“We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza or Syria or Somalia or Yemen, or Libya, or anywhere else that threatens our security.”
President Donald Trump was campaigning in Iowa on Monday, making two stops, first in Adel and then in Clive. Fresh on his mind were the terrorist attacks in Israel, carried out by Hamas, Israel's response to those attacks, and America's place in the conflict. As he toured the state, he was endorsed by Iowa's Attorney General Brenna Bird.
Trump promised that were he to be reelected, he would close the US border, going back to the days during his administration when he was able to cut illegal immigration by 80 percent. He said that no terrorists would be permitted entry to the country—151 persons on the FBI's terror watchlist have entered so far under Biden's watch, and 4 Iranian nationals of "special interest" to the Border Control were apprehended just this month attempting to cross the border.
Trump stated that his goal is to bring safety and security to America. "Under my leadership," he said, per prepared remarks, "the world’s thugs, villains, killers, and savages were in retreat and running scared—all because you had a president who stood up for America, who stood up for Israel, and who stood up for Judeo-Christian civilization."
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View on X"In four short years, I obliterated the ISIS territorial caliphate. I terminated its founder and leader, Al Baghdadi," he said. "I annihilated the senior ranks of Al Qaeda. I eliminated Iran’s terrorist mastermind Kassem Solemani, who was killing our soldiers by the thousands and killing everyone else. I withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, crushed the murderous Iranian regime with sanctions, and starved Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies of funding and support."
During Trump's time in office, his administration created the Abraham Accords, which were bilateral agreements between nations in the Middle East that encouraged diplomacy and economic collaboration between Arab nations and Israel.
"I choked off the money to corrupt Palestinian organizations," Trump said, "and stood with Israel like no president in history—recognizing the eternal capital, opening the American Embassy in Jerusalem, and recognizing Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. And with the historic Abraham Accords, we even had peace in the Middle East."
He took aim at his predeccesor, Joe Biden, whose leadership has led to increased American involvement in foreign wars, and whose weakness on the global stage has helped set the conditions for foreign nations to launch their own military and territorial advances in their regions, such as Russia into Ukraine, China, and Hamas.
"Under Crooked Joe," Trump said, "it’s danger, death, and destruction all over the world."
"We have war in Europe and war in the Middle East because we have the weakest and most incompetent president in American history," he said. When Biden took the presidency, he claimed the "adults were back in charge." In that time, he has presided over a disastrous US military withdrawal from Afghanistan, the beginning of a war in Ukraine for which the US has already spent $113 billion, and essentially destroyed American borders by letting in some 5 million illegal immigrants. Now, war has broken out in the Middle East.
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View on X"The heinous attacks on Israel this month would NEVER have happened if I was your president—zero chance," Trump said, before noting that Iran, which reportedly aided in the planning of the attacks, which were in the works for two years.
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View on X"When I left office, Iran was weak, broke and desperate to make a deal," he said.
"I told other nations including China that if you buy oil from Iran you can’t do business in the United States. Every single one of them complied," he went on.
"Their terrorist regime was bankrupt, hemorrhaging money, and could barely pay the salaries of their radical Islamic thugs. I hammered Iranian oil exports down to a record low—but then Biden came in, loosened my sanctions, and today Iran is producing more than 3 million barrels a day. Iran went from bleeding money under me to raking in $100 billion dollars a year under Crooked Joe." Trump added to America's strategic petroleum reserves, and worked to bring the US to energy independence.
"On top of that, Biden gave Iran $6 billion dollars for hostages—and now, these tens of billions of dollars are being used to kill, kidnap, torture, rape, and murder innocent people," Trump said, referring to the deal Biden made on Sept. 11 to release 5 Iranian prisoners, as well as to release $6 billion in previously frozen Iranian funds held in Qatar.
"Iran started the attack on Israel and desperately wants to become openly involved. 'Death to Israel,' 'Death to America', they chant," Trump said. He promised to "stand with Israel 100 percent," saying "I kept Israel safe before—and with four more years in the White House, I will defend the state of Israel like no one else can."
He said that the US "will cut off every penny to Palestinian terrorists on Day One. We will fully support Israel in defeating, dismantling, and permanently destroying the terrorist group Hamas. And we will squeeze the Iranian regime until we have demolished their ability to finance bloodshed and terror." Energy independence will again be at the top of Trump's priorities list, as will be keeping terrorists out of the US.
