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

Press Release:

    Mar-a-Lago Club and Resort | Palm Beach, Florida  •  Via Teleconference  •  November 22, 2018  •  9:42 A.M. EST

    THE PRESIDENT: Okay, well thank you all very much. And I say to our great, great warriors, "Hello, and Happy Thanksgiving." We're celebrating Thanksgiving over in the United States, as you know, and you're celebrating it wherever you are in all parts of the world. And we'll be talking to you individually.

    We're honored to be joined on today's call by great patriots - you are really great patriots - representing each branch of the American armed services.

    Melania and I want to express our profound gratitude for the extraordinary sacrifices you make to defend our nation. While you are away from your families and loved ones, I hope that you'll take solace in knowing that all of the American families that you hold so close to your heart are all doing well.

    The nation is doing well economically, better than anybody in the world. We're the hot nation of the world and it's nice to know you're fighting, and you're fighting for something that's doing well, and that's our country.

    I want to begin by welcoming Colonel Stephanie Barton and the men and women of the 101st Airborne Division. These are real warriors. And you have the Resolute Support Sustainment Brigade and they are joining us from Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan, where our soldiers are providing invaluable aid in combined joint area operations throughout Afghanistan.

    You are doing an incredible job. A lot of progress has been made and your courage truly inspires us all. We know what you're doing. We watch it. And oftentimes we're watching it every night during the news. And we know it's dangerous and we also know that you've had an unbelievable impact.

    Joining us from al-Jaber Air Base in Kuwait is the Central Command - response and Crisis Response Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force. Lieutenant Colonel Sam Howie, you are really great Marines and you're the embodiment of honor, and courage, and commitment.

    It's incredible, the job you're doing. I particularly want to congratulate you on the work you've done to crush ISIS from the air and from the ground. And really it's - big, big progress has been made. They're very close to being gone and we like it that way. But you have shown incredible courage. And I have to say, you've shown great, great leadership. So, thank you very much. And, Lieutenant Colonel, thank you very much and we'll be talking to you in a little while.

    Happy Thanksgiving as well to Captain Pat Hannifin and all of the sailors aboard the USS Ronald Reagan. Great ship. Your ship's motto is one that we embrace every day: Peace Through Strength. That's what the motto is, and we have that motto at home. Everywhere the Seventh Fleet sails, the USS Ronald Reagan is an enduring symbol of American might, American strength, American power and, really, American goodness, in so many ways.

    From the United States Air Force, we're joined by the 455th Air Expeditionary Wing, which is supporting Operation Freedom's Sentinel and NATO's Resolute Support.


    Brigadier General David Lyons - thank you very much, David - is the Commander. And I want to congratulate you and every minute [member] of the 455th for your outstanding work. Not only have you destroyed hundreds of ISIS - and actually far more than hundreds - and many, many Taliban targets, but you protect coalition ground forces throughout the region. And you protect them like nobody else. It's incredible the job you do. And I just want to thank you all for being on. And I have to say, General, it's great to speak to you by teleconference and by phone because your reputation is an incredible one.

    Representing the U.S. Coast Guard are crewmembers from six Coast Guard cutters and from the shore support teams that are part of Patrol Forces Southwest Asia, which is the largest Coast Guard unit outside of the United States. And I'm actually going right now - I'm in Palm Beach, Florida, and I'm going over to your local Coast Guard station and we're going to spend some great time with the men and women of the Coast Guard.

    They have, from a lot of standpoints, you could call it branding, you could call it whatever you want, the job they've done on hurricanes in this country. They've saved thousands and thousands of people. In fact, in Texas, they saved over 12,000 people. If you think of what that means, over 12,000 people. They went into seas and they went into areas that nobody else would go into. And it was incredible. What they've done in Texas, what they did in Florida, what they did in Puerto Rico, the Coast Guard has really become a symbol of strength and perseverance and toughness and genius, actually. It's purely genius.

    So, hello to Lieutenant Nicholas Hartmann who is the Commanding Officer of the cutter Aquidneck. And I also want to congratulate Seaman Christopher Wilson on being selected for "A" school. That's "A," like in "A." That's the best, right? Seaman Wilson, you truly make us proud. Congratulations. That's a big deal. Going to that school is like going to the Wharton School of Finance, if you happen to be doing what you do.

    And to everyone on today's videoconference also, I want to thank you all for serving. Today we thank God for the blessings of having you people be our heroes, and you really are our heroes. And your families are back here and they love you, and they respect you and they look forward to seeing you because you're the ones who keep America safe and strong and free. You do a job like nobody else. And it is really great respect that we all have. You are very much appreciated, like you wouldn't believe, by the American public, by the citizens of our country.

    I want to maybe start with the Air Force. And I know that Brigadier General David Lyons is on the phone. And, David, tell me a little bit about what you're doing.

    BRIGADIER GENERAL LYONS: Our mission here, we defend the two busiest airfields in Afghanistan: Kandahar and Bagram. We support our teammates and our mission set, and then we deliver decisive combat air power across the entire country of Afghanistan.

    Mr. President, I know you can't see us right now, but you've got 150 airmen in this room that would love to say Happy Thanksgiving to you. (Inaudible), what do you say to the President?

    PARTICIPANTS: Happy Thanksgiving!

