and try to create change. They are our future, and they deserve a voice.

I know all of you are seeing this in your own states and territories, too. And I believe that if we all come together, we can start to effect positive change for our children and help prepare them for their futures.

As I have said before, it is important that, as adults, we take the lead and the responsibility in helping our children manage the many issues they are facing today. This means encouraging positive habits with social media and technology; even limiting time online and understanding the content they are exposed to on a daily basis.

This also means taking the time to teach them about the real dangers in drug abuse and addiction. This country is in the middle of an opioid crisis. Let’s use that grim reality as a tool to stop this epidemic.

Before you leave to go back to your wonderful states and territories, I’m asking you all to join me today and commit to promoting values such as encouragement, kindness, compassion, and respect in our children.

With those values as a solid foundation, our kids will be better equipped to deal with many of the evils in our world today, such as drug abuse and addiction and negative social media interactions.

In my role as First Lady, I want to nurture and protect the most valuable part of our society and our future: children. I hope you will join me today in my efforts and ask for your support. My office will be reaching out to many of you in the future, as we travel the country and work to promote and fight for the wellbeing of our children.

Thank you all for being here today, and thank you for all that you do for your home states and territories. God bless each of you and your families. And God bless the United States of America. (Applause.)

END

One of the more interesting CPAC discussion segments between one of the top experts within the cabinet, Office of Management and Budgets (OMB) Director Mick Mulvaney.

.

Currently Director Mulvaney is wearing two hats; he spends 3 days a week as OMB Director, and 3 days a week as interim director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

Earlier today President Trump and First-Lady Melania welcomed Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to the White House.  At the conclusion of their meeting, the President and Prime Minister held a joint press conference.

.

Yesterday it was revealed that Broward County School Police Officer Scot Peterson refused to enter building for over four minutes during the active shooter rampage.  Today we discover that an additional three more Broward County Deputies arrived yet did nothing.

Officers from neighboring Coral Springs police department arrived on scene, noted the four Broward Deputies refusing to engage, and the CSPD immediately went into the building.   According to a CNN report, the following day, February 15th, Coral Springs City Manager Mike Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel over the dereliction of duty and cowardice exhibited by the Broward deputies.

I wish I could tell you I’m surprised; but I’m not.  As we previously researched and outlined, the conduct by the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) is not unexpected.  Their behavior is shameful, but not unexpected. From the top down, officials within the BSO are focused on political objectives within Broward County and maintaining/defending a political status amid all county officials:

(Via CNN) When Coral Springs police officers arrived at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on February 14 in the midst of the school shooting crisis, many officers were surprised to find not only that Broward County Sheriff’s Deputy Scot Peterson, the armed school resource officer, had not entered the building, but that three other Broward County Sheriff’s deputies were also outside the school and had not entered, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. The deputies had their pistols drawn and were behind their vehicles, the sources said, and not one of them had gone into the school.

With direction from the Broward deputies who were outside, Coral Springs police soon entered the building where the shooter was. New Broward County Sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, and two of those deputies and an officer from Sunrise, Florida, joined the Coral Springs police as they went into the building.

Some Coral Springs police were stunned and upset that the four original Broward County Sheriff’s deputies who were first on the scene did not appear to join them as they entered the school, Coral Springs sources tell CNN. It’s unclear whether the shooter was still in the building when they arrived.  (read more)

The day after Coral Springs City Manager Goodrum confronted Broward County Sheriff Israel, Coral Springs Police Chief Anthony Pustizzi sent out this email to his staff Feb 16:

Everyone in the surrounding communities know exactly how corrupt Broward and Miami-Dade officials are.  No-one outside the area with any common sense is blind. The only difference amid outside observers is how much they know.   Only a few, like the CSPD, know how bad it really is because they encounter the participants during overlaps.

The Broward system of civic society has one filter, that filter is politics.  Everything else comes after that filter is applied.   Do some research and you’ll see it surface EVERYWHERE; not just in school administration and law enforcement, everywhere.

If reporters keep digging and asking questions people will discover they are only seeing the very tippy-top of the heavily politicized agenda within Broward County law enforcement, school administration and all around civic leadership. Citizens are co-dependents to their own abuse.

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel is just one cog in an institutional system that is fraught with corruption and negligence at multiple levels.   You don’t pull off this level of gross malfeasance, openly -in front of the entire population- for years,  without strong internal support mechanisms.

Factually I’m shocked this much has surfaced.  Normally Broward and Miami-Dade keep a tight cover on all these issues through their ideological friends and allies at the top of the media enterprises.  Obviously the local news media editorial boards and corporate owners are struggling to keep control over inquires from outside news agencies.

However, given prior experience don’t expect this sunlight to last much longer.

We can be relatively certain executives at news groups within the Miami-Dade and Broward affiliates are quickly calling their outside peers with instructions to remain focused on the larger political objectives.  Inquiries will stop soon…. all will be swept under the proverbial rug… the blood will be washed away….. and the citizenry will be lulled back to sheep…

That’s not cynicism, that is reality.

All your children are belong to them.

There is no Donald Trump type political strength of character in the area to confront the corruption.  The system will self-protect.

Just watch:

A relaxed, confident and jovial president enjoys his first visit to CPAC following a year of MAGAnomic policy implementation.  Lots of good stuff to talk about…. and even time for a recitation of “The Snake” poem.

[Transcript] Oxon Hill, Maryland – 10:16 A.M. EST – THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you everybody. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Matt, for that great introduction. And thank you for this big crowd. This is incredible. Really incredible. (Applause.)

We’ve all come a long way together. We’ve come a long way together. I’m thrilled to be back at CPAC, with so many of my wonderful friends and amazing supporters, and proud conservatives. (Applause.) Remember when I first started running? Because I wasn’t a politician, fortunately. But do you remember I started running and people would say, “Are you sure he’s a conservative?” I think now we’ve proved that I’m a conservative, right? (Applause.)

For more than four decades, this event has served as a forum for our nation’s top leaders, activists, writers, thinkers. Year after year, leaders have stood on this stage to discuss what we can do together to protect our heritage, to promote our culture, and to defend our freedom.

CPAC has always been about big ideas and it’s also been about putting those ideas into action. And CPAC really has put a lot of ideas into action. We’ll talk about some of them this morning.

