What I Saw at the Revolution By Donald J. Trump

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/19/opinion/what-i-saw-at-the-revolution.html

Feb. 19, 2000

Don King, the boxing promoter, has stated that my recent presidential exploratory campaign was one of the greatest promotions of all time. Sadly, many have agreed with him and have thought that my foray into presidential politics was done for the purpose of further heightening the Trump name, helping to sell my new book and building even greater awareness of my various real estate developments.

That, however, is not the case. I seriously thought that America might be ready for a businessman president, someone with an eye for the bottom line, someone who has created thousands of jobs and isn't part of the ''inside the Beltway'' buddy system. I also thought that Americans might be ready for straight talk and that they would find an unscripted candidate appealing.

Jesse Ventura's victory in Minnesota served as my model. A nonpolitician celebrity who spoke uncommonly straight to the voters, Mr. Ventura came out of nowhere to beat two experienced, big-name politicians at a time of economic prosperity, and he did so as the nominee of a fledgling third party.

The Reform Party was my chosen vehicle because its nomination process does not involve a long string of early primaries, but instead culminates in one national primary conducted by mail and e-mail in August. Refreshingly democratic, the Reform Party process would lend itself to a candidate with national name recognition and the financial resources to flood the process with new people.

A presidential exploratory campaign is the greatest civics lesson that a private citizen can have. In the course of my exploration, I met dozens of talented, dedicated Reform Party members who were involved, with little reward or recognition, solely because of their commitment to cleaning up the American political system. I marveled at the long and thankless hours put in by people like the New York Independence Party chairman, Jack Essenberg; the former national chairman, Russ Verney; and the Minnesota Reform Party chairman, Rick McCluhan.

I also saw the underside of the Reform Party. The fringe element that wanted to repeal the federal income tax, believed that the country was being run by the Trilateral Commission and suspected that my potential candidacy was a stalking horse for (take your pick) Gov. George W. Bush, Senator John McCain or Vice President Al Gore.

When I held a reception for Reform Party leaders in California, the room was crowded with Elvis look-alikes, resplendent in various campaign buttons and anxious to give me a pamphlet explaining the Swiss-Zionist conspiracy to control America.

Three things happened to destroy any viable chance that I may have had to run an insurgent candidacy in the fall. The Commission on Presidential Debates, made up solely of Republicans and Democrats, produced debate criteria specifically designed to keep the Reform Party's candidate out of the fall debates. I felt confident that I could sell the American people if I could get into the debate, but my lawyers told me that was unlikely.

I preferred a race against Mr. Bush and Mr. Gore, two establishment politicians whose nominations looked certain and whose issue positions seemed virtually indistinguishable; both support America's current trade policies, including Nafta and the World Trade Organization.

I felt confident that my argument that America was being ripped off by our major trade partners and that it was time for tougher trade negotiations would have resonance in a race against the two Ivy League contenders. The rise of John McCain, running on a reform message, made the opportunity for this contrast difficult, and depending on the outcome of the South Carolina primary, perhaps impossible.

Finally, the fratricide in the national Reform Party drove the party's most prominent star, Jesse Ventura, out of the party and culminated in a nationally televised meltdown at the national meeting last week, in which the proceedings grew so unruly that someone called 911 to ask the police to restore order.

Although I am totally comfortable with the people in the New York Independence Party, I leave the Reform Party to David Duke, Pat Buchanan and Lenora Fulani. That is not company I wish to keep.

In the days before I decided to end my presidential exploratory effort, I was watching CNN and saw Vice President Gore trudging through the snow in subzero temperatures, knocking on doors in New Hampshire -- an obvious look of drudgery on his face. My experience was quite different. I had enormous fun thinking about a presidential candidacy and count it as one of my great life experiences. Although I must admit that it still doesn't compare with completing one of the great skyscrapers of Manhattan, I cannot rule out another bid for the presidency in 2004.

A version of this article appears in print on Feb. 19, 2000, Section A, Page 15 of the National edition with the headline: What I Saw at the Revolution.

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Let Me Ask America a Question By Donald J. Trump

Source: https://www.wsj.com/articles/let-me-ask-america-a-question-1460675882

April 14, 2016

How has the ‘system’ been working out for you and your family? No wonder voters demand change.

On Saturday, April 9, Colorado had an “election” without voters. Delegates were chosen on behalf of a presidential nominee, yet the people of Colorado were not able to cast their ballots to say which nominee they preferred.

A planned vote had been canceled. And one million Republicans in Colorado were sidelined.

In recent days, something all too predictable has happened: Politicians furiously defended the system. “These are the rules,” we were told over and over again. If the “rules” can be used to block Coloradans from voting on whether they want better trade deals, or stronger borders, or an end to special-interest vote-buying in Congress—well, that’s just the system and we should embrace it.

Let me ask America a question: How has the “system” been working out for you and your family?

I, for one, am not interested in defending a system that for decades has served the interest of political parties at the expense of the people. Members of the club—the consultants, the pollsters, the politicians, the pundits and the special interests—grow rich and powerful while the American people grow poorer and more isolated.

No one forced anyone to cancel the vote in Colorado. Political insiders made a choice to cancel it. And it was the wrong choice.

Responsible leaders should be shocked by the idea that party officials can simply cancel elections in America if they don’t like what the voters may decide.

The only antidote to decades of ruinous rule by a small handful of elites is a bold infusion of popular will. On every major issue affecting this country, the people are right and the governing elite are wrong. The elites are wrong on taxes, on the size of government, on trade, on immigration, on foreign policy.

Why should we trust the people who have made every wrong decision to substitute their will for America’s will in this presidential election?

