Remarks by President Trump to the Nation | Eastern North Carolina Now

Press Release:

White House East Room  •  Washington D.C.  •  February 6  •  12:21 P.M. EST
    THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Wow. (Applause.) Well, thank you very much, everybody. Wow. We've all been through a lot together, and we probably deserve that hand for all of us, because it's been a very unfair situation.

    I invited some of our very good friends. And we have limited room, but everybody wanted to come. We kept it down to a minimum. And believe it or not, this is a minimum.

    But a tremendous thing was done over the last number of months, but really, if you go back to it, over the last number of years. We had the witch hunt. It started from the day we came down the elevator, myself and our future First Lady, who's with us right now. Thank you, Melania. (Applause.)

    And it never really stopped. We've been going through this now for over three years. It was evil. It was corrupt. It was dirty cops. It was leakers and liars. And this should never, ever happen to another President ever. I don't know that other Presidents would have been able to take it. Some people said, no, they wouldn't have. But I can tell you, at a minimum, you have to focus on this because it can get away very quickly. No matter who you have with you, it can get away very quickly. It was a disgrace.

    Had I not fired James Comey - who was a disaster, by the way - it's possible I wouldn't even be standing here right now. We caught him in the act. Dirty cops. Bad people. If this happened to President Obama, a lot of people would have been in jail for a long time already. Many, many years.

    I want to start by thanking some of - and I call them friends, because, you know, you develop friendships and relationships when you're in battle and war, much more so than, "Gee, let's have a normal situation."

    With all that we've gone through, we've done, I think, more than any President and administration, and really, I say, for the most part, Republican congressmen, congresswomen, and Republican senators. We've done more than any administration in the first few years, if you look at all of the things we've done.

    I watched this morning as they tried to take credit for the stock market from - (laughter) - from - think of that. Let me tell you, if we didn't win, the stock market would have crashed. And the market was going up a lot before the election because it was looking we had a good chance to win, and then it went up tremendously from the time we won the election until the time we took office, which was November 8th to January 20th. And that's our credit. That's all our credit. And leading up to that point was our credit because there was hope.

    And one of the reasons the stock market has gone up so much in the last few days is people think we're doing so well. They liked the State of the Union speech. (Applause.) It really is - it's a true honor to give it.

    Making the State of the Union speech, I was with some people that have been around; they've been all over the world. And one of them, a highly sophisticated person, said, "You know, no matter where you go in the world, it doesn't make any difference - there is nothing like what I witnessed tonight." The beauty, the majesty of the Chamber. The power of the United States, the power of the people in this room.

    Really, an amazing - I don't think there is anything like that anywhere in the world. You can go to any other country, you can go to any other location, any other place. It's the beauty of everything. It's what it represents and how it represents our country.

    I want to start by introducing some of the people that are here. I know some are going to be left out. But they work so hard. And this is really not a news conference. It's not a speech. It's not anything. It's just we're sort of - it's a celebration, because we have something that just worked out. I mean, it worked out. We went through hell, unfairly. Did nothing wrong. Did nothing wrong. I've done things wrong in my life, I will admit. (Laughter.) Not purposely, but I've done things wrong. But this is what the end result is. (Applause.)

    (The President holds up the front cover of The Washington Post newspaper.)

    We can take that home, Honey. Maybe we'll frame it. (Laughter.) It's the only good headline I've ever had in the Washington Post, I'll tell you. (Laughter.) But every paper is the same. Does anybody have those papers? Does anybody have them? Because they're really like that. So I appreciate that.


    But some of the people here have been incredible warriors. They're warriors. And there's nothing, from a legal standpoint - this is a political thing. And every time, I'd say, "This is unfair. Let's go to court." They'd say, "Sir, you can't go to court. This is politics." And we were treated unbelievably unfairly.

    And you have to understand, we first went through Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all bullshit. (Laughter.) We then went through the Mueller report. And they should have come back one day later. They didn't. They came back two years later, after lives were ruined, after people went bankrupt, after people lost all their money.

    People came to Washington to help other people. "Bright-eyed and bushy-tailed," I say. They came - one or two or three people in particular, but many people.

    We had a rough campaign. It was nasty. It was one of the nastiest, they say. They say Andrew Jackson was always the nastiest campaign. They actually said we topped it. (Laughter.) It was a nasty - it was a nasty - both in the primaries and in the - in the election.

    But, you see, we thought, after the election, it would stop. But it didn't stop; it just started. And tremendous corruption. Tremendous corruption.

    So we had a campaign. Little did we know we were running against some very, very bad and evil people with fake dossiers, with all of these horrible, dirty cops that took these dossiers and did bad things. They knew all about it. The FISA courts should be ashamed of themselves.

    It's a very tough thing. And then we ended up winning on Russia, Russia, Russia. It should have taken the one day, as I said, and it took years.

    Then Bob Mueller testified. That didn't work out so well for the other side. (Laughter.) But they should have said, that first week - because it came out. Is that right, Jim Jordan? They knew in the first two days actually. Devin, is that right? Two days. They knew that we were totally innocent.

    But they kept it going, Mark. They kept it going forever because they wanted to inflict political pain on somebody that had just won an election that, to - a lot of people were surprised. I mean, we had polls that said we were going to win. We had Los Angeles Times and a few - a few papers, actually, said it was - we were going to win but it was going to be close.

    And we did win. It was one of the greatest wins of all time. And they said, "Okay, he won." And, you know, I wrote this down because that was where a thing called the "insurance policy" - to me, when I saw the insurance policy - and that was done long before the election. That was done when they thought that Hillary Clinton was going to win.

    And, by the way, Hillary Clinton and the DNC paid for millions - millions of dollars - the fake dossier. And now Christopher Steele admits that it's a fake because he got sued by rich people. I should have sued him too. But when you're President, people don't like suing.

    I want to thank my legal team, by the way - not for that advice, but for other advice. (Applause.) Pat, Jay. Pat. You guys stand up, please. (Applause.) Great job. (Applause.)

    Right at the beginning, they said, "Sir, you have nothing to worry about. All of the facts are on your side." I said, "You don't understand. That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter." And that was really true.

    ...

    Read the full transcript HERE.


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