i pray it does not turn into another venezuela or socialist country. i will vote for trump. hopefully he will win. i think he is the only one that can save our republic. that is my say. host: sean, land o lakes, wisconsin. caller: i feel we as a society have better issues we should be addressing aside from the business fraud. if you look at the bigger picture, there are thousands of business people that commit business front. why is an ex-president so special? if it was the average everyday person i feel this would not be taking place. host: let's bring you now to mar-a-lago, live coverage on c-span. as we said, when the former president finishes speaking we

will pick back up with more of your reaction to this historic day, the first former u.s. president or sitting to be arraigned on criminal charges. live coverage here on c-span. ♪ >> ♪ because i love you too much baby we're caught in a trap i can't walk out ♪ ♪

>> ♪ i am a real american for four -- fight for what's right fight for you life ♪ when it comes crashing down and it hurts inside you gotta take a stand, it don't help to hide if you hurt my friends then you hurt my pride i gotta be a man i can't let it slide. i am a real american i fight for the rights of every man i am a real american fight for what's right fight for your life

♪ >> ♪ i stand strong about right and wrong and i don't take trouble for very long 'cause i got something deep inside of me a courage is the thing that keeps us free i am a real american i fight for the rights of every man i am a real american i am a real american fight for the rights of every man i am a real american and fight for what's right fight for your life i am a real american i fight for the rights of every man i am a real american fight for what's right fight for your life ♪

if you hurt my friends then you hurt my pride i gotta be a man, i can't let it slide i am a real american fight for the rights of every man i am a real american fight for what's right fight for your life i am a real american fight for the rights of every man i am a real american fight for what's right fight for your life i am a real american fight for the rights of every man i am a real american

fight for what's right fight for your life i am a real american fight for the rights of every man ♪ ♪ ♪ host: you are looking at a live shot of mar-a-lago with former president's estate in florida. we are waiting for him to come through those doors and deliver remarks tonight in front of an audience that has gathered there, supporters of his presumably. then he will speak tonight for what could be 30 to 45 minutes

based on what we have heard. after he finishes we will pick back up on c-span with your reaction to today's arraignment of the former president and the charges against him. live coverage on c-span. ♪ >> ♪ you've got your mother in a whirl she's not sure if you're a boy or a girl

hey babe, your hair's alright hey babe, let's stay out tonight you like me, and i like it all we like dancing and we look divine you love bands when they're playing hard you want more and you want it fast they put you down, they say i'm wrong you tacky thing, you put them on rebel rebel, you've torn your dress rebel rebel, your face is a mess rebel rebel, how could they know? hot tramp, i love you so don't ya? ♪

rebel rebel, you've torn your dress rebel rebel, your face is a mess rebel rebel, how could they know? hot tramp, i love you so you've torn your dress, your face is a mess you can't get enough, but enough ain't the test you've got your transmission and your live wire you got your cue line and a handful of ludes you wanna be there when they count up the dudes and i love your dress you're a juvenile success because your face is a mess so how could they know? i said, how could they know?

so what you wanna know calamity's child where'd you wanna go? what can i do for you? looks like you've been there too 'cause you've torn your dress and your face is a mess ooh, your face is a mess ooh, ooh, so how could they know? ♪ ♪ announcer: ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the next president of the united states, president donald j. trump. >> ♪ and i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today

cause there ain't no doubt i love this land god bless the usa ♪ from the likes of minnesota to the -- lakes of minnesota to the hills of tennessee across the plains from sea to shining sea from detroit down to houston and new york to la where there's pride in american heart and it's time we stand and say that i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free and i won't forget the men who

died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today cause there ain't no doubt i love this land god bless the usa and i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free and i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today cause there eight no doubt i -- ain't no doubt i love this land god bless the usa ♪ ♪

