Transcripts For CSPAN Campaign 20240705

You guys in the doors, you need to come in, love each other. Give them some room, let them come in so they could hear. Chris, youve got a lot of friends. I will first say you see this . The story behind this is one chris and i were talking, he was like what winter stuff do you do . Do you ski . I go i dont ski. But it is cute, right . Then he said do you snowboard . Im like i dont snowboard. Hes like do you do any Winter Sports . I go i sit inside and watch it. I am a beach girl at the end of the day. So ive come prepared with my sweater and there is no snow. Now that is on you. [laughter] anyway, it is great to be back in the north country. We do love coming here. We stayed in the glen house last night and had a great time. We will be doing town halls all day today. This looks like a lot of new friends. How many of you are hearing me for the first time in a town hall . Wow. You are allnew new, where have you been . Welcome. I want to welcome some friends in the press pool who have been following me for months. They have been all the chatter about something that happened at a town hall last night in berlin. I want to address that before i address you in the town hall. Last night i was asked about the civil war. And what i think of the civil war, what was the cause of the civil war. Of course the civil war was about slavery. We know that. That is unquestioned, always the case, we know the civil war was about slavery. But it was also more than that. It was about the freedoms of every individual. It was about the role of government. For 80 years, america had the decision and the moral question of whether slavery was a good thing, and whether government economically, culturally, any other reasons, had a role to play in that. By the grace of god, we did the right thing and slavery is no more. But the lesson of what the bigger issue with the civil war is lets not forget what came out of that. Which is governments role, individual liberties, freedom for every single person. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom to do and be anything you want to be without anyone or government getting in your way. That should be the goal of what we always try and take away from that. We never want to return back to that place. But we always want to remember the lessons of what it means to be a free individual and that everyone deserves to be a free individual. We stand by that. I say that as a southerner and southern governor who removed a Confederate Flag off of the state grounds. I say it as a proud american of how far we have come. I will tell you about myself. We are going to talk about the state of the country and how to save her. I was born and raised in a small rural town in South Carolina. 2500 people, two stop lights. You could not think about doing something wrong without telling your mom. My mom started a business out of the living room of our home. 30 years later, it was a successful business. I started doing the books for the Family Business when i was 13. It wasnt until i got to college i realized it was child labor. Im not an ivy leaguer, i went to clemson university. Go tigers. I graduated with a degree in accounting. Accountants are our problem solvers. And i went to the corporate world. Then i came back to the Family Business. One thing i happened to be sitting with my mom telling her how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it. And my mom said quit complaining about it, do something about it. I truly did not know you are not supposed to run against a 30 year incumbent primary. Ignorance is bliss, i had never been politically active. Once i realized he was related to half the district, the only option was to win. I said we had way too many lawyers at the statehouse, they need a really good accounted. The district took a chance on me and we won. I spent the next three to four years really fighting for Small Businesses. I think Small Businesses are the heartbeat of america. I think if we take care of them, we take care of all of our economy. [applause] in those fights, i kept on going. In South Carolina, most legislation was passed on a voice vote. But one day, they passed a bill that would give legislators a pay raise. All in favor, say aye, all opposed, silence. Get to this day, you cannot find anyone who said they voted themselves a pay raise. I was furious. We had a republican house, republican senate, and republican governor. I found a bill that said anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the house or the senate is important enough for people to know how their legislators voted. The speaker of the house said put the bill away, we dont need to have it, we will decide what the public needs to see and what they dont. Long story short, when i refused to put the bill away, when i went around the state telling citizens what was happening with voice votes, they stripped me of everything. I lost my seniority, i was demoted off of my committee assignment, i could sponsor a bill but no one would cosponsor it. So i ran for governor. I am proud to say one of the first bills we signed into law is now in South Carolina. Anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the house or the senate requires a legislative vote and we took it a step further and did it on every section. I love music. You were listening to my playlist. I hope you enjoyed it. On the day of the signing, we blasted through the statehouse, pat benatars hit me with your best shot. When i came as governor, South Carolina was hurting. We had unemployment, thousands of people on welfare, and South Carolina was the butt of the jokes. And we got to work. By the time i left, we were building planes with boeing, more bmws than any place in the world, we brought in mercedesbenz and volvo, they were referring to South Carolina as east of the southeast, which i still loved. We moved the 11 unemployment down to 4 . We announced jobs in every county in the state. We also acknowledged truths. We said if you had to show picture id to get on a plane, you should have to show picture id to protect the integrity of the election process. We pass voter id in South Carolina. [applause] we passed one of the toughest illegal immigration laws in the country. We cut taxes. We paid down our debt. We did pension reform, we built up our coffers. By the time i left being governor, South Carolina was named the friendliest state in the country, the most patriotic state in the country, and the number two state in the country people were moving too. Then i got the call for the United Nations. And my honest answer was i dont even know what the u. N. Does. I just know everybody hates it. I wasnt wrong about that. But i went into the you and wanting countries to know what america was for and what america was against. I did not care if they did not like me. But i wanted them to respect america. And we got to work. We pulled ourselves out of the iran deal. We moved the embassy to tel aviv from tel aviv to jerusalem. We acknowledged the farce and got out of the human rights council. We made sure we focused on getting out of the paris climate agreement because it just helped china and india. We focused on making sure no taxpayer dollars went to the Palestinian Refugee organization. And we pushed china to pass the largest set of sanctions against north korea in a generation, stopping them from testing ballistic missiles. But the most important thing we did, we took the kick me sign off of our back and america was respected again at the u. N. Now im running for president. And i dont need to tell you how bad things are. You dont have to turn on the news to see it. You feel it when you go to the grocery store. You feel it at the gas station. You feel it in your mortgage payment, insurance payment, everything we have to pay has all gone up. I would love to tell you biden did that to us. And that hes sent us down this roller coaster of socialism that we have to stop and is dangerous. But ive always spoken in hard truths. We will continue to speak in hard truths today. Our republicans did that to us, too. You go back and look at the 2. 