Donald Trump Hosts Latinos for Trump Event Transcript September 14

President Donald J. Trump: (00:55)
The fake news, they said that this is supposed to be a roundtable, but it looks like a rally, but it is a rally because we love each other. No, it is a roundtable and we’re here to really listen. We’re here to discuss the Latinos and the Hispanic Americans. I want to say you have a great Governor. He has been fantastic. Thank you. I love you, too. And we’re really doing well. The country is doing numbers that… You will see. Next year is going to be, you know, you had your greatest year ever, Doug, last year, the best year you ever had. Then we had to close it up. We had to stop and we saved millions of lives by doing it. We saved millions of lives. And then we restarted and now we’ve set all kinds of records and we’re setting records. And I think next year you’re going to have a fantastic year. It’s going to be great. We’re cutting taxes even further. And we’re going to have big growth. A lot of good things happening. But I’m thrilled to be back in Arizona with the… Thank you.

Audience : (02:02)
Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

By the way, I just looked. I see Artie over here. You’ve done a great job. How’s Albert? Is he good? He’s a good guy. Good job, Artie. So it’s really great to be back.

Audience : (02:50)
We love you!

This is good. You know, this is what the polls are all saying too. As a Republican, Republicans don’t do as well as perhaps they should. And probably some shouldn’t do very well, but the polls came out and were leading sleepy Joe by a lot. And so it’s a great honor to be here.

But we’re here to discuss my administration’s unwavering devotion to Hispanic American communities, Hispanic Americans embody the American dream and they are great business people like this guy right here. They’re great business people. Great, great business people. I know that because I’ve had to compete with them. They’re not easy to compete with. I want to say that. Hispanic Americans strengthen our nation beyond description. You protect our nation as brave members of the military and as members of law enforcement, great, great members of law enforcement. You uplift the communities and promote our shared values of faith and family, community, hard work and patriotism. You’re an amazing group of people. And I love you and we’re taking care of you and I’m never letting you down. You’ll never let you down.

We’re glad to be joined by your fantastic Governor, Doug Ducey. He’s done a fantastic job. You’ve done a great job.

Gov. Doug Ducey: (04:20)
Thank you.

He really has. It’s been incredible. So, and thank you, Doug.

Thank you very much, Mr. President.

Also, thanks to Arizona Republican Chairwoman, Kelli Ward. How are we doing, Kelli, by the way?

Kelli Ward: (04:47)
We’re winning!

Thanks, Kelli. Arizona State Representative T.J. Shope. Thank you very much. Thanks, T.J. Arizona Corporation Commissioner Leah Marquez Peterson. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you. Sergeant Jimmy Chavez of the National Troopers Coalition. Sergeant, thank you. We have the law enforcement from all over the country. Just got Florida, all the sheriffs, all the law enforcement, Ohio, Texas, everywhere, New York. We got New York’s finest. They said they’ve never endorsed before, but they’re endorsing this year. That took a little courage, too, because they’re in very unfriendly territory politically. But New York did and we just got Chicago. Can you believe that? With that wonderful, wonderful mayor.

We also have a man that I have a lot of respect. I like baseball. I’ve always liked baseball and he’s done a fantastic job. Arte Moreno, the owner of the Los Angeles Angels. Doing a fantastic job. How is Albert Pujols doing? Good. I think he’s great. Huh? Good. And you have a Mike Trout. So is he as good as they say? They say he’s the best player. He said he’s better. He’s better. Right? But they say is the best player in baseball.

Speaker 1: (06:15)
One of the best.

That’s great. That’s very good. Thanks, Arte. Congratulations on your success, too. Great job. Also with us are two wonderful Arizona Republican nominees for Congress, Tiffany Shedd and Brandon Martin. Thanks, Tiffany. Good luck. Good luck Thank you, Brendon. And you have my complete endorsement, you know that. Complete and total, as they say, complete and total, okay? And we’ll be out working with you. We’ll be helping you a lot. I hear both of you are doing really well. Very important. Doug is working hard on that. Thank you very much.

Joe Biden has spent 47 years selling out the Hispanic American community, sending your jobs to China, raising your taxes, surging regulations. I don’t know. He doesn’t sound too good to me. He’s coming up once every three, four days. I’ve been in every state. I’ve been in so many states the last few days. Yeah. Well you need a lot of energy to do this job properly. You can’t be sitting in your basement for four days and come out. No, and then he comes out and I like Delaware. I think Delaware is a good place, but you got to leave it on occasion, you know. I mean, he comes up.

And remember, they say that his home state is Pennsylvania. No, no, no. He left Pennsylvania when he was young. It’s not his fault. Hiss father left, okay, and his mother. They left, but they left Pennsylvania when he was very young. And we just had a great ruling. Doug and I were talking. Just literally minutes ago, a federal judge, a very prominent, a very respected federal judge came out and ruled that they can’t shut the state down any longer. It’s too much. They can’t do it. He said it was unconstitutional and it was a great ruling.

And we hope that’s going to happen in North Carolina. We hope that it’s going to happen in North Carolina. We hope it’s going to happen in Michigan too, because it’s just totally shut down. Well, you know what’s going to happen. On November 4th, they’ll open up everything. They’re just doing it. on November 4th, they’ll announce everything’s open now. You know, we were only kidding. The fact is that November 4th, you’re going to see it’s going to all open up. It’s going to all open up. It’s politics.

So if you know, and as Hispanic Americans, you know better than anybody, we implemented historic tax cuts and regulation cuts, the biggest in the history of our country. And we built opportunity zones that have really benefited your state and a lot of other states. And it’s been great for everybody, really, African Americans. And if you look at the African American, what they’ve done and how that’s benefited them, was I was helped by Tim Scott of South Carolina. And he’s a fantastic Senator. And he came in the idea of the opportunity zone, but for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and really everybody, it’s been a tremendous success.

