It is my great honor to present the next first lady of , anUnited States, my wife amazing mother, an incredible trump. Melania thank you very much. 19 you. Thank you very much. You have all been very kind to donald and me. And my whole family. It is a very nice welcome. We are excited to be with you at this historic convention. I am so proud of your choice for president of the United States, my husband, donald j. Trump. I can assure you he is moved by this great honor. The 2016 republican primaries were fears. They started with many candidates. 17, to be exact. They deserve respect and gratitude from all of us. [cheers and applause] however, when it comes to my husband, i will say that im definitely biased and for a good reason. I have been with donald for 18 years, and i have been aware of his love for this country since we first met. He never had a hidden agenda when it comes to his patriotism, because, like me, he loves this country very much. [applause] i was born in slovenia, a small, beautiful, and thencommunist country in central europe. My sister, ines, who is an incredible woman and a friend, and i were raised by my wonderful parents. My elegant and hardworking mother, amalija, introduced me to fashion and beauty. My father, viktor, instilled in me a passion for business and travel. Their integrity, compassion and intelligence reflects to this day on me and for my love of family and america. [cheers and applause] from a young age, my parents impressed on me the values that you work hard for what you want in life, that your word is your bond, and you do what you say and keep your promise, that you treat people with respect. They taught and showed me values and morals in their daily lives. That is a lesson that i continue to pass along to our son. And we need to pass those lessons on to the many generations to follow. Because [applause] because we want our children in this nation to know that the only limit to your achievements is the strength of your dreams and your willingness to work for them. [cheers and applause] i am fortunate for my heritage, but also for where it brought me today. I traveled the world while working hard in the incredible arena of fashion. After living and working in milan and paris, i arrived in new york city 20 years ago, and i saw both the joys and hardships of daily life. On july 28, 2006, i was very proud to become citizen of the United States. [cheers and applause] the greatest privilege on planet earth. [cheers and applause] i cannot or will not take the freedoms this country offers for granted, but these freedoms have come with a price so many times. The sacrifices made by our veterans are reminders to us of this. I would like to take a moment to recognize an amazing veteran, the great senator bob dole. [cheers and applause] and let us stand all of our veterans in the arena today and those across our great country. [cheers and applause] we are all truly blessed to be here. That will never change. I can tell you with certainty that my husband has been concerned about our country for as long as i have known him. With all of my heart, i know that he will make a great and lasting difference. Donald has a great and deep and unbonding determination and a nevergiveup attitude. I have seen him fight for years to get a project done or even started, and he does not give up. [cheers and applause] if you want someone to fight for you and your country, i can assure you hes the guy. [cheers and applause] he will never ever give up. And most importantly, he will never ever let you down. [applause] donald is and always has been an amazing leader. Now he will go to work for you. [cheers and applause] his achievements speak for themselves, and his performance throughout the primary campaign proved that he knows how to win. He also knows how to remain focused on improving our country, on keeping it safe and secure. [applause] he is tough when he has to be, but hes also kind and fair and caring. This kindness is not always noted, but it is there for all to see. That is one reason i fell in love with him to begin with. [applause] donald is intensely loyal to family, friends, employees, country. He has the utmost respect for his parents, mary and fred, to his sisters, maryanne and elizabeth, to his brother, robert, and to the memory of his late brother, fred. His children have been cared for and mentored to the extent that even his advisers admit theyre an amazing testament to who he is as a man and a father. [cheers and applause] there is a great deal of love in the trump family. That is our bond, and that is our strength. Yes, donald thinks big, which is especially important when considering the presidency of the United States. No room for small thinking, no room for small results. Donald gets things done. [cheers and applause] our country is underperforming and needs new leadership. Leadership is also what the world needs. Donald wants our country to move forward in the most positive of ways. Everyone wants change. Donald is the only one that can deliver it. We should not be satisfied with stagnation. Donald wants prosperity for all americans. [cheers and applause] we need new programs to help the poor and opportunities to challenge the young. There has to be a path for growth. Only then well see earnest results. My husbands experience exemplifies growth and successful passage of opportunity to the next generation. His success indicates inclusion rather than division. My husband offers a new direction, welcoming change, prosperity, and greater Cooperation Among peoples and nations. Donald intends to represent all the people, not just some of the people. [cheers and applause] that includes christians and jews and muslims. It includes hispanics and African Americans and asians and the poor and the middle class. [cheers and applause] throughout his career, donald has successfully worked with people of many faiths and with many nations. Like no one else, i have seen the talent, the energy, the tenacity, the resourceful mind, and the simple goodness of the heart that god gave to donald trump. Now is the time to use those gifts as never before for purposes far greater than ever. And he will do this better than anyone else can, and it wont even be close. [cheers