On Saturday, Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX) spoke at the turning point action "People's Convention' in Detroit, Michigan.
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NewsTranscript
00:00The Americans are aware, we're committed to pushing back, we need to stop this nonsense.
00:16Our United States Constitution was not written to be threatened in times of crisis.
00:30Welcome to the People's Convention!
00:42What a great start, what a great weekend we are looking forward to.
00:49And I love that it is the People's Convention because really that's what this country is about.
00:54Those three words that set us apart from every other nation in history.
00:59We, the people.
01:06And I want to talk to you about that today because there will be a lot of great ideas that we discuss and ideas matter.
01:12We certainly have the ideas that can restore this nation, that can make America a shining city on a hill again.
01:19Or as a lot of people like to say, make America great again.
01:27But it's not the ideas alone that get the job done.
01:32Let me put it this way, our Constitution has some amazing ideas in it.
01:37The idea that our rights come from God, not from a king or a dictator or a government.
01:43The idea of limited government and personal responsibility.
01:48But those ideas would just be in a textbook if it was not for 56 people who decided to sign their names on the Declaration of Independence
01:56and said we are going to pledge our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor,
02:01and the thousands and thousands of names not known to history in that generation and generations since
02:08who have fought for those principles and made sure that they have endured to the next generation.
02:14And so ideas matter, but I want to talk to you a moment about the people.
02:19Because the people matter.
02:22I want to talk to you about the kind of people that make a difference.
02:25Because it's not just the ideas, but it's the people with the courage to make sure those ideas happen.
02:32Let me tell you, I've been to a number of these events, I'm sure a number of you have, and it's sad.
02:38But what happens is we have these wonderful mountaintop experiences.
02:42We get excited about the potential of what happens.
02:45We work hard to elect people, and then we see the same thing and the same thing out of Washington.
02:51And so as scripture said, we have high hopes, but hopes deferred make the heart sick.
02:58And so we can come to a time like this where our hearts are sick.
03:03Our hearts are sick of seeing this nation we love cast aside.
03:07We're sick of seeing people go to Washington just to fill a seat and not make change.
03:13We're sick of having to fund the demise of the very country we love.
03:19But how do we change that?
03:22That's one way.
03:25It's going to take some courage.
03:28Let me tell you, I was in a meeting just this last week, and we were with some members of Congress
03:35talking about some of the things that happened and some of the strategies we were going to take,
03:39some amendments and what have you, and one of them said,
03:42Well, you know, if we do that, you know, the left, the Dems, they might call us some mean things,
03:48and we can't do that.
03:50I sat up in that meeting and I said, I sure hope we have a lot more backbone
03:55because if we're going to let our policy be dictated by them calling us names,
03:59oh, my gosh, the country's gone.
04:02We've got to love this country a lot more than that.
04:05You know, it takes people willing to stand up and fight.
04:09And here's the thing that I think you need to understand about Washington.
04:13It's the spirit that right now, it bows its knee to, and that is the spirit of fear.
04:19And this is how it works.
04:21You know, we have a funding deadline every September 30th.
04:24How many of you can tell me when September 30th is going to be this year?
04:28Anybody want to take a guess?
04:31September 30th.
04:32If you know that, you should run for Congress.
04:35Because every September 30th we get to this funding deadline,
04:38and it's like, oh, my gosh, here we are.
04:40What are we going to do?
04:42And then the chicken little sad stories come out of, well,
04:45the whole world's going to crumble if you don't pass this massive omnibus bill
04:49that has kickbacks and stuff to all the special interests, massive spending,
04:53that's going to put our nation in debt, saddle our children with debt.
04:59Same thing for the debt ceiling fight when it comes.
05:02Oh, my gosh, the world's going to crumble.
05:04We'll not survive the world economy if we go a couple days past the deadline.
05:11This last year we came to what was a FISA deadline,
05:14and in spite of the massive corruption we've seen on our intelligence community,
05:19still we had people who espoused constitutional beliefs their whole life,
05:25ran for Congress as a constitutional conservative,
05:28and became the deciding vote to take your rights away
05:31and give them the right to search you without a warrant.
05:38Why?
05:40Well, because we went to an intelligence briefing,
05:42and the intelligence committee gave us all these chicken little stories,
05:45the world's going to end, something bad's going to happen.
05:48Fear, fear, fear, fear, fear.
