Remarks by President Trump During Thanksgiving Video Teleconference with Members of the Military | Eastern North Carolina Now

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, I appreciate it. I love doing it, actually. And I'm very proud of it because we've spent so much. You know, when we took over, our military was very depleted. You know that very well. You know it probably better than most with the Air Force, because the planes were old. They were tired. And now you have all brand new F35s coming and others. And your tankers, your bombers - the whole thing. They're all coming. Hopefully we never have to use it for war, but we're better prepared than we ever have been.

    When I came in four years ago - hard to believe, almost four years ago - we were in sad shape. And now we're in phenomenal shape. Have you seen the difference in the equipment over the last couple of years?

    MAJOR RUTHERFORD: Absolutely, sir. Definitely.

    THE PRESIDENT: Yeah. We went from old planes to brand new planes; from - from planes that were very visible to stealth, where you can't see them. Stealth helps. Do you agree with that?

    MAJOR RUTHERFORD: Yes, sir. If you can't see it, you can't hit it.

    THE PRESIDENT: It's very - no, I don't know much about what you do, but I know if you can see it, I like it better. Anyway, thank you very much.

    And, Tommy, thank you for doing a great job. We appreciate it very much. Thank you.

    MAJOR RUTHERFORD: Thank you, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: So now we're going to a special place in my heart: Space Force. Because nobody even thought about Space Force. And I looked at it, and I said - I said, "We're going to have to come up - we're going to have to do something." Because I looked at what China was doing and Russia was doing and others are thinking about doing.

    And I want - I want to just thank you very much. Is Matt there? Matt?

    LIEUTENANT COLONEL MATTHEW LOHMEIER: Mr. President, good afternoon and happy Thanksgiving. This is Lieutenant Colonel Matt Lohmeier, Commander of the 11th Space Warning Squadron. You can't see everyone in the room, but we've got a number of others here. Grateful for the opportunity to wish you and the First Lady a happy Thanksgiving.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you.

    LIEUTENANT COLONEL MATTHEW LOHMEIER: And also want to thank you - you've already said what we do, which is provide strategic and theater missile warning for the nation and our allies - but want to thank you personally for your advocacy for an independent Space Force so that that could become a reality while we serve. We're very grateful for that. We're making great progress that I don't think we were able to necessarily make while we were - while we belonged to the Air Force. But having our own independent service has - we've made great progress already in the first year.


    So thank you for your advocacy for that. And on behalf of all of the missile warning operators here at the 11th Space Warning Squadron, we say, "Happy Thanksgiving."

    THE PRESIDENT: That's good. Thank you very much, and you too. And I know the coordination with you and Air Force has been stellar. You're getting along great, and you're doing well together. And it really does work well together, but I thought that you should have separate.

    And as years go by and as decades go by, people will see the importance of Space Force. There's no question about it. So thank you very much. I appreciate it.

    And Coast Guard, please.

    CAPTAIN RUOCCO: Good afternoon, Mr. President. Just wanted to wish you and the First Lady and your entire family a happy Thanksgiving. I hope you're able to spend some quality time with them today and enjoy one another's company.

    I just want to highlight a situation we went through during our pre-deployment workups in Mississippi, where we experienced a little outbreak of the coronavirus right around the Fourth of July timeframe. You know, we had a healthy respect of the virus and how it could affect our ability to train and meet our operational commitments. But as a unit, we had a greater confidence in the - in the patriotism and professionalism of the wardrooms, chiefs, mess, and crew of PSU 308 right behind me, sir.

    We were steadfast in our resolve to meet our operational commitments and relieve our sister unit on time and on schedule, sir. We did not back down, but rather we did not let fear or uncertainty dictate our actions.

    Mr. President, the men and women at PSU 308 are proud and honored to stand the watch this Thanksgiving in defense of our freedoms.

    From our unit, I want to wish - I want to wish you and the rest of the Trump family a merry Christmas, happy holidays, a safe and prosperous New Year; keep hitting them straight on the golf course, Mr. President; and semper paratus.

    THE PRESIDENT: (Laughs.) Straight and long. That's right. Thank you very much. That's great. That's really great. Are you a golfer? Do you play golf? You love it, right? That's good. It's pretty good. Thank you very much. The only form of exercise. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. And really, everybody, just congratulations.

    And, you know, I have to say, on the Army, we just made a tremendous purchase of equipment, as you know. I think Tim probably saw that, and you - you have a lot of equipment coming into the Army, in particular. We really went - we went for top of the line, Tim. I guess you saw that. And you see it pouring in, and that's good. So it's an honor. We want to thank you very much, Tim. And thank you.

