Read Donald Trump’s Speech Criticizing Hillary Clinton on Foreign Policy

23 minute read
Updated: | Originally published: ;

Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump criticized Democratic rival Hillary Clinton on foreign policy in a speech in New York Wednesday.

Here is a transcript of the speech as delivered.

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE) Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much, everyone. Today, I’d like to share my thoughts about the stakes in this upcoming and very important election.

People have asked me why I’m running for president. I built an amazing business that I love, and I get to work side-by-side with my children every single day. We come to work together, and turn visions into reality. We think big, and then we make it happen. We absolutely make it happen.

I love what I do, and I am grateful beyond words to the nation that has allowed me to do it. So, when people ask me why I am running, I very quickly answer — I’m running to give back to this country which has been so very good to me.

(APPLAUSE)

When I see the crumbling roads and bridges, or the dilapidated airports or the factories moving overseas to Mexico or to other countries for that matter, I know these problems can all be fixed, but not by Hillary Clinton. Only by me.

(APPLAUSE)

The fact is, we can come back bigger, and better and stronger than ever before. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

Everywhere I look, I see the possibilities of what our country could be, but we can’t solve any of these problems by relying on the politicians who created the problems themselves. We’ll never be able to fix a rigged system by counting on the same people who have rigged it in the first place.

(APPLAUSE)

The insiders wrote the rules of the game to keep themselves in power and in the money. That’s why we’re asking Bernie Sanders voters to join our movement, so together, we can fix the system for all Americans — so important.

(APPLAUSE)

This includes fixing all of our many disastrous trade deals — and they are disastrous, they’re destroying our country, because it’s not just the political system that’s rigged, it’s the whole economy.

(APPLAUSE)

It’s rigged by big donors who want to keep wages down. It’s rigged by big businesses who want to leave our country, fire our workers and sell their products back into the United States with absolutely no consequences for them.

It’s rigged by bureaucrats who are trapping kids in failing schools. It’s rigged against you, the American people. Hillary Clinton, and as you know she — most people know she’s a world-class liar. Just look at her pathetic e-mail server statements or her phony landing…

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: … or her phony landing in Bosnia, where she said she was under attack, and the attack turned out to be young girls handing her flowers, a total and — look, this was — this was one of the beauts, a total and self-serving lie. Brian Williams’ career was destroyed for saying less, remember that.

Yesterday, she even tried to attack me and my many businesses. But here — and this is the way it is — is the bottom line. I started off in Brooklyn, New York not so long ago with a small loan and built a business that today is worth well over $10 billion.

(APPLAUSE)

That’s the kind of thinking we need in our leadership of our country. I’ve always had a talent for building businesses and importantly for creating jobs. That’s a talent our country desperately needs. I’m running for president to end the unfairness and to put you, the American worker, first. It’s about time.

(APPLAUSE)

We’re going to put America first and we’re going to make America great again. This election will decide whether we’re ruled by the people or by the politicians.

(APPLAUSE)

Here is my promise to the American voter. If I’m elected president, I will end the special interest monopoly in Washington, D.C., very important.

(APPLAUSE)

The other candidate in this race has spent her entire life making money for special interests, and I will tell you, she’s made plenty of money for them and she’s been taking plenty of money out for herself. Hillary Clinton has perfected the politics of personal profit and even theft. She ran the State Department like her own personal hedge fund, doing favors for oppressive regimes, and many others and really many, many others in exchange for cash. Pure and simple, folks. Pure and simple.

(APPLAUSE) Then when she left, she made $21.6 million giving speeches to Wall Street banks and other special interests and in less than two years, secret speeches that she does not want to reveal under any circumstances to the public. I wonder why?

Together, she and Bill made $153 million giving speeches to lobbyists, CEOs and foreign governments in the years since 2001. They totally own her and that will never ever change, including if she ever became president, God help us.

(APPLAUSE)

The choice in this election is a choice between taking our government back from the special interests or surrendering really the last scrap of independence to the total and complete control of people like the Clintons. Those are the stakes. Hillary Clinton wants to be president. But she doesn’t have the temperament, or as Bernie Sanders said very strongly, the judgment to be president. She does not have the judgment. She believes…

(APPLAUSE)

She believes she’s entitled to the office. Her campaign slogan is I’m with her. You know what my response is to that? I’m with you, the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you very much.