For the last year, with your help, we have put more great conservative ideas into use than perhaps ever before in American history. (Applause.) Right?

By the way, what a nice picture that is. Look at that. I’d love to watch that guy speak. (Laughter.) Oh, boy. That’s a — I try like hell to hide that bald spot, folks. I work hard at it. (Applause.) It doesn’t look bad. Hey, we’re hanging in. We’re hanging in. We’re hanging in there, right? Together, we’re hanging in.

We’ve confirmed a record number — so important — of circuit court judges, and we are going to be putting in a lot more. (Applause.) And they will interpret the law as written. And we’ve confirmed an incredible new Supreme Court justice, a great man, Neil Gorsuch. (Applause.) Right?

We’ve passed massive — biggest in history — tax cuts and reforms. (Applause.) You know, I don’t use the word “reform.” There was a lot of reform, too. Very positive reform. I don’t use it. And when we were first doing it, I told everybody — everybody gathered — I said, “Just talk about tax cuts. People don’t know what reform means. They think reform might mean it’s going up.” And I said, “Do tax cuts.”

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

AUDIENCE: Booo —

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. How did he get in here, Matt? Boy. Okay. Just for the media, the fake news back there, they took very good care of him. They were very gentle. (Laughter.) He was very obnoxious. It was only one person.

So we have thousands of people here. (Applause.) So listen — tomorrow, the headline will be, “Protestors disturbed the Trump…” — one person, folks. Doesn’t deserve a mention. Doesn’t deserve a headline. The headline tomorrow: “Disrupters of CPAC.” One person. And he was very nice — we looked at him, and he immediately left. Okay. (Laughter and applause.)

No, I’ve had it too often. You’ll have one person, and you can hardly even hear him. In fact, the biggest, really, disturbance are you people. You know why? He’ll say something; nobody hears him. Because it’s all — and then the crowd will start screaming at him. And then all of a sudden we stop for — and that’s okay. You have to show your spirit, right? You have to show your spirit. It’s true. (Applause.)

So we passed the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country. And it was called “tax cut and reform.” And I said to our people, don’t use the word “reform.” Because we were going to call it the “Tax Reform Act.” I said, “No wonder for 45 years nothing has been passed.” Because people want tax cuts, and they don’t know what reform means. Reform can mean you’re going to pay more tax. So I convinced politicians who have done this all their lives — and they do a great job, in many cases — but this was one — they were going, the “Tax Reform Act” of whatever year we want to put. Okay?

So they have the Tax Reform Act, and that was it. And now it was called the Tax Act — Tax Cut Act and Jobs. We had to add “jobs” into it because we’re picking up a tremendous number of jobs — 2.7 million jobs since the election. 2.7. (Applause.)

So now people hear tax cuts, and it has been popular. Remember, it started off a little slow. Then it got passed, and we had some great help. I will say, we had some great help in the Senate, in the House. We have guys here today — we have a lot of congressmen, we have a lot of senators. We had a lot of help. And we got it passed.

Just — it was not easy. We didn’t have one Democrat vote, and I think that’s going to cost them in the midterms. I know that whoever wins the presidency has a disadvantage, for whatever reason, in the midterms. You know what happens? I’m trying to figure it out. Because historically, if you win the presidency, you don’t do well two years later. And you know what? We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) And I know what happens. I finally figured it out. Nobody has been able to explain it. It just happens, statistically, almost all of the time for many years.

What happens is, you fight so hard to win the presidency. You fight, fight, fight. And now only two years — that’s a very short period. And by the time you start campaigning, it’s a year. And now you got to go and fight again. But you just won. So nobody has that same drive that they had. So you end up not doing that well because the other side is going — they’re crazed. And, by the way, they’re crazed anyway, these people. They are really crazed. (Laughter and applause.) Right?

So — because I kept trying to say, “Why is this?” But it’s just there. So the great enthusiasm — you know, you’re sitting back, you’re watching television. “Maybe I don’t have to vote today; we just won the presidency.” And then we get clobbered, and we can’t let that happen. We get clobbered in ’18, and we can’t let that happen — only because we are so happy, we passed so many things. Honestly, and I’ll say — I’ll use the word “my administration” as opposed to me — my administration, I think, has had the most successful first year in the history of the presidency. I really believe that. I really believe it. I really believe it. (Applause.) So, I mean, judges, regulations, everything.

And the beautiful thing about the tax cuts is nobody thought we could do it. Because again, we had to get 100 percent of our vote. And nobody thought we could do it. And, frankly — I mean, to me we got it and it’s turned out to be one of the most popular things. And, by the way, for the Republicans in this room, of which I assume — would you say, is it 99 percent, Matt, or 100 percent? Huh? I would hope it’s close to — you know what, hey, we probably have some Democrats that want to come over. We have a great governor from West Virginia that left the Democratic Party — Big Jim — and he came over to the Republican Party. (Applause.)

So people are sitting there, and they’re saying, “Oh, we just had that great victory. Eh, let’s not vote. Let’s go to a movie. We’re the Republican Party, we’re going to do great.” And then they end up losing.

So you got to keep up the enthusiasm. Now what happens, by the way, they lose. And then you have the presidential election coming up again, and you clobber them because everybody gets off their ass and they get out and they work. Right? And they work. And they work and work and work. And you end up winning the Presidency again. And we should do that — hopefully we’re going to do that very easily.

But never — we have to worry — right now, we have a big race coming up in ’18. You have to get out. You have to just get that enthusiasm. Keep it going. (Applause.)

See, the word, really, is “complacent.” People get complacent. It’s a natural instinct. You just won, and now you’re happy and you’re complacent. Don’t be complacent. Okay? Don’t be complacent. Because if they get in, they will repeal your tax cuts, they will put judges in that you wouldn’t believe, they’ll take away your Second Amendment, which we will never allow to happen. (Applause.) They’ll take away your Second Amendment. (Applause).

AUDIENCE: Donald Trump! Donald Trump!

THE PRESIDENT: Remember that. They will take away — thank you. They will take away those massive tax cuts and they will take away your Second Amendment. By the way, if you only had a choice of one, what would you rather have? The Second Amendment or the tax cuts? Go ahead, Second Amendment, tax cuts. Second Amendment. (Applause.) I’m going to leave it at the Second Amendment. I don’t want to get into that battle, all right?

