Speech: Donald Trump Addresses a Political Rally in Gastonia, North Carolina - September 16, 2026

Well, hello. North Carolina's special place. This is a special place. I love it. I love it. We're gonna elect Michael Whatley. That's what we're gonna do. But I'm thrilled to be back in this incredible and beautiful state with thousands of proud, hardworking American patriots. You're incredible. You built this country.

So I won this state six times, including the primary, six times. And in 2024, we got more votes than any candidate in North Carolina history. That's not bad. That's not bad. And we won those record setting victories with the help of a man named Michael Whatley. He was incredible. You know, he was the chairman of the Republican Party along with Lara Trump, who's great.

And she's gone onto television stardom now. Can you believe this? I said, "Lara, you gotta get --" She loves this state. She was born here. But what a team. Those two were the best team. They were. Like I said to everybody, anybody that would listen, I said, "When I win this thing, I'm gonna take that guy from North Carolina, make him the head of the Republican Party," which is exactly what I did, and he was fantastic.

He, nobody better in the whole country. I had my choice in the whole country. I chose Michael Whatley. But with your vote in this election, we're going to defeat the murderer and criminal protectors. He's a murderer protector. The man who made North Carolina the talk of our country, the whole country is talking about it, for his violent crime, the radical left Democrat, Roy Cooper, on November 3rd. He's terrible. [Audience boos] No, he's a murderer protector, and he let out 3,500 murderers and criminals.

And we're going to elect one of the greatest men that I've ever worked with in government, Michael Whatley, to go and become your United States senator. So nobody used to think of North Carolina as a dangerous state, criminally dangerous. It was like, "North Carolina. It was beautiful." It was apple pie, right?

And now, it's one of the most violent and one of the worst in the whole nation, and it all started with Cooper. And you have a lousy governor right now too, but it started -- [Audience boos] -- it started with Cooper. [Audience boos] I remember Cooper was your governor when you had Helene, the, what they call it? The -- [Audience boos] -- the biggest water hurricane.

It was all water and it was brutal and I was here the following day. You remember that? But Cooper did nothing. He did nothing, absolutely nothing. And it took me, it took a few months because it, we were winning an election. And as soon as I got here on January 20th, your nation and your, your whole nation, but your state started to heal from Helene.

It was one of the worst hurricanes. Not in terms of a lot of things, but in terms of water. I think it has the record, everything. Areas that never saw water became literally islands. They were separated by, uh, just tremendous amounts. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And I have to tell you, Elon Musk, I called up. I said, "They all want Starlink, Elon." You couldn't get it. And I said, "You gotta do me a favor.

Send me Starlink," and he sent hundreds of phones over Starlink. And that was what got, remember? 'Cause people, they had islands. All of a sudden, you had islands out there, and they were separated by vast amounts of water. You couldn't leave them. People were, had no communication. I did. I called Elon and they wanted to get him.

You couldn't get them, and I called him and he gave, he gave us, immediately, a tremendous boost by getting that. But Michael Whatley is the one that carried it forward. What do you have? A bad guy or a good guy over there? [Audience boos] Huh? Where is he? Who is he? Show it to me. Show him. Let me see his face.

Oh. Oh, it's a she. Hello. She, she's going home to Mama who's watching right now. Her mother is watching right now on television furious at the daughter. She's gonna walk and she's gonna get the hell spoken out of her. I won't say. But, and, uh, the worst offenders are the ones that Cooper released, including Decarlos Brown Jr. who slashed -- [Audience boos] -- Iryna Zarutska in the neck.

Nobody saw anything like that. I think it's maybe one of the most violent crimes we've ever seen. And if you let it run a little bit on television, I didn't wanna do it. But if you let it run, you see one of the worst things you've ever seen. And he was released out of jail. He was released by Cooper, your governor, and many others were released too. [Audience boos] 3,500 were released, but this was one of them.

And yet others that they say, I don't know how anybody can be as bad, but they say there is just as bad. But in this election, I'm asking you to pretend I'm on the ballot just one more time. I said that the other night. I said that the other night. Because when I'm on the ticket, I'm not bragging, but when I'm on the ticket, Republicans have always done really well.

They go out, they vote. Everybody gets elected. Everybody gets elected when I'm on, but I just want you to go out and pretend I'm on the ticket because essentially I am. We gotta win this election. If we don't, all of those things that we got you, from no tax on tips, and no tax on social security for our great seniors, and no tax on overtime, the overtime, no tax.

I don't know which is the most important to you. A lot of people like no tax on social security for our seniors. But they're all gon- -- they're all gonna go away. All of the things that we've done, the strongest border in the history of our country, it's all gonna go away. If we lose, you're going to lose your border, you're going to lose your tax cuts, you're going to lose your wealth, and our country is going to go through hell, and we're going to be a laughingstock all over the world, just as we were two years ago.

We were a laughing stock all over the world. So on election day, November 3rd, vote to defeat the "Dumocrats." You know, I made the name change. I don't know what happened. I call them "Dumocrats" 'cause their policies are so dumb. All you do is take the E, you replace it with a "U" and nobody knows that there's a "B." Nobody knows there's a "B" in dumb.

They think it's D-U-M, so just think that. I say it's a one-letter change, but they're "Dumocrats" because the, the worst policy, open borders, transgender for everybody, men playing in women's sports. But you're going to go and you're going to crush the communists, and that's what they are, they're communists.

