Good evening. Before I begin, I want to send a special message to everyone who's been affected by Hurricane Laura. Our hearts are with you, the President will continue to support you every step of the way and just like Americans always do, the nation will come together to help you rebuild your homes, businesses, and communities stronger and more resilient than ever before.
Four years ago, I introduced to you a builder, an entrepreneur, an outsider, and the people's nominee for President of the United States. Tonight, I stand before you as the proud daughter of the people's president.
He is our commander-in-chief, champion of the American worker, defender of common sense, and our voice for the forgotten men and women of this country. He is our president and my father: Donald J. Trump.
This evening, I want to tell you about the leader I know and the moments I wish every American could see. I want to tell you the story of a president who is fighting for you from dawn to midnight when the cameras have left, the microphones are off, and the decisions really count. When Jared and I moved with our three young children to Washington, we didn't exactly know what we were in for, but our kids, our kids loved it from the start. My son, Joseph, promptly built Grandpa a Lego replica of the White House. The president still displays it on the mantle in the Oval Office right over there so that he can show world leaders — just so they know he has the greatest grandchildren on earth — I agree.
Over the last four years we've learned a lot. I've seen in Washington, it's easy for politicians to survive if they silence their convictions and skip the hard fights. I couldn’t believe so many politicians actually prefer to complain about a problem rather than fix it. I was shocked to see people leave major challenges unsolved so they can blame the other side, campaign on the same issue in the next election. But Donald Trump did not come to Washington to win praise from the beltway elites. Donald Trump came to Washington for one reason and one reason alone: to make America great again.
My father has strong convictions, he knows what he believes and he says what he thinks. Whether you agree with him or not, you always know where he stands. I recognize that my dad's communication style is not to everyone's taste and I know that his tweets can feel a bit unfiltered, but the results the results speak for themselves.
He is so unapologetic about his beliefs that he has caused me and countless Americans to take a hard look at our own convictions and ask ourselves: what do we stand for, what kind of America do we want to leave for our children? I am more certain than ever before — we want a future where our kids can believe in American greatness. We want a society where every child can live in a safe community and go to a great school of their choice, we want a culture where differences of opinion and debate are encouraged not cancelled, where law enforcement is respected, where our country's rich diversity is celebrated and where people of all backgrounds races, genders, and creeds have the chance to achieve their God-given potential. This is the future my father is working to build each and every day.
Building — after all — is what he's done his whole life. He has admired and befriended construction workers on countless job sites but it has been a new and profound experience for him and for me to see these stoic machinists and steel workers come to him with a tear in their eye and thank him for being the only person willing to go to the map for them, for their jobs, for their families, and for their futures. To the hard-working men and women across America and here tonight: you are the reason my father fights with all of his heart and all of his might, you are the reason he ran for president in the first place and you are the reason he is going to keep fighting for four more years — four more years.
I remember one evening in early February of 2018, we were in the oval office with my father's top economic advisors and the President was pushing to keep the promise he made to renegotiate the bad trade deals that had gutted millions of middle-class jobs. Most of his advisors argued that the economy was so strong following our historic tax and regulatory cuts that it didn't make sense to risk rocking the boat. After the meeting as I walked with my father back towards the residence he said, “You know the reason this has never been done before is because our leaders haven't had the guts. When the economy is good, they settle for good and when things are bad, they don't have the will or ability so they kick the can until it's someone else's problem.” He was right, if my father didn't take on these fights no one would. In the months that followed, President Trump refused to settle for a good deal, he wanted a great deal. And ultimately, that is exactly what we got.
I remember each time he was updated on the progress of the new trade deal with Mexico and Canada he would say, “Don't let down those dairy farmers I met in Wisconsin, I don't want them to like this deal, I want them to love it.”
Today, in the midst of this unprecedented global pandemic, it's more clear than ever that our President was absolutely correct to take on trade when he did and bring our jobs, our factories, and our life-saving medicines back to the USA.
As our nation endures this grave trial, I pray for the families who are mourning the loss of a loved one, for those who are battling COVID-19, and for the first responders and the healthcare heroes who remain on the front line of this fight. The grief, sorrow, and anxiety during this time is felt by all. I’ve been with my father and I’ve seen the pain in his eyes when he receives updates on the lives that have been stolen by this plague. I have witnessed him make some of the most difficult decisions of his life. I sat with him in the Oval Office as he stopped travel to Europe, I watched him take the strongest, most inclusive economy in a lifetime, the lowest unemployment in a half century, and the highest wage increase for working families in decades and close it down to save American lives.