We’re going to say you want — Matt, we’re going to say you want the Second Amendment the most. But we’re going to get them all. And remember this — (applause) — remember this: We’ve gotten — you know, somebody got on television recently and they said, actually, this is the first time I can remember — Trump made campaign promises. He may be the only person that actually fulfilled more promises than he made. I think that’s true. (Applause.) I fulfilled more promises.

But we have a very crooked media. We had a crooked candidate, too, by the way. But we have a very, very crooked media.

AUDIENCE: Lock her up! Lock her up! Lock her up!

THE PRESIDENT: I will say this, folks: Everything that’s turning out, now it’s amazing that’s come full circle. Boy, have they committed a lot of atrocities when you look. (Applause.) Right? When you look. Have they done things that are wrong.

But remember this: Not only did we get the tax cuts, which everybody said we wouldn’t get — and, by the way, repealed, in that tax cut, the individual mandate, which is a tremendous thing. (Applause.)

This is where you’re forced to pay in order not to have healthcare. Okay? Is that great? You pay for the privilege of not having healthcare. So you’re subsidizing lots of other people. That’s gone. I know people came up to me with tears in their eyes; they’re saying, I’m forced to pay not to have healthcare. Very unfair.

And, by the way, we’re having tremendous plans coming out now — healthcare plans — at a fraction of the cost that are much better than Obamacare. (Applause.) And except for one Senator, who came into a room at 3 o’clock in the morning and went like that — we would have had healthcare, too.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: We would have had healthcare, too. Think of that. But I think we may be better off the way we’re doing it. It’s piece by piece by piece. Obamacare is just being wiped out. The individual mandate, essentially, wipes it out. (Applause.) So I think we may be better off. And people are getting great healthcare plans and we’re not finished yet.

But, remember, one person walked into a room when he was supposed to go this way, and he said he was going this way, and he walked in, and he went this way, and everyone said, “What happened? What was that all about?” Boy, oh, boy. Who was that? I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t want to be controversial, so I won’t use his name. Okay? (Laughter.) What a mess. But it’s all happening anyway. It’s all happening anyway.

And we’ve, at the same time, eliminated a record number of job-killing regulations, and people are going back to work. (Applause.) Right? People are going back to work. So — and you know, the fake news always — if I say something that’s like, a little off, next day headline, “He misrepresents…” — I have to be careful.

But in the history of Presidents, no President — and I’m saying no President. Now, maybe they’ll find I was off by two but we’re here one year. (Laughter.) No President — well, I read it in lots of good papers, actually. (Laughter.) But they’ll change the story when I say it. No President has ever cut so many regulations in their entire term, okay — (applause) — as we’ve cut in less than a year. (Applause.)

And it’s my opinion that the regulations had as big an impact as these massive tax cuts that we’ve given. So I really believe it. (Applause.)

We’ve ended the war on American energy. We were in war. And we’ve ended the war on beautiful, clean coal. (Applause.) One of our great natural resources. And very important for our defense — coal — very important for our defense. Because we have it. We don’t have to send it through pipes. We don’t have to get it from foreign countries. We have more than anybody. And they wanted to end it. And our miners have been mistreated and they’re not being mistreated anymore. We’re doing tremendous business. (Applause.)

I was in Vietnam, and the Prime Minister and the President of Vietnam were there. And we have a massive deficit with them, like we do with everybody else because these Presidents have just let it go to hell. We have the worst trade deals you’ve ever seen. So we’re changing it.

So I said, we have too big of a deficit with Vietnam; I’m not happy. He said, “Well, but we’re going to…” — I said, “Buy coal. Buy coal.” They use a lot of coal. Buy coal. And he said, “You know, we have bought coal from West Virginia and other places, and it’s the finest coal we have ever used.” It’s interesting. And West Virginia now is doing great. You look at what’s happening in West Virginia. You look at what’s happening in Pennsylvania. You look at what’s happening in Ohio. (Applause.) And you look at what’s happening in Wyoming. You look at what’s happening all over. It’s like a — it’s like a different world.

And remember this: Virtually, as soon as I got into office, we approved the Keystone XL pipeline and the Dakota Access pipeline, which would never have been approved. (Applause.) And we announced our withdrawal from the totally disastrous, job-killing, wealth-knocking-out — you know, it knocked out our wealth, or it would have. They basically wanted to take our wealth away. They didn’t want us to use our wealth power. We knocked out the Paris Climate Accord. Would have been a disaster. (Applause.) Would have been a disaster for our country.

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: You know, basically, it said, you have a lot of oil and gas that we found — you know, technology has been amazing — and we found things that we never knew. But we have massive — just about the top in the world — we have massive energy reserves. We have coal. We have so much. And basically, they were saying, don’t use it, you can’t use it.

So what it does is it makes us uncompetitive with other countries. It’s not going to happen. I told them, it’s not going to happen. And, you know, China, their agreement didn’t kick in until 2030. Right? Our agreement kicks in immediately. Russia, they’re allowed to go back into the 1990s, which was not a clean environmental time.

Other countries, big countries — India and others — we had to pay, because they considered them a growing country. They were a growing country. I said, “What are we?” Are we allowed to grow too? Okay? (Laughter.) Now, are we allowed to grow? (Applause.) They called India a “developing nation.” They called China a “developing nation.” But the United States, we’re developed — we can pay.

So, folks, if you don’t mind — I’ll tell you what — it’s amazing how many people understood the Paris Accord, because it sounds so good. It’s like some of the environmental regulations that I cut — they have the most beautiful titles. And sometimes I’d say, “Look, I’m just going to close my eyes and sign this because, you know what, I’m going to get killed on this one.” And I get so much thanks. The country knows what I’m doing. We couldn’t build. We couldn’t farm. If you had a puddle on your land, they called it a lake for the purposes of environmentals. (Applause.) I mean, it’s crazy. It’s crazy.

And I’d sign certain bills and I’d have farmers behind me and I’d have house builders, home builders behind me. And these are tough people, strong people. They fought hard. They’ve worked all their lives, hard. And they’d be — half of them would be crying because we gave them their property back. We gave them the right to earn a living. They couldn’t do it. They couldn’t do what they had to do. We gave them their property back. We gave them their dignity back. (Applause.)

