GOP Senator Honors Anniversary Of Trump Descending Golden Escalator To Launch Presidential Bid

Forbes Breaking News

In remarks on the Senate floor Monday, Sen. Jim Banks (R-IN) paid tribute to the anniversary of President Trump announcing his presidential bid.

Transcript

00:00President. Senator from Indiana. Mr. President, 10 years feels like a lifetime ago. In May of 2015,

00:09I had just returned from serving a tour in Afghanistan and had just started my campaign,

00:15my very first campaign, for Congress. But not even a few weeks later, on this day, June 16th,

00:2410 years ago today, Donald Trump came down that golden escalator in Trump Tower in New York City

00:32and changed American politics forever. He took the Republican Party and the country by storm,

00:40and our country is better off for it. No one in the history of this country has dominated

00:48American politics for an entire decade like Donald Trump has, and it has been a wild ride.

00:56The Republican Party is better off because of that. Our country is better off today because of that,

01:02too. Remember when President Trump came down that golden escalator, we were in the political

01:10wilderness. Republicans hadn't won a national election in 12 years. And Republican experts,

01:17you might recall, gathered in 2013 to do an autopsy report. And what did they say? They said the best

01:25way to win a national election was to embrace amnesty. Boy, were they wrong. Mr. President,

01:32it may seem like a lifetime ago, but it wasn't too long ago when Republicans and Democrats in this

01:39chamber were working together to pass so-called comprehensive immigration reform, or also known

01:47as amnesty. Remember the Gang of Eight. But President Trump shifted us away from that ideology

01:55and that mindset. He changed the Republican Party from one that wanted to pass amnesty to one that

02:01would fight to save jobs from illegal labor. Donald Trump was the first Republican in my lifetime to

02:09say that immigration should put the interest of the American workers first and foremost.

02:16It's one of the reasons that he was so different from other Republicans back in 2015 and 2016 when he

02:23came down that escalator talking about putting American workers first. It turns out, Mr. President,

02:31that all working class voters, whether they were black or white, Latino or Asian, all they wanted

02:37was a shot at the American dream for themselves and their kids, just like every other generation of

02:44Americans had before them. And today, the new Republican Party is that multiracial working-class

02:53coalition thanks to Donald Trump. Working-class Americans are now the backbone of the GOP.

03:00And those are the men and women that President Trump stands up for every day and fights for,

03:06and I'm proud to stand up with them. And it wasn't that long ago as well that leaders in both the

03:12Republican and the Democrat Party ignored the fact that China was ripping off our country and stealing

03:19jobs from American workers. Those same experts who assured us that allowing China into the World Trade

03:27Organization and establishing permanent, normal trading relations with China would gradually turn

03:34the Communist China into a liberal democracy. Once again, they couldn't have been any more wrong

03:40than what they were. The political class completely ignored Communist China's ambition to destroy our

03:47manufacturing base. For decades, they stood by and watched as China stole our American technology,

03:55copied our products, broke trade rules, and built entire industries on the backs of slave labor.

04:05They supported a trade system that made our country poor and more dependent on our enemies abroad.

04:12President Trump, from the moment he came down that golden escalator, recognized that this was a bad deal for

04:20American families, workers, and for our national security. In fact, at one of his very first campaign

04:28stops in Fort Wayne, Indiana, where I'm from, he used stronger language about China than any other

04:35political leader before him. In his first term, President Trump rewrote the national security strategy

04:42and named China a national security threat for the very first time. And this time around,

04:49President Trump's trade agenda is working. His tariffs are already bringing back manufacturing jobs to the

04:57U.S. and encouraging companies to invest trillions in American manufacturing and getting out of China

05:04instead. In the last few months, thanks to this president's America first agenda, we've seen Honda

05:12announcing that they're going to build their next generation Civic in Greensburg, Indiana. General Motors

05:19announced it would increase truck production in Fort Wayne. Eli Lilly plans to invest 27 billion dollars in

05:28American manufacturing. Novartis also just announced a 23 billion dollar investment in their American

05:37facilities, creating more good-paying jobs for Hoosiers. President Trump's policies are strengthening

05:44Americans' economy and bringing critical manufacturing back home while weakening China's economy. Imports from

05:53China have already dropped 35 percent and China's economy is struggling because of it. And President

06:00Trump has got their attention. The Chinese are begging him to make a deal. He is the first president you see

06:08in my lifetime to understand China's economic and military threat. Every president before President

06:14Trump played footsie with China. But President Trump is the only person tough enough to be in that

06:21negotiating room with communist China. We finally have a president who is putting American workers

06:28and their families that they provide for first. Our country is stronger and more secure because of it.

06:35No other president since Reagan has done more to protect our national security. President Trump projects

06:42peace through strength and puts the American people's interests first in our foreign policy as well.

06:48He is rebuilding our national defense and our industrial base after his predecessors depleted it. He got our

06:56NATO allies to step up to the plate and invest more in their collective defense when other presidents tried

07:03and failed to do to do the same thing. And President Trump is the greatest peacemaker of my lifetime. He is

07:10the only president not to get our country into a new war in the last four decades. Our enemies respect us

07:20again. They fear us. Our allies respect us. The American foreign policy is working because President Trump

07:27rejected the failed thinking of the past. Mr. President, I thank God that President Trump came down that

07:36escalator 10 years ago today. It is a date that we should all mark on our calendar and never forget.

07:43American politics hasn't been the same since I don't think it ever will be again and for the better.

07:48And for all the reasons that I've already mentioned, our country is stronger and more united today.

07:56Our workers and families are better off. Our streets are safer and opportunity and the American dream

08:03is within reach. The American people are charting our country's future again. Not China, not the elites,

08:11not multinational corporations, the American people. It's a new direction and it never would have

08:19happened without President Trump's leadership and coming down that escalator 10 years ago today.

08:25Mr. President, I'm proud to stand with President Trump. I yield back.

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