She thinks it’s all about her. I know it’s all about you. I know it’s all about making America great again for all Americans, all Americans. Our country lost its way when it stopped putting the American people really first. We have to go back to putting our American people first.

TRUMP: We got here because we switched from a policy of Americanism, focusing on what’s good for America’s middle class to a policy of globalism, focusing on how to make money for large corporations who can move their wealth and workers to foreign countries, all to the detriment of the American worker and the American economy itself.

We reward companies for offshoring, and we punish companies for doing business in America and keeping our workers employed. They get punished. This is not a rising tide that lifts all boats. This is a wave of globalism that wipes out our middle class and our jobs along with it. We need reform, and we have to reform our economic system, so that once again, we can all succeed together and America can become rich again.

We have to make America rich again.

(APPLAUSE)

And that’s what I mean by America first. Our country will be better off when we start making our own products again, bringing our once great manufacturing capabilities back to the shores. I mean, we have to bring our manufacturers back to the United States, desperately needed — desperately we need those jobs, and we need it even from our psyche.

One of the really great things, and one of the first major bills that George Washington signed — was amazing when I saw this for the first time — the encouragement and protection of manufacturing in America.

Our first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, warned us by saying, “The abandonment of the protective policy by the American government will produce want and ruin among our people.” In other words, we have to protect our country.

I have decided (ph) and visited cities and towns across America, all across America, and seen the devastation caused by the trade policies of Bill and Hillary Clinton, and it’s total devastation, all over New York, all over Pennsylvania, all over New England, all over the country. Hillary Clinton supported Bill Clinton’s disastrous and totally disastrous NAFTA. Just like she supported China’s entrance into the World Trade Organization.

We’ve lost nearly one-third of our manufacturing jobs since these two Hillary-backed agreements were signed, among the worst we’ve ever done, among the most destructive agreements we’ve ever signed.

Our trade deficit with China soared 40 percent during Hillary Clinton’s time as secretary of state — a disgraceful performance, for which she should not be congratulated, but rather scorned.

Then she left China — so true.

(APPLAUSE)

Then she left China, and what happened is billions and billions of dollars in our intellectual property — and China has taken it, and it’s a crime which is continuously going on and it’s going on right now. They are stealing billions and billions of dollars of our intellectual property.

Hillary Clinton gave China millions of jobs, and our best jobs, and effectively let China completely rebuild itself. In return, Hillary Clinton got rich.

The book, “Clinton Cash” by Peter Schweizer, documents how Bill and Hillary used the State Department to enrich their family in America’s and at America’s expense. She gets rich making you poor.

(APPLAUSE)

Here is a quote from the book, “At the center of U.S. policy toward China was Hillary Clinton. At this critical time for U.S.- China relations, Bill Clinton gave a number of speeches that were underwritten by the Chinese government and its supporters. These funds were paid to the Clintons’ bank account directly, while Hillary was negotiating with China on behalf of the United States.”

Tell me, folks, does that work? She sold out our workers and our country for Beijing. Hillary Clinton has also been the biggest promoter of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will ship millions more of our jobs overseas and give up congressional power to an international foreign commission.

TRUMP: Now, because I have pointed out why it would be such a disastrous deal, she’s pretending that she’s against it. She’s given and deleted, as you know, most people have heard about this, have we ever heard about her deleting anything? No, I don’t think so.

(LAUGHTER)

She deleted the entire record from her book and deletion is something she really does know something about because she’s deleted at least 30,000 e-mails, which by the way, should be able to be found.

(APPLAUSE)

Should be able to be found because the government — I will say, I’ve always heard you can never really delete an e-mail. So it should be able to be found if they really want to find them, but I don’t think they want to find them.

This is the latest Clinton cover-up and it doesn’t change anything. If she is elected president, she will adopt the Trans- Pacific Partnership and we will lose millions of jobs and our economic independence for good. She’ll do this, and just as she has betrayed the American worker on trade at every single stage of her career, and it will be even worse than the Clinton’s NAFTA deal, and I never thought it could get worse than that.

We will lose jobs, we will lose employment, we will lose taxes, we will lose everything. We will lose our country. I want trade deals, but they have to be great for the United States and for our workers.