By the way, you don’t mind if I go off script a little bit because, you know, it’s sort of boring. It’s a little boring. (Applause.) Got this beautiful speech, everything is wonderful but a little boring. We have to, you know —

But we gave them their dignity back. And that’s why our country is doing record business. We’re doing record business. We’re doing business — and you have to look at the fundamentals. Companies are pouring back into this country. They’re pouring back. Not like — I mean, when did you hear about car companies coming back into Michigan and coming to Ohio and expanding? (Applause.) When did you hear — you never heard that. You hear they’re leaving. I’ve been talking about it for 20 years.

I was a private sector guy. But for whatever reason, I always had — these guys always covered me much more than anybody else. I always got a lot of these characters. They used to treat me so good too, until I ran for office. I used to get the greatest publicity. A friend of mine said, “You know, you used to be the king of getting great publicity. What happened?” I said, “Well, I have some views that they’re opposed to for a lot of bad reasons.” (Laughter.) A lot of really bad reasons.

But when you look at what’s happening to our country, it’s incredible. And the fundamentals are so strong. The stock market — I just see with all of the ups and downs — since Election Day, is up 37 percent from Election — 37 percent. (Applause.) Now, it did a little bit of a correction. In fact, I started to say — you know, I was in it for like 13, 14 months from election. I say, “Is this sucker ever going down a little bit? This is a little embarrassing.” It was up 100, up 200, up 1,000, up 150, up 90, up 63. I said, “Good, that’s better.” (Laughter.) You know, hey, we’ve got seven years to go, folks. You know, we got a long time to go. (Applause.) So thank you, everybody. You’ve been amazing. You’ve been amazing.

You know what Matt didn’t say — when I was here in 2011, I made a speech, and I was received with such warmth. And they give — they used to give — I don’t know if Matt does that because he might not want to be controversial, but they used to give “the best speech of CPAC.” Do they do that still, Matt? Because you better pick me or I’m not coming back again. (Laughter.)

But — and I got these — everybody, they loved that speech. And that was, I think, Matt — I would say, that might have been the first real political speech that I made. It was a love fest — 2011, I believe the time was — and a lot of people remembered, and they said, “We want Trump. We want Trump.” And after a few years, they go by, and I say, “Here we are. Let’s see what we can do.”

And then everybody said, “He cannot get elected. He cannot do it.” You need 270 votes. You need Electoral College — which, by the way, is much tougher than the popular vote. The popular vote, actually, would be so much easier. You go three or four states, and you just go and you just do great job. Hillary forgets that. You know, she went to these states. I said, “What’s she doing? Why does she keep going back to California?” (Laughter.) Crazy.

Next time, they’re going to remember Iowa. They’re going to remember Ohio. (Applause.) Remember? They spent a lot of time in Pennsylvania to no avail. (Applause.) They spent a lot of money. They spent a lot of money in North Carolina, the great state of North Carolina. (Applause.) We did very well there. We have a great person in the room, Mark Meadows, from North Carolina. (Applause.) He’s around here. Where’s Mark? Where’s Mark? And Deb. And we have Jim Jordan. Warriors. Warriors all. (Applause.) We have a lot of great — we have a lot of great people here. But, you know, we just — we hit a chord.

And if you remember, 2011, probably that was the beginning of what we’ve done. And hopefully, at the end of a period of time, people are going to say thank you, because it is not easy. We’re fighting a lot of forces. They’re forces that are doing the wrong thing. They’re just doing the wrong thing. I don’t want to talk about what they have in mind. But they do the wrong thing. But we’re doing what’s good for our country for the long-term viability and survival. Like, for instance, $700 billion got approved for our military. Our military was going to hell. (Applause.)

We declined to certify the terrible one-sided Iran nuclear deal. That was a horrible deal. (Applause.) Whoever heard you give $150 billion to a nation that has no respect for you whatsoever? They’re saying “Death to America” while they’re signing the agreement. If somebody said “Death to America” while I’m signing an agreement, and I’m President, I immediately say, “What’s going on here, folks? I’m not signing.” (Laughter.) What’s going on?

They just kept going. Kerry — Kerry may be the worst negotiator I’ve ever seen. (Laughter.) How about this guy — how about — and Obama, of course — he’s the one. But how about $1.8 billion in cash? Did you ever see what, like, a million dollars in hundred-dollar bills? A lot of people do it as a promotion. It’s a lot. It’s big. It’s like big. (Laughter.) Now, take that, go to $1.8 billion in cash. $1.8 billion. For what? For what? Why did we do this? Why did we do it?

Anyway, we didn’t certify, and lots of interesting things are happening with that whole mess. But we have to treat — people that treat us well, we treat them well. People that treat us badly, we treat them much worse than they can ever imagine. That’s the way it has to be. (Applause.) That’s the way it has to be.

We officially recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. (Applause.) You know, every President campaigned on, “We’re going to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.” Everybody — for many Presidents — you’ve been reading it. And then they never pulled it off. And I now know why.

Because I put the word out that I may do it. Right? I said, I’d do it in my campaign, so that usually means — unless I find something — I’m going to do it. I was hit by more countries and more pressure and more people calling, begging me, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. Don’t do it.” I said, “We have to do it. It’s the right thing to do. It’s the right thing to do. We have to do it.” (Applause.) And I did it.

But every other President really lied, because they campaigned on it. That was always a big part of the campaign. And then they got into office; they never did it. So I understand why they didn’t do it. Because there was tremendous — the campaign against it was so incredible. But you know what? The campaign for it was also incredible, and we did the right thing. (Applause.)

So we’ve kept our promise, as I said, to rebuild our military, eliminating the defense sequester, which is a disaster. And I don’t know if you saw the number, $700 billion. You know, ultimately, that comes before everything else. We can talk about lots of things. But if we don’t have a strong military, you might not be allowed into this room someday. Okay? You may not have your houses, your homes, your beautiful communities. We better take care of our military. These are the greatest people, and we’re going to take care of our veterans. (Applause.) We’re going to take care of the vets. We’ve been doing a good job on the vets.