[cheers and applause] [chanting "u.s.a."] mr. trump: thank you very much, everybody. we have to save our country. god bless you all. and i never thought anything like this could happen in america. never thought it could happen. the only crime that i have committed is to fearlessly defend our nation from those who seek to destroy it. [cheers and applause] mr. trump: from the beginning the democrats spied on my campaign. remember that? they attacked me with an onslaught of fraudulent

investigations. russia, russia, russia, ukraine, ukraine, ukraine. impeachment hoax number one, hoax number two. the illegal and unconstitutional raid on mar-a-lago right here. the lying to the pfizer courts , the fbi and doj relentlessly pursuing republicans. the unconstitutional changes to election laws by not getting approvals from state legislators. the millions of votes illegally stuffed into ballot boxes and all caught on government cameras. and just recently the fbi and doj in collusion with twitter and facebook in order not to say anything bad about the hunter biden laptop from hell, which exposes the biden family as criminals in which according to the pollsters would have made a

17 point difference in the election result, and we needed a lot less than that, like about 16.9. it would have been in our favor. not my favor, our favor, because our country is going to hell. we remember the 51 intelligence agents who said hunter biden's laptop was russian disinformation. it didn't exist. remember that? that was all confirmed strongly by the fbi when they all knew that it wasn't russian disinformation. and so much more. our elections are like those of a third world country. now this massive election interference at a scale never seen before in our country, beginning with the radical left, george

there is no crime. and that it should never have been brought. [applause] even people that aren't big fans have said it. they say this is not the right thing to do. it is an insult to our country, as the world is already laughing at us for so many other reasons, like our open borders, our

incompetent withdrawal from afghanistan, where we left behind american citizens, 80 $5 billion worth of the best military equipment in the world. lost 13 magnificent young lives and far too many to mention that are so badly hurt with the loss of arms and legs and facial obliteration the most embarrassing time in our country's history, in my opinion. then our give up on energy independence and even energy dominance, we will be dominant within six months, more than any other nation times too. we had to this all just three years ago, our raging crime statistics, if you look at democrat run cities, the likes of which we have never seen before. the open threats by various countries of the use of nuclear weapons.

something never mentioned or discussed by outside nations during the trump administration in which could very well lead under the biden administration's leadership to an all out nuclear world war three. it can happen. we are not very far away from it, believe it or not. an economy that has been crippled by the biggest inflation we have seen in more than 60 years. a military that are used to defeat isis, and for weeks, they said it would take four years. four weeks. to kill al-baghdadi and salome, that has gone woke at the top levels by trying to ignore connate everybody down to the lowest ranking patriots. but now they have stepped up their rhetoric by indicting the 45th president of the united states --[booing] seven 5

million votes, more than any sitting president in the history of our country. [applause] in the wings, they have a local, racist democrat strict attorney in atlanta who is doing everything in her power to indict me over an absolutely perfect phone call, even more perfect than the one i made with the president of ukraine. the number i kept saying, it was the perfect call. this one was more perfect. nobody said sir, you shouldn't say that. or hung up in disgust because of something i inappropriately said. because nothing was said wrong. at the end of the call, we agreed to continue our conversation about election fraud. and election fraud in georgia, many people on the phone,

including lots of lawyers, nobody found anything wrong with that perfect call until a book or motion tour many months later. they said, i remember making a call, let's look at that. this fed case was brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election. and it should be dropped immediately. [applause] then you have a radical left lunatic known as a bomb thrower, who is harassing hundreds of my people day after day, over the boxes hoax. just so everyone knows, i come under what is known as the resident jewel records act, which was designed and approved by congress long ago, just for this reason. under the act, i am supposed to

negotiate with the national archives and records administration. which as of this date is a radical left troublemaking organization that red flags of the constitution of the united states and the bill of rights as a dangerous and triggering. can you imagine, this is what we have to deal with. but there is no criminality under the presidential records act. that is not what it is all about. we were negotiating in very good faith, proper way in order to return some or all of the documents that i openly and in very plain sight brought with me to mar-a-lago from our beautiful white house just as virtually every other president has done in the past. when fbi and doj officials were here, i told my lawyer to show them the secure storage room in

