Remarks by President Trump at Prison Reform Roundtable | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

    Trump National Golf Club  •  Bedminster, New Jersey  •  August 9, 2018  •  4:22 P.M. EDT

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody, for being here in Bedminster. We've had a lot of work. We've done a lot of work. They're renovating the White House. It's a long-term project, and they approved it years ago. And I said, well, I guess this would be a good place to be in the meantime. So they're doing a lot of work at the White House. I miss it. I would like to be there. But this is a good way of doing it.

    We have some very outstanding people with us. And I'll make a few remarks. This is largely about prison reform - and other subjects - but largely about prison reform.

    So I want to thank the governors - Matt Bevin, Phil Bryant, Doug Burgum, Nathan Deal, and John Bel Edwards - for being here today. Been friends of mine. We've been, I could say, in wars, but we've been on the same side of the wars. That's always good.

    I want to thank you also to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ken Paxton. And Ken just filed a very interesting lawsuit, which I think is going to be very successful. I hope it's going to be successful. I also want to recognize Secretary Rick Perry and Secretary Alex Acosta. Thank you both. Rick, thank you very much.

    We are doing some great things with healthcare, Alex.

    SECRETARY ACOSTA: We are.

    THE PRESIDENT: And you're doing some wonderful things with energy. I hope that project comes along that we're talking about. It's going to help a lot of people. A lot of jobs are going to be created.

    SECRETARY PERRY: Indeed.

    THE PRESIDENT: So I know you're working on it.

    I look forward to hearing from each of you about your experiences with prison reform and the lessons that we've learned. I know how Matt, in particular, you have been working so hard. Phil, you've been working long and hard on it - harder than anyone would know. But I can tell you, my administration feels very, very strongly about it.

    One of the single most important things we're doing is to help former inmates in creating jobs. We're creating so many jobs that former inmates, for the first time, are really getting a shot at it, because they're weren't sought and now they are being sought because our unemployment rate is so low - historically low - 50 years.

    Now, our economy is booming. Businesses are hiring and recruiting workers that were previously overlooked. They're being hired. It's a great feeling. It's a great thing that we've all accomplished. We've created a lot of jobs in the states. And I guess I've helped you a lot on a national basis.

    We've created 3.9 million more jobs since Election Day - so almost 4 million jobs - which is unthinkable. If I would have said that during the campaign, only a few of the people around this table would have believed me. But they would have. 3.9 million jobs since Election Day. That's pretty incredible.

    We've added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the election. Manufacturing employment is now growing faster than at any time than it has in three decades, over 30 years. Through the Pledge of America's Workers, launched just last month, almost 5 million Americans will receive enhanced career training and opportunities.

    And I want to thank Ivanka Trump for having done an incredible job on that. She's really worked on it. It's something very important to her.

    I've really - and I've said it to a lot of people: Jared - I want to thank Jared for what's happening on prison reform, because you've really been leading it. It's something very close to your heart.

    And as I've said before, we hire Americans. We want to hire and treat our Americans fairly. You know, for many years, jobs have been taken out of our country. We've lost our businesses. We've lost the hiring abilities that we had. Not anymore. Now those companies are coming back; they're coming roaring back - to your state, to your state. They're coming back faster than anyone thought even possible.

    Our first duty is to our citizens, including those who have taken the wrong path but are seeking redemption and a new beginning. That's people that have been in prison, and they come out and they're having a hard time. They're not having such a hard time anymore.

    We've passed the First Step Act through the House, and we're working very hard in the Senate to refine it and pass it into law. We think we'll be successful in that regard. The bill expands vocational educational programs to eligible federal inmates so that more of them can learn a trade. And that's what we're doing. We're teaching them trades. We're teaching them different things that they can put into good use, and put into use to get jobs.

    I recently met with Chairman Grassley and other members of Congress to discuss the bill. We also agreed that we must be tough on crime, especially on criminals and trafficking of drugs, and lots of other trafficking. We have a trafficking problem, including human trafficking. We're very, very tough on that. And that's going to remain tough, or even tougher.

    We must strengthen community bonds with law enforcement, including cities like Chicago that have been an absolute and total disaster. We'll be talking about Chicago today because that is something that, in terms of our nation, nobody would believe it could be happening. They had 63 incidents last weekend and 12 deaths.

    That's bad stuff happening, and probably, I guess, you have to take from the leadership. That's called bad leadership. There's no reason, in a million years, that something like that should be happening in Chicago.

    We want every child to grow up in a safe neighborhood surrounded by families that are loving and helpful, and with a path to great education and a lifelong career.

    I want to thank everybody for being here. And I think what we'll do, while the media is here, maybe we'll just go around the room real quickly and we'll introduce yourselves. And these are people that have really worked hard on prison reform - and lots of other things, but on prison reform. And that's largely what this meeting is about.

    Governor? Please.

    GOVERNOR DEAL: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. We are very pleased with what's happening in Georgia. We have seen, since I became Governor, a 10-percent decrease in violent crime in our state, a 20-percent overall decrease in crime. We have seen our African American percentage in our prison system drop significantly. Black American - black males has dropped almost 30 percent.

    THE PRESIDENT: That's great.

    GOVERNOR DEAL: Black females dropped about 38.2 percent. Our African American commitments to our prison is at the lowest level it has been since 1987. And in states like ours, we have a disproportionate number of minorities in our prison versus our population as a whole.

    We have found that reentry is a vital part of this. We find that - I did have a question I asked; I said, "What's the most common characteristic of those in our prisons?" The answer was, 70 percent of them never graduated from high school.

