Video: President Trump Full Speech to Congress 2/28/17

[bsteadman]

President Trump Full Speech to Congress 2/28/17

Published on Feb 23, 2017 by 'Based Patriot'

[bsteadman]

TRANSCRIPT: "Donald Trump's Congress Speech (full text)"

CNN
3/1/2017

Link to transcript - http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politi...ipt-full-text/

[bsteadman]

Trump's speech and our infantile left

American Thinker / Blog
by Patricia McCarthy
3/1/2017

Excerpt:

Tuesday's address to a joint session of Congress was without a doubt the best speech President Donald Trump has ever given, perhaps the best speech to a joint session of Congress since the great Ronald Reagan. But who could watch it and not be embarrassed by our infantile, bitter Left?

It was uplifting, optimistic, full of unifying words, and obvious to everyone. The pathetic exception was the Democrats in Congress. And those were the ones who did not boycott the event.
Like spoiled children, who had not gotten their way, they refused to applaud at the most obvious good-for-the-country lines. In fact, they were like a clique of mean girls in middle school who have decided to target one of their own.

They knew what they were hearing was monumental and good for the nation. But consumed in schoolyard jealousy, they got angry, not glad. In doing so, they showed no intention of working "with" President Trump. They are still scrambling for, and planning to sabotage him any way they can.

They proved one thing: They do not have America's best interests at heart.

Is there any member of Congress more horrid than Nancy Pelosi? Her "we're all wearing white and purple to protest Trump" nonsense means ... what? She rolled her eyes, snickered to her seatmates like an ill-mannered child, and, of course, refused to stand and applaud, no matter how positive Trump's words. The Democrats would not applaud or stand when he spoke of government ignorance of the criminal decimation of Chicago, Baltimore, and Detroit. They would not applaud when he spoke of protecting American citizens by securing our borders. They would not applaud when he spoke about the companies who have promised to invest billions in U.S. manufacturing which will provide thousands of new jobs, or when he spoke about de-regulating business to unleash the economy. They do not want the economy unleashed; it would expose the dismal failure of the eight-year Obama administration.

The Democrats also refused to approve of his call to enforce our immigration laws. These leftists favor illegal immigrants over American citizens which is why they institute sanctuary cities. They do not distinguish between the criminals among them and those who commit no crimes. To the left, they are all the same. Yet to normal Americans, they are not.

Nor do our elected Democrats aim to protect and defend the citizens of the United States. They oppose the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" despite the graphic, barbaric actions of ISIS. They do not approve of "extreme vetting" to keep potential terrorists out of America. They would not even applaud Trump's stated allegiance to and alliance with Israel! Who are these people? By two-thirds of the way through the speech, it began to seem as though they were enemies of America. Schumer stared into his lap. Steny Hoyer was stonefaced. None of them could applaud Scalia or his proposed replacement, Neil Gorsuch.

Perhaps the deplorable behavior of the Democrats throughout the speech was shame. There are 94 million people out of work, 43 million living in poverty and 43 million on food stamps. This is Obama's legacy. He transformed American into something it was never meant to be. Iran is building its nukes. Cuba is still a communist nightmare. The Middle East is a seventh circle of hell. They should be embarrassed by these facts. Poverty has increased. Crime has increased. Maybe that is why they stare at their laps and do not clap. They all know Obamacare is collapsing but cannot cheer Trump's plan to repeal and replace it with something that is affordable and actually provides health care.

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View the complete article at:

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/...tile_left.html

[bsteadman]

Trump Speech Calls for Putting America — and Americans — First

The New American
by Steve Byas
3/1/2017

Excerpts:

“My job is not to represent the world. My job is to represent the United States of America,” President Donald Trump told a joint session of Congress Tuesday night, reemphasizing his campaign theme of putting America First.

And he pointedly told Congress and the watching American public that it is not the proper role of the United States to impose its will on other sovereign nations: "Free nations are the best vehicle for expressing the will of the people — and America respects the right of all nations to chart their own path. We know that America is better off, when there is less conflict — not more."

