Trump trial-balloons a new slogan… because President Pence will need something to do when he takes over.
“Up at the Crack of Noon” is how the press described Reagan, but with Trump it’s tweeting at the turn on the course or after the first Diet Coke of the day. He’ll claim he’s working as the only official event of the ten day vacation is scheduled to pimp the prison industrial complex at 4pm.
WH press operations claim he’s been on the phone, which explains that Space Force blurt, because Pence is doing a speech on it, and Trump has yet to trademark it. Sadly, Trump has always been an imitator, as if naming his son Barron would make him a better Hilton.
Unlike JFK, whose civilian space program promise was a means to direct the MIC to improve the nuclear arsenal, Trump’s interests are as alway much more mercenary, because they call it The Royale over there.
Certainly a chance this First Tweet is another ghosted Trump tweet because of the cuteness of the use of “illegally brought” plus there are no spelling errors, and the clunky use of “and/or”; but there is that use of “disgrace” and the anachronistic “Stay tuned!”. Then again he is a dictator.
Donald “squeegee-man” Trump subconsciously tells a New Yorker’s joke about car theft (you tape a $100 bill to their windshield and steal their car when they jump out to retrieve it) because currency on a Czech car windshield is another of those strange Trumpian fabulations.
And Trump continues his lie about steel plants, despite constant reminders from the industry itself over the past two months that his claim is false...
THE PRESIDENT: Hello everybody. Thank you very much. It's great to have you in Bedminster and Trump National, and -- please sit down -- and so many of you I know, and others I just read about on the covers of all of the business magazines.
Fred Smith, I know very well -- but I also read about you, Fred. (Laughter.) And you're doing okay. That was a good term paper you wrote for Harvard or wherever the hell you wrote it. But it was very good. It turned out to be right. The teacher didn't understand it like you did. Right?
MR. SMITH: It was a good grade for me. A "C" was okay. (Laughter.)
THE PRESIDENT: It was good. "C" was okay. It was okay. Congratulations. Congratulations, really, to everybody in the room. You've done an incredible job.
I just want to say that I'm meeting tonight with some of the top business leaders in the world. You talk about business; this is the group. And we're so honored to have you. And we're going to be discussing, later on, some of the ideas you may have to -- as the expression goes -- make America great again.
And we've been doing a lot of it. You know you've been big beneficiaries, and you've helped in many cases.
Before we start, I'd like to say a few brief words about the tragic fires in California. I'm monitoring the situation very close. My administration is in constant contact with everything going out in the state and with the local authorities and the state authorities.
On August 4th, I declared a major disaster in the state, and ordered federal assistance to supplement recovery efforts. It's been a very tough situation taking place in California for a number of years. And we're going to have to have some meetings about it, because there are reasons and there are things you can do to mitigate what's happening.
We send our love and support and prayers to the families of those who have lost loved ones. They've never seen anything like it, what's happening.
We're deeply grateful to our incredible firefighters and first responders. They're really brave people. I've been watching them go into areas where very few people would go, and some of them don't come out alive. They're risking their lives, and they're doing it to contain these devastating fires so they can save other lives.
My administration will do everything in our power to protect those in harm's way, and we have the finest emergency relief people in world right out there now. We send them to different countries. When we have earthquakes, when we have other problems going on in the world, we'll send out first responders, in some cases, to help. And I always get calls from the prime ministers, or the presidents, or whoever is running, saying these are the most talented people we've ever seen. Well, right now, they're in California really doing an incredible job.
It's great to be here with so many of our friends. Through tax cuts, deregulation, powerful trade policies -- and thats what they are, powerful trade policies. Some of you probably love them and a couple of you probably dont because you're on the wrong side of the border. But if you're from this country, you're loving what's happening.
The steel industry, as an example, is one of the hot industries of the world right now -- what's happened to steel in the United States, where we have plants opening up literally on a daily basis. Nobody thought that would be possible. And that's a very important industry.