It is why our president rapidly mobilized the full force of government in the private sector to produce ventilators within weeks to build the most robust testing system in the world. and to develop safe and effective treatments and very very soon — a vaccine. My father isn’t deterred by defeatist thinkers, the word “impossible” — well, it only motivates him. Donald Trump rejects the cynical notion that this country's greatest achievements are behind us, he believes that nothing is beyond our reach and that the best is yet to come.
I have seen all of my life how my dad believes in the potential of each individual. Earlier this evening, we were all inspired by the incredible testimony of Alice Johnson, a great grandmother who was sentenced to life in prison for a first-time nonviolent drug offense. I was with my father when he decided to commute Alice's life sentence. Together we watched Alice leave prison after nearly 22 years. As she ran into the arms of her family and they celebrated a joyful reunion, my father got very quiet. I could see the emotion on his face. After a long silence he looked at me and said, “Imagine how many people there are just like Alice.” From that point on he became a voice for those who had been unfairly silenced in our prison system. President Trump rectified the disparities of the 1994 Biden Crime Bill that disproportionately hurt African-Americans.
Against all odds he brought together Republicans and Democrats and passed the most significant criminal justice reform of our generation and we're just getting started.
My father did not campaign on this issue, he tackled this injustice because he has a deep compassion for those who have been treated unfairly. More than rhetoric and political prose, the ability to build consensus and achieve bipartisan success will help heal our country's racial inequities and bring us forward together.
President Trump is advancing the American values of work and family. Four years ago, in Cleveland, I said President Trump would deliver for working women, last year over 70% of all new jobs were secured by women.
Four years ago, I told you my father would focus on making child care affordable and accessible. In President Trump's first term we secured the largest ever increase for child care funding giving more than 800,000 low-income families great child care at a cost they can afford. As part of Republican tax cuts in 2019 alone, our child tax credit put over $2,000 into the pockets of 40 million American families.
Democrat politicians recently introduced a plan to increase the child tax credit, yet, when I was fighting less than three years ago at the President's direction to get Congress to double the child tax credit, not a single Democrat voted to pass the law — we got it done anyway.
Four years ago, I promised that President Trump would support mothers in the workforce. In his first year in office he signed into law the first ever national paid leave tax credit; today, eight million more Americans have access to this benefit.
Four years ago, I said that Americans needed an economy that permits people to rise again; during President Trump's first three years in office, 72% of all new jobs went to Americans who had been outside of the workforce.
Four years ago, I told you I would fight alongside my father and four years later here I am.
Many of the issues my father has championed are not historically Republican priorities; yet, where Washington chooses sides, our President chooses common sense, where politicians choose party, our President chooses people.
Since the day he took the oath of office, I've watched my father take on the failed policies of the past and do what no leader has done before. Recently he took dramatic action to cut the cost of prescription drugs despite fielding angry calls from the CEOs of nearly every major pharmaceutical company. Now when we see attack ads paid for by big pharma my dad smiles and says to me, “You know, we're doing something really right if they're hitting us so hard.”
This spring our president saw that American crops were going to waste because food supply chains were disrupted by the virus. He directed Secretary Perdue and me to find a way to get this nutritious food — fresh fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy to families most in need. Within a matter of days, we launched the Farmers to Family Food Box Program which has now delivered over 100 million meals into the hands of American families.
To protect the most vulnerable among us, I’ve worked alongside the President as he signed into law nine pieces of legislation to combat the evil of human trafficking.
I've stood by my father's side at Dover Air Force Base as he's received our fallen heroes and each time it has steeled his resolve to finally stop, finally stop the endless foreign wars.
To change the paradigm in the Middle East he took a fresh approach, I heard foreign leaders beg him not to move the American embassy to Jerusalem, yet he delivered on a promise also made and unfulfilled by past presidents because my father knew that it was the right thing to do.
Defying all expectations, just weeks ago, he rewrote history again by making a peace agreement in the Middle East the biggest breakthrough in a quarter century.
For the first time in a long time, we have a president who has called out Washington's hypocrisy and they hate him for it. Dad, people attack you for being unconventional but I love you for being real and I respect you for being effective.
Our President refuses to surrender his beliefs to score point with the political elite. To my father: you are the elite, you are the only people he cares about scoring points with. If these problems were easy to solve, previous presidents would have done so, but you don't achieve different results by doing things the same way. Washington has not changed Donald Trump; Donald Trump has changed Washington.
America doesn't need another empty vessel who will do whatever the media and the fringe of his party demands. Now more than ever America needs four more years of a warrior in the White House.
Neither the Catt Center nor Iowa State University is affiliated with any individual in the Archives or any political party. Inclusion in the Archives is not an endorsement by the center or the university.