tv Jose Diaz- Balart Reports MSNBC January 7, 2025 8:00am-9:00am PST
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to assess where help is needed most as winter temperatures are set to drop and strong aftershocks are complicating the efforts to reach survivors. >> all right, janis mackey frayer, thank you for bringing us the very latest. that does it for us today. thank you for joining me. i'm ana cabrera reporting from new york. i'll see you back here tomorrow, same time, same place. soon we'll see the casket of former president jimmy carter leaving his presidential library in georgia, and then a solemn procession to our nation's capitol. jose diaz-balart picks up our coverage right now. 11:00 a.m.
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eastern, 8:00 a.m. pacific. jose diaz-balart, and we are watching live pictures from atlanta. happening any moment now, a ceremony is to begin at the carter center in atlanta as the body of former president jimmy carter is set to leave georgia before being honored in the nation's capitol. these live pictures of the carter center, the presidential center in atlanta where jimmy carter spent so much time and where so many people worked for so long, in a common cause of peace. more than 23,000 people visited the center to pay their respects over the past four days. later today, the 39th president will lie in state at the u.s. capitol before a national funeral service at the national cathedral on thursday. we will, of course, bring you all the developments as we commemorate the life and legacy of president jimmy carter. joining us now from atlanta is
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author of the biography of jimmy carter, his very best jimmy carter, a life. priya, take us through the significance of what's about to happen right now. >> reporter: that's right, jose. in just a few minutes, the ceremony marking the former president's final departure from here at the carter center will begin. as you mentioned, this center has so much to do with the president's post-presidency legacy. he did about four decades of humanitarian work in more than 80 countries around the world, eradicating global disease, promoting democracy, observing elections around the world, and what we're going to see eventually are those military body bearers bringing the casket out of the carter center where he's been lying in repose since saturday evening, transferring it to a motorcade which will take it to dobbins
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air reserve base here in atlanta, at which point it will fly to andrews air force base in maryland. and another motorcade processional will begin with a brief moment of silence at the navy memorial in washington, d.c., at which point the casket will be transferred to a horse- drawn carriage and taken to the capitol rotunda. later this afternoon at about 4:30, there will be a private ceremony with the vice president and lawmaker, and then he will lie in state, and it will be open to the public for anyone who wants to pay their last respects at around 8:00 p.m. this evening until midnight. then it will open up again to the public at around 7:00 a.m. tomorrow. and of course, he will be there until his national funeral service, which is scheduled for 10:00 a.m. on thursday at washington's national cathedral. and this really ends all of the funeral services and memorials that took place in his home state of georgia. that began on saturday morning as secret service agents, both current and former, from the carter protective division
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escorted his remains from the medical center in americus to his boyhood farm in plains. at that point, the national park service workers rendered a salute and rang a historic bell 39 times in honor of the 39th presidency. the motorcade made its way here to atlanta with a brief stop at the georgia capitol commemorating his time as governor. along the way, we saw people lining the route to pay their respects. we even saw a firetruck with a flag and the ladder sort of flying below, saluting. so i believe you're starting to see the pictures here in atlanta right now. >> yep. >> reporter: of the military body bearers bringing his body out, jose. >> indeed. let's listen in. this is the motorcade has arrived and the positions and the circle of flags begin.