Remember I said at the State of the U, "We will not be a socialist nation." I was right. They're going for communist nation. They're going right down to the bottom of the barrel. For the people of North Carolina, this election is about safety. And bad management, like what he did, like what Cooper did, in the whole term that I was in, four years plus a year and a half, there has never been worse management of a storm or hurricane than Cooper in North Carolina.

It's the worst anybody's ever seen. And you're not going to have him go because he doesn't represent your values and I know you better than you know you, I think. But his handling of the hurricane, the problem didn't get fixed until, and remember that you go back and check your history books. It didn't get fixed until January 20th. That's when I came in. And the first phone call I got, as soon as I got to the Oval Office, I said, "Ugh," was Michael Whatley.

He said, "President, do me a favor. They didn't do anything on, I mean, you people were living, they were living outside. They're living in mud and, terrible." The first call I get, I'm walking into the office, "Sir, Michael Whatley's on the phone." I said, "What the hell does he want? Give me a break." "What is it, Mike?" "Sir, you have to come down immediately to North Carolina.

You gotta --" Because Cooper didn't do anything. He just left it. Remember the houses, if they had a Trump sign, which is almost all of them, that they wouldn't touch 'em. Remember that? That was Cooper. If it had Trump on it, you wouldn't touch him. They wouldn't touch him. It was, they were told, "If it has a Trump sign, you know, Vote for Trump and all that stuff, they were still up, don't touch 'em," and they didn't. But Whatley calls me, says, "You have to get down here, sir, and you have to --" And I did, right, Michael?

I did. And if it wasn't for you, that call, maybe you'd still be living in mud. I'm not sure. But it was Michael Whatley that got me to move my ass, Michael. That's why sometimes I don't like him. He's too aggressive. [Laughs] He actually, you know, I'm looking at him, he looks like such a nice man. He's not really that nice.

He's a very effective man. He is a real ball-breaker, let me tell you. But he's great. Look, in terms of representation, which is what we care about, that's the guy you want, and he knows it. And he's strong on crime, strong on your economic world. He's fighting all the time. Everything he wants is, is really common sense and good for you.

And borders. Nobody's stronger on borders than you are, McGee. So I just wanna thank you for the great job you've done. I hope they appreciate it. I hope they appreciate it. And he's standing next to a man that's, uh, represented me in the past, and he was a great lawyer, like great, great, great lawyer.

And Todd Blanche is now the Attorney General of the United States of America. And he's the best. He'll, he'll go down, a little early yet. Hard to say. It's a little early yet, but, you know, it got approved a couple of months ago. But so far, you're doing great, and I think he's gonna go down, I know, I know a lot of him.

He'll go down as the greatest attorney general in the history of our country. I believe that. At a very important time. At a very important time, because there are a lot of bad people out there. So for years, pro-crime politicians like Roy Cooper have tried to bully you into silence while they turned your cities into blood-soaked killing fields, flooded your communities with migrant criminals, destroyed your schools with gangs and drugs, and filled your streets with lawlessness, filth, and squalor.

You think Joe Biden could say that? I don't think so. Think he could say that? No. He couldn't say that. What, what we went through for four years, think of it. Yet a guy couldn't sign his signature. "Would you please sign here, sir?" "Yeah, send that to an autopen." But those days are over. They're over.

President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are making America safe again. We're never going back to the disaster we had just two years ago. And right here in Charlotte, you've seen the deadly consequences of weak, cowardly sellouts to the radical left like Cooper. He was, he's radical left. You know, he tries to pretend he's a moderate.

He's not.

He's a radical left weak person. That's why just don't forget, don't forget Helene, lovely name, but not a lovely hurricane. Last year, a beautiful, beautiful, beautiful 23-year-old woman, a young, beautiful girl named Iryna Zarutska was riding home on a train in Charlotte after fleeing war torn Ukraine.

It was, she was petrified of Ukraine. But you know what? When she got on that train, I watched that so many times. When she got on that train, she was petrified to be on that train. She didn't want to be. She went there, she crawled up in the seat, she just wanted to hide. She was more scared being on that train in North Carolina than she was being in Ukraine with all the missiles and bombs.

But she didn't know that sitting behind her on the train was a deranged lunatic, a dangerous monster with 14 prior arrests for violent crimes who set his bloodthirsty eyes on her right from the beginning. You saw the guy. I mean, the tape is, honestly, it's terrible. That animal stood up, grabbed her around the neck and slashed a knife right through her neck.

And most people don't see the whole thing. I never, I, I did it once and I wish I didn't. But they don't. They turn it off and re- -- you know, frankly, the networks, they don't even put it on. You can't put it on. Most violent thing I've ever seen, I think. Murdering her on that metro train where she died, terrified and all alone.

And she knew what was happening. It was a slice and she's looking up and she said, "What happened?" And she was dead shortly thereafter. The animal who murdered Iryna Zarutska should never have been on your streets. After 14 arrests, he should have been locked up for many, many years. But Roy Cooper released him.

He said, "No, let's release him." Under Cooper and the Democrats, no cash bail policy, that monster and countless others were set loose to prey on the people of North Carolina. That's why. I mean, I know North Carolina so well. So much crime here. Nationally, I mean, it's on the national news. In North Carolina, somebody was stabbed to death.

In North Carolina, somebody was shot. And I keep saying, "What's going on with North Carolina?" It's your governor's, it's your governor's, but it's Cooper. Cooper was really bad. As Governor Roy Cooper also cut a deal with radical activists to release, as I said, 3,500 inmates, some of the worst criminals in the nation into North Carolina.