And after years of rebuilding other nations — we rebuild other nations — we rebuild other nations that have a lot of money, and we don’t ever say, “Hey, you got to help.” We’re finally rebuilding our nation. We’re rebuilding our nation. (Applause.) And we’re restoring our confidence and our pride.

All of us here today are united by the same timeless values. We defend our Constitution, and we believe in the wisdom of our Founders. Our Constitution is great. (Applause.) We support the incredible men and women of law enforcement. (Applause.) True. We know that a strong nation must have strong borders. We celebrate our history and our heroes, and we believe young Americans should be taught to love their country and to respect its traditions.

Don’t worry, you’re getting the wall. Don’t worry, okay? I heard some — (applause) — we’re getting the wall.

AUDIENCE: Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!

THE PRESIDENT: I had a couple of these characters in the back say, “Oh, he really doesn’t want the wall. He just used that for campaigning.” I said, are you — can you believe it? (Laughter.) You know, I say, every time I hear that, the wall gets 10 feet higher. You know that, right? (Applause.) Every time. Every single time. Okay?

No, we’re going to have the wall or they’re not going to have what they want. You know, we have a problem: We need more Republicans. We have a group of people that vote against us in a bloc. They’re good at two things: resisting, obstruction. Resisting, obstruction. And they stick together. They do. They always vote in a bloc. You know, it’s very rare that you get a couple of them to come your way. Even on the tax cuts. I mean, we’re going to be fighting these people in the ’18 election. We’re going to be fighting people that voted against the tax cuts, because the tax cuts are phenomenal and popular, and helping people and helping our country.

You saw Apple just brought $350 billion in; Exxon brought $50 billion in. (Applause.) So we’re going to be fighting.

The fact is, we need more Republicans to vote. (Applause.) We want to get our agenda. Because, now, what we have to do is in order to get a vote to fix our military, we have to give them $100 billion in stuff that nobody in this room, including me, wants, in many cases. It’s terrible. We need more Republicans. That’s why you have to get out and you have to fight for ’18. You have to do it. (Applause.)

We salute our great American flag, we put our hands on our hearts for the Pledge of Allegiance. (Applause.) And we all proudly stand for the national anthem. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: Above all else, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are at the center of American life. We know that. (Applause.) Because in America, we don’t worship government, we worship God. (Applause.)

Our nation’s motto is, “In God We Trust.” (Applause.) And this week, our nation lost an incredible leader who devoted his life to helping us understand what those words really mean. Leader. He was a leader. He was a great man.

We will never forget the historic crowds, that voice, the energy, and the profound faith of a preacher named Billy Graham. (Applause.) Great man and great family. Franklin Graham. Great family. And they were for us — I’ll tell you, they were for us. Right from the beginning they were for us.

As a young man, Billy decided to devote his life to God. That choice not only changed his life, it changed our country. And indeed, it even changed the world.

Reverend Graham’s belief in the power of God’s word gave hope to millions and millions who listened to him with his very beautiful, but very simple message: God loves you. (Applause.) And a very special tribute — because it’s almost never done — on Wednesday, we will celebrate Billy Graham’s life as he lies in honor in the Rotunda of our Capitol. (Applause.) Very rarely.

One day — Wednesday until Thursday, about 11 o’clock on Wednesday. I bet those lines are going to be long and beautiful, because he deserves it. Not everybody deserves it. But very few people — you look back, Ronald Reagan was so honored. Very few people are so honored. That’s a big thing. And he really, almost more than anybody you can think of, he deserves to be in the Rotunda. So that’s going to be very special. Wednesday at 11 o’clock. (Applause.) And Paul, and Mitch, and the whole group, they worked very hard to make it all happen. So we want to thank them too.

Everywhere you go, all over the country, in cities small and large, Americans of all faiths reach out to our Creator for strength, for inspiration, and for healing. Great time for healing. In times of grief and hardship, we turn to prayer for solace and for comfort.

In recent days, our entire nation has been filled with terrible pain and sorrow over the evil massacre in a great community — Parkland, Florida. This senseless act of mass murder has shocked our nation and broken our hearts.

This week, I had the honor of meeting with students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, with families who have lost their children in prior shootings — great families, great people — and with members of the local community right here in Washington, D.C. Our whole nation was moved by their strength and by their courage.

We listened to their heart-wrenching stories, asked them for ideas, and pledged to them — and I can speak for all of the senators and congressmen and congresswomen, all of the people in this room that are involved in this decision — that we will act. We will do something. We will act.

With us on Wednesday was one of the families whose daughter didn’t come home last week — a beautiful young woman named Meadow Pollack. Incredible family. I had them in the Oval Office. Incredible people. You’ve probably seen her picture. She had a beautiful, beautiful smile, and a beautiful life. So full of promise.

We wish there was something — anything — we could do to bring Meadow and all of the others back. There are not enough tears in the world to express our sadness and anguish for her family, and for every family that has lost a precious loved one. No family should ever save — and ever have to go in and suffer the way these families have suffered. They’ve suffered beyond anything that I’ve ever witnessed.

A father drops his daughter off at school, kisses her goodbye, waves to her — she’s walking up the path — and never sees her alive again. Gets a call. Can’t believe it. Thinks it’s a nightmare. Wants to wake up from the nightmare.

So we want to hear ideas from Americans of all backgrounds and beliefs about how we can improve security at our schools, tackle the issue of mental health. Because this was a sick person — very sick — and we had a lot of warning about him being sick. This wasn’t a surprise. To the people that knew him, this wasn’t even a little bit; in fact, some said, were surprised it took so long. So what are we doing? What are we doing? We want to ensure that when there are warning signs, we can act and act very quickly.

Why do we protect our airports, and our banks, our government buildings, but not our schools? (Applause.) It’s time to make our schools a much harder target for attackers. We don’t want them in our schools. (Applause.) We don’t want them.

When we declare our schools to be gun-free zones, it just puts our students in far more danger. (Applause.) Far more danger. Well-trained, gun-adept teachers and coaches and people that work in those buildings; people that were in the Marines for 20 years and retired; people in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Coast Guard; people that are adept — adept with weaponry and with guns — they teach. I mean, I don’t want to have 100 guards standing with rifles all over the school. You do a concealed carry permit. (Applause.)