    I will say this: The Coast Guard - nothing and no stock has gone up higher than Coast Guard - the stock in the Coast Guard, the reputation of the Coast Guard - the job you've done on the hurricanes. And I think people didn't appreciate it as much as they do now, I can tell you that. It's gone very high. What you've done in Texas and in Florida, in particular; in Puerto Rico - the job you did in Puerto Rico. And you go out there in those monster waves and - you know, are dangerous has can be. Even with the new boats and the new ships, nothing is meant for the kind of waves we saw, especially in Texas. And you went out there and you did your job and you saved thousands of lives, as I said.


    And I really am very proud of the Coast Guard, so I want to really call it out. Thank you very much. Very proud of you. Thank you.

    Thank you all. Have a great Thanksgiving, and don't eat too much Turkey. Thank you. (Laughs.) Thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you very much. Thanksgiving.

    Q Mr. President, do you have any big plans for your last Thanksgiving at the White House?

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, we don't know what is last, if you look at what's going on. You have to really take a look at what's going on. They're finding tremendous discrepancies in the votes. Nobody believes those numbers. Those numbers are incorrect numbers. A lot of numbers have already been reported that's incorrect.

    You're going to see things happening over the next week or two that are going to be shocking to people - if you look at the numbers in Michigan, if you look at the numbers in Pennsylvania, if you look at fraudulent voting and fraudulent votes. So I can't say what's first and what's last, in terms of is this the last one or is this the first one of a second term. We'll see what happens.

    Nobody wants to see the kind of fraud that this election has - has really come to represent. We are looking at things that are so bad in Georgia. They don't want to show us signatures. The reason they don't want to show us signatures is very simple: because we will find thousands and thou- - it's a very close race; it's hair-thin - but we'll find thousands and thousands of discrepancies, fraud.

    Why they aren't wanting to show those signatures is amazing. They're doing recounts. And even in the recount, they found thousands of votes that were off. But now we want to look at the signatures. And you will find tens of thousands of false ballots, fraud- - forged ballots. You'll see it all over. You're going to see a lot of it.

    And you go to Pennsylvania. You saw the meeting we had yesterday with Pennsylvania. You saw people come up - how they went to vote, and they said, "No, you can't vote. Somebody else already sent in a ballot." And a woman - but this is happening tens of thousands of times.

    Q But -

    THE PRESIDENT: I think it was six hundred-and-some-odd thousand - 687,000 fraudulent votes cast in Pennsylvania. And I will tell you, the - if you look at the state house now - the Republican state house - they're starting to see what's going on there. But they've really known it for a long time.

    Then you go to Michigan, and you look at what happened in Wayne County, in Detroit. I went through a list. I won almost every county, and you see it. Almost every - by 78 percent, 72 percent, 68 percent - going through the list. Then you get to Wayne, and something happened. Tremendous numbers.

    You saw the canvassers. They refused to sign their - their document because they said, "We can't sign a fraudulent document." Horrible things went on. That's in Wayne County, Detroit.

    But you look at the votes that were just tabulated, and they were left today. Look at all the counties. I won almost all of them, except Detroit. It was so egregious. It was phony.

    Look at what's going on in Wisconsin. Wisconsin, they're finding tremendous discrepancy. You just take a look at that. Tremendous discrepancy. And elsewhere.

    So we're going to see what happens, but you can't have somebody assume office, and already they want to get rid of "America First." I mean, they want to get rid of "America First." They don't want "America First." You know why? Because China doesn't want it. China expressed their wish: "Please get rid of 'America First.'" And the Biden Administration said, "Oh, that's okay. We'll get rid of 'America First.'"

    No, we don't want to get rid of "America First." We want to put America first. And other countries should put themselves first too, and I tell them that all the time. But we don't want to get rid of it.

    So I don't know what is going to happen. I know one thing: Joe Biden did not get 80 million votes. And I got 74 million, but there were many ballots thrown away, so I got much more than that. But I got 74 million. Seventy-four million is eleven million more than I got last time. It's millions more than Ronald Reagan got when he won all - he won 49 states, I guess. He won 49 states. Yes. And it's - it's millions more - millions more than Hillary Clinton got.


    Joe Biden did not get - and, by the way, Joe Biden did not beat Barack Obama with the black vote. He didn't beat him, okay? But they have him as beating him. And if you look at the numbers, the numbers are false. The numbers are corrupt. It was a rigged election - 100 percent - and people know it. That's why you have people marching all over the United States right now: They know was a rigged election.