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>> as we reach 10 past the hour in atlanta you are seeing there this ceremony that was just carried out at the carter center as they say their final farewells to former president jimmy carter. these hyms, the four ruffles, the hail to the chief, amazing grace, and once this casket has been placed in the hearse as you're seeing, the carter family then loads into a motorcade and departs for
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dobbins in georgia. back with us is priya. jonathan alter also with us this morning. jane harmon who worked in the carter administration as the chair currently on the commission of the national defense strategy. priya, we saw just a brief glimpse of people, and there have been more than 20,000 people that have filed past the former president's casket in these last couple of hours and days. >> reporter: yeah. that's right, jose. i got a chance to sit down with the former president's grandson, jason carter, who also gave some emotional remarks at the private funeral service that was held here on saturday, and he said he was just absolutely blown away with the outpouring of support that he's felt from people around the world, but especially here in their home state of jalaeyah. he said he was so emotional riding in that motorcade from plains here to atlanta, and he's had an opportunity to listen to some of the mourners. i got a chance to go inside the
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carter center and see the former president lying in repose, and i even got a chance to read some of the comments that people have been leaving in the guest books, and it's really just this sense of pride. that someone who came from rural georgia, that came from a farm where there was no electricity or running water could make it all the way to the white house. and really what i've been hearing from so many of the people who wanted to pay their respects is it was the type of man he was, the way he carried himself, his moral compass, his resiliency. even that sort of underdog story, the fact that he was relatively unknown outside of the state of georgia before he made his way to the white house. and when he came back here to georgia, he didn't give up on his dedication to service. he started the carter center and really launched into this humanitarian work that spanned over four decades. and so jason carter was just telling me that, you know, he feels all the love and the support of the people who have been coming out here. and of course, we're going to continue to see that as the
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former president makes his final journey to washington, d.c. >> just thinking jonathan, you have studied so much jimmy carter, his legacy, his work. you know, priya when she talks about four decades of service after the white house, he was only in the white house for four years. what stands out to you, jonathan, as being maybe the basic pillars of that legacy of service? >> well, i think that he was a flawed politician but a visionary american leader. so i first got interested in writing a book about him when i learned that he was talking about global warming in the 1970s before anybody anywhere in the world in any kind of leadership position was doing so. and if he had been reelected, he wanted electric cars by the
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mid-1980s. he was basically 30 years ahead of his time on that issue. but achieved a lot on the environment and on other issues. so it really surprised me that i had, and i think a lot of other people had sort of underestimated his achievements while in office. they were overshadowed by the fact that he was shellacked by ronald reagan in 1980. so he was a political failure but a very successful leader. if you look at the actual legislative record. and then he was the only, you know, president who used the presidency as the former president of emery university said as a steppingstone to a whole nother career of service, in which he revolutionized and redefined the role of a former president in our country.
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and the achievements after he left office are not as great as those when he was in office because former presidents don't have any actual power, but he set an example for the world. and an example for people in all walks of life to try to do more to help other people. and whether it was eradicating diseases or promoting democracy, standing up for human rights, making peace, he and rosalynn carter touched, changed, and in some cases saved the lives of millions of people around the world. >> jonathan, yeah. yeah, jonathan. i was just thinking just in my personal 40 years as a journalist, i remember being in nicaragua in 1990, february
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1990 elections when chamaro surprise win over ortega, carter was there leading a delegation of people. there were achievements while in the white house, but a lot of, well in every person's life there is light and there is shadow, and there were certainly political shadows throughout these four years. i'm thinking of, you know, carter's involvement with iran, the iranian revolution. let's not forget the mariel boat lift and why the mariel boat lift happened. let's not forget his positions on taiwan, that he broke relations essentially with taiwan. i mean, there were a lot of issues, jonathan, that he actually took a proactive leadership role in that ended up having broad repercussions that we feel even today. >> yeah. i want to just focus, jose, if i can for a moment on nicaragua
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in 1990. this is one of his lesser known achievements. but chamaro won that election against daniel ortega, and daniel ortega was saying that he would not leave office. and jimmy carter, who was down monitoring the election, stayed up with him all night and said look, it's hard to lose. i know. i lost. it's hard to lose. but for the sake of your people, you must leave office. and he talked ortega into doing it. now, of course, ortega is back. but he left office. and i interviewed in addition to many interviews with jimmy carter, i interviewed the late president george h w bush. he told me how grateful he was to jimmy carter for getting ortega out. on many of these issues even when he suffered setbacks,
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there were major achievements connected to them. not just camp david and the panama canal but many other major achievements that lend a new perspective to some of his shortcomings. >> you know, i remember that long night very well in 1990, as all of us were wondering what was ortega going to do? james, just thinking of now jimmy carter's body is being transferred to washington, d.c. where there will be a whole slew of ceremonies honoring the former president. i know you had the opportunity to do what few are able to do, which is have personal moments and relationship with the president jimmy carter. what are some of the things that you stay close to with those moments with then- president jimmy carter? >> well, i worked in his white house. i was the deputy cabinet secretary, a job i moved to after spending five years as counsel to a u.s. senate