While Trump stated that “We strongly support NATO,” calling it an alliance that “defeated communism,” he insisted that “our partners must meet their financial obligations,” adding that while America will respect historic institutions such as NATO, “we will also respect the sovereign rights of nations.”

Though Trump’s speech was not a formal State of the Union message, it resembled one. He was formally invited by Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to give “an address,” a first-year-in-office tradition begun by President Ronald Reagan in 1981.

The speech covered many of the same themes the new president often spoke of during his rather unorthodox campaign, which ended in his upset victory last November: rewriting global trade rules, halting illegal immigration, repealing ObamaCare, reducing government regulation of private enterprise, defeating “radical Islamic terrorism,” rebuilding the American military, and supporting the police.

“We’ve defended the borders of other nations, while leaving our own borders wide open, for anyone to cross,” Trump asserted. “By finally enforcing our immigration laws, we will raise wages, help the unemployed, save billions of dollars, and make our communities safer for everyone.”

“For that reason,” Trump continued, “we will soon begin the construction of a great wall along our southern border.”

In addition to the wall, the president said the United States will be “reforming our system of legal immigration. The current outdated system depresses wages for our poorest workers, and puts great pressure on taxpayers.” Instead, the president proposed going to a “merit-based immigration system,” as is presently used in Canada and Australia. “It is a basic principle that those seeking to enter a country ought to be able to support themselves financially,” he stated.Trump challenged those members of Congress who “do not believe we should enforce our [immigration] laws,” by asking, "What would you say to the American family that loses their jobs, their income, or a loved one, because America refused to uphold its laws and defend its borders? We have seen the attacks in France, in Belgium, in Germany, and all over the world. It is not compassion, but reckless, to allow uncontrolled entry from places where proper vetting cannot occur. Those given the high honor of admission to the United States should support this country and love its people and its values."

Concluding his remarks on immigration, Trump said that the immigration system needed to be restructured “to improve jobs and wages for Americans, to strengthen our nation’s security, and to restore respect for our laws.”

Closely related to the issue of immigration is trade, and Trump declared, “We have withdrawn the United States from the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership,” pointing out, “We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was approved, and we’ve lost 60,000 factories since China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001.”

Trump said he believed in free trade, but it must be fair trade. “Currently, when we ship products out of America, many other countries make us pay very high tariffs and taxes — but when foreign companies ship their products into America, we charge them almost nothing.”

A particularly egregious example cited by the president is the difficulties faced by Harley-Davidson, which has to contend with taxes on their motorcycles of 100 percent in one country (unnamed by Trump).

With many Americans wondering what will happen to the Republican promise made in each of the last few elections to repeal ObamaCare, Trump bluntly stated,

Tonight, I am also calling on this Congress to repeal and replace ObamaCare with reforms that expand choice, increase access, lower costs, and at the same time, provide better healthcare. [The principles that] should guide Congress as we move to create a better healthcare system for all Americans [should include an assurance] that Americans with pre-existing conditions have access to coverage, and that we have a stable transition for Americans currently enrolled in the healthcare exchanges.

Other provisions the president believed should be part of any congressional legislation to craft a new system included incentives of tax credits and expanded Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) so Americans can “purchase their own coverage.” Trump insisted that this must be “the plan they want, not the plan forced on them by the government.” He also said that governors should have the “resources and flexibility they need with Medicaid to make sure no one is left out.”

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Combined with his call for huge tax cuts, Trump’s budget concept seems remarkably similar to that put forward by President Reagan. While the economy improved markedly under Reagan, and actually doubled revenues to the federal treasury in only five years, spending was largely unrestrained during that time, producing significant deficits.

Hopefully, Congress will take the lead in bringing entitlements under control, and actually send Trump some legislation to sign — abolishing unconstitutional programs run by the federal government. Combined with Trump’s rejection of sovereignty-killing multilateral trade deals such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, that would at least be a step in the right direction.


View the complete article including image and comments at:

https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...mericans-first