    So we immediately concentrated on that. We have significantly beefed up our GEDs. We've also brought a private charter school into our system to teach them, give them a real high school diploma. We found that if you give them a blue-collar skill, you reduce your recidivism rate by 24 percent. If you give them just the education of getting a high school diploma, it's reduced by 19 percent.

    So we have been very successful. We're pleased about it. And we're pleased to share whatever information we have that might be helpful.

    THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, again. Thank you very much.

    Pam?

    BONDI: President, Pam Bondi, Attorney General of Florida. Thank you for doing this. As a career prosecutor, you see people who go to prison and get out of prison, and can't find a job. And how do we expect people to succeed without being able to get a job? And you were just in Tampa - thank you for that - Tampa Bay Tech, supporting jobs for young people.

    And that's what's so important, is reentry and being able to get a job, and training people on how to be successful. And something we did in Florida shortly after I got elected was we decoupled - if you were a convicted felon, you couldn't get an occupational license. So how do we expect you to succeed?

    So thank you for everything you're doing, Mr. President.

    THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, Pam. Thank you very much.

    GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Mr. President, John Bel Edwards. And I will tell you, in Louisiana, we are proud of the work we've done. It's been sentencing reform, prison reform, and a real focus on reentry. And for the first time in 20 years, I can tell you, Louisiana does not have the highest incarceration rate in the nation today.

    THE PRESIDENT: Good. Good.

    GOVERNOR EDWARDS: And it's paying dividends for us, and we're reinvesting the savings -

    THE PRESIDENT: Who does?

    GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Oklahoma.

    THE PRESIDENT: Really?

    GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Yes, sir. But we are reinvesting the savings into our reentry program and also into victim services. So we're excited about what we're doing, and we're looking forward to sharing that with you.

    THE PRESIDENT: Great. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, John Bel.

    Please, go ahead.

    GOVERNOR BURGUM: Mr. President, Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota. Thank you for coming to North Dakota last month. Great to have you there.

    THE PRESIDENT: Things are looking good, aren't they?

    GOVERNOR BURGUM: Things are looking great thanks to a lot of policies from this administration and the great Cabinet that you have.

    As you know, you can't really separate, today, prison reform and our prison situation from addiction. In North Dakota, 100 percent of the women that are incarcerated in our prison system have a disease of addiction. Eighty-five percent of the men in our prison have disease of addiction. And we can't solve a healthcare - a chronic healthcare problem with punishment. We've got to solve it - treat it like a disease and solve it that way.

    THE PRESIDENT: Right.

    GOVERNOR BURGUM: And so I want to also thank you for the work that your administration is doing on the addiction front, because it ties directly back into this. And I think we've done a number of innovations we'll be happy to share at this roundtable today. Thanks for inviting us.

    THE PRESIDENT: Good. Good.

    GOVERNOR BURGUM: But, you know, in the end, we're trying to create better neighbors, not better prisoners. Ninety-eight-and-a-half percent of the people that go to prison in North Dakota end up coming back out. And so we have to - when they're there, like the other governors have talked about it, it's education, it's career skills, it's treatment. Those are the things we have to focus on. If we can do that, we can turn people's lives around and add people to the workforce. We know we need that because we got so many jobs open in this country.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Governor.

    PAXTON: Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General. Thank you, Mr. President. This is obviously an important issue to Texas. I think it's an important issue to the nation. And, Jared, I appreciate your passion for this issue.

    In 2007, under the leadership of, I think, the greatest governor in my lifetime, who's now the Secretary of Energy - is that the right department? - (laughter) - and the president of our top public policy foundation, Brooke Rollins, we passed legislation similar to what Congress is now looking at that has had a dramatic impact on our own ability to take people from prison and live productive lives.

    And, you know, I could cite many statistics, but we were facing - spending $2 billion, and we didn't spend the money. We put $241 million into treatment and to helping people find jobs. We've expanded that since, but it's made a tremendous difference. We have not built any more new prisons since then. We've actually closed eight prisons. So it's really made a difference, and I think it can make a difference for the nation. So I look forward to continuing the discussion.

    THE PRESIDENT: How are you doing with your recently filed case? How's that looking?

    PAXTON: Well, we had a hearing yesterday, and I think it went quite well. Let's see what the judge says. But we know we're right on the law and we're right on the Constitution. And so we're confident things are going to go in the right way.

    THE PRESIDENT: It's true. Okay. Thank you.

    GOVERNOR BRYANT: Thank you, Mr. President. I'm Phil Bryant of Mississippi. In 2014, we began our "Right on Crime" program. We used all the things that Georgia has been successful with, and Texas. I called both of these governors and said, "Tell me how you did it."

    I'm a former law enforcement officer, and I worked undercover narcotics cases. I've been out there with the worst of the worst. I put a lot of people in jail, and some of it was difficult, particularly when I was state auditor and over 100 state-wide elected officials and government employees went to jail for white-collar crimes.

    So we began a really strong program working with the PEW Institute of putting that workforce training program into effect, making sure we looked at addiction, mental health. Mental health challenges within the correctional facilities are obviously rampant. Also trying to make prisons a drug-free zone and a crime-free zone within that prison, so you can't - your life can't be threatened every day; you can't be attacked in prison; you can't have access to drugs and be rehabilitated.
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( August 14th, 2018 @ 7:55 am )
 
Billions of dollars flow through Ghetto Crime Families and folks there are fully employed. Money and jobs are not the problems.



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