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subcommittee. and i was there at the beginning. i saw little amy, his daughter, running around the white house and met miss lillian, his mother. and i saw him learn how to be president. he did bring what's called the, i guess, the georgia mafia with him. i think he might have made some better choices if he'd picked people with more experience in washington. but nonetheless, he did that. and he did many things, let me push gently back against jonathan, that i think our signature achievement especially elevating human rights to a plank of u.s. foreign policy. you played a quote earler, jose, from him that said america did not invent human rights. in a very real sense, human rights invented america. and i think that's true. and his moral clarity, his humility were unique and still are unique in the presidencies that have followed him. so i saw that. camp david was obviously, i
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think we can all agree, a huge achievement to his tenacity. i mean, he wouldn't let the two leaders leave camp david without an agreement. he made mistakes too, i agree. it wasn't his fault that our hostages were seized. he played that badly. he said that in hindsight. but also, iran didn't release them until reagan was sworn in as president. pretty cruel act in terms of respect for carter who made such an effort to get them out. so since his presidency, i think we all agree too four decades is an amazing achievement, and i think the things he did including the election observation missions, i was in egypt and saw the carters in that one. i also visited them in plains. my late husband sidney harmon and i met in the white house, and sidney served on the carter center board for a period, and we stayed in touch with the carters. and one final memory if i could. which is when i decided to run
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for congress in 1991, which was the first elected office i had sought since jr. high school president, which i lost, carter sent me a $500 check with a note that said when you are elected, you will represent not only california but the carter family. beat that. that was just an amazing personal experience with an amazing man. >> priya, jonathan, and jane, thank you so very much for being with us. and stay with us if you would throughout the day as the remains of president jimmy carter make their way to washington, d.c. where he will lie in state at the u.s. capitol. then on thursday, msnbc will have special coverage of the national funeral service beginning at 6:00 a.m. eastern, 3:00 a.m. pacific. morning joe will be covering. andrew mitchell reporting from the washington national cathedral throughout the day. later, ana cabrera and myself will continue live coverage.
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developments on two legal fronts surrounding the president-elect. we learned from jack smith parts of a report about trump's classified documents and election interference cases could be released as early as friday. this comes just hours after trump's lawyers and some of his co-defendants asked the court to stop that release from going forward. joining us now, legal correspondent lisa ruben. trump's lawyers reviewed a draft of the smith report over the weekend, and they don't want it to come out. can the trump team stop it from being released? >> reporter: it's dubious they can stop it from being released, but it doesn't mean they're not going to try. there is an application, and it's not from future president trump's lawyers themselves, it's from those of his co- defendants. initially, they asked federal judge cannon to prevent the release on the grounds that jack smith was not
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constitutionally appointed as the special counsel. however, judge cannon dismissed that case in its entirety, and some had suggested she no longer had jurisdiction to decide anything respecting that case. so they've made an application to the 11th circuit of the u.s. court of appeals asking them essentially to do the same thing. and as you mentioned, jack smith has said he will commit to not having that report publicly released before friday at 10:00. but he further clarified, if it's released at all publicly and that's because the decision really doesn't rest with jack smith. jack smith delivers the report to attorney general garland and under the special counsel regulations, the attorney general is the one who has the choice whether to release it to the public, jose. >> and so the fact that you were just mentioning, oh d there is president-elect trump. >> it's an honor to be with you. many things are happening that are exciting, very exciting for our country. and we're honored to welcome
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one of the most respected business leaders in the middle east, indeed the world. he's a founder and chairman of demak properties, hussein sazwany, a very respected gentleman. i'm thrilled to announce today that demak will be investing at least $20 billion over a very short period of time into the united states, and they may go double or even somewhat more than double that amount of money. this is a great thing, and i believe he will say that he's doing it because of the fact that he was very inspired by the election. they wouldn't do it without that election. i can tell you a lot of people wouldn't. you saw last week where we have somebody who was going to go from $100 to $200 billion. and we have many other people and we'll be bringing some of them out. some of them like to do it
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somewhat more quietly and some don't, and they feel so strongly about the country that they want to let people know about it. but it's an honor to have such a great investor investing in our country. the investment will support massive new data centers across the midwest, the sunbelt area, and also to keep america on the cutting edge of technology and artificial intelligence. he's very big into the data centers, and that's going to be a very hot item in the coming years, as you know with a.i. in particular. the first phase of the project will be in texas, arizona, oklahoma, louisiana, ohio, illinois, michigan, and indiana. those places. and hussein, i'd love for you to come up and say a few words. thank you very much. thank you. >> thank you, mr. president. it's been amazing news for me and my family when he was elected in november.