2 trillion dollar covid stimulus bill they passed with no accountability, they expanded welfare, which has left us with 80 million americans on medicaid , 42 million americans on food stamps. That is one third of our country. Did republicans try and make it right . No. They doubled down and opened up earmarks and pet products for the first time in 10 years, pushing through 7000 last december. Want to know what they spent your money on . 30 million on an Honors College in vermont, 10 million to tear down a hotel in alaska. 7. 5 million on a courthouse in colorado. The list goes on. In the 2024 appropriations budget, republicans put in 7. 4 billion worth of pet projects and earmarks. Democrats put in 2. 8 billion. Now you tell me who the big spenders are. All while one in six American Families cannot afford their utility bill . 60 of americans are living paycheck to paycheck . 50 of American Families cannot afford diapers . Homelessness is 12 , over 650,000 americans are homeless . Social security will go bankrupt in 10 years. Medicare will go bankrupt in eight years. You look at our education system, everybody wants to blame covid for education. We had problems with education before covid. Right now in america, only 31 of eighth graders in our country are proficient in reading. 31 . Only 27 of eighth graders are proficient in math. If we dont do something quick, we are going to be in a world of hurt 10 years from now. Then you look at the border. The images are appalling. This is a total dereliction of duty. And i have been to the border. I didnt pull a kamala, go and come back. I went 400 miles down the border. You are not ready for what i saw. Mounds of clothes, paraphernalia, rape areas the women and girls have to walk through. When you get up in the morning you watch the news. When the ranchers get up in the morning, they get their coffee and see if anybody died crossing the fence. They pick up whatever little kids were left behind and turn them over to Border Patrol. I met with multiple sharers. They said before 7 00 a. M. , they wound up whatever Illegal Immigrants they could find and turned them to Border Patrol. Border patrol documents and releases them until their court date years from now. And when i asked Border Patrol about their job, they said you want to know what we do . We are glorified babysitters. They dont let us do our job. 8 million american lead Illegal Immigrants have come to the border. 250,000 last month. 17 on the terrorist watch list. We had enough fentanyl cross the border last year that would kill every single american. Number one cause of death for adults 18 to 45 . Fentanyl. And dont think for a second china does not know what they are doing when they send it over. And my parents always told me you take care of those who take care of you. Im going to ask if we are taking care of those who take care of us. Right now in america, over 35,000 veterans are homeless. One in three suffer from ptsd or thoughts of suicide. We lose 22 heroes a day to suicide. A veteran needs a doctors appointment . On average, it takes 29 days. On the 30th day, they can go to the doctor or hospital of their choice. Midway through the 29 days, they get a call to reschedule. And the clock starts over again. It is shameful how we treat our veterans. Then you turn on the tv and you see congress. What have they done for you lately . Nothing, right . Congress has one job. They are supposed to give us a budget. Do you know congress has only given us a budget on time four times in 40 years . Four times in 40 years. Dont you think it is time we tell them no budget, no pay . [applause] dont you think we need to have term limits in washington, d. C. . Dont you think we need to have mental competency tests for anyone over the age of 75 . Im not being disrespectful when i say that. We all know people over 75 who can run circles around us. And then we know joe biden. Congress is the most privileged nursing home in the country right now. These are people making decisions on our National Security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We need to know they are at the top of their game. We cannot play games with this. So that is a lot of bad. It is hard to find anything good. But now im going to tell you what i told south carolinians when i became governor. No more whining. No more complaining. Now we get to work. How do we fix it . When it comes to the economy, we call back over 100 billion of unspent covid dollars that are out there. Instead of 87,000 irs agents going after middle america, lets go after the hundreds of billions of dollars of covid fraud. One out of every seven dollars was spent fraudulently. If 8 of our budget is interest, quit borrowing. Cut up the credit cards. You have to balance a budget every day. I have to balance a budget as governor. Chris had to balance a budget as governor. Why is congress the only group that refuses to balance a budget . We will stop the spending and borrowing and eliminate the earmarks. And i will not v i will veto any spending bill that does not take us back to precovid levels. That will save us trillions. [applause] we are going to call back bidens green subsidies, take back as many federal programs we can and pass them to the state. That way we reduce the size of the federal government but empower people on the ground. Hugely important. Then we want to make sure we open up the middle class. Right now in america, we are watching the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. In the middle class is disappearing. That is why i want to eliminate the federal gas and diesel tax in this country. I also want to cut taxes on the middle can last middleclass and simple if the brackets. And we want to make the Small Business tax cuts permanent. They made them temporary, they made Corporate Tax cuts permanent, but the Small Business tax cuts temporary. If we truly think there is a heartbeat of our economy, lets make the tax cuts permanent. [applause] that is how we will start to get our economy back on track, get our budget under control and pay down some debt. In South Carolina, we knew when it came to education that if a child could not read by third grade, they were four times less likely to graduate high school. So we started holding them back rather than pushing them forward. We brought in their parents, we did reading remediation programs and set them up for success. Weve got to do that all over our country. Weve got to get our kids reading again. [applause] and no parent should ever wonder what is being said or talked to their child in the classroom. We need complete transparency in the classroom. Parents have one job. Our one job is to do right i our kids. That is why parents need to decide where their child goes to school or what mode of education they get. We know our kids best. Every child deserves an education regardless of where they are born and raised. Lets stop mandating education based on a zip code. And lets build things in america. Lets put vocational classes back in our high schools. [applause] when i was in South Carolina, we had