And this would be a major deterrent because these people are inherently cowards. If they thought — like, if this guy thought that other people would be shooting bullets back at him, he wouldn’t have gone to that school. He wouldn’t have gone there. It’s a gun-free zone. It says, this is a gun-free zone; please check your guns way far away. And what happens is they feel safe. There’s nobody going to come at them.

This way, you may have — and remember, if you use this school as an example — this is a very big school with tremendous floor area and a lot of acreage. It’s a big, big school. Good school. A big, big school. You’d have to have 150 real guards. Look, you had one guard. He didn’t turn out to be too good, I will tell you that. He turned out to be not good. He was not a credit to law enforcement, that I can tell you. That I can tell you. (Applause.)

But as I’ve been talking about this idea — and I feel it’s a great idea, but some people that are good people are opposed to it; they don’t like the idea of teachers doing it. But I’m not talking about teachers. You know, CNN went on, they said, “Donald Trump wants all teachers.” Okay? Fake news, folks. Fake news. Fake news.

I don’t want a person that’s never handled a gun that wouldn’t know what a gun looks like to be armed. But out of your teaching population — out of your teaching population, you have 10 percent, 20 percent of very gun-adept people. Military people, law enforcement people, they teach. They teach. (Applause.)

And something I thought of this morning. You know what else? And I thought of it since I found and watched Peterson, the deputy who didn’t go into the school because he didn’t want to go into the school. Okay? He was tested under fire, and that wasn’t a good result.

But you know what I thought of as soon as I saw that? These teachers — and I’ve seen them at a lot of schools where they had problems — these teachers love their students. And the students love their teachers, in many cases. These teachers love their students. And these teachers are talented with weaponry and with guns. And they feel safe. And I’d rather have somebody that loves their students and wants to protect their students than somebody standing outside that doesn’t know anybody and doesn’t know the students, and, frankly, for whatever reason, decided not to go in even though he heard lots of shots being fired inside.

The teachers and the coaches and other people in the building — the dean, the assistant dean, the principal — they can — they love their people. They want to protect these kids. And I think we’re better with that. And this may be 10 percent or 20 percent of the population of teachers, et cetera. It’s not all of them. But you would have a lot, and you would tell people that they’re inside. And the beauty is, it’s concealed. Nobody would ever see it unless they needed it. It’s concealed.

So this crazy man who walked in wouldn’t even know who it is that has it. That’s good. That’s not bad; that’s good. And a teacher would have shot the hell out of him before he knew what happened. (Applause.) They love their students. They love those students, folks. Remember that. They love their students.

And I’m telling you that would work. Because we need offensive capability. We can’t just say, oh, it’s a gun-free school. We’re going to do it a little bit better. Because then you say, “What happens outside?” The students now leave school, and you got a thousand students — you got 3,500 at the school we’re talking about — but you have a thousand students standing outside. The teachers are out there also. If a madman comes along, we have the same problem, but it’s outside of the school. Or they drive cars. There are a lot of things that can happen.

I want to stop it. And I know it’s a little controversial to say — but I have to say, since I started this two days ago, a lot of people that were totally opposed to it are now agreeing. They love their students. They don’t want their students to be killed or to be hurt. (Applause.)

So we have to do something that works. And one of the big measures that we will do, and everybody in this room I think has to agree — and there’s nobody that loves the Second Amendment more than I do. And there’s nobody that respects the NRA — they’re friends of mine. They backed us all. They’re great people. They’re patriots. (Applause.) But they’re great people. But we really do have to strengthen up, really strengthen up background checks. We have to do that. (Applause.)

And we have to do — for the mentally ill, we have to do very, very — we don’t want to people that are mentally ill to be having any form of weaponry. We have to be very strong on that. (Applause.)

So we’re going to do that. And I really believe that Congress is going to get it through this time. And they have a different leader. They have somebody that wants to get it through; not somebody that’s just all talk, no action, like so many of these folks. This is somebody that wants to get it through.

But I also want to protect — we need a hardened site. It has to be hardened. It can’t be soft. Because they’ll sneak in through a window, they’ll sneak in some way. And, again, you’re standing there totally unprotected.

You know the five great soldiers from four years ago, three of them were world-class marksmen. They were on a military base in a gun-free zone. They were asked to check their guns quite far away. And a maniac walked in, guns blazing, killed all of five of them. He wouldn’t of had a chance if these world-class marksmen had — on a military base — access to their guns. And I’m going to look at that whole policy on military bases. If we can’t have — (applause) — all five were killed. All five. The guy wouldn’t have had a chance.

But we’re going to look at that whole military base, gun-free zone. If we can’t have our military holding guns, it’s pretty bad. We had a number of instances on military bases. You know that. So we want to protect our military. We want to make our military stronger and better than it’s ever been before. (Applause.)

We also need to create a culture in our country that cherishes life and human dignity. That’s part of what we’re talking about. (Applause.) A culture that condemns violence and never glorifies violence. We need to foster real human connections and turn classmates and colleagues into friends and neighbors that want to fight for us.

We’re not just having a conversation about school safety. You’ve had conversations — in all fairness, I’m pretty new on this job. We’re here a little more than a year. I’ve been watching this stuff go on for 20 years. The President gets up, everybody is enthusiastic for the first couple of days, then it fades, fades, fades. Nothing ever gets done. We want to see if we can get it done. Let’s get it done right. (Applause.) We really owe it to our country. And I’ve been watching for a long time. Seen a lot of words, and I’ve seen very little action.

And, you know, if you think about, most of its just common sense. It’s not “do you love guns, do hate guns.” It’s common sense. It’s all common sense. And some of the strongest advocates about what I’m saying are the strongest advocates — I know them very well — political people — the strongest advocates for the Second Amendment. But this is common sense.

In addition to securing our schools, we’re also implementing a strategy to secure our streets. We want our kids to be safe everywhere they go, whether they’re in a classroom walking home from school or just outside playing with their friends. (Applause.) Every child deserves to grow up in a safe community surrounded by a loving family and to have a future filled with opportunity and with hope. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Just not fair.

Reducing violent crime in America is a top priority for my administration, and we will do whatever it takes to get it done. No talk. We’re going to do what it takes to get it done. (Applause.)