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we've been waiting four years to increase our investments in u.s. with a very large amount of money. we are a company operating in more than 20 countries around the world. we have delivered more than 45,000 luxury units and another 45,000 in the pipeline. and data center, we are in 10 countries around the world. in europe and middle east. and we're very, very excited now with his leadership and his open strategy and policy to encourage businesses to come to the u.s. for the last four years, we've been waiting for this moment, and we're planning to invest $20 billion and even more than that if the opportunity in the market allow us, but at the moment we're planning $20 billion in data center. catering for the a.i. and cloud business for the hyper scalers. >> fantastic. great honor. thank you very much. so nice. >> thank you. >> and that man knows what he's
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doing. he knows. so hussein, we're going to work with you and make sure everything goes smoothly. we have powers that haven't really been used in terms of environmental. if you invest over a billion dollars in the united states, we're going to give expedited reviews to everybody because everyone's afraid they're going to come and get caught in the quagmire, which is very prevalent in the united states, unfortunately. the quagmire of environmental and other rules. i made it a point of telling people if you invest a billion dollars or more and we'll do this with people with far less too, but we guarantee it. we're going to move them quickly through the environmental process. sometimes people held up 12, 13, 14 years. i saw it with plants in louisiana where i got it approved in literally a week. they were through the review in one week after spending 14 and
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a half years trying to get it, and they were going nowhere. it was a terrible thing. so i've been a victim of that myself over the years, and i think i know all the games and all the tricks that are played. and much of it is just done to stop progress. so we're going to be helping you and everybody else that comes to the united states and wants to invest their money, that you don't get tied up for the rest of your life and you can't do anything. many of the greatest business leaders on earth are seeing a very bright economic future for america since the election. as you know, very, a lot of positive things have happened. we are inheriting a difficult situation from the outgoing administration, and they're trying everything they can to make it more difficult. inflation is continuing to rage. and interest rates are far too high. and i've been disappointed to see the biden administration's
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attempt to block the reforms of the american people. we had a landslide election. we won every swing state. we won the popular vote by millions and millions of people. nobody even knows how many people. millions. and they're still counting in some areas. you know they're still counting the vote in some areas? can you believe this? what a place. what a horrible place. one of the things we're going to do is we've got to fix the election so we get honest counts and they get done by 10:00 in the evening or something thereabouts. places where they're still counting votes. president biden's actions yesterday on offshore drilling, banning offshore drilling will not stand. i will reverse it immediately. it will be done immediately, and we will drill, baby, drill. we're going to be drilling at a lot of other locations, and the energy costs are going to come
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way down. they'll be brought down to a very low level, and that's going to bring everything else down. that's what caused it to go up, along with the ridiculous spending on the green new scam. all this money, trillions of dollars. it's like throwing it right out the window what they're doing. and they're trying to spend so much now. they're just taking money and giving it to anybody that wants it for any project at all. if it's certified under the green new scam. and they don't work and it's too expensive. and you know, they told me that we're going to do everything possible to make this transition to the new administration very smooth. it's not smooth because they're doing that. they are playing with the courts, as you know. they've been playing with the courts for four years, probably got me more votes because i got the highest number of votes ever gotten by a republican by far, actually. by a lot. and you know, we had a great election. so i guess it didn't work, but even to this day they're
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playing with the courts, and their friendly judges that like to try to make everybody happy on the democrats side. it's called law fair. it's called weaponization of justice. it's happened at a level nobody has ever seen before. i defeated deranged jack smith. he's on his way back to the hague, and he won those cases. those were the biggest ones. the press made such a big deal out of them, but we did nothing wrong. we did nothing wrong on anything. the people saw that. it's not easy for a republican. when the republican wins the popular vote by millions and wins all seven of the swing states, people said well, he could win four. we won all seven, and we won them by a lot. that tells you we won. and they've been watching this injustice. i call it the injustice department. what they've done is so bad. the whole world has watched that. and it took work, but it got me
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a lot of votes. we have a judge in new york m der a gag order. d judge. i can't even talk about aspects of the case that are the most vital aspects. do you know that i'm the president-elect of the united states of america, i'm a former very successful president. we had the greatest economy in the history of our country. we had borders that were sealed and beautiful. everything was good. we had no wars. we defeated i.s.i.s. we had no wars. now i'm going into a world that's burning with russia and ukraine, with israel. you take a look at that attack on october 7th, the attack on israel with the horrible way they got out. not the fact that they got out. i would have been out before them, but we would have been out of afghanistan with dignity and strength as opposed to looking like a bunch of fools with 13 dead and many, many badly, horrifically injured. nobody ever talks about them. no arms, no legs.
