Here is the transcript of the nationally televised address by President Trump last evening:
Good evening, my fellow Americans. I am addressing the country this evening from the Trump Tower as The United States of America confronts a crisis unlike any other we have ever known. I am appealing to you for your help and support in order to save our beautiful country and to make American great again.
A new and dangerous enemy has emerged. I am not talking about Russia, which despite what anyone in Congress says, is our friend. I am not even talking about North Korea. So they have a few nukes. So they knock out South Korea and Japan. We will annihilate them before they can get to us. No need to worry. You can sleep at night. I am not even talking about the no good, Muslim, Islamic extremist terrorists. We are knocking them off one by one.
I am talking about the new threat, which has just become obvious to most Americans who followed the Charlottesville incident last week—a domestic threat. I am talking about the hate and violence groups that are threatening to take away all that we believe about our beautiful country. These people are evil and must be destroyed.
I am talking about the Alt Left.
Now some of you may be wondering what the Alt Left is. You saw some of them in Charlottesville carrying clubs and marching without a permit and disrupting what was otherwise a peaceful march led by very fine people, who did have a permit. And these fine people were trying to protect a statue of a very fine person, Robert E Lee, whom I am told headed up the Confederate army and did a good job. Some say that there were people in this peaceful group trying to protect the Lee statue who were not fine people, and that may be true. You can find bad people everywhere, even in groups like the Neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan. I am not defending such people if they do exist.
But they are not the real threat to our country. They may have militias and arsenals and stockpiles of weapons and they may say people will die and that they are at war with our country, but they also say that I am one of them and that they love me. I am not worried about them and neither should you. But they are not the enemy we must fear.
The enemy we must fear and destroy is the Alt Left. These people say they believe in equality, fairness, peace and justice, but these are just empty words to cover up what they really believe and why they are fighting. They were the ones who carried clubs and pepper spray– not the peaceful group, who were the ones who carried assault weapons and could have shot anyone they wanted to but didn’t. They are good people. The Alt Left is the group that is responsible for the violence in Charlottesville because of the clubs they had and because of all the bad things they said. These low-life people have only themselves to blame. They are the un-American group that you should fear.
So who are they? They are people who hate me. I have done nothing to hurt them, but they do not care. They mock me. They ridicule me. They make fun of me on late night TV. They make my life miserable. I am making America great again, and this is what I get in return? They must be stopped.
So who specifically are they? Well, this is why I am talking to you tonight on national television and radio. These people are everywhere. Some may even be your next-door neighbor. Some may even be in your own family. What they all have in common is that they hate me and give me low marks on national opinion surveys—even though I do not believe those surveys because I know they are fake. They have normal jobs and do normal things. That is why it is going to be hard to take them out, but with your help we can do it.
They join or support organizations like Planned Parenthood, People For The American Way, The Southern Poverty Law Center, The League of Women Voters, The United Way, Goodwill Industries, the Red Cross, The Salvation Army, The Sierra Club, the Nature Conservancy, your local Chamber of Commerce, and, of course, the Democratic Party. Not to mention the Boy Scouts. Did you hear what the head of the Boy Scouts said about me? An absolute disgrace. Treasonous, if you ask me. And they are in churches—they are not real Christians like the Evangelicals, who love me and think I am the Second Jesus — but fake ones like the Episcopals. I used to be a Presbyterian myself but no longer. They are the anti Christ.
So you get my message. They have infiltrated our country and are everywhere. There are even more of them now than there were Commies when McCarthy was going after the Red Scare.
They are the ones who believe in climate change, who believe in evolution, who read books and watch MSNBC and CNN and public television and who read the New York Times and the Washington Post. They are the elitist hypocrites. They work in government and non-profit organizations and say they are trying to make the world a better place. But you and I know better. Some even work in business. They are professors and schoolteachers, nurses and doctors, and even lawyers and Obama-appointed judges. They worst ones are actually the fake news reporters. They are the ones who embrace immigrants and refugees and say that black lives matter. They are the ones who want to narrow the income gap, go easy on terrible countries like Iran and Cuba, tax the rich, and who want some kind of universal heath care and social safety net for the poor, who in my opinion, frankly, get what they deserve. They are against everything that I am for.