Before the China virus came in, we achieved the lowest Hispanic American unemployment rate ever recorded ever. Not even close. Over 600,000 Hispanic Americans were lifted out of poverty in that short period of time. That’s a record. All records, Hispanic American ownership, home ownership reached an all time high. And that includes Arte’s home. Okay? That includes the home. Okay. That must be a nice home. I want to see that home. But it’s the highest home ownership ever in the history of our country for Hispanic Americans. We built the greatest economy in history and now we’re doing it again. So it’s called make America great again. And I say, make America great again and again. Again and again.

And we added, as you’ve probably heard, we added 3.3 million jobs for Hispanic Americans in the last four months. That’s a record. So we’re coming back very, very strong. I call it the super V. In July, I launched the White House Hispanic Prosperity Initiative to improve access to education and economic development and opportunity for all Hispanic Americans. It’s been a very big success. We have great people on the board. And we have that Biden would, as you know, terminate this recovery because if a doctor said, “Let’s shut it down,” we have all these records. We have retail sales records, everything. He said he’d shut it down. Can’t shut it down. Peaceful protesters. Have you seen his peaceful protesters? These are not. They’ll rip down your community. Many of these are Hispanic, American, small businesses, stores, shops, and they rip them down and they call it peaceful protesting.

You see some of these reporters on television, they’re saying, “Yes, this has been a peaceful protest.” And over his shoulder, it’s a pretty famous clip. The entire city is burning down. And these are all Democrat mayors, super liberal usually, but Democrat mayors and governors. Republicans are doing very well. Republican cities and states are doing incredibly well. We’re at records. We have been at records. We will be at records and we don’t have anything like this. Nobody’s ever seen anything like this. And we’ve sent the National Guard into Minneapolis and we ended it after a week and a half. They should have called it sooner. We would solve the problem in Portland in I say less than a half an hour. It would be solved. But they don’t want to call us. They don’t want to call us in.

Every place we’ve gone, we solve it immediately. Seattle is an example. They took over a piece of the city and we said, “What are you doing?” And we complained, complained. We said, “That’s okay. We have to go in because we’re supposed to wait. We’re going in. And we’re going in tomorrow.” And we informed them we’re going in. As soon as we did that, they had people go in and these wise guys gave up, those so-called protesters. They gave up. They’re anarchists. They’re not protesters. They’re agitators and they’re anarchists.

So, you see what happens with the anti-police rhetoric from that whole group of Democrats and their supporters. They’re endangering our law enforcement. We love our law enforcement. Many, many of the law enforcement are Hispanic Americans, as you know. Biden is not a strong person, never was a strong person. In prime time he wasn’t any good. Let’s face it. And this is not prime time for him. This is not prime time. But he’ll surrender your entire country to the radical left. And that’s all they’re doing is using him. He has no clue.

So we will take this to a whole different level. What we’re doing is taking it to a whole different level. We don’t want to have a socialist country. Some of you came from parts of the world where it’s socialist or worse. You know, it’s called the C word, right? The C word. Because I think in many cases, these people are talking even beyond socialism and we’re not going to let that happen. We’re not going to let the rule of law really just be ruled by the mob. We’re going to do it. We’re going to do it properly. We’re going to do it the way we’re doing it.

And again, remember the top 10 are all Democrat. And then you go into the top 25 and you take a look at that. It’s the same thing. It’s all a Democrat problem. Whether it’s New York, where crime is through the roof, it’s gone up in some cases, 150 to 300%, not even recognizable. Or Chicago. You take a look at Chicago, what’s happening. They had numbers that were just absolutely horrible. And I don’t even want to mention it, but so many people shot, so many people killed. Nobody’s ever heard of this. This is a Democrat runs the city. These are Democrats and they have no clue.

They have no cash bail. They get rid of bail. They get rid of all of the things that you need. The police are afraid to do anything. They don’t want to lose their pensions. They don’t want to lose their life. They don’t want to lose their family and their job and everything else that comes with it. And we have to give our great law enforcement people, we have to give them the respect that they deserve. And if we don’t do that, they can never do their job properly.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. And just in closing up, I just say a few words more because it’s so important to me, and your community is so important to me. But many Hispanic Americans came here to pursue the American dream, right? We all want the America. I want the American dream. We all want the American dream. If you look at what they’re asking for, it’s like the American nightmare or whatever you want to call it. But we want the American dream, having left countries that did not have safe streets. Many of you or your family, your mothers, your fathers, they left countries that were very, very bad, very bad, a lot of problems. And if we let this go on, you’d have that.

And I often say, we’re not going to be another Venezuela. We love the people of Venezuela. We have tremendous support in Miami, from Venezuelans and Cubans. We’re not going to let that happen to our country. Nobody wants it. And you know who wants it least is Hispanic Americans. They want to see it less than anybody because they know about it more than anybody. And so we’re not going to let that happen.

Biden wants to take away your police. He wants to, I wouldn’t say defund in his case, but I will tell you some of his compatriots want to defund your police. Let’s face it. They want to defund your police. They want to take it away. I don’t know who’s going to do the job when they call up at night. You saw the commercial where you call up and they say, “Murder, I’m sorry. We won’t be here for 24 hours.” And then they say, “I’m sorry, rape. We won’t be here for about a week. We’ll call you back in a week.” And this is what you’ll end up with. We can’t do it. We have to treasure our law enforcement. We have to let them do what they’re good at.

Another thing I think that’s so important is that we’re defending religious liberty and Joe Biden will totally eliminate religious liberty. He’s going to take away your second amendment because he’s not going to be what I had to put up with in the last four years to defend your second amendment. But you have to have your second amendment. And they’re going to at least obliterate it. They’re going to at least obliterate it.