(APPLAUSE)

We don’t make great deals anymore, but we will once I become president, I promise you.

(APPLAUSE)

It’s not just our economy that’s been corrupted, but our foreign policy too. The Hillary Clinton foreign policy has cost America thousands of lives and trillions and trillions of dollars and unleashed ISIS across the world. No secretary of state been more wrong, more often and in more places than Hillary Clinton.

(APPLAUSE) Her decisions spread death, destruction and terrorism everywhere she touched. Among the victims of (ph) our late ambassador Chris Stevens. I mean, she — what she did with him was absolutely horrible. He was left helpless to die as Hillary Clinton soundly slept in her bed. That’s right. When the phone rang, as per the commercial, at three o’clock in the morning, Hillary Clinton was sleeping.

Ambassador Stevens and his staff in Libya made hundreds and hundreds of requests for security. They were desperate. They needed help. Hillary Clinton’s State Department refused them all. She started the war that put them in Libya, denied him the security he asked for, then left him there to die. To cover her tracks, Hillary lied about the video being the cause of death, the famous video, all a lie, another Hillary lie.

Here’s what one of the victims’ mother had to say. I want the whole world to know it, she lied to my face and you know, this person cannot be president. She cannot be president.

(APPLAUSE)

In 2009, before Hillary Clinton was sworn in, it was a different world. Libya was cooperating, Iraq was seeing a reduction in violence, believe it or not. Syria was under control, Iran was being choked by sanctions. Egypt was governed by a friendly regime that honored its peace treaty with Israel. Something very nice because by the way, Israel has been totally mistreated by the United States. ISIS wasn’t even on the map.

Fast forward to 2014. In just four years, Secretary Clinton managed to almost single-handedly destabilize the entire Middle East. Her invasion of Libya handed the country over to ISIS, the barbarians. Thanks to Hillary Clinton, Iran is now the dominant Islamic power in the Middle East and on the road to nuclear weapons.

TRUMP: Hillary Clinton’s support for a violent regime change in Syria has thrown the country into one of the bloodiest civil wars anyone has ever seen, while giving ISIS a launching pad for terrorism against the West. She helped force out a friendly regime in Egypt and replace it with the radical Muslim Brotherhood. The Egyptian military has retaken control, but Clinton has opened the Pandora’s box of radical Islam.

Then there was the disastrous strategy of announcing our departure from Iraq, handing large parts of the country over to ISIS and the ISIS killers. ISIS threatens us today because of the decisions Hillary Clinton has made, along with President Obama.

ISIS also threatens peaceful Muslims across the Middle East, and peaceful Muslims across the world who have been terribly victimized by horrible brutality and who only want to raise their kids in peace and safety. In short…

(APPLAUSE)

… in short, Hillary Clinton’s tryout for the presidency has produced one deadly foreign policy disaster after another. One by one, they’re all bad. She’s virtually done nothing right. She’s virtually done nothing good.

It all started with her bad judgment in supporting the war in Iraq in the first place. Though I was not in government service, I was among the earliest to criticize the rush to war. And yes, even before the war ever started.

(APPLAUSE)

But Hillary Clinton learned nothing from Iraq. Because when she got into power, she couldn’t wait to rush us off to war in Libya. She lacks the temperament and the judgment and the competence to lead our country. She should not be president under any circumstances.

(APPLAUSE)

In the words of a Secret Service agent posted outside the Oval Office, somebody that saw her a lot and knows her probably better than almost anybody, she simply lacks the integrity and temperament to serve in the office. From the bottom of my soul, I know this to be true. Her leadership style — volcanic, impulsive, disdainful and disdainful of the rules, set for everyone else, hasn’t changed one bit. Perhaps the most terrifying thing about Hillary Clinton’s foreign policy is that she refuses to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam. In fact, Hillary Clinton supports a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees coming into the United States, and that’s an increase over President Obama’s already high number.

Under her plan, we would admit hundreds of thousands of refugees from the most dangerous countries on earth, with no way to screen who they are, what they are, what they believe, where they come from. Already hundreds of recent immigrants and their children have been convicted of terrorist activity inside the United States. The father of the Orlando shooter was a Taliban supporter from Afghanistan, one of the most repressive anti-gay and anti-woman regimes on earth.