As you’ve seen, pretty well reported, that we’re significantly increasing gun prosecutions by tremendous percentages, and we’re working to get violent offenders off our streets and behind bars, and get them behind bars quickly, for a long time, or get them the hell out of our country. (Applause.)

In 2017, we brought cases against more violent offenders than any administration in a quarter of a century — more than any administration. And we’re just gearing up. We have tough people. I’ll tell you what — when you deal with MS-13, the only thing they understand is toughness. They don’t want anything. All they understand is toughness. If that ICE agent or Border Patrol agent is tougher than them, they respect him. We got the toughest guys you’ve ever seen. We got tough. (Applause.) They don’t respect anything else. And they shouldn’t be in our country. They were let in for years. They shouldn’t be, and we’re getting them out.

Our administration prosecuted more people for federal firearm charges than has been done in more than a decade. And again, we’re just gearing up. We’ve convicted 1,200 gang members and nearly 500 human traffickers. (Applause.) You know what human trafficking — who would think that we have this in this age? And with our foreign partners, we’ve helped charge or arrest more than 4,000 members of the savage gang that we talked about — MS-13.

Now, they don’t like guns. You know why? They’re not painful enough. These are animals. They cut people. They cut them. They cut them up in little pieces and they want them to suffer. And we take them into our country because our immigration laws are so bad. And when we catch them — it’s called catch-and-release — we have to, by law, catch them and then release them. Catch-and-release. And I can’t get the Democrats — and nobody has been able to for years — to approve common-sense measures that, when we catch these animal-killers, we can lock them up and throw away the keys. (Applause.)

In 2017, our brave ICE officers arrested more than 100,000 criminal aliens who have committed tens of thousands of crimes. And believe me, these are great people. They cannot — the laws are just against us. They’re against — they’re against safety. They don’t make sense. And you meet with Democrats and they’re always fighting for the criminal. They’re not fighting for law-abiding citizens. They’re always fighting for the criminal. (Applause.) Doesn’t make sense.

Here are just some of the criminal charges and convictions for the aliens arrested by ICE: 11,000 charges or convictions for sex crimes; 48,000 for assault; 13,000 for burglary; and 1,800 for killing people.

We’re cracking down on sanctuary cities. Can you believe this? (Applause.) Where they protect — that’s another one. Because we want our cities to be sanctuaries for law-abiding Americans, not for criminals. (Applause.)

And, by the way, the Senate Democrats and the House Democrats have totally abandoned DACA. They’ve total — they don’t even talk to me about it. They have totally abandoned. You know, we get the reputation — like DACA, it’s not Republican. We’ll let me tell you, it is Republican, because we want to do something about DACA, get it solved after all these years.

The Democrats are being totally unresponsive. They don’t want to do anything about DACA, I’m telling you. And it’s very possible that DACA won’t happen, and it’s not because of the Republicans, it’s going to be because of the Democrats. And frankly, you better elect more Republicans, folks, or it will never happen. (Applause.)

The Democrats voted in favor of sanctuary cities. In other words, they voted to protect criminal aliens instead of voting to protect the American citizens.

To secure our country, we are calling on Congress to build a great border wall to stop dangerous drugs and criminals from pouring into our country. (Applause.) And now they’re willing to give us the wall, but they don’t want to give us any of the laws to keep these people out.

So we’re going to get the wall, but they don’t want to give us all of the other — chain migration, lottery. Think of a lottery. You have a country. They put names in. You think they’re giving us their good people? Not too many of you people are going to be in a lottery. So we pick out people. Then they turn out to be horrendous, and we don’t understand why.

They’re not giving us their best people, folks. They’re not giving us — I mean, use your heads. They’re giving us — it’s a lottery. I don’t want people coming into this country with a lottery. I want people coming into this country based on merit. Based on merit. (Applause.)

I want people, and we all want to be admitting people, who have skills, who can support themselves financially, who can contribute to our economy, who will love our people, and who will share our values, who will love our country. (Applause.)

I don’t want people who drive a car at 100 miles an hour down the West Side Highway and kill 8 innocent victims, and destroy the lives of 14 more. Nobody talks about that. Nobody ever talks about the people that have been so horribly injured, who lose legs and arms, in Manhattan, where I used to spend my time.

I know it very well, the stretch along the West Side Highway. People run in order to stay in shape. They want to be healthy, they want to look good. They’re running all the time; I see it. They run. We work in different ways. (Laughter.) But they run. No, but think of this — they run. And they’re so — they want to be fit. They’re proud people. They want to be fit, and they’re running up and down West Side Highway. It’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful thing.

And this maniac takes a car going down the highway, and just turns to a right, and he kills eight. But he really badly wounded 12 to 14 other people.

So somebody think of it: Runs to stay in shape, leaves the house, is jogging along, working hard, ends up going home two months later with no leg or with no arm, or with two legs missing. Nobody ever talks about that. They talk about the people, rightfully, that were killed. But they don’t talk about the people whose lives have been just changed — just changed. They don’t talk about that.

This guy came in through chain migration and a part of the lottery system.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: They say 22 people came in with him. In other words, an aunt, an uncle, a grandfather, a mother, a father, whoever came in. But a lot of people came in. That’s chain migration. Let’s see how those people are doing, by the way.

We’ve got to change our way. Merit system. I want merit system. Because you know what’s happening? All of these companies are coming into our country. They’re all coming into our country. And when they come in, we need people that are going to work. I’m telling you, we need workers now. We need workers. (Applause.)

But when I walked in today, did anyone ever hear me do the snake during the campaign? Because I had five people outside say, “Could you do ‘The Snake’?” And I said, well, people have heard it. Who hasn’t heard “The Snake”? You should read it anyways. (Laughs.) Let’s do it anyway. I’ll do it. All right? Should we do it? (Applause.)

Now, this was a rock-and-roll song — little amendments — a rock-and-roll song. But every time I do it, people — and you have to think of this in terms of immigration. We have to have great people come into our — I want people to come into our country. And I want people that are going to help us. And I don’t want people that are going to come in and be accepting all of the gifts of our country for the next 50 years and contribute nothing. I don’t want that, and you don’t want that.

