united states of america. thank you, folks. [applause] ♪ >> ♪ you can't always get what you want you can't always get what you want you can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes well you just might find you get what you need ♪ ♪

>> see pack also heard from wayne lapierre who spoke about conservative and holes in the criminal violence of activist organizations. this is 20 minutes. >> good afternoon, cpac! how are you doing today? what a difference a year makes. are you ready to get our country back on the right track? let me hear you. are you ready to fight for what you believe? you know, i have been watching on tv. i'm glad you're pumped up, because we have a real fight on our hands. the truth is, the far left have turned protesting into a

full-time profession. you'd think that for $1,500 a week, they'd know what they're protesting. you have seen it. but half of them can't even tell you. one thing is for sure. we've all seen how violent they can be. just look at inauguration day. they disguised themselves with black bloc ski masks. they spit in the faces of gold star families. they tomahawked beer bottles and rocks at police, putting multiple police in the hospital. they smashed businesses' plate-glass windows while customers cowered inside. ladies and gentlemen, have we ever seen such anger in this country? in california, a high school girl was asked, do you hate

mexicans? when she replied no, they said, you support trump. you hate mexicans. and then they beat her up. in san francisco, they attacked a group of trump supporters, pelted a woman with eggs, then stole their trump hats and burned them in the street. the left's message is clear -- they want revenge. you've got to be punished. they say you're what's wrong with america, and now you've got to be purged. but maybe it's time those protesters took some advice from barack obama. elections have consequences. we won.

folks, our long nightmare may not be over, it may be just beginning. because right now, we face a gathering of forces willing to use violence against us. think about it. the leftist movement in this country right now is enraged. among them and behind them are some of the most radical political elements there are. anarchists. marxists. communists. and the rest of the left-wing, socialist brigade. many of these people literally hate everything america stands for -- democracy, free-market capitalism, representative government and individual freedom. they want to tear down our system and replace it with their collectivist, top-down, global government-knows-best utopia. and they've got money-billions-from michael

bloomberg, george soros and a vast network of leftist organizations. they all have different complaints, agendas and motives for what they do. but they all share one thing in common -- they're angry, they're militant and they're willing to engage in criminal violence to get what they want. but here's what's different from the leftist violence we've seen in the past. for the first time, we face an enemy utterly dedicated to destroy not just our country, but also western civilization. we also face a national media machine that's not only biased almost entirely their way, it also dumps gasoline on simple political disagreement to turn them into cultural ieds.

they demonize and dehumanize us by calling us every evil name in the book. when the anger explodes, they step back, catch it on video and replay it nonstop for ratings and outrage and more chaos tomorrow. meanwhile, crime is rising again in many u.s. cities. according to the fbi, drug gangs are expanding their networks all across the country. the fbi also says gang members are infiltrating law enforcement and the military. in jails, they're working with extremist groups from white supremacists to black separatists to muslim prison gangs. on the outside, gangs are committing more and more cross-border crimes. according to the fbi, mexican

drug cartels are working with 100,000 street gang members in chicago alone. i think we all agree we live in a more angry, more dangerous world than we've seen in a long time. a lot of people for a lot of reasons want to blow it all up and tear the whole thing down. it's in the saul alinsky strategy of sowing grievance and indignation to raise holy hell. it's in the leftist radical plan to tax capitalism to collapse. it's in the rahm emanuel doctrine of never let a crisis go to waste. and it's in the radical isis dream of a worldwide caliphate. so what happens when it all collects and collides like a hurricane? what happens when the national media wind machine blows it up into a firestorm?

and what happens if, god forbid, our enemies use that to their advantage? is it anything but a matter of time before the terror and bloodshed we've seen in brussels or paris comes home to america? do we need to look any further than boston, san bernardino or orlando to know that time has already come? with social media, it's easy enough to find out where to go and when. so what happens when terrorists tag along for a flash-mob protest at your airport and gas the place like they did in tokyo? what happens when some facebook freeway protest brings your interstate to a screeching halt? if you're late for work, that's one thing. but what if you've had a heart

attack and your ambulance is just a mile from the hospital exit? ladies and gentlemen, another definition of terrorism is violence in the name of politics. criminal violence has no place in political debate. and those who incite it or engage in it need to be prosecuted and punished, period. the left's violence against america has taken many forms. for example, left-wing judicial activism can be a form of violence against our constitutional system. look at judicial efforts to block president trump's executive order to take a longer look at people coming from countries that sponsor or harbor terrorists. yet the protesters show up, the media amplify their anger and

the elites go into meltdown. it's not that the constitution is unclear on this issue. the president handles the foreign affairs of this country. it's an executive function. and the u.s. laws on the issue couldn't be clearer. the president has absolute authority to suspend the entry of all aliens or any class of aliens he may deem to be appropriate to protect the interest of the united states of america. folks, when unelected, unaccountable judges can take that clear, unambiguous language and then twist it and pervert it to make it mean whatever they want, they might as well throw a molotov cocktail at the u.s. constitution.