05:50I asked them, I said, what do you think the briefing's going to be?
05:54I can tell you what it wasn't going to be.
05:56No agency, no intelligence agency, no power in Washington is going to come back
06:00and say, thank you for that authority, we have enough, we don't need it anymore.
06:05Our budget is too big, we're going to return it.
06:07No, that's not how it works.
06:09They're going to scrape, they're going to crawl,
06:11they're going to do everything they can to make sure that they have the power,
06:14but it's really our job to make sure that we go to D.C.
06:17and take the power and give it back to you.
06:25The glory of the American Revolution was not a great government,
06:29it was a free people.
06:31And yes, one of our jobs is to keep you safe,
06:34but we have a greater responsibility than that, and that is to keep you free.
06:43But I've got to tell you, it's not just in Washington.
06:46Fear is what can sometimes keep parents from standing up
06:49and standing strong and saying, you're not going to have my kids' minds,
06:53you're not going to have my kids' bodies.
06:57Fear keeps pastors from speaking truth in a lascivious culture,
07:02sometimes even embracing that culture,
07:04because they're afraid they might offend somebody.
07:08We have got to have people who have the courage to say,
07:11we will not bow our knee to fear, or we will lose this republic.
07:22What's incredibly incredulous to me about this is sometimes,
07:25especially in Washington, you'll hear this,
07:27they'll label fear and they'll give it this amazing designation as wisdom.
07:32Oh, well, at a better time, maybe when there's not so much opposition,
07:36or something along those lines.
07:39That is not the right way to go.
07:41Scripture tells us God has not given us a spirit of fear,
07:45but a power and love and a sound mind.
07:55And look, let's be honest, the United States was not built for the faint of heart.
07:59If you want to go somewhere where you can be a ward of the state,
08:03if you want to go somewhere where you can throw away your dreams
08:07and sit here in the squalor of a state of mediocrity
08:10and never being able to have the pursuit of happiness, you can do that.
08:15There's plenty of countries for that.
08:17But that's not what America was built on.
08:20We're the people who take to the skies.
08:22We're the people who storm the beaches of Normandy.
08:24We're the people who conquer the moon.
08:27We're the people who say, give me liberty or give me death.
08:36I can tell you one person who gets this.
08:41President Donald J. Trump.
08:48Because, you know, he's had some great ideas.
08:51Some ideas have done really well for the United States of America,
08:54but I'll say a lot of people who filled that post have had great ideas.
08:58But they haven't had the courage.
09:01They haven't had the fortitude to pull it off.
09:05We have to be people of courage.
09:09You know, Jeremiah 29, 11 says this.
09:11It says, I know the plans I have for you plans to give you a hope and a future.
09:16What gives me hope at a time like this in our nation,
09:20it's interesting that scripture was written when the people of God were going through a very difficult time.
09:26And it was a promise that you would make it through the difficult time
09:29and that what you had lost would be restored to you once again.
09:33I think it's appropriate maybe for the time we're in right now.
09:37But with the rest of that scripture, I went and I looked and I thought,
09:40what happened between that scripture and when the promise was fulfilled?
09:44And that's when you get these interesting stories like Daniel.
09:48They literally passed a law saying you cannot pray again.
09:52And of course he said, well, you know, that's what the law says.
09:55I'll just, that's not what he said at all.
09:57He said, I'm going to do it anyway.
10:00I'm going to throw open my doors.
10:01I'm going to pray anyway.
10:02We had three people named three young people, Shadrach, Neshach, and Abednego.
10:08They built an idol and said, everybody in this culture has to bow down to this idol.
10:13Whatever you want to call it in our generation.
10:17The absurd that they're trying to get us to accept is normal.
10:22They said, we're not going to bow.
10:25You can do whatever you want to us.
10:26We are not going to bow.
10:28And then you had someone named Esther who said, I believe I am called for such a time as this.
10:42What gives me hope in a season like this is not only that we have the great ideas,
10:48which are so, so important, they can change and will save our country.
10:52But it's people like you who say we are not going to bow.
10:58We are going to fight.
11:00I believe you are called for such a time as this.
11:04And we are going to join together and do everything we can to make sure that we save this country that we love.
11:13God bless you.
11:15Stay in the fight.
11:17Keep the courage, keep the faith.
11:20And then God bless this nation we love.
11:24God bless America.