They came out of the prisons, including savage criminals, hundreds of child predators, dozens of killers, murderers, and people serving life sentences. He released them. And you could take a look at some of the mugshots. I don't know if you have a video, if you can see a video around here someplace. Yeah.

These are all mostly murderers and people of violent crime. Those inmates who Roy Cooper released have since murdered 25 people, raped 99 and committed more than almost a thousand felonies. He released these people. This is just a small group of them. I think you have a few of, few, uh, lists if you'd like to see some of the rest.

[Begin video clip]

[Video clip] Now to a disturbing crime on a commuter train in North Carolina. The brutal murder of a Ukrainian refugee has raised the questions about why the suspect was not behind bars. Why was he out on the streets?

[Video clip] Why was this person free? Why was he free to roam the streets? Today I signed executive order to establish the North Carolina Task Force for Racial Equity and Criminal Justice. [Audience boos]

[Video clip] Thousands of inmates will be released early. 3,500 inmates. 3,500 inmates.

[Video clip] Governor Cooper's administration saying that they'll fast track the early release of 3,500 prisoners. It involves pretrial release, fees and fines. He's got 14 arrests.

[Video clip] A judge released him without bail in January. But the question is, which prisoners? Prisoners who have committed violent crimes are a part of that conversation.

[Video clip] Task force is just the beginning and I'm committed to making sure we see real progress.

[End video clip]

So that's what you get and, uh, you see it. But there are many people like that terrible guy, that terrible, terrible person. You have many of them released by Roy Cooper. They're all over the streets. That's why you're reading about North Carolina all the time. You know, it's amazing. We cleaned out Washington, D.C. and I learned something. 2%, think of it, 2% of the people create 91% of the crime.

You can handle that. Think of it, 2%. And we now have Washington, which was one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the United States. It was a violent, dangerous city. We removed 5,000 animals, but it was a dangerous, violent city. We removed 5,000 of them, and Washington, D.C. is now one of the safest cities in the United States, our capital of America.

And Todd Blanche had a lot to do with it. We, uh, we think of it though, how, how great that is, because if it was 25% do the, it was 2% of the people create 91% of the crime. We can handle that. And we did. We got 5,000 of them out. We have almost no crime. People can't even believe it. Now it's clean, it's beautiful, it's, the parks are up. The tents are all taken away from the parks.

People are going there in record numbers. The restaurants are all open. The restaurants are closing. You couldn't go to a restaurant, it was too dangerous. And now people go into the restaurants like nothing. Years ago in Massachusetts, there was a governor named Dukakis, Michael Dukakis, you remember? Who had a very substantial lead for president.

He was gonna win easily, but he allowed a man named Willie Horton out of jail. Willie Horton was a bad guy, really bad guy. Same thing as this, same as, same exact thing. And on his first day out, he raped and murdered, raped and murdered again and again. And he ended up killing three women. Overnight Dukakis took a rousing lead of 15 points and lost the election in the landslide because of that one advertisement.

They put it on just like we're putting this on because we have to make sure that Michael Whatley gets into office, not this guy. Gotta make sure. But remember that? Overnight he had like a 15, 16, 17, it was over. The race was over and he ended up losing the race because of that one incident because he allowed a dirty, rotten killer to come out and rape and kill.

And he did a lot. He was a bad one. Same as, same as what you have over here. Same exact. Same thing. But in a way, this is worse because Dukakis let Willie Horton out, but Cooper let Decarlos Brown out plus 3,500 other hardened and dangerous criminals. Dukakis didn't do that. He let Willie Horton and a couple other people out.

But this guy, this governor when he was governor, he let out 3,500 people, many of them murderers. You can either vote for Roy Cooper to set loose criminals who rape and murder your children and your population or you can vote for Michael Whatley to protect and defend your children and your population. So, and I say this because I know him.

He's a great guy. He's a strong guy though. Strong. Michael Whatley is the candidate of law and order. It's, all think of this. It's bad enough with Roy Cooper where he vetoed laws to ban sanctuary city. He vetoed laws on saying, "You're a sanctuary city." You know what a sanctuary city is? A sanctuary city is a place that protects criminals.

And in North Carolina, you protect a lot of criminals. You don't protect your people, you protect your criminals. And this year in Greenville, a violent gang of illegal alien sadists broke into a home, viciously attacked and sodomized a male victim and ripped out his fingernails one by one, he said. He's never experienced anything.

It was so horrible. In Fayetteville, a Haitian migrant flown in by Joe Biden. Sleepy Joe. Crooked Joe. He's sleepy and he's crooked, I never figured out which is better. They're both true. Was arrested for stabbing to death a 77-year-old woman, a 13-year-old girl and a four-year-old girl. Killed them all viciously, violently.

Roy Cooper let him out. Roy Cooper wants migrant criminals like these set loose on North Carolina streets with sanctuary city policies. Michael Whatley wants them executed, arrested or deported. And I didn't have to do this today. I didn't have to. The great ladies of North Carolina know that they've traveled all over the world.

They follow me. At least, at least this time, look at them, at least you're getting younger and younger. They've been doing this for a long time. At least this time, you're close. You know when I'm in California, they're there, I say, "This is a very interesting situation. What's going on with the hubbies?" But there are a couple of hubbies back there.