they do violence to the constitution's separation of powers. they do violence to the u.s. code and supreme court precedent. and they do violence to the checks and balances that keep government under control. because by making the law mean anything they want, they make the law mean nothing. as even the liberals' own supreme court justice hugo black said, and i quote, our constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind. ladies and gentlemen, the leftist media is responsible for blowing the winds of violence as well. it's bad enough when cnn openly fantasizes about what happens if

the president-elect is assassinated before he takes the oath of office on inauguration day? and it's bad enough that a london times journalist can fret that, quote,. the assassination is taking such a long time. it's shameful and wrong. so are the media's deliberate lies aimed at destroying our freedom. that is something the nra has been dealing with for decades. back in 2003, when the 10-year clinton gun ban was set to expire, cnn deliberately tried to mislead the public. so i called them out on their lies. watch this -- >> we give you the other side,

wayne lapierre, thank you for being with us. on itself weapons expires what kind of weapons would be legal? >> let me say this at the start. apparently the only difference between the new york times and cnn is when a reporter for the new york times makes a story he is fired and cnn he is not. he faked a story yesterday intending to show the performance characteristics of banned firearms on the list are somehow different from the performance characteristics of firearms not on the banned list. he was implying that these were machine guns, fully automatic guns. that is not true. >> i have to stop you there. john did not fake a story at cnn. you are very all days. i'm going to let you say your

pen you but don't accuse a reporter of faking any stories. reporter say it, your thanked that story yesterday. all right. >> there is no way it could be true. >> they did. they did. [applause] here's the deal. the following monday, cnn couldn't even make an honest retraction. they called it additional information and proved what i said was true. their story was absolutely phony and deceitful. here is the really sad thing. if i hadn't been sitting live in that studio and caught them like a bank robber running out of the

bank with a bag of money and dye exploding all over him, they never would have run the so-called correction. folks, our country's under siege from a media carpet-bombing campaign. you can hear it in their tone, their sneers. you can literally see the disdain on their faces. everything from their word choices to their inflection is trained on one target -- purposely and maliciously destroying the trump presidency. no matter what it takes and no matter what that costs. here's just an example -- for years, the media couldn't have cared less about vladimir putin or russia or obama's promise to go easy on him after he was

re-elected. which led to obama's slow-motion foreign policy train wreck in the region. but now, barely a month into trump's presidency, they're horrified and all a-fret over the russian american equation. even more alarming is that they've apparently found willing coconspirators among some in the u.s. intelligence community. if an american president can't talk to his counterparts in mexico or australia on a line he knows is secure, then folks, our national security is at risk. you know, 100 years ago, if you eavesdropped and published the affairs of the heads of state, you would have been tracked down

and hanged for treason. yet today, obama can commute the sentence of a traitor like chelsea manning and all the media want to talk about are manning's underwear choices and makeup routines. today, barack obama is giving explicit support to these protesters. in his first public statement since the election, obama said he was heartened and that the anti-trump protests and riots are. -- are exactly what we expect to see when american values are at stake. american values? you mean like freedom of speech? or just speech you agree with, like the safety-pin censors on college campuses today. god help you if you're a conservative and want to speak

at a college today. did you see their night of tolerance and diversity of opinion at berkeley this month? berkeley, the supposed birthplace of the free speech movement of the '60s is now where speech is silenced, its defenders are beaten by mobs and the police are told to stand down. they call people fascists. yet they used the same brutal tactics that the fascists used in europe in the 1920s and '30s. but i'll say this -- if they think they're going to crowbar and hammer and burn the foundations of western civilization, they'd better bring a big stick and pack a lunch 'cause they're going to

have one hell of a fight on their hands. november's elections proved it -- americans wanted a fighter and we got one with president donald j. trump. and for the last three decades, fighting for our freedom is something the nra has done every single day. all across this country, it was nra members and gun owners who made a difference. and in states like north carolina, pennsylvania, wisconsin, michigan, ohio and florida, nra members and gun owners helped put president trump over the top.

folks, the media said we were arranging deck chairs on the titanic by backing trump. but we're still standing. we're still here. and we've got president trump's back for the next eight years. we've got 5 million active nra members and 25 million more who consider themselves nra members gun owners all across this country. so if you're a member of the leftist media, a soldier for the violent left, a violent criminal, a drug cartel gang member or a would-be terrorist, hear this -- you're not going to win.

you will not defeat us. [applause] you know, with all the threats facing america today, your right to protect yourself and your family may be more relevant and more urgently needed than ever before. americans know that in their hearts and they feel it in their bones. and that's why they join the nra. we're the nation's largest gathering of lawful, peaceable, right-thinking people absolutely determined to live our lives without fear. in our families, in our homes, in our communities and across this country, we stand ready and resolved to defend our freedom and secure our safety against any enemy. terror knows no more ferocious

foe than freedom in the hands of we the people. to defend it, we'll go toe-to-toe with them in any arena they threaten. we'll fight the violent left on the airwaves, the internet and tv. we'll fight the violent left in congress and in the washington bureaucracy. we'll fight the violent left in the state houses and in courthouses from coast to coast. and make no mistake -- if the violent left brings their terror to our communities, our neighborhoods or into our homes, they will be met with the resolve, the strength and the full force of american freedom in the hands of the american people. and we will win because we are

the majority. [applause] so what do you say? are you ready to take on the leftists and protect the foundations of american democracy? stand up and show them you're ready to stand and fight! stand up and show them we will not submit, we will not be intimidated and we will never surrender. stand up. speak out. be bold. fight back. stand up with the nra to defend the greatest expression of human freedom ever witnessed on this planet -- the united states of america. thank you very much. fight for your freedoms every day. thank you. [applause] ♪

>> c-span's washington journal live every day with news and policy issues that impact you. saturday morning, the president and ceo of america's -- americans for the arts. molly o'toole at foreign policy talked about u.s. mexico relations following this release of the new immigration directives. robbie swappable discuss his piece on how student behavior is being handled by police officers. watch washington journal live at 7:00 a.m..

>> the democratic national committee meeting to elect a new today, donnar brazil gave remarks and discussed the parties path ahead. she has led the dnc since late july after dad be wasserman schultz resigned -- debbie wasserman schultz resigned. [applause] donna: i want to thank hillary, i want to thank all of you. before i bring forward to great leaders of our party, i want to remind you the resolutions are available electronically.