I only want to admit people who share our values and love our people.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary Clinton wants to bring in people who believe women should be enslaved and gays put to death. Maybe her motivation lies among the more than 1,000 foreign donations Hillary failed to disclose while at the State Department. Hillary Clinton may be the most corrupt person ever to seek the presidency of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

(APPLAUSE)

Thank you.

Here’s some of really what we learned from the book in addition to what we’ve already discussed. A foreign telecom giant faced possible State Department sanctions for providing technology to Iran and other oppressive regimes.

So what did this company do? For first time ever, they decided to pay Bill Clinton $750,000 for a single speech. The Clintons got their cash, the telecom company escaped all sanctions.

Hillary Clinton’s State Department approved the transfer of 20 percent of America’s uranium holdings to Russia while nine investors in the deal funneled $145 million foundation $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. $145 million.

(Inaudible) appointed a top donor to a national security board with top secret access. Even though he had no national security credentials, although he did make a very large campaign contribution.

Hillary Clinton accepted $58,000 in jewelry from the government of Brunei when she was secretary of state plus millions more for her foundation.

The sultan of Brunei has push oppressive Sharia law, including the punishment by death and stoning if you happen to be gay.

The government of Brunei also stands to be one of the biggest beneficiary of Hillary’s Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she would absolutely approve if given the chance.

Hillary Clinton’s book, and just think of this, the book talks about it, but Hillary took $25 million from Saudi Arabia and much more from others, where being gay is also punishable by death.

Hillary took millions from Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and many other countries that horribly abuse women and the LGBT citizens.

To cover up her corrupt feelings, Hillary illegally stashed her State Department e-mails on a private server. She’s under investigation, but it seems like nothing is going to happen. Even though other people who have done similar things, but much — at a much lower level, their lives have been destroyed.

It’s a rigged system, folks. It’s a rigged system. Her server was easily hacked by foreign governments, perhaps even by her financial backers in communist China. Sure they have it. Putting all of America and our citizens in danger, great danger.

Then there are the 33,000 e-mails she deleted. Well, we may not know what’s in those deleted e-mails, our enemies probably know every single one of them. So they probably now have a blackmail file over someone who wants to be the president of the United States.

This fact alone disqualifies her from the presidency. We can’t hand over our government to someone who’s deepest, darkest secrets may be in the hands of our enemies. Can’t do it.

(APPLAUSE)

National security is also immigration security and Hillary wants neither. Hillary Clinton has put forward the most radical immigration platform in the history of the United States. She’s pledged to grant mass amnesty and in a first 100 days, end virtually all immigration enforcement and thus create totally open borders for the United States, totally open borders.

By the way, 16,500 border patrol agents have endorsed Donald Trump, first time in the history that they’ve endorsed (inaudible).

(APPLAUSE)

The first victims of her radical policies will be poor African- American and Hispanic workers who need jobs. They are also the ones that she will hurt the most by far.

TRUMP: Let me share with you a letter our campaign received from Mary Ann Mendoza. She lost her amazing son, Police Sergeant Brandon Mendoza, after he was killed by an illegal immigrant because of open borders and policies supported by Hillary Clinton.

Sadly, the Mendoza family is just one of thousands who have suffered the same fate. Here’s an excerpt from Mrs. Mendoza’s letter, “Hillary Clinton, who already has the blood of so many on her hands, is now announcing that she is willing to put each and every one of our lives in harm’s way — an open door policy to criminals and terrorists to enter our country.

Hillary is not concerned about you or I, she is only concerned about the power of the presidency and the power that it would bring. She needs to go to prison to pay for the crimes that she has already committed against our country.” That’s from Mrs. Mendoza. Hillary also wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to settle Middle Eastern refugees in the United States, on top of the current record level of immigration that we already have.

For the amount of money Hillary Clinton would like to spend on refugees, we could rebuild every inner city in America.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary’s Wall Street immigration agenda will keep immigrant communities poor and unemployed Americans totally out of work. She can’t claim to care about African-American and Hispanic workers when she wants to bring in millions of new low-wage earners to compete against them and win against them, because the system is rigged against our people.