But what great people. We've been together for a long time, right? They were there at the beginning from 2015, really, because it started before 2016. And, uh, have I gotten better, worse, or the same? [Audience responds "Better"]

They say better. That's why I love them. Supposing they said, "Not as good, but you're still okay." That's not good. Even if they said the same, I wouldn't be happy. [Laughs] But they've been my friends, and over here you have Front Row Joes all over the place. You got these Front Row Joes. Thank you. They've attended 348 rallies.

They've attended like 250, 259. Somebody te- -- 259. And they're all happily married. Can you believe it? Keeps them happily married. I don't know what would have happened if you did, if you attended none. Who the hell knows? But it can't be better than it is. But they're great people from North Carolina.

But Michael Whatley will support national legislation to end no cash bail nationwide. You know, that's Todd, where it all started, no cash bail. Where a person comes in, kills, you go to court, you let them out, no cash bail. It started in New York, I think, but it was picked up here and elsewhere. It's terrible.

And he'll support mandatory pretrial detention for serial offenders and severe penalties for repeat offenders. Michael will also support the death penalty for human traffickers, large scale drug dealers, and anyone who murders a police officer, anyone. And Michael Whatley's going to ban sanctuary cities.

You're not gonna have a sanctuary city in this state to protect them. So a vote, a vote for Roy Cooper is a vote to give control of the US Senate, because that's ultimately, forget about him. He's not a leader or anything. He's got, but he's gonna vote. And we can't lose that vote. It's too close. They'll turn around everything.

As an example, no tax on social securities. They wanna end it. For your seniors, they wanna end it. One vote could do it. You gotta get him in. It's a vote. It's a vote. He doesn't have to be a leader. He doesn't have. It's a vote. It's another vote they have. We can't do it. It's too close. But it's a vote to give control of the US Senate to the most extreme group of radicals ever to seek office.

And you see some of these lunatics that are gonna, maybe in some cases, be elected, hard to believe. But certainly they did well in the primaries. The primaries are a different thing though, than the primaries, they're communists. In state after state, Democrats have nominated communists who have vowed to defund the police, close all prisons.

They wanna close the prisons. I think that's a great idea. Abolish ICE, open our borders, and grant mass amnesty and voting rights to millions and millions of illegal aliens. [Audience boos] Well, that's why they let him in. That's why they let them in because they want him to vote. That's the reason, because it's the only thing you can think of. You wouldn't, they cheat so much, you wouldn't think they had to do that.

But they, they let him in because they want him to vote. You worked your entire life for everything you have. You saved your money, you followed the law. And now Roy Cooper and his band of communists want to take everything you have and give it to people who would rob your house, invade your border, shoot your, just shoot you dead.

They shoot you dead. Then they'd go to sleep at night, wake up in the morning and not even remember that they killed you. They couldn't care less. They're animals, they're killers. On election night, North Carolina's going to prove that America does not belong to those who hate it. America belongs to those who love it. They love it, right? [Audience chants "USA"]

So while the Democrat communists are trying to turn America into a crime infested Third World country, which by the way, if I didn't win this election, this country was finished. They were finished. You know, we have more money coming into the country, over $20 trillion with a T, than five times more than ever before, more than any country has had by four times.

No country. It was China 10 years ago. No country's ever had anything like what's happening here. And you see it all over with the car plants being built. Everything is being built. The Trump administration is putting record numbers of dangerous offenders behind bars. I mean, I got elected partially on that.

You know, we, I inherited the worst border in history twice in 2016. But in 2016, it was good by comparison to what it was. Remember Kamala? She was your border czar. [Audience boos] She was your border czar remember? She was appointed border czar. She never went to the border once and she never made one phone call to any border patrol agent.

Other than that, she did quite a good job, actually. What a terrible person. What a terrible job she did. Last year, we achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded while the murder rate fell to the lowest level in 125 years. That's 1900. 125 years. And that's despite the fact that we have people in our country that should not be here, but we got many of them out.

We got. In a certain way in terms of the violent ones, I'd say we got most of them out, so you don't have to worry too much ladies, I hope. And since I took office, federal law enforcement has arrested an incredible 1.2 million criminals nationwide, that's a record. And we've increased federal criminal prosecutions by over 50%. That's Todd Blanche.

With the help of our National Guard, we've also restored public safety to our nation's Capitol and we have really done a job. Think of it. Think of it. People were petrified to go to our Capitol. Then they hated to see National Guard there and these are central casting people. They're very good. You know, we did win one thing in the Supreme Court.

They've treated me quite badly, thank you. But we won one thing, merit. Everything now is based on merit. That's all because our country was built on merit. I wanna thank the heroes of ICE, border patrol, the DOJ, the FBI, DEA, ATF, HSI, the US Marshal Service, and every other branch of law enforcement helping bring crime to the lowest number in recorded history. [Audience chants "USA"]

Thank you very much. [Audience chants "USA"]

Now, but I was gonna say before, so I didn't have to be here tonight. It's a little bit before the election, but I had little free time, if you can believe it. I said, "Let's go out. Let's get a little group together. How about this?" Outside, you got twice the number as you have inside. Next time, could you get a little bigger place, please, Michael?

Do you mind? No, you got a lot of people outside, but I wanted to be here for Michael. I felt it. And I'll be back. I gotta come back. We gotta make sure he wins. But Michael was also an incredible champion for your state when you were hit with a terrible storm. The, uh, the storm, you know, a lot of people call it, with Texas and Florida and all, they call it, from the standpoint of water, the worst hurricane they've ever seen.