apprenticeships all over our state. We taught kids how to build the things we were making. That way we get them invested in the economy before they get out. Then a point of personal privilege. For all of you girl dads out there, and all of you strong moms, we have to raise strong girls. Strong girls become strong women. Strong women become strong leaders. None of that happens if we have biological boys playing in girls sports. We got to cut that out. [applause] and when it comes to the border, we will take what i did in South Carolina and go national with it. We will do a national Verify Program that requires every business to approve the people they hire are in this country legally. [applause] we will defund sanctuary cities once and for all. No more safe havens. We will put 25,000 Border Patrol and ice agents on the ground and let them do their job. We will go back to the remain in mexico policy so no one even stepped foot on u. S. Soil. Southern border or northern, which chris has been fighting hard for. Instead of catch and release, lets go to catch and deport. That is how we stop everything happening on the border. [applause] then when it comes to our veterans. We have all seen the images when our men and women deploy and the tears that are shed. Then we see the images when they come back to us safely and the prayers that are answered. Im the wife of a combat veteran. My husband deployed to afghanistan. The day he returned home to us, that was a lot of prayers answered. But that was the easy part. The hard part is when we got home. Michael could not hear loud noises. He could not be in crowds. Life had passed him by for the year he was gone and the transition was tough. We cannot just love our men and women when they are gone. Got to love them when they come back home. Lets focus on the transition. You cannot do two weeks, its got to be for the rest of their life we make sure they are taken care of. Let them go to the hospital of their choice, they have earned that right. I think the best way to deal with Veterans Health care, every member of congress should have to get their health care the v. A. You watch how fast that gets fixed. [applause] you know it is going to be the best health care weve ever seen if we do that. And there were two things at the United Nations that russia, china, and iran never wanted us to have. They never wanted us to have a Strong Military and they never wanted us to be energy independent. We will not just be end energy independent, we will be energy dominant. We will get the epa out of the way. They care more about than they do whether we can afford our power bill. We are going to make sure we were export as much liquefied gas as we can. We will do the keystone pipeline. We will do all of the above energy part where we are not just making enough for us, but we are turning it into a dominant force for our economy. No more going hat in hand to saudi arabia, no more getting dirty oil from iran or venezuela. Those are the domestic issues. Now lets talk about National Security. The world is on fire, literally. We have a war in europe, we have a war in the middle east. North korea so those of the domestic issues. Now lets talk about National Security. The world is on fire, literally. We have a war in europe. We have a war in the middle east. North korea just tested an icbm capable of reaching the United States. You have china on the march. But make no mistake, none of that would have happened if we had not had that debacle in afghanistan. The idea that my husband and his military brothers and sisters had to leave Bagram Air Force base in the middle of the night without telling our allies who stood shoulder to shoulder with us for decades because we asked them to be there, think about what that told our friends. More importantly, think about what that said to our enemies. And now what are hearing . Congress is saying we support ukraine or do we support israel . Do we support israel or do we secure the border . Dont let them lie to you like that. It is wrong. They know that is a false premise. But me tell you why. We will take it one at a time. Lets start with ukraine. You should know that ukraine was a great friend of us in the United Nations and voted with us on almost everything and supported every initiative, whether i asked him to or not. Here you have this proamerican, freedomloving country invaded by a dog. 500,000 people have been wounded and died because of Vladimir Putin. Now i will be the first one to tell you we should never give cash to any country friend or foe because you cannot follow it and you do not know how it is that. I dont think we need to put troops on the ground in ukraine, and they do not want our troops, they want to win this on their own, but we need to give them the equipment and ammunition to win. [applause] now if you are one of those people that says why should we care about ukraine. That is a legitimate question to ask. You should ask that question, but no one is giving you the answers, so i will. If you look at what has happened i saw this in the United Nations dictators, thugs, and terrorists always tell us what they are going to do. They are amazingly transparent. Ahmad said they were going to go into israel, they did. China said they would take hong kong, it happened. Russia said they were going to invade ukraine we watched it. China says taiwan is next. We Better Believe it. Russia said once they take ukraine poland and the baltics are next, nato countries that puts america at war and this is about preventing war. It has always been about preventing war. And we know that Vladimir Putin has hit rock bottom. How do we know that . He has lost 87 of his military forces that started the war. They raised the draft age in russia to 65. Everybody always looks around whenever i say that. [laughter] they are getting drones from iran and missiles from north korea. They have hit rock bottom. Now, if we just supported ukraine, that is only three point 5 of our defense budget. That is it. 3. 5 . The europeans have put in more than that, and they should. It is their neighborhood. Now lets talk about israel. I am haunted by what happened in israel because five years ago i gave a speech to the United Nations and told the entire world that we knew that there were maps. These maps were held by hamas and it showed if they could break the barrier, it was how they would kill as many jews as fast as they could, and it happened. Now for any of you who ask him why should we care about israel . God help us if we do not. Israel is a bright spot in a tough neighborhood. They are the tip of the spirit when it comes to defeating terrorism. It has never been that israel needs america. It has always been that America Needs israel and on that horrible day of october 7, what did we see . And they beheaded those people and burned those babies alive and took those girls from the concert and raped them and dragged their naked bodies through the streets of gaza. What did they say . Death to israel. Death to america. That is quite you care about israel. Now remember when i told you the Vladimir Putin hit rock bottom . When all of that brutality happened, it happened on october 7, Vladimir Putins birthday. Who is the happiest man in the world right now . Vladimir putin. Why . Because we took our eyes, us in the west, we took our eyes off the west, and what did we do we shifted it to israel. It is exactly what they . And israel, that is only 5 of our defense budget. Now, when this happened, what did putin do . He did not call netanyahu in israel. He waited 10 days to do that. Who did he call . Hamas. Invited them to russia and they named them friends. When it comes to securing the border, that is job number one, no questions asked. America is acting like it is september 10. We better remember what it felt like because it only takes one. We have to secure our southern and northern borders. So if we support ukraine and we support israel and we secure our borders, that is less than 20 of bidens green subsidies, so dont let them tell you you have to choose. They have to choose National Security. Their job is to protect every american, and they have to stop playing games with us. This is about preventing war. It should always be about preventing war. Now prior to the olympics, russia and china held hands in front of the eyes of the world and named themselves unlimited partners. Remember that . China is our Number One National security threat. They have been planning war with us for years, and that is not an exaggeration. They are already here and they have infiltrated our country. They bought 400,000 acres of u. S. Oil most recently near an air force bases with drone technology. There is technologies that build up their military and threaten america. In the Biden Administration approved 70 of them last year. The Trump Administration approved more than that. Everybody got upset about the chinese spy balloon, right . As you should. What about the fact that 90 of Law Enforcement drones are chinese . Think about the mini surveillance happening. You have Chinese Police stations throughout our country. You have a chinese spy base off our shores in cuba. We can never let their military get on that base. We have had more americans die of fentanyl than the iraq, afghanistan, and vietnam wars combined. 75,000 Americans Last year alone. In china is building up their military at a scary pace. They now have 500 nuclear warheads. That is 100 more than they had last year. They have the Largest Naval fleet in the world. They have 270 ships and will have 300 ships in two years. They have three hundred 70 ships and will have 400 ships in two years. We wont even have 350 ships in two decades. Theyre doing artificial intelligence, space, cyber, and developed hypersonic missiles. We have barely gotten started. And now china is the lead developer of neurostrike weapons engineered to change the brand activity of military commanders and segments of the population. That is who we are dealing with. So dont let biden and janet yellen tell you china is a competitor. I dealt with china every day at the United Nations. They never saw us as a competitor. They always saw us as an enemy. We have to start looking at them the way they look at us. So how do we do with china . You start by stopping the sale that any u. S. Oil to china and take back the land they have already purchased. [applause] we go to every university and we say you either take foreign money or you take american money, but the days of taking both her over, and we get that foreign intrusion out of our universities. [applause] we black list all the technology we know that helps the Chinese Military and hurts america, and we go to china and say we will end all normal trade relations with you until you stop murdering americans with fentanyl. You watch how fast they move, because they need our economy. But also at that point i want to acknowledge the fact that we are also dependent on china, right . That is why it is important for a president to build coalitions with our friends, india, japan, south korea, australia, new zealand israel, philippines. My job will be to make sure all the business that American Companies are doing with china, we move it over to our friends if we are not making it here. We will not end up like europe. We will get in front of it and start taking care of that. And then we will make sure we have a Strong Military, strong militaries prevent wars, and that means we have to modernize. That does not mean throwing a lot of money at the department of defense. It means cleaning it up and stopping the programs they have no business doing, making sure we pulled out the regulations and bureaucracies slowing things down, make sure they no longer play favorite with defense contractors. And then we have to get our generals to start focusing on the future. They keep looking back and see the old wars, bland, there, and see. We need to modernize, artificial intelligence, cyber, space, hypersonic missiles, those are the threats we will have in the future and that is how we get in front of it, but if we do that, we will put china on its heels. So now coming back to the National Security part. There is a reason the taiwanese want the u. S. And the west to help the ukrainians. Because they know that if ukraine wins, china will not invade taiwan. There is a reason the ukrainians want the u. S. And west to support israel, because they know that if iran and hamas w in, russia wins. Russia, china, and iran are in an unholy alliance. They are bonded by the fact that they hate freedom. They hate democracy. And more than anything else, they hate america. We can take them head on but we cannot do it by putting our head in the sand, which is what biden is doing every single day. So we have the answers on how to deal with our domestic issues in our National Security issues, but the first thing we have to do is we have to end this national selfloathing that has taken over our country, the idea base say americas bad, rotten, or racist. I was elected the first female minority governor in history. America is not racist. We are blessed. Our kids need to know the love america and need to be saying the pledge of allegiance when they start school every day. [applause] you know, six months ago, i dropped my husband michael off at 4 00 p. M. For another yearlong women deployment and watched him and 200 30 soldiers pick up two duffel bugs of belongings to go to a country they have never been, all in the name of protecting america. They are willing to sacrifice their lives and their families, because they still believe in this amazing your spearmint that is america experiment that is america. So if they are willing to sacrifice for us there, shouldnt we be willing to do it here . We have a country to save, but to do that we have to acknowledge her truths. Republicans have lost 78 out of the last votes for president. That is nothing to be proud of. We should want the majority of americans. The only way that will happen is if we go forward with the new generation of that leaves the negativity and baggage in the past and focuses on issues and solutions for the future. [applause] now another hard truth, i think President Trump was the right president at the right time. I agreed with a lot of his policies. But rightly or wrongly, chaos follows him. You know i am right. Chaos follows him. And we cannot be a country in disarray and have a world on fire and go through four more years of chaos. We will not survive it. And more than that, the worst part is, a vote for joe biden is a vote for kamala harris, and we cannot have a president kamala harris. [applause] now there have been a lot of polls that show headtohead, and in almost all of those polls, biden and trump are tied headtohead. On a good day he might be up two or four points. The wall street journal had him up four. I am in every one of those same polls and in every one of those poles i defeat biden by double digits. Wall street journal, i defeated him by 17 points. [applause] we cant have a nailbiter again, but do you know what that means . A double digit win means it is about governorships, the senate, the house. That is a mandate going into washington, d. C. That we will get our economy on track and stop the reckless spending, that our kids will start reading again and we will get schools back to basics, a mandate that says we will get, to secure our border and no more excuses and a mandate that says we will bring law and order back to our country, and that is a mandate for a Strong America that we can all be proud of. That is what we want, right . [applause] now, i have seen the commercials you have seen. And i see that President Trump is paying me a little bit of attention. [laughter] i appreciate that, because i know what that means. But he is lying when he says in the commercials i never increase taxes, ever. I cut taxes. I think government makes too much money as it is. The last thing i will ever do is want to raise taxes. Now he actually raised the gas tax, proposed to raise the gas tax by . 