    THE PRESIDENT: That's great. Well, that's really fantastic. How are things going over there? Are they - are you looking up? How is looking to you? You've seen it. You've been there a while and you've seen what's going on. You know what's happening better than anybody. How do you find things going?

    BRIGADIER GENERAL LYONS: Well, both the Taliban and ISIS are resilient adversaries, but I think that we're doing well. We get after them every single day. Our objective here is to fight the away game. And so what I mean by that is we never want this adversary to reach our shores again. And so every airman here is dedicated to keeping this fight away from our shores. A stable Afghanistan is good for Afghanistan, but we do what we do for America, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: Well, said it better than anybody could have said: "Keep them away from our shores." And that's why we're doing the strong border. As you probably see over the news what's happening in our southern border and our southern border territory. Large numbers of people, and in many cases, we have no idea who they are. And in many cases, they're not good people; they're bad people. But large numbers of people are forming at our border, and I don't have to even ask you; I know what you want to do. You want to make sure that you know who we're letting in. And we're not letting in anybody essentially because we want to be very, very careful. So, you're right. You're doing it over there, we're doing it over here.

    And your people at the border, we have the military at the border for the first time. I don't know if it's ever - or certainly there's never been a presence like this, but we have a very powerful border now. We have the concertina fencing and we have things that people don't even believe. We took old, broken wall and we wrapped it with barbed wire-plus. I guess you could really call it "barbed wire-plus." This is the ultimate. And nobody is getting through these walls. And we're going to make sure they're the right people because that's what you and your family want and all of your families, that's what they want. And that's why we're all fighting. You know, we're fighting for borders. We're fighting for our country. If we don't have borders, we don't have a country.

    So we're doing very well on the southern border. We're very tough. We get a lot of bad court decisions from the Ninth Circuit, which has become a big thorn in our side. We always lose and then you lose again and again, and then you hopefully win at the Supreme Court, which we've done. But it's a terrible thing when judges take over your protective services; when they tell you how to protect your border. It's a disgrace.


    So, we're winning and you're winning. And I appreciate it very much. And, General, your reputation is an incredible one. Thank you very much for doing the job, and I'll see you back when you're in the United States. Or maybe I'll even see you over there. You never know what's going to happen.

    BRIGADIER GENERAL LYONS: Thank you, Mr. President. We appreciate that.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Really great. And thank all the men and women with you. Really spectacular people.

    Well, next, let's talk to the U.S. Coast Guard Commanding Officer of Coast Guard cutter Aquidneck. And it would be Lieutenant Nick Hartmann. And so, Nick, tell me a little bit about what you're doing, where you are, and how's it going.

    LIEUTENANT HARTMANN: Good morning, Mr. President. This is Nicholas Hartmann, like you mentioned, from Coast Guard cutter Aquidneck. Here in the room we have 14 members from Patrol Forces Southwest Asia. And we're located in the Kingdom of Bahrain, Mr. President. Our mission out here is to patrol the Arabian Gulf Straits of Hormuz and conduct our U.S. Central Command and NAVCENT objectives here in the Gulf.

    A lot of our work is partnering and building relationships with the Gulf Coast countries, and so that we have a good standing and resolve here in the Arabian Gulf and in Central Command AOR.

    Things, in my opinion, Mr. President, are going very well for us.

    THE PRESIDENT: And what do you see in the region? What's going on in the region? How are they feeling about things? How are they feeling about trade? Because, you know, trade for me is a very big subject all over. We've been taken advantage of for many, many years by bad trade deals. We don't have any good trade deals. How are you finding things in the region, Nick?

    LIEUTENANT HARTMANN: Mr. President, from our perspective out on the water, sir, we're seeing that there is an abundance of trade happening in the region. There are vessels moving through the Straits of Hormuz and across the Arabian Gulf on a daily basis carrying cargo to and fro. And we don't see any issues in terms of trade right now, sir.

    THE PRESIDENT: Okay. Well, you'll keep it that way. And you know, we want to have good, free trade. And we also want to have fair deals where we can do well too. Not just everybody else. Right now, every nation in the world does well with us; we don't do well with them. So that's changing and it's changing fast. And where you are is a big factor in that, as you know. You've been told and you've been briefed.

    Well, I want to thank you very much, Nick. And great job. And again, as I said, there's no brand that's gone up like the Coast Guard over the last couple of years because of what you've done with the hurricanes in this country. People saw things that they've never seen before. The bravery of those - of your people going out in waves like - like, you know, record setting. It's been record setting.


    The one hurricane in Texas, they say, dumped more water and it was more violent in terms of water than anything we've ever had in the country. And you guys went out there and you did it like just a day in the office. And I really appreciate it. We all really appreciate it, Nick. And thank you very much. Thank you very much.

    LIEUTENANT HARTMANN: Thank you, Mr. President. And Happy Thanksgiving.

    THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. You take care of yourself.

    Let's go to the Army. Good old Army. We love the Army. We have Colonel Stephanie Barton of the U.S. Army. And, Stephanie, tell us a little bit about yourself and where you are, and what you're focused on and what you're doing.

    COLONEL BARTON: First and foremost, good morning and Happy Thanksgiving on behalf of the 101st Sustainment Brigade. We're currently located in Bagram, Afghanistan.