And I've gone over it. Roy Cooper was the governor and he did absolutely nothing. He fought it. He didn't wanna do anything. He didn't do a damn thing. And Mott- -- Whatley, and again, you gotta remember there's two things, crime and Helene. Remember Helene, that name, such a nice name, such a vicious, violent storm.

But he was the number one advocate and I delivered. And also your congresspeople were fantastic. Republican Congress people, they came and they worked with Michael as hard. I've never seen anything like it. The, the Democrats didn't do a dam n thing. The Republican Congress people came and we got to be friends really, fixing this place up. [Audience boos] And we spent more than two billion dollars in FEMA funding and, you know, you're waiting for some additional money to take care of some of the back and I'm gonna get that to you, Michael.

Now, if Michael loses, I'm not sending it. Okay. No, I'm only kidding. You're getting it. You're gonna get it, Michael. So he's been bugging me. He's been bugging me. But it's almost $3 billion for repairing roads and bridges that haven't been fixed yet by the Democrats. And we approve relief applications for almost 20,000 North Carolina small businesses.

And I got to be very friendly with a lot of those small business owners because I came here three times during that period. That was a terrible period of time. One of the worst I've seen. I've seen tornadoes, I've seen her, I've seen it all, but that was one of the worst I've ever seen where people were stuck on islands.

It was, people that had very little water were stuck on islands and they were stuck there for a long time. We had to have helicopters and things. A lot of people did a great job. So I'd like to ask a man that I consider to be one of the best in any country, but one of the best in our country, one of the most talented people, one of the finest people, a truly nice man, but a truly competent man.

Michael Whatley, please come up.

Thank you. You know, back in 2015, I got a call from Trump Tower asking me if I would help a businessman run for president in North Carolina. And at that time, he was at 1% in the polls. He was 15th out of 15 in that Republican primary. And I said yes. I said yes because I watched that man come down the escalator.

I watched that man say he was gonna make America great again. And it wasn't just a pithy campaign slogan that he borrowed from President Reagan. It was a plan to rebuild our economy, to restore our borders and keep our communities safe and make sure that America's the strongest, most respected nation on the face of the earth.

And I said, yeah, I'm with that guy. Here we are 11 years later and every single day, Donald Trump is fighting to make America great. And I am still with that guy. And I'm excited about running for Senate because I want every North Carolina family to make more money, to keep more money. I want every community to be safe and secure.

I want us to have the strongest Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard in the entire world. I grew up in Blowing Rock about an hour and a half from here, a tiny little town, 534 people. We had one stoplight in the Hardee's. Now they got three stoplights in an Outback. It's huge. I went to church.

I went to school. I worked. I got my first full-time job at 14. I worked all through high school, paid my way through college, paid my way through graduate school and law school. Three weeks after I graduated from law school, I met Suzanne and I fell head over heels in love. It took her a little longer. We have been together 28 years since.

We have three absolutely fantastic kids. Michael and George are here tonight and they're in a great place to go do great things. You know what I call that? I call that the American dream. And I've lived it right here in North Carolina. And I'm running for Senate because I want every one of your kids and every one of your grandkids to live the American dream, just like I have here in North Carolina.

And I am excited about fighting for North Carolina, for every family, for every community, and fighting alongside the greatest president of our lifetime, Donald J. Trump.

Thanks, Michael. You gonna win, Michael. So the Democrats gave us the dark age of America, and we turned it into the golden age. We're right now in the golden age of America, and that war, that war's gonna end very soon. Watch, you just watch. Trump was right about everything, you watch. They're getting decimated, and they wanna make a deal so badly, they call, "We wanna make a deal, we wanna make --" And they're not ready yet, I don't think, but we can have a deal anytime we want.

And I've delivered on every single promise I made, and far more than the promise. I made promises, but somebody wrote an article recently, "He actually did much more than what he promised," which is true. But since the election, the stock market has set 80 all-time record highs, and here in North Carolina, we've created more than 80,000 jobs and more Americans are working today.

Right now, we have more Americans working than at any time in the history of our country. That's a soundbite that nobody can argue with. Just yesterday, it was announced that real incomes have soared to the highest level in history, surpassing the record that I set in my first term. We lifted 1.5 million people out of poverty last year.

The poverty rate for African-Americans, Hispanic Americans, Native Americans just hit an all-time record low, the lowest ever. And for the Native American community here in North Carolina, I got the Lumbee Fairness Act done, and I hope the Lumbee tribe is gonna vote for Michael because you gotta do that.

So the Lumbees, I know you got a lot of Lumbees here, I like the Lumbees actually, but you gotta vote for Michael Whatley. Less than two years ago, our country was dead, it was a dead country. And now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We're all that anybody talks about. The only problem we have is that interest rates are artificially high.

Interest rates in the United States should be 1% or less because we are the best credit in the world by far with all that money pouring in. Our country is booming with new investment more than anybody else ever. And if we stop trading with every country that we have a deficit with, which is most of them, and which would be very easy to do, we'd make at least $1.5 trillion a year.

We do that because it's almost like a reflex. The word deficit, you have to understand is nothing more than a fancy word for loss. So we do these countries. We don't need anything for them. And you ever notice they're considered elite? I don't want to mention the names. They're elite. They're only elite because we allow them to trade with us and we allow them to make far more money than they should be. They're not elite, we're the ones that are elite.