They’re going to abolish school choice. They’re going to abolish charter schools. And we’re going to put charter schools all over wherever we can. We have so many people doing so well, and school choice. And we’ve been very hard on school choice and we’ll get it very much achieved like we have. Nobody’s done as much as we’ve done in three and a half years. Nobody. No administration in their first three and a half years. I say it. I say this that I’ve achieved more for Hispanic Americans in 47 months than Joe Biden is achieved in 47 years. It’s true. It’s true. They don’t call him sleepy Joe for nothing, okay?

But a vote for Republicans this November’s a vote for the American dream. And that’s all I have to say. I just want to thank you very much, and I want to thank you very much. And I look forward to hearing from some of the folks at the table and some of these people that I know. I have great respect for all of you I’ve heard of in one way or another. I want to thank you all for being here. Really, it’s a great honor. And Arte, it’s an honor meeting you. And maybe we’ll start with our Governor, our great Governor. And Doug, please say a few words.

Thank you. Let me be the first to welcome President Donald Trump back to the great state of Arizona. There couldn’t be a better way to kick off Hispanic heritage month. So we’re thrilled to have you here, Mr. President.

Thank you. It’s my honor, my honor.

I want to say thank you for your support of Arizona families throughout the crisis that we’ve been through, whether it was personal protective equipment, surge ventilators for our Navajo Nation testing that we needed in places like South Phoenix and Maryvale. Whenever we needed it, your administration and you personally delivered. So we’re grateful for that.

You know, Doug is very aggressive. He called me up. He called me up once he said, “We really need ventilators badly.” That’s hard. You know, because it’s like they’re big, expensive, very complex, I mean, from a tech standpoint, a high tech standpoint, they have to be perfect. They’re very hard and people don’t have them. Countries don’t have them. And now we’ve become the king. We’re making them like you wouldn’t believe. What did I say? I said, “How many do you need?” “Could you send us a thousand?” I sent a thousand. That’s a lot. But we got them to you. Did we get them to you?

You got them to us and yeah, thank you.

A lot of ventilators.

Before this pandemic and after this pandemic, our economy has been booming in the state of Arizona. This has been the fastest growing state in the nation.

Speaker 2: (20:03)
In the state of Arizona. This has been the fastest growing state in the nation. Your jobs act and tax cut has done much dispar to our economy. The negotiation of the USMCA has allowed Arizona to maximize its relationship with its number one trading partner, Mexico. And we have now surpassed China with Canada as our number two trading partner in Arizona.

Thank you guys very much.

Speaker 2: (20:35)
Thank you very much-

And the relationship with Mexico has been really great. I’ll tell you they have a very good president and we’ve gotten along very well and they’ve actually been very good. We’ve had a real relationship. NAFTA was a disaster for our country and now we have the USMCA, which is Mexico-Canada, and it’s been a great… And we’re not going to lose our businesses now to Mexico and Canada, they’re going to stay right here. So they have a very big economic penalty if they want to play the games of leaving. I mean we lost 55,000 firms went down to different, I mean, different places, but a lot of them went to Mexico, a lot of them went to Canada. There’s a very, very big disincentive to doing that. Well, I’d like to hear, as a baseball fan I’d like to hear from Arte, because he really has done, that team has been glamorized and it’s a great team and great players, great individual players. And let me know about the team a little bit and how you’re doing and let’s hear it. Come on. That’s a beautiful thing to own.

Arte: (21:31)
Well, we’re not playing that great right now.

Arte: (21:37)
I really wanted to tell a little bit of my story because I am Mexican American, both my parents were Mexican American. I’m the oldest of 11 children. My father did not graduate from high school. He always was very positive about, I think his platform was, “If you don’t work, you don’t eat.” I’m a Vietnam vet. I was lucky enough when I came home to get the GI Bill and go to college. I went to the other school down in Tucson. I’m married, I have three great children. My dad was very much Barry Goldwater Republican so were brought up very conservative. Just want to talk a little bit about, because I started my life working for someone, and started with a partner, a small business. And over the years we grew. Everybody deserves the opportunity to grow your own business. It’s a very important thing. Everyone deserves a right to be able to raise and educate their children in a safe environment.

Arte: (23:12)
I’ve really been lucky to have the opportunity to benefit from this great American country. Every person has an opportunity to have a voice, it’s important that it’s expressed. It’s very important for every Latino American to get out and vote. It is our right to vote and express our choice for President Trump and his leadership.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Arte: (23:46)
We all know where we’ve been. It’s necessary to focus on today and the future, and it’s very important to vote for President Trump. Thank you for the opportunity.

Well, now I really like that team. I liked it before. I didn’t know he was going to do that, but I tell you what, I appreciate it. And your story is an amazing story, it’s a great story. Think of that. And he’s one of the most respected people in sports and in business. And just a great story. Thank you very much. It’s a great honor to be with you. Thank you

Arte: (24:20)
Thank you for the opportunity.

Speaker 3: (24:26)
Thank you Mr. President and allow me to join with all these folks in welcoming you back to Arizona.

Speaker 3: (24:37)
I’m sure that this is a much more hospitable setting than while you were in California just a little bit ago so-

Yeah. But they were nice. This is very special.

Speaker 3: (24:47)
Exactly. Exactly.

Speaker 3: (24:50)
My story is as 27, I was elected to the state legislature. I represent a very fast growing area between Phoenix and Tucson that has been in the news quite a bit with companies like Nikola Motors and Lucid Motors announcing their factories there. My family has been in the grocery business since 1952. They moved to Arizona because they failed at hog farming in Iowa, and I think you have to actually try to do that in Iowa. But opened up a business here in Arizona, their first business went bankrupt. They pulled themselves up, got back to work, opened a new grocery store later on, because you can do that in Arizona.

That’s great.

Speaker 3: (25:35)
You can do that in America, to be able to-

Speaker 3: (25:38)
To be able to have failure and to come back. And now here I am at age 27 in the state legislature, at 35 excuse me [crosstalk 00:25:51].