25, but everybody talks about the economy under trump and says how good it was, and it was, right . But at what cost . 8 trillion in debt in just four years. Our kids will never forgive us for that. And now we have got to figure out what in the world we will do to bail ourselves out. We deserve better. You deserve better. But in order to do this, and we will do this, it takes a lot of courage from everybody in this room, courage for every one of you to remember, dont complain about what happens in the general election if you do not play in this primary. It matters. [applause] someone asked me when i announced why i was running. And i said you know, my parents came here 50 years ago to an america that was strong, proud and full of opportunities. I want them to know that country again. Im doing this for my husband michael and his military brothers and sisters who need to know that their sacrifice matters and that we love our country. Im doing this for my daughter who just got married, and i saw how hard it was for her and her husband to buy a home, and im doing this for my son, who is a senior in college, and i am tired of watching him write papers on things he does not believe in just to get an a. That is not us. That is not america. 81 of americans for the first time did not think their kids will live as good of a life as we did . We cant be ok with that. I am not ok with that. We do have a country to save. What i will promise you this, if you would join with me in this movement, if you will help us get this back on track and be part of the solution, i promise you our best days are yet to come. Thank you very much. God bless you. [applause] thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. That is very nice. Thank you. Thank you. [applause] thank you. Chris, your state shirt knows how to make a southern girl feel good. I appreciate that. You have listened to me. We have done months of town halls where i take any question you have, so we will open it up for questions. If you will hold your hands up, the people with the microphones will find you. There is nothing i wont answer. You may not like my answer. Where are you guys, oh, she will not give you the microphone because she think youre going to run with it. [laughter] thank you. Larry garland. What is your practical approach to dealing with the deadlock and bipartisanship in congress and in the general public . It is a good point. The first thing i would tell you it is not what i say, it is what i have done. I would do as president what i did as governor, and my thought process when i became governor of a hurting state was i will focus on what i can control now, and go ahead and get things done now. So what i did was i looked at my agencies. I replaced the head of every agency whether they were doing a good job or not because i wanted to freshen it up. I made sure the people we put at the of those agencies, some did not vote for me come in so i put people who understood their constituencies, agriculture agriculture, tourism tourism come of veterans who knew the challenges, but we put the people who understood what their mission was and told them to get rid of all the things not within their mission. Then i sent teams into every Single Agency to clean it up. I pulled down old regulations and a red tape, pulled away any problem children we have because they are all there. Some cases we tweaked agencies and other agencies we gutted. They had to start showing a return on investment to the taxpayer and we needed to see realtime what they were doing for you instead of themselves. And then i saw they were spending their money because they were worried they were knocking to get the same amount next year, so i put the spending on one for every taxpayer to see , and then i incentivize them to give money back to the taxpayers, and magic happened. The agencies started to compete against each other against who could be the most efficient and effective. And then i went to my legislature, which is when we will go to congress, and i said now it is your turn and started by giving them a couple of easy things to to remind them what it was like to win together again and then we did harder and harder things. The town at the top matters. It matters on how people treat each other. At matters on how Government Works for the people and not the other way around. At matters in times of crisis. You saw i had to deal with a tragic shooting at an africanamerican church. I had to deal with the tragic shooting that an unarmed black man shop by a dirty cop. But when those things happened, we did not have riots. We focused on values that made us great. And it was not about judgment. It was about how do you get the best of people and go forward. That is what we need to have in america again. That is when we will get it working again. [applause] yes, sir . I am an American History teacher and taught it. I think you can tell a lot about a person by who they admire. I bet you have not been asked this, aside from washington and lincoln, what president do you admire the most and why . I have always said that i thought the two president s were washington because the responsibility he had to get our country in the first, the pressures of that to get it right had to be enormous. Lincoln was the other, because our country couldve fallen apart and almost did by the divisions, and the ability he had to bring it back together and say we are better than this was a huge thing. Obviously Ronald Reagan because the way he communicated. He understood you dont talk to people, you talk with them and listen to what they have to say, and you talk to them like a real person and show them, you build a relationship and you build trust and i think that is important. Another one not in our country but i am a massive fan of margaret thatcher. [applause] here was a woman who came from humble beginnings, had a hard time to where she was, and she took on a country that was really in trouble. And she went and saw the government was the problem, and so she started privatizing, all the different parts of government that did not need the Big Government dealt with. And she took a lot of heat for it. And there were many times they told her to take a uturn and go back, and she never fell to the heat. Instead she stayed strong and she said, you can take a uturn if you want, but this woman is not for turning, and she kept the course and took her country to a totally different level and got them to see the best of themselves. The other reason why id like her is she happy to say quote i personally love it she said, ask a man. If you want something done, ask a woman. [applause] i think it is time we get things done in america. Yes, sir . Hi, governor haley. I am a former