The 28 most stunning lines from Donald Trump's Mar a Lago speech
Wowza.
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After a whirlwind day in which he was officially arrested for allegedly authorizing hush money payments to a porn star as a means of covering up an affair(!), Donald Trump returned to his Mar A Lago home to address the allegations.
The speech he gave was, um, something else. I went through it line by line — pulling out the stuff you really need to see.
“I never thought anything like this could happen in America, never thought it could happen. The only crime that I have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it.”
This is like when someone on a job interview asks you for your greatest weakness and you respond “I care too much.” And away we go!“From the beginning, the Democrats spied on my campaign”
“They attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent investigations. Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. Impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, the illegal and unconstitutional raid on Mar-a-Lago, right here.”
Talk about a greatest hits playlist! It’s like the Eagles playing “Hotel California” right into “Desperado” and then closing with “Lyin’ Eyes.”
Let’s just, quickly, go through the various investigations that Trump mentions here.
On Russia’s attempt to sway the 2016 election for Trump, special counsel Robert Mueller expressly said he could not rule out that Trump had obstructed justice.
“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the President clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” read the Mueller report. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”
On Ukraine, Trump was impeached by the Democratic majority House for a seeming quid pro quo in which he reminded the Ukrainian president that America did a lot for the country — and then asked the president to launch an investigation into Joe Biden.
On the classified documents case, there is no evidence that the search of Mar a Lago was either illegal or unconstitutional. Also, not for nothing, Trump had more than 300 classified documents at Mar a Lago — and there is a report in the Washington Post this week that he may have worked to obstruct the agents from finding them.
So….
“The millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes and all caught on government cameras.”
This allegation of widespread ballot stuffing — allegedly exposed in the “film” “2000 Mules” — is totally false.
“[The] FBI and DOJ in collusion with Twitter and Facebook in order not to say anything bad about the Hunter Biden laptop from hell.”
This appears to be a reference to the decision by Twitter to remove a New York Post story critical of Hunter Biden and an alleged laptop that was once his.
Twitter executives told Congress during a hearing last month that it was a “mistake” to block the sharing of the article but insisted — under oath! — that they didn’t act in accordance with or at the behest of government officials. Those facts haven’t stopped New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a major Trump ally, of alleging collusion between Twitter and the FBI.
“We remember the 51 intelligence agents who said Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation, it didn't exist. It was Russian disinformation.”
That’s not exactly what happened. It is true that 50 former intelligence officials — including 5 former CIA heads — wrote a public letter in which they said that the Hunter Biden laptop bore “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.” Joe Biden cited the letter in a debate as conclusive proof that the laptop was Russian disinformation, which is not what the letter actually said.
“Our elections were like those of a third world country, and now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country beginning with the radical left, George Soros-backed prosecutor, Alvin Bragg of New York”
The connection between Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, and Soros, one of the best known liberal donors in the country, is decidedly tenuous. Soros has never directly donated to Bragg and, according to a Soros’ spokesman, the two men have never even spoken. Soros did give money to a super PAC that supported Bragg but that’s the extent of their “connection.”
“Who campaigned on the fact that he would get President Trump. I'm going to get him. I'm going to get him. This is a guy campaigning. He wanted to get President Trump at any cost and this before he knew anything about me, didn't know a thing about me. He was campaigning.”
Trump is talking about Bragg here — and he is, wait for it, exaggerating. Bragg never said he wanted to “get” Trump during his 2021 campaign. What Bragg did note is that he had helped to sue Trump 100 times.
“Our incompetent withdraw from Afghanistan, where we left behind American citizens, $85 billion worth of the best military equipment in the world.”
Trump went directly from his laundry list of how he had been done wrong to his critique of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan. No connection, no linkage. Just him riffing. Also, that $85 million figure is, um, sketchy.
“Then our give up on energy independence and even energy dominant. We're going to be dominant within six months, more than any other nation times two.”
“The open threats by various countries of the use of nuclear weapons, something never mentioned or discussed by outside nations during the Trump Administration. In which could very well lead under the Biden Administration's leadership to an all out nuclear World War III. Can happen. We're not very far away from it.”
No big deal — just a former president of the United States saying we are on the verge of World War III. Nothing to see here! Move along!
“An economy that has been crippled by the biggest inflation we have seen in more than 60 years and a military that I used to defeat ISIS, in four weeks.”