and applause] everything depends on it for our cause and for our country. People are counting on him. All the millions of you who have touched us so much with your kindness and your confidence, you have turned this unlikely campaign into a movement that is still gaining in strength and number. [cheers and applause] the primary season and its toughness is behind us. Lets all come together in a National Campaign like no other. [cheers and applause] the race will be hardfought all the way to november. There will be good times and hard times and unexpected turns. It would not be a trump contest without excitement and drama. [cheers and applause] but trust throughout it all my husband will remain focused on only one thing, this beautiful country that he loves so much. [applause] if im honored to serve as first lady, i will use that wonderful privilege to try to help people in our country who need it the most. One of the many causes dear to my heart is helping children and women. You judge society by how it treats its citizens. We must do our best to ensure that every child can live in comfort and security with the best possible education. [cheers and applause] as the citizens of this great nation, it is kindness, love and compassion for each other that will bring us together and keep us together. These are the values donald and i will bring to the white house. [cheers and applause] my husband is ready to lead this great nation. Hes ready to fight every day to give our children the Better Future they deserve. [applause] ladies and gentlemen, donald j. Trump is ready to serve and lead this country as the next president of the United States. [cheers and applause] thank you. God bless you, and god bless america. [we are the champions by queen plays] announcer mary fisher had recently been diagnosed with hiv when she took the stage at the Rnc Convention in 1992. The mother has written six books, founded a nonprofit for aids research and education, and traveled the world as an ambassador. Her speech is considered one of the best speeches of the 20th century. Her father, max fisher, has been a republican leader and advisor for three decades. One year ago, mary fisher, who had herself served for gerald ford, discovered she was hivpositive. After agonizing family deliberations, she told the public her story, but in going public, mary says her most important audience is her two children, max and zachary. Mary when i tuck each of you into bed, i tell you, since you came from my body, zach, and from my body, zachary, i knew that one day, i would have to give you up. I rehearse for the day when i must give you over. That is why when i reach for the days last kiss and hug, you will hear me say these words. Sleep with the angels. Announcer ladies and gentlemen, mary fisher. [cheers and applause] mary less than three months ago, at platform hearings in salt lake city, i asked the Republican Party to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of hiv and aids. I have come tonight to bring our silence to an end. I bear a message of challenge, not selfcongratulation. I want your attention, not your applause. I would never have asked to be hiv positive, but i believe that in all things, there is a purpose, and i stand before you and before the nation gladly. The reality of aids is brutally clear. 200,000 americans are dead or dying. A million more are infected. Worldwide, 40 million, 60 million, or 100 million infections will be counted in the coming few years. But despite science and research, white house meetings, and congressional hearings, despite good intentions and bold initiatives, campaign slogans, and hopeful promises, it is, despite it all, the epidemic which is winning tonight. In the context of an election year, i ask you, here in this great hall, or listening in the quiet of your home, to recognize that aids virus is not a political creature. It does not care whether you are democrat or a republican. It does not ask whether you are black or white, male or female, gay or straight, young or old. Tonight, i represent an aids community whose members have been reluctantly drafted from every segment of american society. Though i am white and a mother, i am one with a black infant struggling with tubes in a philadelphia hospital. Though i am female and contracted this disease in marriage and enjoy the warm support of my family, i am one with the lonely, gay man sheltering a flickering candle from the cold wind of his familys rejection. [applause] this is not a distant threat. It is a present danger. The rate of infection is increasing fastest among women and children. Largely unknown a decade ago, aids is the third leading killer of young adult americans today. But it wont be third for long, because unlike other diseases, this one travels. Adolescents dont give each other cancer or Heart Disease because they believe they are in love, but hiv is different, and we have helped it along. We have killed each other with our ignorance, our prejudice, and our silence. We may take refuge in our stereotypes, but we cannot hide there long, because hiv asks only one thing of those it attacks. Are you human . And this is the right question. Are you human . Because people with hiv have not entered some alien state of being. They are human. They have not earned cruelty, and they do not deserve meanness. They dont benefit from being isolated or treated as outcasts. Each of them is exactly what god made, a person, not evil, deserving of our judgment, not victims, longing for our pity. People, ready for support and worthy of compassion. [applause] my call to you, my party, is to take a public stand, no less compassionate than that of the president and mrs. Bush. They have embraced me and my family in memorable ways. In the place of judgment, they have shown affection. In difficult moments, they have raised our spirits. In the darkest hours, i have seen them reaching not only to me, but also to my parents, armed with that stunning grief and special grace that comes only to parents who have themselves leaned too long over the bedside of a dying child. With the president s leadership, much good has been done. Much of the good has gone unheralded, and as the president has insisted, much remains to be done. But