submarine officer. I want to thank you. And thank you. God bless you for your service. Thank you. The border crisis is a humanitarian crisis and no matter what you do with the order it remains a humanitarian crisis. And we are a country with a huge heart in a country that exercises its influence all over the world. You know, take a country like honduras. It is an absolute mess. The drug cartel is a mess. The government is a mess. And the people dont have a place to live. So why are we as the United States not exercising our influence to make these countries more livable . It is a great question. You know the interesting part is when you remember President Trump had a terrible border situation early on in his administration. And when he was trying to deal with it from a Homeland Security situation, i was on the ground in honduras and guatemala, where they were really a lot of the influx was coming from there and el salvador, and what we saw is that a sickly people were basically people were leaving because of drugs, because of gangs, and because of the situation there. So we worked with their government and we had military forces the trained them on how to deal with gangs. Then we had drug boats on the water to deal with the drug issue. But we said to them, we will partner with you, but you have to have everybody from here. You have to go to the source of where they are coming from and you have to figure out what do you do, to stop that from happening. That is the first thing. The second thing is understanding the cartels are making a ton of money off this, and it is incredibly dangerous for people to make that trek in the first place, because they dont live who cares or who dies. They get the money up front and they are taken care of. But you have to look at what those women and children go through along the way. And it is a horrific situation that they go through. But we still have to remember that we are a country of laws. The second we stopping a country of laws we give up everything this country was founded on. So when we deal with that issue, the first biggest thing biden has not done, and honestly he does not think he needs to close the border. The only reason theyre doing something now is that he sees the perception is bad. But stop incentivizing them to come. He just gave 500,000 venezuelans temporary protected status. Do you know what that is . That is 500,000 Social Security numbers and drivers licenses. I saw at the United Nations what happens when that happens. Everyone calls their family members and says, we just made it. It is the biggest green light to say ok, we can do it too and right now america has a big open sign on it. We know that because the Illegal Immigrants were wearing biden tshirts shortly after biden came into office. We have to do this the right way. We do have a big heart. And we do also believe that we have to take care of people who are persecuted, but we have a process for that, and guess what that process is . It requires venting to make sure we are protecting the National Security of americans. Right now all those people you see coming, none of them are being vetted. We happen to cap 17 last month on the terrorist watch list. We have to go back to being a country of laws. What is happening now, i literally, someone asked me what keeps me up at night. What keeps me up at night is what happens between now and election day, because i feel like america is very unsafe. I dont know where the microphones are. Hey, little guy. How are you . Hes not going to give you the microphone. Let him hold it. So, thank you. I wanted to ask you come so Chris Christie thinks that you are a flipfloper on the donald trump issue, and honestly i agree with him. [laughter] you are basically the new john kerry. If you remember john kerry from then . What is the question . How can you change your opinion like that in just eight years . And will you pardon donald trump . [applause] so first come and tell me what your name is. Adam . And how old are you . Nine. So fourth, fifth grade . Fourth grade. I am proud of you for coming and very proud of you for listening, and very proud of you for asking the question. So the first thing i would tell you is politics is about distraction, right . And so people like my friends Chris Christie will say she is a flipfloper, but let us look at it what, flipflopping on . That im not hitting trump hard enough, right . The interesting part of this whole situation is antitrumpers think i do not hate him enough and protrumpers dont think id love him enough. [laughter] and at the end of the date the fact is i am just telling you the truth like i see it. It is not personal for me. It has never been personal for me. I told you i think he was the right president at the right time and i agreed with a lot of his policies, but do i think he is the right president to go forward . No. We cannot handle the chaos anymore. Chris christie is obsessed with trump. I mean, god bless him. He sleeps, eats, and breathes it every day. I am thinking bigger than that. If we do that we are no different than trump. That is what we are trying to get away from, is the idea we obsessed about a person. This is about a country. We are better, bigger than that. I am who i am. I told my truth like i you told your truth, except that i am no john kerry. [laughter] [applause] but i will also answer his question. He asked if i would pardon trump, and i have answered this before. I would pardon trump, and the reason is, first of all, we do not know what they will find, innocent, guilty, any of that, and we want everyone to be innocent until proven guilty. The second thing is, if he is found guilty, a leader needs to think about what is in the best interest of the country. What is in the best interest of the country is to not have an 80yearold man sitting in jail that continues to divide our country. What is in the best interest of the country would be to pardon him so that we can move on as a country and no longer talk about him. [applause] [cheering] [applause] yes, maam . So lately i have had to stay in different hotels, and when i go down to breakfast or whatever, i noticed that we are housing a lot of homeless in our hotels. And they are pushing their way through the breakfast line. They are pushing their way in so that we are no longer safe. I dont feel safe. What can we start doing as a Smaller Community to start feeling safe again because it is not happening right now . So in every place, you can see every state in the country is feeling this, right . You remember when i told you we are going to take programs and send them down to the states . Think health care, welfare, education, all of those things. I would much rather have the state handle it because they know the issues of the state. The other thing is president s typically meet with governors once a year. I will meet with our governors once every quarter, republican and democrat, with the sole purpose of showing them when we move those federal funds down, these are the best ways to lift up your people. So i will give you example. In South Carolina, i told you we had thousands of people on welfare, i took those people on welfare and i matched them with businesses and told my businesses if you will take this person and train them for x number of weeks, i will pay you for it, and afterwards you decide whether you want to hire that person. We moved 35,000 people from welfare to work. [applause] and the reason that worked is because a lot of times they did not know where to get the training. Businesses did not know how to find the workers. It was harder, but