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nobody ever talks about that. the way they got out was outrageous, leaving billions of dollars of brand-new military equipment that i bought in the hands of the afghans, and specifically the taliban. that's the group. and we were doing very well. we would have been out. we would have been respected. i think it's one of the reasons it was so badly handled, that withdraw, where people are jumping on to airplanes, falling off the sides of airplanes when they're 3,000 feet in the air. and nobody's ever seen anything like that, the worst. and because of that, i think russia went and attacked ukraine. when they saw that, they said these guys are incompetent. they don't know what they're doing. but we know what we're doing now, and that's going to all end. and we have a great military. i defeated i.s.i.s., as you know. we are in no wars, i just finished a couple, and we've
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got our soldiers guarding syria and turkey. we're in the middle. we had 5,000 soldiers that would have been gobbled up with two armies. we had one army, 300,000, we had another one five or 600,000. we had 5,000 people in the middle. i said to a general, how do 5,000 people do in that case? and the general just looked at me and said not well, sir. not well. and i took them out. and you know what happened? nothing. i got criticized. i saved 5,000 lives actually. and we did a great job, and we're going to do an even better job because we have a tremendous amount of experience. we have people that i can rely on. but the 625 million acres, people can't realize, that's like the whole ocean. think an acre. an acre, you have a house on a half an acre or quarter of an acre or an acre. if you have an acre, you have a big deal. now you multiply that by 625
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million acres, it feels like the whole ocean. and that's our strength, you know? people can say we manufacture, we don't manufacture. we have oil and gas, more than anybody in the world. we're going to have more of it too. but they took away 625 million acres of offshore drilling. nobody else does that. and they think they have it, but we'll put it back. i'm going to put it back on day one. i'm going to have it revoked on day one. i don't think we should have to go to the courts, but if we do, they try to be sneaky. they go in and they sign. remember, this is a man who said he wants to transition to,
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nobody's ever won so many cases as i have against the justice department. jack smith had cases all over the place. people were being subpoenaed, lives were being ruined. we were helping them out. we had to. they were being, they were subpoenaing people that had no idea what they were even talking about. that's a sick group of people, and it was all to influence the election. it was all a fight against a political opponent. we've never had that in this country. we have had that in certain countries. we've had that in third tier countries. we've had that in banana republics, but we've never had that in a place like the united states. i don't even know if it's been on a small level. i'm sure it has been on a small level, but this was the largest level ever. they brought this moron out of the hague. he's a mean guy. he's a mean, nasty guy. his picture was perfect. you look at his picture, you say that's a bad guy. with his robe, his purple robe.