That’s what I thought.

Speaker 3: (25:55)
Living a wonderful life. And it’s something I think for a lot of the folks out right now to realize. It is difficult to be a minority and Republican at times because your friends, other members of your family, oftentimes don’t understand, treat you differently, things like that. And you experience things that you probably shouldn’t, but we’re a very proud people, very happy to be up here. Actually in a few weeks, I’m going to be getting married to Melissa out there. She’s wearing a dress by Ivanka. She’s wearing a dress by Ivanka.

Oh, that’s very good.

Speaker 3: (26:43)
So you can share that.

That’s very nice.

Speaker 3: (26:44)
But more than anything, we, 100% believe in what you’re doing and we want you to keep it up, and we know that the one way we can make sure that it keeps up is by getting out to vote and fully supporting the Trump re-election campaign, because that will also help us in Arizona be able to keep the State Senate and the State House. And we were very, very close. We want to have a huge turnout. We appreciate you coming.

Thank you.

Speaker 3: (27:10)
Love that you’re here and we hope to see you many more times.

And it is getting a lot easier to be Republican for as you say, minority. It’s getting a lot easier, whether you’re Hispanic or anything else. It’s a beautiful thing to see what’s happening with the Republican Party. And remember it’s the party of Abraham Lincoln. A lot of people forget that. Abraham Lincoln was a Republican. The other side likes to try and claim him, big disinformation, but they can’t get away with that one so, hey, thank you very much. It’s great. Please go ahead.

Speaker 3: (27:45)
Thank you.

Speaker 4: (27:49)
Thank you Mr. President. I’m here to share my American dream and I want everyone to know that our dream is still alive. The American dream is still alive. And I’m going to tell you a little bit about my story. I came here to the United States when I was 11 years old. My mom worked so hard to support all my siblings. When I was 22 years old, I got shot by the father of my kid, I survived horrible domestic violence. But after I got shot, after a month of getting better, I had two choices to make. One was to survive out of government welfare, survive out of government welfare or get a job. I chose to get a job as a janitor.

Speaker 4: (28:32)
Thank you. Because for so much long, for the first time I felt freedom. I felt that I needed to be free and I didn’t want to be dependent on the government. So I started making $5 an hour in 1997. And I love my job so much that I worked my way up to become a supervisor manager, and then five years later, I ended up buying my company, my own janitorial company. Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 4: (29:15)
And for me, that is looking at the American dream. A high school dropout, they didn’t finish high school. I mean, what else can they do but to clean very well and move up the ladder. That is the real American dream.

That’s great. Thank you very much.

Speaker 4: (29:37)
That’s what happens here. Going to work eight hours a day, we end up working 16 hours a day for the next five years to pay off the big loans and my fiance, [inaudible 00:09:46], now my husband is here, helped, I mean, put together. So after five years in 2005, we paid it all off. Then after that, I started feeling that I was getting more free and more free and I’m a giver. I like to help. If God takes care of me, I take care of others. So what I do-

Speaker 4: (30:06)
Thank you.

Speaker 4: (30:07)
So at that time in 2005, I had already 60 employees working for me. And one of the things that I love and do for them is help them learn English, help them buy their first car, help them get their first home. But most of the things that I enjoy the most is teaching them English and make them become US citizens. And over the course-

Speaker 4: (30:33)
Over the course of I would say maybe 15 years, probably, my husband and I helped more than 30 people become US citizens.

Great.

Speaker 4: (30:46)
And I’m so proud of that. It’s incredible. Then my American dream was keep coming. I became a US citizen in 2008. I kept living my American dream and then 2012 came. That’s when Obamacare came. And I keep hearing in the news, if you have more than 50 employees, you have to cut back or you have to do something. And I told my husband, “What’s going on? Why am I have to lay off people?” And that’s when I started getting involved more into what’s going on. Why is the government telling me what to do? I worked so hard for what I have. Why did they have to get in my business? Why do I have to let people go?

Speaker 4: (31:26)
Thank you. So I started getting involved into local politics and see what they were doing, so they can hear my American dream and see, I’m still here, I’m still alive, I want to keep moving now. I don’t like to sit and listen. I’m the one that wants to get active and do something about it if there’s a problem. So that’s what I did and look where it got me. Now, I’m here next to the president getting involved-

Thank you. Thank you.

Speaker 4: (32:15)
Let’s protect our country, let’s protect our American dream. We’re all Americans. It doesn’t matter where you come from. This is our safe heaven. Please let’s put President Trump again for the next four years. We need to [inaudible 00:12: 29].

Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

Gloria: (32:58)
My name is Gloria Badilla and we are a small business owner. We live in Tucson, my husband and myself. And it is my honor to be sitting here at the same table that you are President Trump.

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Gloria: (33:12)
Thanks to you, and the policies that you been working with SBA, we were able to save our small business.

Gloria: (33:22)
As a Mexican immigrant and US citizen now to this beautiful country that I can call my own, we have achieved our American dream. We make fresh salsa and spices made out of chiltepin peppers.

Good.

Gloria: (33:40)
We feel so fortunate for the opportunity to have this administration be able to have our Chilttepica products flourish. Even though we had the setback of the pandemic, we are doing okay.

Good.

Gloria: (33:54)
And we will survive this past.

Good.

Gloria: (33:58)
We also wanted to thank you for… We have seen our neighbors, our communities, even though like I said, for this pandemic has not set everybody back. It’s been hard for some people, but we will come out at the end good. Also in Tucson, I’ve been very involved with one of the Senator’s raises that we have against going to Grijalva and it is my mission and my husband to work with him so we can get them through and get… Grijalva has been in the Congress for 17 years, too long yes. So we have Congressman not Congressman, future Congressman Daniel Wood, and that’s who we’re doing it with.

Thank you.