Here, I part ways with Sen. Ted Cruz.

Mr. Cruz has toured the country bragging about his voterless victory in Colorado. For a man who styles himself as a warrior against the establishment (you wouldn’t know it from his list of donors and endorsers), you’d think he would be demanding a vote for Coloradans. Instead, Mr. Cruz is celebrating their disenfranchisement.

Likewise, Mr. Cruz loudly boasts every time party insiders disenfranchise voters in a congressional district by appointing delegates who will vote the opposite of the expressed will of the people who live in that district.

That’s because Mr. Cruz has no democratic path to the nomination. He has been mathematically eliminated by the voters.

While I am self-funding, Mr. Cruz rakes in millions from special interests. Yet despite his financial advantage, Mr. Cruz has won only three primaries outside his home state and trails me by two million votes—a gap that will soon explode even wider. Mr. Cruz loses when people actually get to cast ballots. Voter disenfranchisement is not merely part of the Cruz strategy—it is the Cruz strategy.

The great irony of this campaign is that the “Washington cartel” that Mr. Cruz rails against is the very group he is relying upon in his voter-nullification scheme.

My campaign strategy is to win with the voters. Ted Cruz’s campaign strategy is to win despite them.

What we are seeing now is not a proper use of the rules, but a flagrant abuse of the rules. Delegates are supposed to reflect the decisions of voters, but the system is being rigged by party operatives with “double-agent” delegates who reject the decision of voters.

The American people can have no faith in such a system. It must be reformed.

Just as I have said that I will reform our unfair trade, immigration and economic policies that have also been rigged against Americans, so too will I work closely with the chairman of the Republican National Committee and top GOP officials to reform our election policies. Together, we will restore the faith—and the franchise—of the American people.

We must leave no doubt that voters, not donors, choose the nominee.

How have we gotten to the point where politicians defend a rigged delegate-selection process with more passion than they have ever defended America’s borders?

Perhaps it is because politicians care more about securing their private club than about securing their country.

My campaign will, of course, battle for every last delegate. We will work within the system that exists now, while fighting to have it reformed in the future. But we will do it the right way. My campaign will seek maximum transparency, maximum representation and maximum voter participation.

We will run a campaign based on empowering voters, not sidelining them.

Let us take inspiration from patriotic Colorado citizens who have banded together in protest. Let us make Colorado a rallying cry on behalf of all the forgotten people whose desperate pleas have for decades fallen on the deaf ears and closed eyes of our rulers in Washington, D.C.

The political insiders have had their way for a long time. Let 2016 be remembered as the year the American people finally got theirs.

Mr. Trump is a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination.
Appeared in the April 15, 2016, print edition as 'Let Me Ask America a Question'.

We must clean up this corruption By Donald J. Trump

Source: http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/11/06/donald-trump-why-you-should-vote-me/93398970/

November 7, 2016


Why you should vote for me.

For 17 months, I’ve traveled this country and met countless Americans from every walk of life. Your hopes have become my hopes and your dreams have become my dreams.

I’ve been inspired on this journey by the millions of you who came to cheer a simple idea: that we can make America great again.

Real change begins with immediately repealing and replacing job-killing Obamacare — Americans are experiencing soaring double-digit premium hikes, insurers are leaving, doctors are quitting, jobs are fleeing, and deductibles are through the roof.

It also means immediately fixing our terrible trade deals, which have killed American jobs and crushed American incomes. This means renegotiating Bill and Hillary Clinton’s disastrous NAFTA and China deals that have deindustrialized the United States — importing unemployment and exporting our wealth.

It means we don’t have to keep kids trapped in failing schools — that we can give every parent the right to send their kids to the school of their choice, including millions of low-income African-American and Hispanic children who have been failed for generations by Democratic politicians like Hillary Clinton.

Real change also means draining the swamp of corruption in Washington. We must fix a rigged system in which political insiders can break the law without consequence and where government officials put special interests above the national interest. If we want to make America great again, we must clean up this corruption.

Hillary Clinton has been the subject of an FBI criminal investigation into many crimes against this nation. Were she ever to be elected, it would trigger an unprecedented constitutional crisis — Hillary is likely to be under investigation for a long time, grinding our government to a halt.

America has too many problems, too many things to fix, to mire our government in years of sordid corruption and criminal investigation.

It is time to cut our ties with the failed politicians of the past, and embrace a bright, new future for all of our people.

That’s what I’m offering in my Contract with the American Voter, a 100-day action plan to clean up corruption and bring change to Washington. It’s there for you to read at www.TheTrumpContract.com.

In my Contract with the American Voter, I offer a historic pro-growth plan to create 25 million good paying jobs. We will cut taxes on middle-class Americans by 35%. We will eliminate every needless job-killing regulation. We will repeal and replace catastrophic Obamacare with new reforms that dramatically expand choice, substantially lower costs, and significantly improve the quality of care. And we will end the offshoring of American jobs.

In my contract, I also offer a detailed plan to immediately secure the border, stop illegal immigration and keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. Hillary has pledged “open borders,” mass amnesty, and a 550% increase in Syrian refugees. America’s immigration officers described Hillary’s extremist plan as “the most radical immigration agenda proposal in U.S. history.”

I will restore the constitutional rule of law and nominate Supreme Court justices who will do the same.

Finally, I pledge to fight for the right of every child in American to grow up in safety and peace, and undertake a national effort to bring jobs, security and prosperity to our inner cities.

I am asking for your vote, and to be your champion in the White House.

Together, we will take our government back from the special interests — and we will Make America Great Again.

Donald J. Trump is the Republican nominee for president.