Through tax cuts, deregulation, powerful trade policies, and unleashing American energy, we're now the largest in the world. We're taking our economy to incredible new heights. Many of the great business leaders -- and Im just going to ask them, because they are so incredible and represent such a very important thing for our country -- they represent success -- I'm just going to ask them to just stand up and just introduce themself and their company.
Because these are really -- the jobs they've done, and the amount of employment. Some of these companies, when I -- "How many are in your company?" "About 500,000 people." "Oh, really? Five-hundred thousand?" These are the big -- the big employers of the world.
So I'm going to ask them, when I'm finished, to just stand up for a second, and just introduce themself and their company, and their spouse or who they're with.
I'd like to take this opportunity also to briefly highlight some of the administration's key economic accomplishments. As you know, we're doing record and close-to-record GDP. Nobody thought we'd be anywhere above, even close to 2. And we're at 4.1, and I think we're going much higher. And as trade deals come in, we can go much, much higher.
We have 3.9 million jobs created since the election, a number that would have been unthinkable. Fred, if I would have said "3.9 million" and you were in the -- well, you would have believed me, actually. But they would not. Nobody would have believed. (Laughter.) Fred would have believed.
3.9 million since election; that's a lot of jobs. Nobody would have thought that was possible. Probably, they would have said, if we got a million -- seriously, that would have been a tremendous number.
More Americans are now employed than at any time in the recorded history of our country. We have more people working today than we've ever had in the history of our country. That's a big number.
Manufacturing employment is now growing at the fastest rate in more than 30 years, and it's going to get even faster. We have many companies that are announcing that they're coming. And I know some that haven't announced yet; they'll be announcing very shortly. They're coming back to the United States.
We've created more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since my election. If you remember, during the debates, we were having, let's say, the opposing party -- to be nice -- say that manufacturing jobs don't happen anymore. I said, "Really? We don't make things anymore?" Well, we have 400,000, and we'll have 500,000 in a very short period of time. They're moving very quickly, and that's a great job. That's really one of the great jobs.
Economic growth, last quarter, hit the 4.1. We anticipate this next quarter to be -- this is just an estimate, but already they're saying it could be in the fives. Each point -- it doesn't sound like much because, when I first started, we were at 1.2. Each point is $3.5 trillion and 10 million jobs. That's some number. Even if you're thinking about Pepsi, that's a big number. Don't we agree?
Each one -- one point -- is $3.5 trillion and 10 million jobs. And we're going to be -- I think we're going to be very shortly in the fives. And again, numbers that people wouldn't have believed. But more importantly, I really think we can go much higher than in the fives once we get trade deals that are rational, and sane, and good to our country -- and not even good for our country, just fair for our country.
New unemployment claims recently hit a 45-year low. African American unemployment rate has reached the lowest levels in recorded history -- the lowest in recorded history. Hispanic American unemployment rate is the lowest level in recorded history. Asian American unemployment rate is the lowest level in recorded history. The women's unemployment rate is the lowest level in 65 years.
The unemployment rate for Americans without a high school diploma is at the lowest level in history. People that were unable to go, for many reasons, through high school -- weren't able to get a high school diploma -- we have the lowest in history.
The veterans' unemployment rate reached the lowest level that it's been in more than 20 years. Almost 3.9 million Americans have been lifted off food stamps since the election. That's a tremendous number -- 3.9 million Americans. That number is going up rapidly. And the reason is not because of policy -- other than policy of jobs. They're getting jobs, so they don't need the food stamps.
Through the Pledge of America's Workers, launched just last month, over 4.2 million Americans will receive enhanced career training and opportunities. And one of the -- I can tell you one in particular, but many of the people in this room have made that possible. We have 4.2 million Americans that will receive enhanced career training opportunities. They will become very, very intelligent in the way of working a specific job.
I want to thank Ivanka Trump because you've really been heading up that program. And you've done a fantastic job, Ivanka. Thank you. (Applause.) You know, when she started, she said, "Dad, we'd like to do it for about 500,000 people" -- half a million people. And that was four months ago. And then, all of the sudden, many of the people in the room -- I know Fred was very much involved, but many of the people in the room, they took 50,000; 60,000; in one case, 500,000; in one case, a million. We had just an incredible outpouring.