we do the president s cause no good if we praise the American Family but ignore a virus that destroys it. [applause] we must be consistent if we are to be believed. We cannot love justice and ignore prejudice, love our children and fear to teach them. Whatever our role as parent or policymaker, we must act as eloquently as we speak, else we have no integrity. My call to the nation is a plea for awareness. If you believe you are safe, you are in danger, because i was not hemophiliac, i was not at risk. Because i was not gay, i was not at risk. Because i did not inject drugs, i was not at risk. My father has devoted much of his lifetime guarding against another holocaust. He is part of the generation who heard pastor nemoellor come out of the nazi death camps to say, they came after the jews, and i was not a jew, so, i did not protest. They came after the trade unionists, and i was not a trade unionist, so, i did not protest. Then, they came after the roman catholics, and i was not a roman catholic, so, i did not protest. Then they came after me, and there was no one left to protest. [applause] the lesson history teaches is this if you believe you are safe, you are at risk. If you do not see this killer stalking your children, look again. There is no family or community, no race or religion, no place left in america that is safe. Until we genuinely embrace this message, we are a nation at risk. Tonight, hiv marches resolutely toward aids in more than a million american homes, littering its pathway with the bodies of the young young men, young women, young parents, and young children. One of the families is mine. If it is true that hiv inevitably turns to aids, then my children will inevitably turn to orphans. My family has been a rock of support. My 84yearold father, who has pursued the healing of the nations, will not accept the premise that he cannot heal his daughter. My mother refuses to be broken. She still calls at midnight to tell wonderful jokes that make me laugh. Sisters and friends, and my brother phillip, whose birthday is today, all have helped carry me over the hardest places. I am blessed, richly and deeply blessed, to have such a family. But not all of you [applause] but not all of you have been so blessed. You are hiv positive, but dare not say it. You have lost loved ones, but you dare not whisper the word aids. You weep silently. You grieve alone. I have a message for you. It is not you who should feel shame. It is we we who tolerate ignorance and practice prejudice, we who have taught you to fear. We must lift our shroud of silence, making it safe for you to reach out for compassion. It is our task to seek safety for our children, not in quiet denial, but in effective action. Someday our children will be grown. My son max, now four, will take the measure of his mother. My son zachary, now two, will sort through his memories. I may not be here to hear their judgments, but i know already what i hope they are. I want my children to know that their mother was not a victim. She was a messenger. I do not want them to think, as i once did, that courage is the absence of fear. I want them to know that courage is the strength to act wisely when most we are afraid. I want them to have the courage to step forward when called by their nation or their party and give leadership, no matter what the personal cost. I ask no more of you than i ask of myself or of my children. To the millions of you who are grieving, who are frightened, who have suffered the ravages of aids firsthand have courage, and you will find support. To the millions who are strong, i issue the plea set aside prejudice and politics to make room for compassion and sound policy. [applause] to my children, i make this pledge i will not give in, zachary, because i draw my courage from you. Your silly giggle gives me hope; your gentle prayers give me strength; and you, my child, give me the reason to say to america, you are at risk. And i will not rest, max, until i have done all i can to make your world safe. I will seek a place where intimacy is not the prelude to suffering. I will not hurry to leave you, my children, but when i go, i pray that you will not suffer shame on my account. To all within the sound of my voice, i appeal learn with me the lessons of history and of grace, so my children will not be afraid to say the word aids when i am gone. Then, their children and yours may not need to whisper it at all. God bless the children, and god bless us all. Good night. [applause] what the reverend Jesse Jackson was the president ial candidate when he addressed the Democratic National convention. Themately, he lost president ial nomination to Vice President walter mondale, declaring he wanted to create a Rainbow Coalition various minority groups, he later founded the rainbow push coalition. Hes a civil rights leader who worked with dr. Martin luther king and served as a u. S. Senator for washington, d. C. He was honored by the. Ongressional black caucus my fellow democrats, my fellow americans, it is my honor to introduce an american in the most profound sense. The next future, president of the United States the reverend jesse lewis jackson. [applause] rev. Jacskon thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Tonight, we come together bound by our faith in a mighty god, with genuine respect and love for our country, and inheriting the legacy of a great party, the Democratic Party, which is the best hope for redirecting our nation on a more humane, just, and peaceful course. This is not a perfect party. We are not a perfect people. Yet, we are called to a perfect mission. Our mission to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to house the homeless, to teach the illiterate, to provide jobs for the jobless, and to choose the human race over the nuclear race. [applause] we are gathered here this week to nominate a candidate and adopt a platform which will expand, unify, direct, and inspire our party and the nation to fulfill this mission. My constituency is the desperate, the damned, the disinherited, the disrespected, and the despised. They are restless and seek relief. They have voted in record numbers. They have invested the faith, hope, and trust that they have in us. The Democratic