“I used to defeat ISIS.” Ahem.
“Four weeks, to kill Al-Baghdadi and Soleimani that has now gone woke at the top levels by trying to indoctrinate everyone down to the lowest ranking patriot.”
This is an actual “sentence” uttered by Trump. Unedited.
“They've got a local, racist Democrat district attorney in Atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call. Even more perfect than the one I made with the president of Ukraine. Remember I kept -- kept saying, that's a perfect call. This one was more perfect.”
I am probably overthinking this but how can you have something more perfect than perfect? What would that even look like? Also, the “perfect” phone call Trump is referencing here is when he pressured the Georgia Secretary of State to “find” 11,780 votes so that Trump could win the state in 2020.
“Nobody said, sir, you shouldn't say that many people on the phone or hung up in disgust because of something I inappropriately said because nothing was said wrong. In fact, at the end of the call we agreed to continue our conversation about election fraud, and election fraud specifically in Georgia at a later time.”
“You know the boxes hoax, as we call it.”
Trump is referring here to the search of Mar a Lago for classified documents that he wrongly retained after leaving the White House. Just a reminder: FBI officials found more than 300 classified documents in their search.
“Under the act, I'm supposed to negotiate with NARA, the National Archives and Records Administration, which as of this date is a radical left, trouble making organization that red flags the Constitution of the United States and the Bill of Rights as dangerous and triggering. Can you imagine? This is what we have to deal with, but there is no criminality under the Presidential Records Act.”
Nope! The Presidential Records Act makes clear that a president must turn over all documents to NARA at the end of his term. No room for negotiation. Also, the idea that the National Archives is a “radical left, trouble making organization” is laughable.
“We were negotiating in very good faith, proper way, in order to return some or all of the documents that I openly and in very plain sight brought with me to Mar-a-Lago from our beautiful White House. Just as virtually every other president has done in the past.”
Again, no. There is no negotiation built into the Presidential Records Act. None. And past presidents have not negotiated with NARA either.
“Perhaps most importantly [Biden] has 1,850 boxes in Delaware which he is refusing to give up, but even that real obstruction. That's obstruction.”
This is false.
“As president, I have the right to declassify documents and the process is automatic if I take them with me.”
Again, false.
“I'm very under leverage, they can't believe it of all the stuff they read and gave, and have very little debt relative to the value of assets.”
I, too, am “very under leverage.”
“I don't need banks. We have a lot of cash. I built a great business with my family, built a fantastic business.”
Trump’s net worth declined by $700 million in the last year, according to Forbes.
“And Ivanka and Baron will be great some day. He's tall. He's tall and he's smart.”
This is a real quote.
“They can't beat us at the ballot box, so they try to beat us through the law.”
Joe Biden: 81,282,916 votes
Donald Trump: 74,223,369 votes
Just saying.
“Inflation is out of control.”
Inflation dropped to 6% in February.
“If you took the five worse presidents in the history of the United States and added them up, they would not have done near the destruction to our country has Joe Biden and the Biden Administration have done.”
In 2022, presidential historians rated Trump as one of the 5 worst presidents in history. Biden was ranked as the 19th best president.
“Incredibly we are now a failing nation. We are a nation in decline and now these radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement.”
The assembled crowd cheered this. Which, weird flex but ok?
“With all of this being said, and with a very dark cloud over our beloved country, I have no doubt nevertheless that we will make American great again.”
Things are terrible! We are on the verge of World War III! Everything is going to crap! But, make America great again! Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.
<b>the idea that the National Archives is a “radical left, trouble making organization” is laughable.</b>
Hadn’t heard that one. GOP is now officially the Mad Libs Party.
Real American Patriots should be thanking Alvin Bragg today for taking the heroic significant step that he took yesterday, which should now provide Fani Willis and the DOJ permission to proceed with their cases involving Donald Trump. While I have no doubt that Jack Smith will go where the evidence leads him, which could end with a second and possibly a third indictment for Donald Trump, I have significantly less confidence that AG Merick Garland will follow Mr. Bragg’s lead, even if the evidence strongly supports such a move. To date the AG has always said the right thing, but his actions have been much less obvious to we average Americans.
So, thank you Mr. Bragg for your leadership, your courage, and your willingness to take the first big step long overdue in our Nation of Laws.