Gloria: (34:53)
Chilttepica products came out of nothing. Actually, we had saved some money to build a swimming pool in our home. And we thought this could be something. And my husband and I thought, what would do as the American dream, as our own business and said, “Well, you make good sense and we’ll make sense out of it.” And that’s how Chilttepica products came out of love of cooking.

Great. That’s a great job.

Gloria: (35:23)
Thank you.

Beautiful story. Thank you.

Gloria: (35:25)
Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Jimmy Chavez: (35:26)
Mr. President, thank you. My name is Jimmy Chavez. I’m the chairman of the National Troopers Coalition and I’m a 30 year law enforcement [inaudible 00:35:33]. Thank you. I will tell you, not only with the group that I represent, but as you alluded to earlier in your opening comments, you and your administration have shown tremendous support for law enforcement, since day one. And that is something that we did not see in the previous eight years before you took office. So yes, we thank you for that, and we thank you for the support, and we thank you for the dedication. We know that your attorney general William Barr’s doing a tremendous job. We thank you for that.

Thank you.

And it’s exciting to be a part of this panel because I think including the audience out here, I think that we can all agree that safer communities provide a benefit and provide economic stability. Because if you don’t have a safe community, who’s going to want to go out? Who’s going to want to go buy things? So this whole idea of defunding the police or cutting costs on law enforcement is something that is counterproductive to what your administration wants, definitely, and what we’ve seen over the last three and a half years, four years, with the economic growth in the country. There is no doubt that many agencies across this country are seeing issues with recruitment, retention, equipment issues, technology that is ever evolving. And I think if we have ideologies that continue to chip away and want to erode law enforcement, I think that’s going to have a significant effect on the communities, significant effect on the citizens, and certainly a significant effect on this country.

So as a law enforcement officer, again, 30 year veteran, and as one who represents the law enforcement from country to country, or from coast to coast, I’m sorry, we appreciate your support and we will be there to offer the same support back to you [inaudible 00:37:59].

Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And look what happened in New York where they cut a billion dollars and they got rid of a lot of great, great crime fighters. And look at what happened in a short period.

And the same with Austin PD, LAPD. Texas DPS is actually being considered to take over Austin PD because of the drastic cuts that occurred there. So it’s having some ripple effects.

Sounds good. Good governor there. Good governor. Thank you very much. Appreciate it. Please.

Jorge Rivas: (38:36)
Mr. President, I want to thank you very much for this opportunity. It is an honor and a privilege to be talking to you, to be part of this table. My name is Jorge Rivas. My wife and I, Betty Rivas, we own a small business in Tucson, Sammy’s Mexican Grill and-

Has to be doing well. How’s it doing?

Doing very good. I want to say that your tweets-

Wasn’t doing well for a little while, now it’s doing good right?

Yeah.

That’s good.

Your tweets have helped tremendously.

That’s good.

Thank you. Appreciate it. Before I came to the back room, my wife told me if I sit on the back, “Make sure that you tell the president that I respect him and I love him.” So my wife said that she respects you and she loves you a lot.

As soon as you announced that you will be running for president back in 2016, I told my wife, “Donald Trump has what it takes to be the next president of the United States.” And we-

And we decided to support you since the first day. Back when you went into that sitting when you went to Tucson and did a rally over there, I decided to make a sign that says Latinos support Donald Trump. Because at that moment, the media and a lot of people were saying, “Latinos do not like Donald Trump.” But I said, “That’s not true.”

I said, “They are not going to keep me quiet. I’m going to keep talking.”

Speaker 6: (40:42)
We love you.

I love you too.

Speaker 5: (40:52)
Hey, your wife.

My wife understands. She loves the president. So we’re very good. So after having people link our name, our personal names with our business, we got a big backlash. People attacking us.

Yes, I know.

But we stay strong. The last few years, I’ve been very involved, not only in the community, but also I’m a member of what we call, what we think it is the most important or the biggest Republican club in Arizona, which is the Saddlebrook Republican Club. I know that we have some members here. And like I say, we’ve been very involved.

Just yesterday, my wife and I organized a big car parade, a Trump parade on highway 77, Oracle Road in Tucson. A lot of people came over. Hundreds of cars, even some of our friends, Latino friends from Nogales drove almost two hours to come to the parade. So there is a lot of support. Many of them, after I mentioned to them that I had the privilege to come to meet with you. They said, “Make sure you tell the president, not only that we respect him, we love him. We’ll be voting for him.” But more than anything, Mr. President, having a small business and talking to hundreds and thousands of people a week, I know that a ton of people are praying for you, are praying for you on this [inaudible 00:42:23].

Thank you, sir. Thank you very much. Thank you.

And I know that many of these people are very humble people. And I think that God is listening to the prayers. So you are in good hands.

Thank you, sir.

My support for you is also, more than anything, is because you show so much love for this country. I have learned to appreciate, respect and love this country so much because of the opportunities and what gives to everyone that comes here, the opportunity to live the American dream. One of the reasons that many of us Latinos like about you is the straightforward way of talking that you have. I do not like when politicians try to make you hear, or they try to tell you what they think you want to hear. Just tell me the way it is, straightforward, and that’s why I think I like you so much. Many immigrants like myself or many other people who their fathers, parents, grandparents came here 100, 200 years ago. We all came through here for similar reasons, for security, for safety, for the opportunity to own our own business and the opportunity to raise our kids and our families in a safe, stable environment.

So that’s one of the reasons why we support you. And so many people support you, people that I know, they support you as well.

But the real reason is that, I tweeted out, I saw they were giving him a hard time and I tweeted out, this is a great couple. And I looked at him, I said, “Look at this couple.” And they were giving him a hard time and they were trying to do a boycott because this other side is very vicious. They’ll try and do boycotts. So I said, “You know what? It’s not very presidential, but I’m going to do a tweet for Sammy and his beautiful wife.” And you never saw lines like this ever before. And that’s the reason. And I’ll tell you, you’ve been great. And I appreciate it. I hear the places is doing fantastic.