(APPLAUSE)

Here are a few things a Trump administration will do for the Americans and for the American people, but for our country. Number one, the first 100 days, I’ll appoint judges who will uphold the Constitution of the United States.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary Clinton’s radical judges will virtually abolish the Second Amendment. Can’t let that happen. I will change immigration rules to give unemployed Americans an opportunity to fill good, really good paying jobs. We don’t have good jobs anymore. These will be good paying jobs. (APPLAUSE)

We’ll stand up to countries that cheat on trade, of which there are many. We’ll cancel rules and regulations that send jobs overseas and everywhere else but our country.

(APPLAUSE)

We’ll lift restrictions on energy production.

(APPLAUSE)

We will repeal and replace job-killing Obamacare. It is a total disaster.

(APPLAUSE)

We’ll pass massive tax reform to create millions of new jobs and lower taxes for everyone.

(APPLAUSE)

And we are, by the way, the highest taxed nation in the world. Please remember that.

I’m going to impose tough new ethics rules to restore dignity to the office of the secretary of state.

(APPLAUSE)

There is one common theme in all of these reforms. It’s going to be America first.

(APPLAUSE)

This is why stakes in November are so great. On election day, the politicians stand trial before the people. The voters are the jury. Their ballots are the verdict. We don’t need or want another Clinton or Obama. We just can’t take it anymore.

TRUMP: So bad for our country and our people.

(APPLAUSE)

Come November, the American people will have a chance to issue a verdict on the politicians that have sacrificed their security, betrayed their prosperity and sold out their country and I mean totally sold out their country.

(APPLAUSE)

They will have a chance to vote for a new agenda with big dreams, bold ideas and enormous possibilities for the American people.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary Clinton’s message is old and tired. Her message is that things can’t change. My message is that things have to change, and that this is our one chance and maybe our only chance to do that change and if we don’t do it now, folks, I don’t know that we’ll ever ever have another chance. We have to have change, but real change, not Obama change.

(APPLAUSE)

Americans are the people that tamed the West, that dug out the Panama Canal, that sent satellites across the solar system, that built the great dams and so much more. Then we really started thinking small, something happened. Something happened to our mentality. We started thinking small. We stopped believing in what America could do and became reliant on our countries, other people and other institutions. We lost our sense of purpose and daring. But that’s not who we are.

(APPLAUSE)

Come this November, we can bring America back, bigger and better and stronger than ever before.

(APPLAUSE)

We will build the greatest infrastructure on the planet Earth, the roads and railways and airports of tomorrow. Our military…

(APPLAUSE) Our military, which is totally depleted, will have the best technology and the finest equipment. We will bring it back to the way that it must be; strong, strong, strong.

(APPLAUSE)

Massive new factories will come roaring into our country, breathing life and hope into our communities.

(APPLAUSE)

Inner cities, which have been horribly abused by Hillary Clinton and the Democrat Party, will finally, finally, finally be rebuilt.

(APPLAUSE)

Construction is what I know. I say nobody knows it better. The real wages for our workers have not been raised for 18 years. But these wages will start going up along with new jobs, jobs, jobs.

(APPLAUSE)

Hillary’s massive taxation, regulation and open borders will destroy jobs and drive down wages for everyone, and that’s what’s been happening. And that’s why you’re seeing so many people coming to our rallies and so much unbelievable support.

(APPLAUSE)

We’re also going to be supporting our police and law enforcement. We can never forget the great job they do.

(APPLAUSE)

TRUMP: Thank you.

I’m also going to appoint great Supreme Court justices, so important. One of the most important factors in this election. I’m going to have many appointments, could be as many as five, probably will be three. Could be four. One of the really big factors in this election. We are going to appoint Supreme Court Justices who will be outstanding. Outstanding. So important.

(APPLAUSE)

Our country is going to start working again. Jobs. People are going to start working again. Parents are going to start dreaming big for their children again, including parents in our inner cities.

(APPLAUSE)

I know.

Americans. Americans, the people that we love. Americans. America first. Make our country great again. Americans are going to start believing in the future of our country.

(APPLAUSE)

We are going to make America right again. We are going to make America safe again.

(APPLAUSE)

We are going to make America great again and great again for everyone. Everyone. Thank you very much.

(APPLAUSE)

Appreciate it.

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