And if I entered those deals, you would see a country that would make more money and you'd see the elite countries go right down the tubes. We're carrying almost every country in the world and that really cannot go on that much longer. I'm letting them know. I'm gonna say, let, uh, can't do that. We just can't do it. Why should, why should we carry Canada?

Why should we carry Mexico? Although we're very close to a deal with Mexico, a great deal. Why should we carry so many countries in Europe? We're carrying the European nations with a $200-billion deficit. All we have to do is say, "You know what, we're not trading with you anymore. We don't need anything they have.

We have cars, we have lumber, we have food, we have everything." It's a beautiful thing about, we have very few countries, there's some that we have certain things would, is helpful. But lower the interest rates for the United States of America and fast because we can grow at a level that nobody's ever grown before.

You know, every time we start to grow, we announced great numbers last week, you saw that with the 162,000 jobs. It was like five times higher than projected. And I say, "That's bad news." They say, "Why?" I said, "Because the stock market will go down because every time you have good news, they raise interest rates." Supposed to be the opp- -- every time you have good news, you're supposed to lower interest rates because we become an even better credit.

But we're gonna get it right and we're gonna go up at levels that nobody's ever seen. The war's gonna end soon, and we're gonna get it up. We're working very hard to get Russia, Ukraine. You know, I ended eight wars. And the one that's the toughest is because of hatred. I ended eight wars. And the one that's the toughest is, uh, Russia, Ukraine.

They hate each, the two leaders hate each other so much and it's a, you know, hatred is very interesting. War is very interesting, but it's too bad. And that's what's driving, actually, that's the war that's driving up the diesel prices. But it's all gonna end very soon. And you're gonna end up having a country that nobody's ever seen before because again, we have more jobs being created now and more factories being built than any time in the history of our country.

It's gonna be a beautiful thing and it's gonna be very soon. With the help of Republicans in Congress, I signed the great Big Beautiful Bill giving you the largest tax cuts in American history, giving you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax social security for our great seniors. We made interest on car loans.

If you go out and buy a car, it's deductible against your income tax. First time that's ever happened, but only if the car is made in the good old USA. Otherwise, we're not in it. And in four years of sleepy Joe Biden's administration, they got less than $1 trillion of new investment in our country. Think of it, four years, much less than $1 trillion and it was going negative.

In one year, and now it's in a few months because we have the new numbers for a few months, so it'd be actually one year and they went out for another three months, we have $21 trillion. It was 19.2, now the next number. Think of it. So they had less than a trillion of investment in our country for a period of a year and we have 21 trillion.

Actually, more than that. Think of that. 21 trillion. We have 21 trillion in essentially one year. And they have in four years less than 1 trillion. That's a number that nobody's ever seen before, maybe you won't see it again. But very importantly, pharmaceutical companies are currently investing more than $600 billion to build their factories in the United States.

And much of it, actually, I saw it today, much of it right here in North Carolina, they're building in North Carolina. And every single Democrat in Congress voted against our tax cuts. They voted against no tax on tips. They voted against no tax on overtime. They voted against no tax on social security for our seniors.

The Democrats voted against funding for the border. They voted against voter ID and they voted against proof of citizenship when you go to vote. They don't want it because they wanna cheat. They voted in favor of transgender everything, taxpayer-funded child mutilization [Audience boos] and men playing in women's sports.

I mean, you figure that one. [Audience boos]. They say that's an 80/20 issue. No, that's a 99/1. That's, and it's very demeaning to women, frankly. North Carolina, you cannot let Roy Cooper give you these horrible policies, these policies of weakness and stupidity. You have to get out and vote. And that's why I say you gotta pretend I'm on the ballot.

Just go, if I was on the ballot, I wouldn't have to be here tonight, we'd get everybody out. But some of you like me better than you like the party. The party's good. They've got great people in the party. They're sane people. They're people of commonsense. It's a good party. So, but we're thrilled to be, uh, you have so many, not only Todd Blanche, but we have the director of the federal, uh, housing finance agency.

He's a great guy too. He's done really good, Bill Pulte. Where's Bill? Bill. Well, Bill Pulte's around here someplace. Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much. The mayor of Gastonia, Richard Franks, what a good guy he is. 'Cause we put this together very quickly, we put this together. Where is he? What a nice guy he was.

He said, "Sir, what a good job you did." Thank you very much, mayor. You know, we gave him about a day's notice. We said, I said, "Let's go out and campaign for Whatley." And the mayor was there. Thank you very much and your friends, it's fantastic. I met him backstage. The President of the North Carolina Fraternal Order of Police, Chet Effler.

Chet? Thank you, Chet. Great job, Chet. And the Chief of the Catawba Nation, Brian Harris. Thank you, Brian. Nice to meet you, Brian. You better get out there, Brian. Get all of them along with the Lumbees. We will also have our candidate for the 1st Congressional District, Laurie Buckhout. And I will tell you, she's fantastic.

She's running against a radical left Democrat named Don Davis. Davis voted in favor of taxes on social security. He voted in favor of deadly sanctuary cities. He voted against no tax on tips. He fought no tax on tips. And by the way, if they get in, they're gonna end it. He voted against no tax on overtime.

