Donald Trump’s Message to Christian Conservatives

Donald Trump delivered the following remarks at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C., last weekend. They have been edited for space and clarity. – Ed.

Thank you very much. I see these beautiful teleprompters. Believe me, I’m not using them. You know I said if you run for president you should not be allowed to use teleprompters. Get these things out of here.

Most importantly, I brought my Bible from First Presbyterian Church, Jamaica [in Queens, New York]. And this was written by my mother with my name, my address, with everything. In case I lost it, somebody would return it.

You know, in the old days, if you lost something, they returned it; today a little bit less so. But I saw this and I said I have to bring it and just show it, because it brings back so many memories.

It’s really an honor to be here. And, you know, David [Brody] is a fantastic guy. He’s done an amazing job. And we had some big news today with [House Speaker John] Boehner.

I just am so tired. I’m so tired of the political. We don’t have time. We have a country that’s in such danger and such trouble. To be politically correct, every word is measured. And I can do it – but who wants to do it? We have to get to business.

But we’re going to have a very interesting period of time. And maybe it starts today, because Speaker Boehner – you know, some people like him on a personal basis. But we want to see the job being done properly. We want people that are going to get it done.

I don’t understand. They get elected. They’re full of vim and vigor. They’re going to change things. They’re going to get rid of ObamaCare. They’re going to do all of these things. They come down to these magnificent vaulted ceilings that you see all over Washington. And what happens? They become different people.

We are so disappointed in the Republican Establishment. In all fairness, you have a certain group of 10 percent, 12 percent of Republicans that are out there fighting. But when Obama and the Democrats hear that they have no support [from their own party], there’s no way that the Republicans can win. They’re left hanging so many different times.

If they actually were unified, and you said four very important things that you’re going to stand up for, you’re going to win.

When you hear the Democrats, they’re very, very good. They say, “It would be so wonderful for us if the government shut down.” And the Republicans say, “Oh, they want it to shut down. Oh, that would be bad.” We’re playing right into their hands.

Do you remember when a small group wanted to impeach Obama? And then the Democrats said, “Please impeach him. It would be so good for him. It will make him look so good.” Do you really think they want him to be impeached? It’s so sad.

I mean, you know, like, you have this clown, Marco Rubio. I’ve been so nice to him. But he’s in favor of [illegal] immigration. It was the Gang of Eight. It was terrible. And then he went down in the polls. And you have to stay, “If you believe in something, you have to be true to yourself.” But the Gang of Eight – you talk about weak on immigration, nobody’s weaker.

Bush, who by the way, along with Rubio – is in favor of Common Core. I mean, I think of it. From a Christian standpoint, you want local school representation. You want local. Common Core is a disaster.

And all of a sudden he goes down in the polls and all of a sudden he starts changing his tone.

But you never really change your tone. You remember that.

And also, when you’re elected senator, you have to go and vote. It’s so important. You can’t say I can’t vote. And he’s got the worst [Senate attendance] record. And he hit me. And I said why is he doing that? Sometimes the Republicans do it, because they want to get into the publicity cycle. And all you’re doing is hurting yourselves.

Now, we have so many people that can be and should be attacked. We have a president that is extremely bad for everything that the folks in this room stand for – I mean, extremely bad.

You know, freedom of religion – so important. We just don’t see it.

Take a look at a thing like the Iran deal. We talk freedom of religion, look at the Iran – how long is this whole thing going to last when we have incompetent people – grossly incompetent people negotiating these vital deals?

Israel is in such trouble with this deal. Did you know in that deal probably it says – and nobody even understands what says, which is a problem – but probably if Israel ever attacked Iran, we’re supposed to come Iran’s defense. Do we know that? At some point, something might happen. The deal is horrible. The deal is horrible, from any standpoint. And we have to do something. It’s going to have to be renegotiated.

You know, I love bad deals, because you buy them cheap. I buy a horrible, horrible contract. The poor guy is dying with it. He’s getting killed. I buy it cheap. I then go and fight and make it a great contract.

That contract, that [Iran] agreement has to be changed. We have no choice, because if it isn’t you’re going to have nuclear proliferation – it’s already happening. You’re going to have potentially the destruction of Israel. It has to be changed.

One of the things in that contract that I cannot believe, is that we’re giving them $150 billion dollars. They’re ordering missiles from Russia. We cannot allow the incompetence that we’ve had going on in this country.

We have to use our greatest negotiators. We use political hacks, negotiating deals that they have no right doing. And by the way I have to say, to the women, it’s all fellas over there. They haven’t figured out that women are smarter than men. They haven’t figured this out yet.

Take a look at another thing – and, look, nuclear’s so important – but you have four prisoners. By the way, it used to be three at the beginning, now it’s four. One of them is in jail because he’s a Christian.

You walk in at the beginning, not the end, of negotiations and you say, “Fellas, you got to give us back our prisoners. You’ve got to do it. It would send a great signal to the American people. It’ll make the deal much easier.”

If they say no, you take a walk because you know you’re not going to get anything.

