U.S. President Donald Trump spoke to a crowd of more than 7,000 Thursday night in the Knapp Center on the Drake University campus in Des Moines.
After a long day of rigorous logic and close argument on the floor of the U.S. Senate, where Trump is being tried on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, the formless gush of Trump’s stump speech — reminiscent of the final chapter of the novel “Ulysses” by the Irish novelist James Joyce — presented a striking contrast.
Highlights from the 100-minute speech follow.
“This November, we are going to defeat the radical socialist Democrats who are right on the street. I just saw polls. . . . They did a poll of Iowa. They have pitted me against every one of the socialists. We are winning by a lot, everyone, we are beating them all.”
If we do not win, your farms are going to hell. I can tell you that right now. They will be saying, ‘Sell.'”
“The whole world respects us now. We are respected again. America is respected again.”
“While we are proudly creating jobs and killing terrorists, Congressional Democrats are consumed with partisan rage and obsessed with a witch hunt hoax. We are having probably the best years we have ever had in the history of our country, and I just got impeached. Can you believe these people? They impeach Trump. We have accountability for the vets, and they impeach a president. No, that will not work. Watch. Just watch They want to nullify your ballots, poison our democracy and overthrow the entire system of government. That is not happening, I can tell you that. Washington Democrats have spent the last three years trying to overturn the last election. Why am I not worried?”
“Today’s Democrat party is run by left-wing extremists who want to massively raise your taxes, increase regulations, cancel your health plan, raise Medicare, shut down American energy, destroy your Social Security, eliminate religious freedom, punish free speech, confiscate your guns, abolish your borders and indoctrinate America’s children with hateful, left-wing ideology. Other than that, they are okay. This election is a choice between American freedom and Democratic socialism. The Democrats will lose because America will never be a socialist country.”
“Americans across the political spectrum were disgusted by the Washington Democrats, the partisan hoaxes, the witch hunts, the con jobs. They do not love our country.”
“And the Washington Democrats have never been more extreme. One hundred and thirty-two Congressional Democrats have signed up for Bernie Sanders’ government health care that would strip all of those 180 million Americans of your private coverage. You want that. You got great deals. You are able to negotiate, keep your doctor, keep everything you wanted. Now they want to take it away. Report to an operating room when you have a cold at your local hospital. I don’t think so. I’m not going to knock it because I want Bernie to bring it right up to the end, and we will debate it the day before the election. We are saving your health care while socialist Democrats are trying to take away your health care.”
“I think I am a totally brilliant human being. So I came up with a plan. I came up with this idea because everybody kept coming up to me and saying it’s really terrible what is happening with health care. We are waiting in line for two weeks, four weeks, seven weeks. They were terminally ill before they saw a doctor. So I came up with this incredible plan. Only I could think of this.”
“These people are sick. They are sick. They are sick people. And shifty Schiff is a sick person. How am I going to get him? He didn’t do anything wrong. What a sick guy he is. Virtually every Democrat supports late-term abortion, ripping a baby from its mother’s womb right up until the moment of birth. Republicans believe that every child is a sacred gift from God. Democrats are now the party of high taxes, high crime, open borders, late-term abortion, socialism and blatant corruption. The Republican party is the party of the American worker, the American family, the American dream and the late, great Abraham Lincoln. Remember, I always said I can be more presidential than any other past president, other than perhaps Abraham Lincoln when he is wearing the hat. Because it’s easy to be presidential but I only have about three people in front of me. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Is everything okay in Iowa? The world is ripping you off? There’s not a thing I can do about that.”
“You have no choice. You have to vote for me. Otherwise, everything you have built for your entire life will be gone. Goodbye, Iowa. Instead, I’m working my ass off up here. You think this is easy? This room wasn’t designed for this many people. If you want your children to inherit the blessings that generations of Americans have fought and died for, then we must devote everything we have toward victory in November of 2020.”
“In only this way can we save the America we love and drain the Washington swamp once and for all. I had no idea it would be this sick and degenerated. It is a degenerate swamp. I had no idea the swamp was that people, but we are winning. We are winning because we are in the White House and with your help, we will lift millions more of our citizens from dependence to independence and from poverty to prosperity. That’s what is happening all over our country.”