It’s doing very well. Thank you, Mr. President, thank you very much. And I have a few more things to mention, if you don’t mind.

Yeah, go ahead.

Betty, my wife and I, we have been blessed with three excellent young boys, three young men. They’re doing very well in college. And I feel that every kid has the need to be supported or to be loved since they are four or five, six years old, helping them in high school, helping them get through college. We’re, like I said, we’ve been blessed. Our kids are graduating from high school, from college with honors. And I think that part of the problem that we’re having nowadays and so many people are looting, so much hate, breaking windows and stealing somebody else’s property is because the parents are doing a poor job in helping their kids achieve their dreams, their goals.

So if you are not there, when they are very young, do not expect them to be a very good citizen when they get older. So I feel that we, as parents, we need to do a much better job raising our kids. Because if you’re a person of, either you’re immigrant, you are minority, you are Hispanic or black person. If you’re not helping your kids when they’re very young, do not come with me 10 years, 15 years later, and tell me that you have a sign for me to respect your sign that says, black lives matter. If you are being irresponsible, not helping your kids, I will suggest for you to take your sign, frame it and put it in your house, in your living room and look at it every day and care for your child when they’re young. We need to keep the family structure together, stronger, family dad, because for us, my wife and I work very hard in our business, 12, 14, 16 hours a day, but we always make time to support our children and make sure that their needs were met. We are not rich or anything like that. We make sure that they had hat they needed to succeed. And I think we are failing very miserably on that.

When your opponent is not saying anything about all the destruction that the people are doing out there, they’re only promoting that destruction. So we, as Latinos, we are people that care for our families, people that we call ourselves Christians. We must support someone, in this case, President Trump, to lead this country for another four years.

Speaker 6: (48:32)
Four more years. Four more years. Four more years. Four more years.

Thank you.

Just two more sentence. Okay, I’ll be done. Almost done. I feel, Mr. President, that we, if we call ourselves Christians, we should really think, or maybe those people out there that consider themselves independent, to really think, what do you want your country to look like in 10 years from now? Do you want your kids to have an opportunity to succeed, or do you want to have a breakdown in society where they are not going to have the options to live the American dream? So for those reasons, I feel that it’s extremely important to listen to what the other side saying, because the commercials that I see are all based on lies and hate. Let’s Lie about what President Trump is doing. Let’s lie about… Blame him for COVID-19 or everything else. And they are not showing any structure or any goals or any plans on what they’re going to do. Everything is based on attacking President Trump. Shame on you, Mr. Biden.

And lastly, just the last thing. As a good business owner, as a entrepreneur, as an American, Mr. President, I wrote a book. I finished writing a book two weeks ago, and I gave one of your White House staff, a book to give it to you. So if you please read it, I think it’s very good.

I will.

It is called, American Patriots. No, no, I’m sorry. It is called, “Modern Patriots.” Why modern? Because we feel that we as Latinos, or like myself, we are a new generation, but we are full of love for this country. And we’re standing up for what is right. And we’re standing up for you, Mr. President. Thank you.

Beautiful.

I love you.

Wow. That was a good job. That was actually very good. Are you proud of him? Thank you. Go ahead.

Speaker 6: (51:39)
[inaudible 00:51:43].

Follow that. Go follow that.

Moses Sanchez: (51:46)
Well, thank you, Mr. President, for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is Moses Sanchez and I’m a legal immigrant from Panama. My family and I came to the United States during the Reagan administration in search of that American dream. And we’ve been pretty good with doctorates, nurses and entrepreneurs in our family that are contributing back to the fabric of this country. I’ve proudly served my country’s Navy combat team for the last 24 years with a tour in Afghanistan in 2011.

Now for decades, our Hispanic community and persons of color have been accustomed to getting lip service from our political leaders, promises of better schools, safe communities, and economic security. You delivered on all your promises that have improved the circumstances our communities face, historical records in unemployment, home ownership, massive investments into opportunity zones, and an economy that lifts all boats. My daughter, Shannon and I, we own a digital marketing company named, Nonnahs Marketing. It’s her name, Shannon, backwards.

Good.

When you came into office, we had one employee. At the beginning of this year, we had over 12 people in our office working hard, helping other businesses increase and improve their digital footprint. Then COVID hit and it impacted everyone. Our company was no exception. We were fortunate to receive PPP funds during the first round. Many of our clients also received PPP funds. The PPP loan helped us get through the shutdown. And many of our clients were able to stay afloat. Now many are doing better, not fully recovered, but better. COVID and these shutdowns have a huge impact on our economic security, mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing.

Mr. President, I think it’s important that my wife is an OB GYN here in Phoenix, focusing on substance use disorders in pregnancy and parenting women. She personally asked me to tell you that she really appreciates all the work you’ve done in addressing the often overlooked opioid crisis.

We believe longterm shutdowns have added to substance use, and we’re glad that you’re doing everything you can to fight COVID and open our economies in a smart, safe, and effective way. And we’re really looking forward to the continued recovery. Thank you, Mr. President.

That’s really nice. Thank you. Beautiful. Say hello to your wife, please. That’s really nice. I appreciate it. We have made a lot of strides with the opioid and the drugs, but you get set back with this China virus was a big setback, but now we’re back to business, but we did get set back with this horrible thing that was sent. It could have been stopped. It should have been stopped. It should have been stopped. They stopped it going into their country, but not coming into our country, not coming into Europe and the rest of the world. But I appreciate, those are beautiful words. Thank you very much. Please, go ahead.

Leah Marquez Peterson: (56:18)
Thank you, Mr. President, and welcome back to Arizona. My name is Leah Marquez Peterson. I serve on the Arizona Corporation Commission, so we regulate our public utilities among other things. I’m also the past president of the Tucson Hispanic Chamber, and I’ve been a proud Republican since I was 18 years old.