it worked, and we matched them up. We would have family celebrations because for many it was a generational cycle and the kids off for the first time that the adults were productive members of society, but the adults wanted to give back. They did not want to be homeless. They did not want to be on welfare. The second thing we did is we took it a step further and i went into our prison systems and wanted to know how people got in, what happened while they were there, and what happened when they left. We reformed the whole thing and taught financial planning, family planning, that they could do a resume, computer skills, faithbased help, if they wanted it but we put equipment behind the fence and taught a skill. Now when they believe they have a job to go to the next day. South carolina has the lowest recidivism rate in the country. Our goal [applause] our goal to get the homeless off the streets, we have to fix our economy. We have to make sure we are putting money back into peoples pockets and not governments pockets, start getting people on welfare or in tough situations and lift them up and show them a way forward, and that makes you safer, the state safer, and the country safer. [applause] this will be the last question. Make it a good one. Thank you for your clarifying comments on the civil war. Im interested here about leadership and how people would lead. You made a comment about the number of americans on medicaid. I was thinking of those people in medicaid our children who deserve access to health care. Im asking you this because you were a governor. Im curious what your thoughts are about the role of Medicaid Program are as it is run by states and who you think it should be serving and how . So that is a loaded question, but it is an important one. I am going to step back first and say, we have a massive problem with health care. How can we be the best country in the world with the most Expensive Health care in the world . The way we want to deal with that, before we even get to medicaid, is open it all up. Make it transparent not for me to see but for you to see as well. That means we will make them show it off from the Insurance Companies, hospitals, doctors, pharmacies, pbms, and everyone in between. If we dealt with Insurance Companies alone, we would cut health care in half, but when we do that, and i will tell you that michael and i take care of our parents who are 87 my dad just turned 90 when my mom was in the hospital, the nurse came up to her and said , here are two tylenol and my mom said no, i am fine. I dont need it. She said honey, you might as well take it because youre going to pay for it anyway. Now when we got that bi,l no one talkedl to us about that bill. We were told we had to pay it. And here you had the Insurance Company in the hospital negotiate without us. Im tired of seeing the patient in the backseat. We have to put the patient in the drivers seat. You know that when you go to get your cars fixed, you go to the and what does he say . Well, i can give you a temporary fix and it will cost this much money or i can give you a permanent fix and it will cost this much money, but you decide. We need to get health care to where you decide, and so the first thing is we want to open it up. Were going to call them out. Were going to pick on all parts of health care, because that is the only way we will fix it. The second thing we need to take on tort reform in our country. [applause] doctors dont give you those 10 tests because they want to, they do it for the 90 chance they will get sued, so we need to make sure we have tort reform when it comes to health care. Then we need to eliminate certificate of need. I eliminated it in South Carolina. Basically certificate of need is says if you have a hospital here you cannot have another hospital for x number of miles. They do the same thing for Nursing Homes and surgical centers, all of these things that are really important so what does that do . It gets rid of any competition. My mom used to tell us in our Family Business the best thing that could happen to us as if our competition went up across the street because it would keep us on our toes and our service would be good and our prices would go down. That is what we need in health care. Lets make them compete for you, because then the services will go up. The communication will be better. The prices will go down. And all of a sudden it is quality of care. It is not about how much money they can make by turning over as many patients as they can. We have to bring responsibility back. Then when we go and we look at medicaid, you will see more people are covered because it does not cost as much to cover each person. That is the problem. Medicaid, they go and sit there and charge everybody else more because they cap afford to take care of what theyre doing with medicaid. And i think at the end of the day, there should be no one who suffers from anything that does not get the care they deserve. We arent that good of a country that we should never have that happen. [applause] but we truly, i am tired of all the bandaiding we have done. Medicare, no one can figure it out. I am an accountant and i cant figure out the medicare situation for my mom and dad. It is impossible. No individual should go through what we are going through. After you have paid in and been told you will have it, then suddenly they are like, that, but you can get physical therapy , or you cant get occupational therapy, or you cant get a nurse to come to you once a week , because they said you would be ok, but you are not. We have to deal with this. It is a huge issue. I will make sure that, it should not be a medicaid issue, it should be a health care issue, and that is what we will focus on. [applause] so i would leave you with this, first of all, thank you for taking the time to be with us today. When i told you i ran against that longestserving legislator in a primary, people laughed at me, and i got to work and i earned their support and we won. When i ran for governor i was the Tea Party Candidate who ran against the challengers. I had 3 in the polls in the least amount of money but i work South Carolina like no one else and we won. Wheni got to the United Nations , they said i did not have enough experience, so i got to work and took the kick me sign off our backs. I have been under estimated and everything i have done, and it is a blessing because it makes me scrappy. [laughter] no one will outwork, outsmart the in this race, because we have a country to save. And i think that one, while i am proud to have the live free or die governors support [applause] how awesome would it be to have a live free or die country . But to do that, if you like what i had to say today, go tell 10 people. Go tell your friends and family. Goat tell them to get involved, pick up a yard sign. Goat let everybody know you want to be part of the solution. If you dont like what i had to say today, shh. [applause] [laughter] just dont say anything or tell anyone you were here. God bless you. Thank you. [applause] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [laughter] [indiscernible chatter] hi. How are you . [indiscernible chatter] 1, 2, 3. [indiscernible chatter] 1, 2, 3. [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] 1, 2, 3. Thank you. [indiscernible chatter] come on. [indiscernible chatter] thank you for everything. High five. [indiscernible chatter] ready . 