"Most importantly," he said, "we will keep Radical Islamic Terrorists the hell out of our country."
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View on X"You have just seen these depraved Hamas savages rampage through civilian communities house by house, torturing, raping, and maiming innocent men, women, and children," Trump said of the attack by Hamas on October 7. "They kidnapped infants and the elderly and took them hostage to torture them some more. They had children tied up and shot. Babies murdered and burned. People who think like this, people who support this, and people who sympathize with this are SICK—they cannot be fixed, and we do not want them in our country!"
To prevent all of these horrors from unfolding again and continuing to unfold, he offered "vital steps" to protect Americans.
"First, upon my inauguration, as I have already said many times before, I will immediately reinstate and expand the wildly successful Trump Travel Ban on entry from terror-plagued countries, territories, and places. If you’re coming from somewhere full of people who want to kill Americans, we will not let you in," he said.
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View on XThe travel ban was spun as some kind of Islamaphobic measure by Democrats, but the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional to keep out immigrants from countries that harbored radical Islamic terrorists.
He also promised to suspend refugee resettlement. This comes as many Democrats are saying that the US should take in Palestinian refugees from the fighting in Gaza. Some GOP senators and congressmen have absolutely refused to allow these refugees into the US, specifically due to the concern that they could be interested in terroristic activities.
"As President," he remembered, "I also suspended refugee resettlement when we entered office in 2017, and we will do it again."
"I banned refugees from Syria, I banned refugees from Somalia, and from all the most dangerous places in the world—and in my second term, we are going to expand each and every ban to keep America safe," he said. "We aren’t bringing in anyone from Gaza or Syria or Somalia or Yemen, or Libya, or anywhere else that threatens our security."
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He also stated a plan to "implement strong ideological screening for all immigrants to the United States." This is something that has been broached in recent years as more and more people come to the US without actually having any interest in being culturally or ideologically American.
"No longer will we allow dangerous lunatics, haters, bigots, and maniacs to get residency in our country. If you empathize with Radical Islamic terrorists and extremists, you’re disqualified—if you want to abolish the state of Israel, you’re disqualified —if you support Hamas or the ideology behind Hamas, you’re disqualified —and if you’re a Communist, Marxist, or Fascist, you are disqualified."
In addition, we will aggressively deport resident aliens with jihadist sympathies," he said.
"In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and anti-Semitic foreigners at our colleges and universities—and we will send them straight back home," Trump said.
"Likewise, the mobs of pro-Hamas barbarians we saw in the streets of New York and other cities last week have no place in America. Jewish mothers and fathers should never have to send their children to school fearing they will be shot or stabbed on a so-called 'Day of Jihad.'"
"Under my administration," Trump promised, "we will proactively send ICE to pro-jihadist demonstrations to enforce our immigration laws and remove the violators from our country."
"And we will continue the process we started in my first four years of stripping citizenship from criminals, terrorists, and immigration cheaters and frauds," he said, noting that terrorists are interested in coming into the US and the nation cannot let them.
"Finally," he laid out, "we cannot forget that the same people that attacked Israel are right now pouring into our once-beautiful USA through our totally open southern border, at record numbers—including prisoners, people from mental institutions, insane asylums, and terrorists. We will be paying the price for years to come if we do not get them out immediately."
"Upon my inauguration," Trump said, "I will terminate every open borders policy of the Biden administration and begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history—including all the illegal aliens from countries that hate us."
As part of this, he said he "will invoke the Alien Enemies Act to remove all known or suspected Gang Members, drug dealers, Cartel Members, and security threats of any kind from the United States."
"This is more than a campaign—this is a movement," he said, and he brought up his other achievements as president.
"The USA is a mess," Trump said, "Israel is under attack, our economy is cratering. Inflation is out of control. China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea have formed together as a menacing and destructive coalition. Our currency is crashing and will soon no longer be the world standard, which will be our greatest defeat in 200 years. It won’t happen with me, not even a chance—just like Russia would have never invaded Ukraine, and China would not even have thought about raiding Taiwan. And we would have left Afghanistan with dignity and strength instead of our greatest embarrassment in history."
"2024 is our final battle. With you at my side, we will demolish the Deep State, we will expel the warmongers from our government, we will drive out the globalists, we will cast out the Communists, Marxists, and Fascists, we will throw off the sick political class that hates our country, we will rout the fake news media, we will evict Joe Biden from the White House, and we will finish the job once and for all," Trump concluded.