Good.

Thank you. Our family has a long history of small business ownership, and that’s really what resonated with me as I was growing up in Arizona. And it’s really those values, those Republican values of less government, more personal responsibility that you’ve heard from any of the other panelists today. I went on to own my own small businesses, a chain of gas stations and convenience stores, as well as a business brokerage firm in the Tucson area also. I’m very proud though, of leading our Tucson Hispanic Chamber, which is one of the largest Hispanic chambers in the nation with more than 1800 members. And during that time, I worked with thousands of small businesses from Pima County, Cochise, Santa Cruz, all throughout Southern Arizona.

And I wanted to mention to you, just a very big thank you for the Tax and Jobs Act. I saw firsthand working with small businesses in Southern Arizona, the impact on their businesses, the ability to acquire additional pieces of equipment or hire new personnel. And it really had an impact.

Secondly, I think the governor mentioned it also, I wanted to thank you for your leadership on the USMCA, the U.S., Mexico, Canada Agreement.

That’s great. Thank you. Thank you.

As you’re probably aware, Arizona does more than $16 billion in trade with Mexico. They’re our number one trading partner. And you often hear about a lot of the large companies and transactions, but there are so many small businesses that are dependent on that relationship. So that really meant a lot to the members of the chamber that I worked with.

At the Corporation Commission, I’m working hard to ensure that businesses and families are not going to be hit by the radical California energy policies that a lot of us are seeing now. We’re hearing about the California rolling blackouts. We’re trying to defend our state against a lot of these green new deal components that are coming forward. That’s something that’s very important. And I know it’s going to drive up the cost of energy.

Not going to happen here.

Good. I know that you understand these issues and you’ve got our back there, because we need to do all we can to really recover from this economic time. And I think the cost of energy has a big part of what’s going to impact families and businesses in the future. But thank you, President, for coming to Arizona.

Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Please. Thank you very much.

Pam Kirby: (59:10)
Mr. President, it’s truly a privilege to be on this panel and sitting at the same table with you here today. Thank you for coming to Arizona for the fifth time. My name is Pam Kirby and I’m a first generation college graduate. I also serve on the Latinos for Trump Advisory Board, and I’m the first vice chair of the Arizona Republican Party.

Pam Kirby: (59:38)
Most recently, I completed eight years of service on my local school board and in the spirit of lifelong learning, three months ago, I earned my master’s in education policy.

Oh, great.

Pam Kirby: (59:49)
I have a lot of responsibilities and priorities, but my passion lies with education policy. And that’s what I’d like to talk with you about today. I first want to lead by thanking both you and Ivanka, who by the way, she did a fabulous job introducing you at the convention.

Pam Kirby: (01:00:03)
… who, by the way, she did a fabulous job introducing you at the convention. For the reauthorization, I want to thank you both for the reauthorization of the Perkins Career and Technical Education grant, CTE grant, that was worth over $30 million to Arizona for more than our 200,000 CTE students.

Pam Kirby: (01:00:20)
I want to thank you for your efforts to roll back federal intrusion in our classrooms. That allows our local districts to better respond to their community’s needs rather than wasting valuable resources chasing down one size fits all mandates from Washington DC. And you mentioned it earlier, I’m grateful for the opportunity zones that you have created because that encourages expansion of quality charter schools in our most underserved communities.

Pam Kirby: (01:00:58)
Mr. President, Arizona is a national leader in school choice, but even so, 80% of our 1.1 million K-12 students enroll in a public district school. And almost half of them are Latino. My eight years of service on the school board taught me that we cannot continue with the status quo if we want to be competitive in a global economy. We must stop the radical indoctrination that’s happening in our classrooms.

President Donald J. Trump: (01:01:31)
That’s good. That’s good.

Pam Kirby: (01:01:40)
We must stop the indoctrination and instead teach our children to love our country and all she has to offer. And Mr. President, that includes standing for the American flag. We must have an education system that prioritizes the children over the adults and funds the student instead of the institution.

Pam Kirby: (01:02:19)
You talked about school choice earlier, there are a lot of candidates out there who say school choice for me, but not for thee. We have to reject those candidates because school choice cannot be reserved for just the few people. We need to empower all parents with the right to choose the educational systems for their children. And more importantly, we need to empower them with the means to execute against that choice. And when we have done that, we will have truly freed all students from their zip codes.

Great. Thank you very much.

Pam Kirby: (01:02:59)
In closing, Mr. President, I want to thank you for your commitment to the American people. And more importantly, I want to thank you for your commitment to the most vulnerable of our society, our children.

Thank you. Great job. Great job, thank you. School choice, absolutely right. Thank you. Please.

Jorge Rivas: (01:03:23)
Mr. President, my name is Sergio Arellano, you can call me Serge, and I am a first generation American. My parents are from Sonora, Mexico. They received their right to be here during the Ronald Reagan amnesty. As a show of gratitude to the country that allowed them to do that, I enlisted into the US Army on April 1st, 2001 … at the age of 17. Fast forward to September 11th, which we just recently … you did a great job in remembrance, Mr. President.

Thank you.

And I find myself deployed to Ramadi, Iraq, September of 2003, and participated with the 1st and the 16th infantry division on the fight for Ramadi, Fallujah, Habbaniyah, and Al Assad.

Unfortunately, after 10 and a half years in the infantry, due to combat sustained injuries, I left the military as a wounded warrior. And when I left the military, I was lost. I was homeless. I had a three year old son and now I have four.

Speaker 7: (01:05:14)
Good job.

But it was really hard to navigate the spectrum, to get services, to get any help whatsoever. It’s a travesty what the government has done to veterans when they get out of the military. It’s thanks to you and your laws and your leadership that allowed me to have choice when it came to healthcare. Not only for me, but for thousands of veterans in the state of Arizona.