He voted against no tax on social security. He voted for the sexual mutilization of your children, not good. [Audience boos]. So Laurie, on the other hand, has my complete and total endorsement. She's fantastic. And so does, and so does Jennifer Balkcom. So Jennifer, from the 11th District, Jennifer Balkcom, and she's running against Democrat Jamie Ager, [Audience boos] who wants to massively raise taxes on 70,000 working families in her 11th District, he wants to raise your taxes.

And she also wants to do all of the things that we don't want. So Jennifer and Laurie, come up just for a second, please. So important that we get them in.

Thank you very much. I love you. Oh, gosh. Thank you, Mr. President. You know, I walked up and I just said, "Gosh, I love you." Thank you, sir. We all do. Um, Mr., Mr. President, ever since 2014, you have been on the radar. I just wanna say very quickly, I had a, my father died in 2015 at the age of 95. World War II, Korea, Vietnam, infantry officer, POW, and just my guiding star.

And, uh, next to loving me, he loved who he saw the future President of our nation. So, sir, big, big fan of yours. Thank you, Mr. President, for making us safe, for making us strong, for making us healthy, and for making us proud.

Sir, I'm running because I'm sick of career politicians and I'm a warrior. I would like to say that when I was fighting in Iraq, Don Davis was just beginning his 25-year stint as a political professional. That's all he is. He's an empty suit. He's done nothing for this district. We call him Do Nothing Don.

And Mr. President, I'd like to tell you that our district has voted for you overwhelmingly six times. And sir, it's time that you had a loyal, hardworking, conservative army colonel on your back down there. And that's who I'm gonna be. Thank you.

Yes. Let me just say thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for closing our borders. Thank you for be- -- keeping us safe. Thank you most personally for keeping boys and men out of women's sports. Yes. Thank you for signing the HALT Fentanyl. Thank you for protecting our kids from mutilation. Thank you. As a mom, I thank you.

Thank you as a woman. Thank you as a small business owner for what you've done for small businesses. And this Western North Carolina farm girl is gonna represent us well in Washington. Thank you so much.

Wow, that's great. We have voters. They're just terrific people and, uh, they're, uh, a little new to the scene, not really. They, they're known and respected in your state, but I, I just hope that you vote for them because they are fantastic people and the choice is really very simple for you. You see what I'm saying?

I mean, it's, uh, their, their competition is horrendous. The Democrats gave you a four-year catastrophe, including the highest inflation in history. Yeah, the highest. You know, they came up with these words about pricing and affordability, remember? Affordability. The first day I got in, it was January 20th. The next day I had a news conference, January 21st, and it was Biden's thing.

And they said, "What are you gonna do about affordability?" It was a word I'd never heard politically speaking. It was a word they made up. They passed it on to the fake. Wow, that's a lot of fake news. Look at that. That's a lot. That's a lot of fake news. But they passed it on to the fake news, and I got hit with this affordability word for a year and a half.

And they're the ones that caused the affordability problem. Remember that? It was on January 21st. Eggs have gone up five times, sir. I said, "I just got here. I've been here one day. We took care of the egg crisis. We take care of everything. We also took care of the fact that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon.

They will not have a nuclear weapon. [Audience chants "USA"]

Thank you. [Audience chants "USA"]

Thank you very much. So now they're not gonna have a nuclear weapon. And, you know, I don't. I'm the last one to say, because we had gasoline down to $1.85 in Iowa. It was $1.85 a gallon. I was there the day before I had to do this. I had to make this journey over there. Remember we hit it with the B-2 bombers.

We took out the nuclear capacity, but then we had to go back in them again. And I said, you know, I told my guys, uh, Scott Bessent and Toward, all of my people, Todd, everybody, I said, "We gotta make a little journey down to the Middle East because we can't let this crazy nation have a nuclear weapon." And we stopped them.

And to be honest, it's, it's gonna end soon, but because they can't go on, they can't go on. They, their nation's destroyed. But, uh, I have to say, you have a little higher, you have a higher gain. It's a very inexpensive price to pay for what we've done. Remember that. It's a little more. It's, even if it was, frankly, even if it was a lot more, but that's gonna come tumbling down.

That's gonna be like a rocket ship in reverse. And don't forget, they never wanna talk. The fake news about Venezuela, we took out Venezuela in 48 minutes and, and now we have all our big oil companies going there and we're working along with the government of Venezuela very well. The relationship is extraordinary.

We're taking out millions and millions of barrels of oil. And I can't get the press to talk about it because they don't wanna talk about it because they've never seen anything like it before. When they say to the victor belong the spoils, that's one of the greatest cases anyone's ever seen in history. We paid back the cost of our war many times over.

And you watch what's gonna happen to Iran, it's gonna be a really good conclusion. It's gonna, and it's gonna happen. It's gonna. I say it's gonna be a little bit after the election, but maybe not. Maybe it's before the election. But when you look at it is where we have the straight open, we have all this thing and they've been decimated.

Their Navy's gone. Their Air Force is gone. Think of it, the Navy, 159 ships, every one of them's at the bottom of the sea. Every one of them. Our militaries, and we put on a blockade, the likes of which not, not one ship in all the months that it's been, not one ship going to Iran has gotten through that blockade, not one.

So I just wanna thank our military, say God bless our military because they're the greatest, the greatest in the world. And that'll end soon. And you watch what happens to your oil, to your gasoline, pew, it's gonna come down very quickly. I had it down to the lowest level in years. I had a choice. I could've sat back and enjoyed it or could've done what's the right thing for, I see these young children in the audience.