which they were locked. the fbi still requested, could you please put another lock on the door? we immediately complied. a lot different than the biden situation, isn't it? the next thing i know, we were rated by many gun toting fbi agents, who took whatever they wanted including my passports and medical kurds. everybody was in shock, nobody had ever heard of something like this before. who would think that that could happen today? i immediately thought of the fourth amended, that protects against a -- unreasonable search and seizure. they did it anyway because our justice system has become lawless. they are using it now, an addition to every thing else, to win elections. apparently they are not looking

at me through the view of the noncriminal presidential records act, they came up with a new one, this is a new one. a are looking at me through the espionage act, how does that sound? of 1917, where the penalty is death. even though that is -- has nothing to do with openly taking boxes of documents of mostly clothing and other things to my home. which resident obama has done, the bushes have done, jimmy carter has on, ronald reagan has gone -- done, everybody has done. hillary clinton got rid of 33,000 emails, that was ok. but nobody has done it like a joe biden. this lunatic special prosecutor, jack smith. others of his ilk say, he is

even worse than they are. is only looking at trump, joe biden took massive amounts of more document. even removed many boxes to chinatown, can you believe that? $10 million from china, where did that come from? i guess they were banking on hunters expertise. others stored in unsecured offices in pennsylvania, strewn over his garage floor where his corvette is also stored. all over the floor, including classified documents. but that's ok. perhaps, most of portly, he has 1850 boxes in delaware, which he is refusing to give up, but isn't that real obstruction? that's obstruction. as president, i have the right to declassify documents. and the process is automatic, if

i take them with me, it's automatic. declassify. biden was vice president. he had absolutely no right to declassify as vice resident. he doesn't come under the noncriminal residential record act, he comes under the very criminal federal records act. but it won't matter because they don't follow the law. which has very severe penalties. he had classified documents that he took while he was a senator. which is absolutely inexcusable, and other senators, including democrats, are outraged. but he is not being harassed and hounded. like the people who work for me are. they seem to have forgotten about his documents entirely. so many thousands and thousands. they like to say that i am instructing, which i am not. because i was working with them

a very nicely until the rain. but biden is obstructing by making it impossible to get to the 1800 boxes archly why many documents were located in chinatown. i don't know. i'm under investigation, this time a civil investigation, by another a cyst and -- who can paid on i will get trump. i will get him. this was their campaign. never ran for office. i will get him. her name is letitia james. [booing] she proclaimed while campaigning, i look forward to going into the office of the attorney general every single day, suing him and then going home. she announced what is fueling my soul and i was trump.

she had her eyes on trump tower. those eyes are focused on trump tower. i didn't know the young lady. she even assured her supporters in an election promise that we are going to definitely sue him we are going to be a real pain in the asked. he is going to know my name personally. and then she claimed that i was an illegitimate president. [booing] with all we did on energy, on the military, on taxes, because -- biggest tax cuts in history. guess regulation cuts in history. right to try. people able to get drugs now that aren't approved. hopefully you don't have that problem. [applause] letitia james about to use every area of the law to investigate president trump and his business

transactions, those transactions have been -- are going to be investigate it. and that her family has only, we are going after his family. and we are going after them hard. this is all before entering office and all before knowing anything at all about me. but you are going to get me. this is why along with unrelenting crime, so many people and companies are leaving new york, she said that i falsified my financial statements. but in fact i will prove that my financial statements were substantially more than we submitted, not less. in all cases, have a strong claim or clause in them, which tells the institutions that may look at that, if they want to, not to rely on -- but they have a problem with their case.

number one, i'm under leverage. they can't believe it, and have very little debt relative to the value of assets. and importantly not one bank has lost even one dollar. she was investigating the to save banks. they didn't lose a dollar with us during this. of time. the banks, made almost 200 million dollars off donald trump , and they like me very much. we never missed a payment, never got a default notice, had a great relationship with all of them. i don't need banks, we have a lot of cash. i built a great fitness with my family, to bid -- fantastic is missed. [applause]

i have a son here who has done a great job, another son here who has done a great job. and ivanka, and to bear and will be great someday. he is tall. and he is smart. but i have a great family, they have done a fantastic job, we appreciate it very much. [applause] they have gone through health. --hell. she is suing me over banks who weren't defrauded, when she should be focusing on violent crime. this is a persecution, not an investigation. she has put our family through health. it has cost hundreds of millions of dollars to defend. but our heads are held very high. i want to settle the case, but i want no part of that.

