Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla, spoke on the first night of the Republican National Convention on Aug. 24, 2020.
Transcript
I’m Congressman Matt Gaetz, I’m speaking to you from an auditorium emptier than Joe Biden’s daily schedule. But we are a nation of full hearts and clear minds. We see the choice clearly, strength or weakness, energy or confusion, success or failure. President Trump is the first president since Reagan not to start a new war. Biden has foolishly cheerled decades of war without winning, without end. President Trump knows we are strongest when we fight hardest, not in distant deserts, but for our fellow Americans. We must fight to save America now or we may lose her forever. Joe Biden might not even notice. Settle for Biden, that’s the hashtag promoted by AOC and the socialists. The woketopians will settle for Biden because they will make him an extra in a movie written, produced, and directed by others. It’s a horror film really. They’ll disarm you, empty the prisons, lock you in your home and invite MS-13 to live next door.
And the police aren’t coming when you call in Democrat run cities, they’re already being defunded, disbanded. Blaming our best and allowing society’s worst, that’s the story they write in Hollywood. That’s if the lights even stay on in California anymore, a state that cannot keep power running for its own people should not send its junior Senator to be vice president. They used to write only in fiction, but nightmares are becoming real. Cops killed, children shot. At the Democrat convention they say, if you vote against Trump, it will all stop. Appeasement is never a winning strategy. No, we won’t settle for violence in our neighborhoods or at our border. We won’t settle for decades of bad decisions by basement dwelling Joe Biden. We settle a continent. We know that the frontier, the horizon, even the stars belonged to us. Donald Trump like all builders is a visionary. That which is built in the mind is even more powerful than the brick and mortar that holds it together.
First comes the mind, then the making. First comes the vision, then the work. Washington, Lincoln, and Jefferson are immortal precisely because of the pull they have on our imagination. You cannot cancel a culture that loves its heroes. The dangerous left need America to be weaker to accomplish their goal of replacing her. We know that to make America great again, we must first make something of ourselves. That is the meaning of true strength. My great-grandfather was a railroad man. As a Florida man, I watch our rockets routinely send the brightest beyond the heavens with our flag and our hope. America is the greatest country that has ever existed. Don’t let any celebrity athlete or politician tell you otherwise.
President Trump sometimes raises his voice and a ruckus. He knows that’s what it takes to raise an army of patriots who love America and will protect her. We must win this election if we cherish our country as much as we should, for there is no place to run, no refuge for freedom should we fail. America is not just an idea or a constitution, it is our home. We must protect our home with unbreakable made in America strength. Strength I see every day in President Donald Trump. Thank you.