You take a walk, and I guarantee you, as sure as you’re sitting there, that within a short period of time they call back. You’ll have your prisoners – you will have them.

You need the right messenger. If I’m the messenger, you get those prisoners back!

But you need the right messenger. And in the case of the prisoners, they never even asked. Can you believe it? Both Obama and Kerry said we didn’t want to complicate the negotiations.

It’s time. I’m a business man. I made a tremendous amount of money – a tremendous amount. I don’t even believe it myself.

I’m self-funding – I don’t want to have the lobbyists and the special interests put money into my campaign. I’ve turned down millions and millions of dollars. I actually feel foolish because it’s so anti-me. Yet I was in Iowa two weeks ago, and I said to the people, “Do you mind if I take millions of dollars? I promise you I won’t do anything for the people giving me the money.” And they all stood up and they said “No, no, no.” It was really important.

You look at another thing, trade. I always say I will be the greatest jobs president that God ever created.

A woman stood up [at one of my meetings] and asked why I didn’t sue people. I’m a giving person. I believe in God. I believe in the Bible. I’m a Christian. I love people.

But the woman stood up. She said, “Mr. Trump, I’m a big fan of yours and I’m going to vote for you, but I don’t know if you’re nice enough to get elected.” I said, “I really think I’m a nice person, but let me tell you something: I really think this is going to be an election based on competence.”

We owe China $1. 5 trillion. Think of it. They suck our money out, they take our jobs, they do everything, and we owe them money. How does that work?

Japan. We owe them the exact same amount, $1. 5 trillion. They sell us cars, biggest boats you’ve ever seen coming into the harbors, loaded with cars. So they send millions of cars over here. We sell them beef. The farmers over there don’t want it. Half the time they send it back – so we take it back. That’s not good beef by the time you get it back.

But – but you look at the imbalance, the U. S. trade [deficit]. China, almost $400 billion a year. Japan, $75 billion a year.

Mexico – first of all, we are going to build a wall, and it’s going to be a real wall, OK? If people like it or don’t, we’re going to build a wall. And it’s going to have a big, beautiful door, and people are going to come into the country, but they’re going to come in legally. And when people graduate number one in their class from Harvard and Yale, we don’t send them out if they want to stay in the country.

You know, there was a case the other day I read about where somebody – a great student at a great school – couldn’t stay. From India, couldn’t stay in the country, no matter what. And they forced him out. And he founded a company a few years ago in India [that has] 5,000 employees, one of the most successful companies. We could have had him here, and we force them out.

So we’ve got to be smart. We’ve got to be tough.

We can’t allow our veterans to be treated the way they’re treated. They’re treated horribly. They’re treated horribly.

And our military? If I win, we’re going to make our military so big, so strong, so powerful nobody will ever mess with us, folks.

But we have to be careful, as Christians. The progressives are pushing – the progressives are pushing to an extent that, if we’re not careful, we’re going to have some big problems – even bigger than we have right now.

The word “Christmas” – I love Christmas. I love Christmas. You go to stores now, you don’t see the word “Christmas.” It says “Happy Holidays” all over. I say, where’s Christmas? I tell my wife, “Don’t go to those stores.” I want to see Christmas. And you know, other people can have their holidays, no. But Christmas is Christmas. I want to see “Merry Christmas.”

So I just want to thank you for the – it’s been an amazing group of people. You’ve been amazing. And to have such a fantastic room. But I just want to thank everybody. You know, I got into this and everyone said, there’s no way he’ll ever do it, he’s got this wonderful company.

I do. I have a wonderful life.

But I see what’s happening. I see what’s happening with the country. I see so many things going wrong, so many things that are caused really by incompetence, that can be straightened out. We can straighten it out fairly quickly. I will tell you if we don’t stop it now, however, at some point it’s going to be too late. You’re not going to be able to turn it.

People said I would never get in the race – so I did it. Then they said, he’ll never file form A, which is basically a single page where you’re signing your life away. I signed it. Then they said he’ll never put in his financials, because maybe he’s not as big financially as everybody thinks. I put in almost a hundred pages, like the biggest ever filed by far.

And every single two or three weeks, when the polls come out, they said, “Well, now he’s reached his cap.” I started at 6 (percent). It went to 9 (percent). It went to 12 (percent). And it went to 20 (percent) and it went to 22 (percent). Then it went – and then the other day, in a Fox poll, it went up 2 more percent.

In fact, with Evangelicals in Iowa – just came out – I’m number one at 29 (percent), substantially ahead of anyone else.

The only thing I get angry at is that I like fairness. Somebody said, do you have thin skin? I don’t. If I’m wrong about something, I don’t mind, the media can do whatever they want. But I have thin skin when I’m right about something when I know they’re doing a number on all of us.

The reason I ran is because I want to make this country great again. And we’re going to do it. We’re going to do it. And we’re going to do it a lot faster and a lot better than anybody thinks is possible.

And I just want to thank everybody. You’re special people and I love you all. Thank you. Thank you very much, everybody. {eoa}