I want people that are going to help and people that are going to work for Chrysler, who is now moving from Mexico into Michigan, and so many other — and Apple, by the way. (Applause.) And Foxconn up in Wisconsin. They’re going to need 25,000 workers. I want people that can come in, and get to work and work hard. Even if it means a learning period — that’s fine.

But I want people that are going to come in and work. And I want people that love us and look at security. And they want you to be safe, and they want to be safe. I want great people coming into this country. I don’t want people coming in the way they do now, because I want people that contribute.

So this is called “The Snake.” And think of it in terms of immigration. And you may love it, or you may say, isn’t that terrible. Okay? And if you say, isn’t that terrible, who cares? Because the way they treat me — that’s peanuts compared to the way they treat me. Okay? (Laughter.) Immigration.

“On her way to work one morning, down the path along the lake, a tenderhearted woman saw a poor, half-hearted, frozen snake. His pretty colored skin had been all frosted with the dew. ‘Poor thing,’ she cried, ‘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. Take me in, oh, tender woman,’ sighed the vicious snake.

She wrapped him up all cozy in a comforter of silk, and laid him by her fireside with some honey and some milk. She hurried home from work that night, and soon as she arrived, she found that pretty snake she’d taken in had been revived.

‘Take me in, oh, tender woman. Take me in for Heaven’s sake. Take me in, oh, tender woman,’ sighed the vicious snake.

She clutched him to her bosom, ‘You’re so beautiful,’ she cried. But if I hadn’t brought you in by now, surely you would have died.’

She stroked his pretty skin again, and kissed 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 the vicious snake.

‘I saved you,’ cried the woman. ‘And you’ve bitten me. Heaven’s 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.’” (Applause.)

And that’s what we’re doing with our country, folks. We’re letting people in, and it’s going to be a lot of trouble. It’s only getting worse. But we’re giving you protection like never before. Our law enforcement is doing a better job than we’ve ever done before. And we love our country. And we’re going to take care of our country. Okay? We’re going to take care of our country. (Applause.)

So just in finishing, our country is starting to do very well. Our economy is blazing. Jobs are at a record level. Jobs are so good. 2.7 million jobs created since the election. (Applause.) Unemployment claims have reached a 45-year low. (Applause.)

African American unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. (Applause.) Hispanic unemployment has reached the lowest level in our history. (Applause.) Women — women unemployment is at the lowest level in 18 years. (Applause.) Wages are rising for the first time in many, many years. (Applause.)

Small business confidence is at a record high. And thanks to our massive tax cuts, millions of Americans are getting to keep a great percentage of their money instead of paying it to a government that throws it out the window. (Applause.)

So I just leave you with this: We have to fight Nancy Pelosi. They want to give your money away. They want to give your money away. They want to end your tax cuts. They want to do things that you wouldn’t even believe, including taking your Second Amendment rights away. They will do that.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: So we have to get out there and we have to fight in ’18 like never before — just the way you fought with us. Just the way you fought with us. You fought so hard, and you were so tough, and you were so smart. You were so smart. And you know what? I know for a fact you did the right thing, because we’re looking at the numbers. And the numbers — even they have to give credit for the kind of numbers that we’re producing. Nobody has ever seen anything like it. (Applause.)

Under my administration, the era of economic surrender is over. We’re renegotiating trade deals that are so bad, whether it’s NAFTA or whether it’s World Trade Organization, which created China — that created — if you look at China, it was going along like this, then we opened, stupidly, this deal. And China has been like a rocket ship ever since.

And now, last year, we had almost a $500 billion trade deficit with China. We can’t have that. We can’t have that. I have great respect for President Xi, but we can’t have that. We have to go, and we have to do what we have to do. We just can’t let countries — as an example, Mexico. We have a $100 billion trade deficit with Mexico. What does that tell you? You know what it tells you? NAFTA is no good. It never was any good. But for some reason, nobody ever changed it. They emptied our factories — you got to see the car plants and the auto plants in Mexico. Like — you’ve never seen anything like it before.

I want those companies — and they’re starting — I want them back here. I want them back here. They’re going to come back here, too. (Applause.) And we want to make our neighbors happy. But we can’t continuously have other nations taking advantage of the United States like never before. And this has gone on for a long time. This has gone on for longer — the last administration was a disaster, but this has gone on for much longer than the last administration. And we got to change it. We’re going to change it.

So we’re renegotiating deals. And you know what? Hate to say it, but if we can’t make a fair deal for the United States, we will terminate the deal and we’ll start all over again. (Applause.) We have to do it. (Applause.)

So, under my administration, and with your help — don’t forget — you, many of you, were the forgotten people. You were the people that, when the polls came out, they didn’t know that you existed. The Democrats are trying to figure out who you are, because they want to get you back. But you are people — we’ve had people that never voted, but they’re great patriots — but they never saw anybody they wanted to vote for. Then they go to the election, they’ve got Trump-Pence, Trump-Pence. They got hats, they got all sorts of things. Trump over here — “Make America Great Again” hats. Right? (Applause.)

So our country is starting to do well. We are going to make it great, better, safer than it ever was before. The reason is you. This has been a great movement. They try like hell, they cannot stand what we’ve done. But we’re doing the right thing. We’re even doing the right thing for them. They just don’t know it yet. (Applause.) They just don’t know it yet.

Even the media — the media will absolutely support me sometime prior to the election. All those horrible people back there, they’re going to support me. You know why? Because if somebody else won, their ratings would go down, they’d all be out of business. (Applause.) Nobody would watch. They’d all be out of business.

So I just want to tell you that we are going to win. I’d love you to get out there, work really hard for ’18. We need more Republicans to keep the tax cuts and keep all of this going.

And I love you. I respect you. I appreciate everything you’ve done for the country. (Applause.)

AUDIENCE: USA! USA! USA!

THE PRESIDENT: I appreciate everything you’ve done.

I do want to say, because people have asked — North Korea — we imposed today the heaviest sanctions ever imposed on a country before. (Applause.)

And frankly, hopefully something positive can happen. We will see. But hopefully something positive can happen. But that just was announced, and I wanted to let you know. We have imposed the heaviest sanctions ever imposed.

So, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for everything. You have been incredible partners. (Applause.) Incredible partners. And I will let you know in the absolute strongest of terms, we’re going to make America great again, and I will never, ever, ever let you down. Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. (Applause.)

END