So what I am asking you to do tonight is to join me in a national effort to snuff them out. All I am asking is that you pay close attention; and if there is anyone you know or see who exhibits the characteristics I have just noted—promoting do-good fake causes, spouting lies and fake news, protesting me or the people who support me—or, most important, who are people who hate me, all I am asking you to do is to write down their names, addresses, telephone and social security numbers if you can get them, and send those names to me pronto. Could be your best friend, father, mother, brother, sister or child—just do it. Do it for the country. I will take care of the rest.
To implement this I am announcing tonight the formation of a new federal agency and cabinet position—the Department of National Unification. I am appointing Scott Pruitt to head that up since he will be out of a job when I close down the EPA next week, and Scott will start taking names and kicking, uh, you know what. At the same time we will double or triple the number of prison beds to take care of this and pay for it with the savings we will get when I close down the Departments of Education, HUD, Energy, State Department, and Commerce. I would have had my former friend, Jeff Sessions, head this up, but Sessions is such a low life and so disloyal that I could not trust him to get the job done. Pruitt will do it.
As I said when I started, we are in a state of national crisis. The Alt Left is trying to take over the country and destroy it. Most troubling—they hate me and say nothing nice about me. We can’t let that happen anymore. With your help we will snuff them out. Every single one.
Thank you and God bless you, each and everyone who loves me, and God bless the United States of America.
You go, Donnie! I was in Charlottesville and saw exactly what you are talking about because, um, I was and am one of the “Alt Left” you’ve just created. As we pray for peace and justice and stock up on Nauzene so we can make it through your edifying press conferences, we prepare ourselves for further nonviolent resistance and hope that the nice terrorists in your base will not run us over. Please at least ask them to do so in a Prius.
Oh my gosh so funny!
The Charlottesville news clips I saw showed two groups attacking each other, both with non ballistic weapons which they were using on each other. I understand that one group was the white supremacists and the other what Trump called the alt left. The conflict was physical and in the end a standoff but not before people on both sides were injured, one killed.
On Inauguration Day I saw masked individuals barricading the streets of Washington and blocking people on their way to the ceremony. I recall seeing some show windows broken and a car trashed, maybe burned. I’m not sure. My understanding is that they were opposed to Trump and would be considered the Resistance or Alt Left.
I saw clips of a street mob in Berkeley opposing the scheduled right wing lecturer who was scheduled to speak. The lecture was canceled in pursuit of public safety. My supposition is that they were members of Trump’s “Alt Left,” using violence to suppress the freedom of speech of someone with whom they disagreed.
It appears to this Alt Centrist that both wings of our political spectrum have elements that are malignant and dangerous and should be disavowed by the more responsible members of both groups, and in no uncertain terms.
Doctor Killebrew may be surprised but I share his concern about going too far the other way as some “antifa” protestors are acting more like their rights wing counterparts. We must find a middle ground, honoring the past with all that goes with it, but searching for fair, just and peaceful solutions to what may seem like intractable challenges.
Cap’n Joe,
We may not be on the same verse, possibly not even the same page, but I think we are in the same chapter; and that’s good. As I see it, the best way to oppose the Neo Nazis and their ilk is not in a street brawl but on the editorial pages, letters to the editor, blogs like this one, etc. Scenes like those in Berkeley and Washington at best rob the neo-Nazi’s opponents of some of their precious moral high ground and, at worst, may actually in some quarters create sympathy for those whose views we agree are repugnant. MLK succeeded best where he was most violently opposed, and vice versa.
I am with you pretty much 100 percent on this issue.
Fake news has faked me out! I was sure that when Trump said he was talking from Trump Tower that he was going to go on a rant about what a dump the White House. After all, he has been temporarily evicted, and surely he will not be happy with government grade renovations. My God, there won’t be any gold! Is that going to be the topic for his next press conference.?
Great idea for the next post!
The only thing unrealistic about this highly probably Faux News report is its length. I can’t imagine Donnie having an attention span this long. Otherwise, Bravo!
Perhaps you can print what FDR said about Robert E Lee while he was president?