But if they had a nuclear weapon, it would be a very bad thing, a very dangerous thing. And they would've used it absolutely without question. I've gotten to know them, they would've used it. So we did the right thing. On January 20th, we inherit the worst border in US history and we quickly turned into, we took that border, we turned it into the most secure border by far in the history of our country.

In the past, and this is actually sort of hard to believe, but it's the, you know, the Democrats are, they're inclined deed. You know what inclined? They make up the stats. In the past 16 months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States of America. Who would've thought that was possible?

Who would've thought that was possible? And under my most favored nation policy on drug prices, we paid the highest price for drugs anywhere in the world. We're delivering the largest prescription drug price cuts in recorded history with discounts of 70%, 80%, and even 90%. And by the way, that alone should win us the midterms.

Remember that, that alone. No, but we paid, think of it, for years and decades, we paid the highest prices for prescription drugs anywhere in the world. Now we pay the lowest price anywhere in the world. And I won't go into you with the boring details, but I did a big number. [Laughs] I had to do it and a lot of countries had to agree to things that they didn't want to agree to, but they did.

We're making the largest ever investment in the United States Armed Force and we have the, and by the way, you have a lot of that money coming right here. And we have the strongest and most powerful military anywhere in the world. There's nobody even to compete. And with our new and powerful relationship with Venezuela, we just made the largest oil deal in history, and I think the largest deal in history.

We got 65 billion barrels of beautiful oil, 500 years worth of oil. 65 billion, think of it, billion barrels of oil. We got it for what? An attack. We got it for an attack. And remember if the Republicans win the House and Senate, I will issue what we will all call, from now on, the Trump dividend to every adult in America will get $5,000 and you'll get it. Because we're taking in so much money and we can do it and the Democrats can't say that because they don't do the tariffs.

We, tariffs have made us rich. You've heard me many times talk about tariffs. I said the favorite word in the dictionary, the fake news killed me with that. What about the Lord? What about your wife? What about your family? What about so many other things? So I made it number five and now they're happy. So tariffs is my fifth favorite word.

But we took in billions and billions and billions of dollars and tariffs so we can make a pledge, but they can't because if they get in, this country will go into a massive depression. They don't know what the hell they're doing. We're gonna have a depression like you've never seen. So, and for those who say that it would be difficult to do, it's not difficult to do because if you remember, the more, money is pouring into our country right now, but if you remember, we will go and do things that nobody else has been able to do. They said that the great big, beautiful bill could never be approved.

It's 17 bills that we got. It was supposed to be 17 separate bills and it was supposed to be approved over a long period of time. They said it would be impossible to do it a one. And I came up with the name. I call it the great big beautiful bill. I like it better than the name. The great big beautiful bill, we got it approved and that's four years worth of goodies.

Now we're getting more. Now we're getting much more. Mike Johnson's doing a fantastic job, doing a fantastic job. And remember also for the military here, $1,776, you remember? $1,776 and it was. So it came to my desk. I wanted to get a bonus for the military. So it came out to my desk, "Sir, we can give $1,775." I looked at the number and I said, "Wait a minute, for $1 more, you're 1,776." [Laughs] Which is pretty good.

I was, I was quite impressed with my intelligence. I'm a high IQ person after all. No, I looked at the number. I said, "Wait a minute. $1 more." And with 1,776, everyone said it was impossible to get our military that number. I got that military, I am gonna get, for all adults, Democrat, Republican, all adults in our country, and you deserve it with what you had to do and how you had to suffer for four years under Biden.

We're gonna get you, if we win, we're gonna get you $5,000, so that's it. Very simple. Very simple. And we'll also make the Trump tax cuts, the largest tax cut in history. We're gonna make the Trump tax cuts again. That's no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our cities. We're gonna make it permanent.

We're gonna put it in law. So when the radical left, at some point, maybe they [Audio gap] get in, we hope [Audio gap] destroy our country. But if they get in, they will terminate it. We're gonna make it permanent so they can't terminate it. We'll win the war on fraud led by our great vice president, JD Vance, sometimes referred to, sometimes referred to as Eliot Ness of the fabled Untouchables.

And we'll pass the No Invasion of our Country Act. We have a th, an act that we're putting up prohibiting any future president from ever opening our borders to illegal immigrants again. Think of that. We'll pass the No More Changing Your Clocks Act. We're gonna chan, no more to double crazy. Not the biggest, but I'll tell you it's something.

So you don't have to change your clocks twice a year, remember? Up, down. Oh, let's go all over the house, change the clock. It's crazy. And we will pass a healthcare plan that will be the greatest of them all, which will stop all payments to the big insurance companies which own the Democrats, by the way.

The big insurance companies own the Democrats. And we'll give the money that would go to them, we're gonna give it directly to you, the people, so you can buy your own healthcare and have a lot of money left over and it'll be better health. And we will immediately end no cash bail. And we will pass the Save America Act to defend our sacred American elections, which will make mandatory voter ID and proof of citizenship.

And we will enshrine in permanent law, no men in women's sports and no transgender mutilization of your children. So ladies and gentlemen of North Carolina, a place that I really do love, I love it. The golden age of America is upon us, but you must get out and vote and vote for Michael Whatley and those two incredible potential Congress people. They're gonna be great. They're gonna be wa- -- they're warriors. I know them from before. They're warriors.

And with your help, we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America healthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And most importantly, we will make America great again. Thank you all very much. Thank you, North Carolina. God bless you. God bless you.