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and he executes people. he shouldn't be allowed to execute people because he'll execute everybody. he's a nut job. but we won all of those cases with him. i don't know the judge in florida, but we had a brilliant judge in florida that saw right through it, and we won the case. she was a brilliant judge with great courage. you know, the left as we call them, the radical left, they have a way, they play the ref, and they play it very hard. they play the ref. they go and say horrible things about judges and prosecutors, and some judges and prosecutors say look, the only way i'm going to get these people off my back is to give victory to them. i think it's illegal what they do. it's worse than talking to a judge. but the judge in florida, judge cannon, was brilliant and tough, and she didn't stand for it. and i don't know her. and never met her until the
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case, and i don't believe i said even one word to her. but she was very, very strong and very, very brilliant. and her opinion was so brilliant they dropped their appeal. they couldn't beat the appeal. so that's what we're up against. so they say we're going to have a smooth transition. all they do is talk. it's all talk. everything they do is talk. we're going to have a smooth transition, and then they take 625 million acres and they essentially landmark it so you can't ever drill there again. well, we're going to be drilling soon. we're going to be opening up anwar, doing all sorts of things that nobody ever thought was even possible. but remember when, and just to get off the subject because i couldn't believe it when i heard it yesterday, i couldn't believe the size of it. you put down a map, it's just massive. and remember that's worth probably, i mean i've had estimates 40 to $50 trillion. that's more than our national
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debt. essentially, he's thrown it away. he's thrown it away. he's taken $50 trillion, so if we owe $35 trillion, he's taken $50 trillion of value, and thrown it right out the window. we can't do that. nobody can do that. one other thing he did yesterday, which was in many ways worse, it's hard to believe it can be worse, he wants all gas heaters out of your homes and apartments. he wants them to be replaced by essentially electric heaters. i don't know what it is with electric. this guy loves electric. we'll end the electric car mandate quickly, by the way. this guy loves electric, and we don't have enough electricity. we have a.i. where we need more, and he wants everybody to have an electric heater instead of a gas heater. gas heater is much less expensive, the heat is much better, it's a much better heat. as the expression goes, you
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don't itch. does anybody have a heater where you go and you're scratching? that's what they want you to have. they don't want you to have gas where you don't have the problems of the electric. and the source is plentiful. they're much cheaper to operate, they work much better, they look much better. 60% of homes and apartments have gas heaters. he wants them all removed quickly. these people are crazy. there's something wrong with them. there's something wrong with them. they also want to go back, and they have already started that to when you buy a faucet, no water comes out. even in areas that have so much water, you don't know what to do. it's called rain. it comes down from heaven. and they want to do no water comes out of the shower. it goes drip, drip, drip. so what happens, you're in the shower 10 times as long, you know? no water comes out of the faucet, you want to wash your hands, they want to go back to
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even stronger than what they have right now. as you know, i ended that policy. you can have all the water you want. it makes no difference. especially in certain areas, we have so much water, we don't know what to do with it. but these are all things. they want very, very little water to go into your dishwasher, almost none. and you know what people do? they just keep pressing, pressing, pressing, keep it going. they end up using more water. likewise, washing machines. they want in your washing machine to have very little water coming out of the washing machine. so when you wash your clothing, you have to wash it four times instead of once. you end up using more water. we're a party of common sense, and things that i'm telling you now is really all about common sense. on january 20th, we'll turn the economy around very quickly. because right now, when i think of our economy, i think about inflation. that's what we have. we have inflation. i believe at a level we've never had before. there's never been anything like it. and over the next four years,
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the united states is going to take off like a rocketship. but really, it's already doing it if you take a look. just last month, soft bank announced the $200 billion, i think it'll be $200. he said $100. i said how about making it $200? he sort of said yes. creating more than 100,000 jobs. hussein just announced tremendous investment that he's going to make, and that's money that's in the bank. he's going to come and do it and he'll do a great job and he'll build the best centers in the country, i guarantee, because i know the way he builds. since my election, the stock market has set records. above 600 points for the first time ever. in a single month, small business optimism soared 41 points. it went up 41 points, and
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that's the largest in the 39- year history of the group that does it. according to gallup, the american people's confidence in the economy has surged to the highest level in history. that's why i have a news conference like that. i take the greatest business leaders in the world. i say do you want to invest the money? they're not looking for news conferences. they go in and they invest money. it's good to know where the smartest business people in the world are investing, and they're investing in the united states. so we've done this all in two months of not being there, you know? we haven't been there. and it's pretty amazing, and we think we're going to do some really great things, really great things. we're being respected again all over the world. the panama canal is a disgrace, what took place at the panama canal. jimmy carter gave it to them for one dollar, and they were supposed to treat us well. i thought it was a terrible thing to do. it was the most expensive