So we took the 500,000 up to 4.2 million. And now it's going to be -- I guess, before we finish, which will be in another month, and then it'll continue on. But it will be over 5 million people will be working very hard and being trained to have great jobs.
We signed the biggest tax cut and reform in the history of our country. After the tax cuts and as part of the tax cuts, we're bringing hundreds of billions of dollars back to our land, back to our country -- money that was never able to be brought back. Some of the people in this room have billions and billions of dollars, they call it, "offshore." But basically it means outside of this country. They couldn't get the money back.
And we expect to have in excess of $4 trillion brought back very shortly. Apple is building a $350 billion campus and various plants throughout the country. They're bringing back $230 billion alone. Exxon is bringing back $50 billion. But we expect that it could be -- the number started out at about $2.5 trillion; we think it's going to be close to $5 trillion. Over $4 [trillion], but close to $5 trillion, will be brought back into our country. This is money that would never, ever be seen again by the workers and the people of our country.
My administration is providing more affordable healthcare options for Americans through associated healthcare plans and short-term duration plans. It's incredible what we're doing with that, and many drug companies are lowering their prices.
And I must tell you, Pfizer -- I want to thank Pfizer, and I want to thank numerous of the drug companies for -- as you know, they went out with an increase last week -- a fairly substantial increase -- and I wasn't happy about it. And they heard that, and they cut the increase back to nothing. They never did that before.
They asked for an increase in drugs, and they actually posted it; it was increased. And I was not happy because we want to get drug prices down. And Pfizer and Novartis and others actually took the increases that were already made, and they lowered them. They brought it back down, which is a first that anybody can remember.
In fact, I said, "The Office of President must be very powerful to be able to do that." Because these drug companies are very -- I mean, look, they're great, but their prices are too high.
And we are announcing something next week which is going to get them down really, really substantially. But we didn't think it was appropriate. And we want to just thank them -- and that's the whole group of them -- and they know who we're talking about.
We had a record number of regulations eliminated. Many of the businesspeople said to me that, as big as the tax cuts have been, as important as the tax cuts have been, maybe more important was the regulation cutting. It would take 20 years to build a highway, to get the approvals to build a highway. We have it down to two. And I intend to have it down to one.
That doesn't mean it's going to be approved. It's got to be great from an environmental standpoint and safety standpoint, but it will be either rejected or approved within a very short period of time. But we were up to 20 and 21 years -- a highway. People started working on the project, and by the time they finished, they were middle-aged or old. (Laughter.) And it was ridiculous, frankly. So we have it down to two, but I want to get it down to one.
And many other people, and many of the people (inaudible) want to say something. But many of the people in the room have told me, actually, that the regulation cutting -- we cut about 75 percent of the regulations out. We have some to go. We'll have just as good a set of regulations, but we won't have -- we won't be duplicative. It won't be doubles and triples, and go to the same agency nine different times to get the same approval. So we're very proud of that. It's had a huge impact on a lot of companies and a lot of building.
One of the things we did immediately is we approved the pipeline -- the pipeline is coming in -- both Dakota Access and the Keystone XL pipeline. That was approved. Just about in my first day of office, I approved it. That was 48,000 jobs, and we went through the red tape. And one is now opened, and the other one is ready to start construction. So it's been really something.
Coal exports -- clean coal -- increased 60 percent last year. American oil production is at an all-time high. As I said before, we're the leading country in the world right now for energy. And the United States is a net natural gas exporter for the first time since 1957.
So we've made a lot of progress, and a lot of it was done with the help of the folks that lead these great corporations. And maybe I'm going to ask a very powerful woman -- she's always at the top of the "Most Powerful Women in the World" -- and, no, Melania, I'm not talking about you. (Laughter.) But has run Pepsi so incredibly well.
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