1, 2, 3. Thank you. Spread the word. Thank you thank you. [indiscernible chatter] alright. [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] yeah. [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] [indiscernible chatter] hi. Hey. [indiscernible chatter] [laughter] [indiscernible chatter] let me know when you are ready. Your comments on why you wanted to address slavery at the beginning . And for the governor, what do you make of the comments and do you think it will factor into the primary Going Forward . I think everybody thinks the civil war was about slavery, but what was the bigger issue that it . We went through that and we know people were struggling with what is the role of government and individual freedom in the lesson we take away is to never allow slavery to happen again, but what does that mean for government and the role of individual freedom . We want everybody to have the freedom of speech, religion, and live their lives without anyone doing anything to hamper that. That is what it was about. If it is clarifying the civil war was about slavery, i am happy to do that. I was a southern governor and i took down the Confederate Flag in South Carolina. I am aware of what that is about what is the lesson to move forward as a country . Every person deserves her freedom and we have to always fight for it every single day. Thats it. We are moving on. Governor, one of the things that i think has dinged your campaign, Tucker Carlson talking about a creature of the oligarchy and things like that, can you talk about being part of the elite and how you would help regular folks . I think it is funny that happens. When i first got involved in politics, i took on the longestserving member in South Carolina in the legislature. I was the outsider who came in. When i ran for governor i was the Tea Party Candidate that nobody gave any chance two. When i was at the United Nations, i fought for america. I fought to make sure we got things done. I have been a fighter all my life so i dont let people define me. Id let my actions defined me. You can look at a career that constantly fighting for the people i serve, ms. Haaland you took moving programs from the federal level to the state level. And we need federal rules, what is a federal and state rule . Ms. Haley the constitution says that people have the right to bear arms. We need to keep that. And cant touch that at all. I want every person to have the freedom to protect themselves and with the lawlessness that is happening all over the country, you cant take peoples rights to protect them. I will fight for that process. Im a Second Amendment person and some regulations that certain states have, dont they have the right this is the way to protect ourselves . Ms. Haley the constitution speaks for itself and pretty clear that every person has the right to bear arms. When you have the right to bear arms or health care, and something happens at the federal level and the states are going to work around that a little bit. We are governors. We believe there is a huge opportunity when the federal government isnt working. Funding and rules and regulations and laws, there is a process here. I think what ambassador is talking about that every american has that right to protect themselves and defend. You mentioned you want to be judged by your actions, considering your comments you made last night and when you took down the Confederate Flag. Ms. Haley and im not worried about it because i have lived my life in a way that speaks for itself. And when you saw we had walter scott shot in the back by a dirty cop, first thing we passed the first body camera bill in the country. Saw nine amazing souls murdered in mother emanuel chufer. It took twothirds votes of the house and senate and the state was completed dieded. Thats what i have tried to do. I dont live in the past. I look forward and say what does this mean Going Forward . I am im always Going Forward. Its a given that the civil war was about slavery. What are we going to do with that . Make sure it never happens again and protect peoples freedoms. That is what im going to focus on. [indiscernible question] ms. Haley its a given its about slavery. To me its about freedom. Its bigger than slavery. That was a stain on our history. What do you take from it Going Forward. Slavery can never happen again. But Going Forward, doesnt that mean we should focus on the freedoms of people to live their lives and not have government and tell them what they can and cant do. That is the part we have to never take away from. You can make it about something else, but if you look at my record in South Carolina, we dealt this with a whole lot more. And yes, you can acknowledge a point in history, but what do you do . You have to make sure the lessons go forward so we dont repeat it again. This morning you said that the question last night on the civil war was planted by the Biden Administration. Do you have any evidence of that . Ms. Haley funny, you look at the Biden Administration and billboards against me in iowa. Nobody else. And now in new hampshire, we have seen on a regular basis that we have the deem trackers and putting up questions. Its a town hall and take questions from republicans, democrats and independents. I will take questions from every person. You get to know who these people are. Doesnt mean im going to answer the question. And ill continue to answer any democrat tracker or anybody else question because that is the reason of doing a town hall. Not everyone. We dont plant the questions. Its a freeforall and i would rather than do that than hamper anybodys ability to answer a question. [indiscernible chatter] you addressed Chris Christies criticism of you in the town hall. You address him and his relationship with trump. There are voters who might be looking at you and Chris Christie, independent voters and moderate groups might have concerns about what is called flipflopping and clarifying answers. What would you say to those voters who might have a legitimate concern. What am i flipflopping on . Im not being argumentative . The only thing that christy said is that im not hard enough on trump. I call it like i see it. I call it, when i see he is doing something right. I think the problem with politics its too personal. Its not personal for me but about the question Going Forward. The other thing that he said i flipflop on abortion. I was asked two different questions. I was asked if you were governor in South Carolina and fix a weak abortion bill, would you sign it. In new hampshire, i was asked what would a federal law look like. I answered it. If you could find a time i flipflopped, i will answer it. There is no flipflopping. I speak hard truth whether people like it or not and let the chips. Chris christie and his supporters to make sure donald trump isnt president and you need to get behind ambassador haley. Chris, i love him. But that is not galvanizing the vote. She is doing the town halls. If you are out there saying, we want a new generation of Republican Leadership and make sure we say thank you to donald trump for the service he gave and this is the only path that happens and you are seeing a movement in the numbers and having this momentum as we go forward. People are coming out of the wood work saying haley is the real deal. Ms. Haley we are going to do this and finish this and people trust chris. They have relationships with him. But you see that people are excited that yes there is a path forward. They dont want to focus on a person anymore but on a country. We are not going to focus on a person but focus on what do we think what is happening in the country. Thank you very much. I appreciate it. [indiscernible ho good morning. It saturday, december 30, 2023. As the year comes to