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structure ever built in the history of our country, relatively. it would be the equivalent of over, substantially over $1 trillion today. we lost 38,000 people. think of it, 38,000 people, they died from malaria, mosquitoes. they were unable to stop the mosquitoes. they paid people five times more to take the job. many of those people died. we gave it away for a dollar. but the deal was that, you know, they have to treat us fairly. they don't treat us fairly. they charge more for our ships than they charge for ships of other countries. they charge more for our navy than navies of other countries. they laugh at us because they think we're stupid, but we're not stupid anymore. so the panama canal is under discussion with them right now. they violated every aspect of the agreement, they morally violated it also. and they want our help because
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it's leaking and not in good repair. and they want us to give $3 billion to help fix it. i said why don't you get the money from china? because china's basically taken it over. china is at both ends of the panama canal. china is running the panama canal. they come to see this biden, this guy who should have never been able to run for president. of course, she shouldn't have either because that never happened. i had to beat two people, not one. but they want $3 billion to fix the panama canal that's run by china and makes a lot of money, china. one of the most profitable structures ever built because you have your ships lined up back to florida, frankly, and they just keep going through. and the numbers are staggering. half a million to a million dollars a ship. and they took it away from us, meaning we gave it to them for a dollar. but not going to happen. what they've done to us,
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they've overcharged our ships, overcharged our navy, and then when they need repair money, they come to the united states to put it up. we get nothing. those days are over. working with the republican majorities in congress, we'll cut taxes, slash regulations, raise wages, and boost incomes at a pace the world has not seen before. and certainly not from our country. we had a big chunk of it for the first three years of prior to covid coming in in my administration. we had the greatest economy in history. we cut the most regulations in the history of our country, and i did that all in four years. by four times more than any other president cut. we did that in four years. and we were just getting started. we'll impose new tariffs so that the products on our stores will once again be stamped with those beautiful words made in the usa. and we are not treated well, as
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you know, by canada. canada is subsidized to the tune of about $200 billion a year, plus other things. and they don't essentially have a military. they have a very small military. they rely on our military. it's all fine, but you know they gotta pay for that. it's very unfair. i have so many great friends, one of them is the great one, wayne gretzsky. i said run for prime minister. he said prime minister or governor? i said let's make it governor. i like it better. same thing with mexico. we have a massive deficit with mexico, and we help mexico a lot. they're essentially run by the cartels. and can't let that happen. mexico's really in trouble. a lot of trouble. very dangerous place. and we're going to be
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announcing a future date pretty soon. we're going to change because we do most of the work there, and it's ours. we're going to be changing sort of the opposite of biden where he's closing everything up, essentially getting rid of 50 to $60 trillion worth of assets. we're going to be changing the name of the gulf of mexico to the gulf of america, which has a beautiful ring. that covers a lot of territory. the gulf of america. what a beautiful name. and it's appropriate. it's appropriate. and mexico has to stop allowing millions of people to pour into our country. they can stop them. and we're going to put very serious tariffs on mexico and canada because canada, they come through canada too, and the drugs that are coming through are at record numbers. record numbers. so we're going to make up for that by putting tariffs on mexico and canada.
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substantial tariffs. we want to get along with everybody, but it takes two to tango. this is going to be a golden age for america. we have things that nobody else has. we have more natural resources. we have, number one, nobody knew that until i came along. i made us number one. we were number three. i made us number one in a very short period of time in drilling. you can talk about windmills. they litter our country. they're littered across our country like dropping paper, like dropping garbage in a field, and that's what happens to them. because in a period of time, they turn to garbage. the most expensive energy ever. they only work if you get subsidy. the only people who want them are the people getting rich off windmills, getting massive subsidies from the u.s. government. it's the most expensive energy
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there. more expensive than clean, natural gas. so we're going to try and have a policy where no windmills are being built. you know, off the coast of new jersey, they want to build like 200 windmills. people are going crazy. nobody wants them, and they're very expensive. they don't work without subsidy. you don't want energy that needs subsidy. energy is a good business. you don't want subsidy. when you build these massive towers and they're 25 stories tall, 40 stories, they have one 70 stories tall. the blades, they take three ships to ship them. it's crazy. they're dangerous. you see what's happening up in the massachusetts area with the whales. they had two whales wash ashore in a 17-year period. now they had 14 this season. the windmills are driving the whales crazy, obviously. and i think over 125 or something over a number of years, over a number of years, and we don't want that to happen. it's a disaster.