I’m born and raised in Tucson, Arizona, and I’m also a small business owner, entrepreneur, and I’m also a school board member. So Donald Trump’s policies are music to my ears. But I just wanted to bring a couple of things from down South, from Tucson, and bring it to the table as to what the Latino community is feeling and what it’s missing. And what it’s missing is more of your leadership, and Latinos are conservative they just don’t know it. I’ll make it really quick. I don’t want to drag on too long here, but ever since you were elected, it’s been easier and easier and easier to recruit Latinos from all over the state.

We started doing three person Trump trains down in Nogales, and we’ve grown. I’m also on the advisory board for Latinos for Trump, and we’ve grown our organization here to include three victory offices for you, and also over 1,100 volunteers for Latinos for Trump in the past three months. It is a critical time right now for our kids, for our family, and for our children. And I’m going to give you just one personal tale where I had my kids in the car, we pulled over to the side of the street, we were playing Pokemon GO, and we got pulled over by a police officer. And I told everybody, “Relax. These are the good guys.” Police officer shows up says, “Hey, what’s going on? Are you okay?” “Yeah, my kids wanted to catch a Pokemon.” And he says, “Well, you can’t be parked here, but you know, go ahead, go on your path.”

This was about a year ago. And my son says, “Dad, I haven’t heard in my entire life,” … and he’s 17 now … “Anyone say that a police officer is a good guy in my neighborhood.” This is the stuff we’re facing in Southern Arizona, in Tucson, in liberal-ran areas that hate police, okay?

So lastly, I want to really have my kids, who are your biggest fans, stand up and say hi to President Trump guys. They are your biggest, biggest, biggest fans in the world, and they have your picture in their house.

And they’re beautiful. And they’re beautiful kids too. Thank you-

Thank you so much-

… it’s really nice.

… President. And in closing, when I tweeted that President Trump was coming to Arizona for the fifth time to hear Latinos and their opinions, I had some hecklers say, “I’m sure president Trump will listen to you.” Here he is!

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you. That’s a great job. That’s a great job. Thank you very much. Please.

Monica Yellin: (01:09:33)
Good afternoon. We welcome new citizens who love our people and share our values. [inaudible 01:09:40] speech, 2017. Immigrants enrich this country, and I want them to come in big numbers. The State of the Union, 2019. Mr. President, these words will resonate with me forever. Thank you so much for what you do for the Latino community, for securing our borders, for supporting legal immigration, and for your efforts again, child exploitation and for … being so successful fighting human trafficking. You heard us loud and clear, and you know that we want safer communities. My name is Monica Yellin. I was born in Bogota, Colombia. I came to this country in 1998 with a J-1 work visa, just one piece of luggage, and $300. In 2005, I proudly became a citizen of this country. And right after my naturalization ceremony in Brooklyn, New York, I drove as fast as I could to the New York Board of Elections and I registered to vote. I live in Port Washington, a little town on the North shores of Long Island. My husband is here and he’s a Jewish American New Yorker from New Rochelle, who is glowing, full of excitement and wanted me to thank you for standing for Israel.

Mr. Yellin, never, ever believe in any candidacy for presidency until you run for presidency.

Speaker 8: (01:12:29)
That’s right!

So he voted for you.

That’s great, thank you. It’s really nice, thank you very much. That’s a nice looking good too. Nice looking. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

And of course he owns a small e-commerce and investments business that even with this pandemic is still succeeding. We left New York because of high taxes, the cost of living, and as you know, the pot potholes.

Speaker 9: (01:13:09)
It’s like Tucson.

We came to Arizona because it’s a prosperous state. Today, Arizona is one of the fastest growing states, we have surplus, and it is estimated that by 2022, 57 billion Latinos will have that amount power in spending.

That’s great. That’s great.

Thanks to your administration policies, Latino families have more money in their pockets because of the double child credit and the standard deduction. The double standard deductions. Furthermore, small and medium businesses are grateful for your tax cuts and the deregulations. Back in 2019 in September, we had the lowest Latino unemployment rate, which was 3.9%. And in 2018, more than 362,000 Latinos bought homes around the country. Thank you, Mr. President. Twenty-one years ago, when I arrive alone in this country, I could have never imagined the diverse and blessings in the journey that was ahead of me. From getting a master’s degree translating at night at home, to becoming a chairwoman of a large insurance industry committee in the East Coast, to director of strategic initiatives, to being elected by vote to a county board, to be appointed as one of the members of commission of domestic violence, to serving my community every day, and most important to be here today with the President of United States of America. I can’t believe it.

I am a living proof of the American dream. Anything in this country is possible. And on behalf of many Latinos around the country, we want to thank you for leading this nation and for sharing your family and religious values with us.

Due to the nature of my duties, I communicate and I engage with organizations and nonprofits and the community every day. And everyone is aware that we are on the road to recovery and much faster than we expected. Again, thank you very much for this wonderful opportunity and for serving our country. We love you, President Trump.

[inaudible 00:16: 31]. Thank you very much. [inaudible 01:16:37]. Great. Well, I just want to finish by saying my people told me this was going to take about one-third of the time, but after these stories started going, I wasn’t leaving. I want to tell you, they are incredible stories, success stories, all success stories. You’ve done so well. The Hispanic community is amazing. I knew that from many years ago, long before I thought about doing this whole deal in politics. I didn’t have to be told about the Hispanic community. I dealt with them. Natural business people, great business people. Great, great business people. You have to be very sharp when you deal with Hispanic Americans, or my Latinos. I love the Latinos, but I’ve always known how great you were. And [Arty’s 01:17:25] a great example of it, one of your great examples of it. But it’s a fantastic community. I will never let you down. I will tell you, I’ll never let you down. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Artie, thank you very much. [inaudible 01:17:45].

Donald Trump Hosts Latinos for Trump Event Transcript September 14

Other Related Transcripts

Stay updated.