[applause] here we are now, where we were today. in a city that was so gracious four or five years ago. but now we are there, spent time there today, as you possibly read. with a local, failed district unity -- attorney, charging a former president of the united states for the first time in history, on a basis that every single pundit and legal analyst said, there is no case. they kept saying, there is no case. [applause] virtually everyone. it's worse than that, he knew there was no case. that's why last week he delayed for a month and immediately took that back. and through this ridiculous indictment together my came out

today, everybody said, this is not really an indictment, there is nothing here. our lawyer said, there is nothing here. they are not seeing -- saying what you did. the criminal is a district attorney he illegally leaked massive amounts of grand jury information. [applause] for which he said be prosecuted, or at amendment -- minimum he should resign. alvin bragg's wife confirmed a report that claimed her husband has trump nailed on felonies. she has since locked down her twitter account. his chief prosecutor, who represented democrats and affirm rund by chuck shuman's brother, quit the firm in order to go to work in the das office in order to get trump. hillary clinton -- hillary clinton's lawyer.

ultimately he quit, because bragg didn't think he had a case. the same guy that brought this ridiculous thing today. during his investigation, this prosecutor wrote and published a book, saying all sorts of privileged things and has been very strongly reprimanded. he was reprimanded so strongly, i have never seen anything -- like it. but what he did was probably very illegal. he was very strongly reprimanded. even district attorney bragg was furious with him, they were having a fight because of it. hope is never lost, various prosecutors quit because they thought president trump was being treated unfairly. how about that, isn't that great? i would like to meet them.

the das office even had a webpage, meet the team of executives who have done this to president trump. isn't that nice? they had to take it down. meanwhile, crime in new york was up 30% last year. much more than that the year before. felony assaults, robberies and burglaries up by massive numbers. not the same place that i know, not the same place that you know. this is where we are right now. i have a trump hating judge with a trump hating wife and family, whose daughter worked for kamala harris. and receives money from the biden harris campaign. we had another trial, the same judge told the man who worked for me for many years, that if you admit your guilt, you will

be in jail for 90 days. but if you don't, if we go through a trial and you are found guilty, you are going away for 10 years or maybe longer. which for a 75-year-old man, with a great family, really means life. what the prosecutors and judges did that man, i will never forget. because it is right out of the old soviet union. they said, you say anything about trump, meaning that is bad, and you won't even have to serve the 90 days, he will walk free. they say that too many of my employees. we have this jack smith lunatic threatening people every single day. they are threatening jail terms, but talk about trump and you will go free. this is where we are at a

nation, who would have thought? they can't beat us at the ballot box, so they try to beat us through the law. that's the country in west -- which we live. the usa is a mess. our economy is crashing, inflation is out of control, russia has joined with china, can you believe that? saudi arabia has joined with iran. china, russia, iran and north korea have performed together as a menacing and disruptive coalition, it would have never happened if i were your president. it would never have happened. nork would have a russia attacking ukraine have happened. all of those lives would have been saved, all of those beautiful cities would have been standing. our currency is crashing, we will no longer be the world standard. it will be our greatest defeat in 200 years. there will be no defeat like that. it will take us away from being a great power, if you took the

five worst presidents in the history of the united states, and added them up, they would not have done near the destruction to our country as joe biden and the biden administration have done. [applause] incredibly, we are now a failing nation. we are a nation in decline. now these are radical left lunatics want to interfere with our elections by using law enforcement. we can't let that happen. [applause] with all of this being said, and with a very dark cloud over our

beloved country, i have no doubt that we will make america great again. [applause] thank you very much, god bless you, and god bless america. think you very much, everybody, thank you. ♪ [applause] ♪

>> former president donald trump in florida after being arraigned today in new york. this evening, we are getting your reaction to the charges against the former president by the manhattan district attorney. you have heard him mention his name, along with these other cases that are pending against the former president. mary in california, republican. you have waited and listened on the phone.