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it's amazing the way a true environmentalist would say we love wind. it sounds good, but that's about where it ends. after 10 years, you have to redo them. what happens is they don't do that. they let them stand, and they rust. and they say because of the environment, i'm not a believer in this, but they say you can't because it's a certain fiberglass, that the blades cannot be buried in earth. so what do you do with them? what do you do with them? i don't know if you've ever gone to palm strings, california or these places where you have long-term windmills standing. they're a disaster. they're rusting, rotting, closed, falling down. this is as you enter palm springs. and they put new ones next to them because nobody wants to take them down because why should they take them down? it's very expensive to take them down. and you can't do anything with them because the blades, you can't bury them because of the environmental protection. we'll look at that. it doesn't make sense but that's what they say. we are at the beginning of a great, beautiful golden age of
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business. and i think we're also at a golden age of common sense because everything i'm saying to you from a simple water faucet that doesn't allow water to come out appropriately to all of the other elements of what we do and what we're going to do, uh, to take 50 to $60 trillion off our country's balance sheet because some man that has no idea what he's doing, he has no idea. you know it. i know it. the democrats know it. what they did is a crime by allowing that to happen. and i'll bet you if you asked him today how much acreage did you submit, essentially did you destroy? you destroyed the economic viability of drilling in the ocean. and with a.i. coming along, you know a lot of people don't realize that a.i. is going to be a big thing, but you'll need double the electricity at least that we
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have right now. so right now, we produce electricity for many, many different things. a.i. is a very big deal in terms of the future. china is already building electric facilities, big, bold electric facilities. you know how they're being fired up? with coal. they're being fired up with coal. and we're going to build bigger and better ones. people like hussein that are doing the same thing as he is, i'll bet they don't do it as well because i know how he does it, but they're doing a lot of things. they can't get the permits. they say build the plant with the buildings. if you go to the grid, the grids are old. they said that's a great idea. build your electric facility alongside your plant, and you could have extra output if you want. because once you build it, you can make it larger pretty inexpensively. you could have extra output, which you'll sell to the public, but build it with the plant, and people are loving
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that idea. we're going to have a lot of fun making america great again, and it's going to happen i think very, very quickly. it's already happened. so i would say this, and this has been pretty openly reported by the news, there's never been anything like, since we won the election a couple of months since we won the election, the whole perception of the whole world is different. people from other countries have called me. they said thank you. thank you. the perception of the whole world is different. we're going to have to settle some big problems that are going on right now. we're going to have to settle up with russia, ukraine. that's a disaster. the number of people being killed in that war. mostly soldiers now. but the towns have been obliterated. this was a biden fiasco. that should have never happened. if we had a real president, if we had a president that knew what he was doing, russia would have never, ever gone in. but they did go in, and we have
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a mess. the cities are all blown up. the people have largely left. and the soldiers are killing each other at levels that haven't been seen since the second world war. so we'll have to get that one straightened out too. that's a tough one. much tougher than it would have been before it started, i can tell you that. a deal could have been made by an average dealmaker, a deal could have been made on that. so thank you all for coming. we'll take a couple of questions. go ahead, please. >> i want to touch on the world on fire that you mentioned. let's start with your references to greenland and panama canal and so forth. can you assure the world that as you try to get control of these areas, you are not going to use military or economic coercion? >> no. >> can you tell us a little bit about what your plan is? are you going to negotiate a new treaty? are you going to ask the canadians to hold a vote?
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what is the strategy? >> i can't assure you. you're talking about panama and greenland. no, i can't assure you on either of those two. but i can say this, we need them for economic security. the panama canal was built for our military. i'm not going to commit to that. it might be that you'll have to do something. look, the panama canal is vital to our country. it's being operated by china. china! and we gave the panama canal to panama. we didn't give it to china. and they've abused it. they've abused that gift. it should have never been made, by the way. giving the panama canal is why jimmy carter lost the election, in my opinion. maybe more so than the hostages. the hostages were a big deal. and nobody wants to talk about the panama canal because it's inappropriate, i guess. it's a bad part of the carter legacy. but he was a good man. look, he was a good man. i knew him a little bit, and he
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was a very fine person, but that was a big mistake. giving the panama canal to panama was a very big mistake. we lost 38,000 people. it cost us the equivalent of a trillion dollars, maybe more than that. probably the most expensive, they say it was the most expensive structure, if we call it a structure, which i guess you can, ever built. and giving that away was a horrible thing. and i believe that's why jimmy carter lost the election, even more so than the hostages. those two things. complicated now. >> much more complicated. because it never would have started. >> but it whas started. >> not only started, the cities are largely knocked down. >> at this point to hold onto the leverage with president- putin, would you make
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