THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release November 23, 2017
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT TRUMP
TO MEMBERS OF THE COAST GUARD
Station Lake Worth Inlet
Palm Beach, Florida
10:09 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: It is an honor to be here, I have to tell you. You know, the Coast Guard, always respected. But if you were looking at it as a brand, theres no brand that went up more than the Coast Guard, with what happened in Texas. And I would say, in particular, Texas has been incredible. You saved 16,000 lives -- nobody knows that -- 16,000 lives.
In fact, when I first heard the number, I said, you mean like, six hundred? Five hundred? Sixteen thousand lives in Texas. So, as bad as that hurricane was -- and that was a bad one. That was a big water job, right? It kept coming in and going back. They couldnt get rid of it. Theyve never seen -- I guess it was the biggest water dump theyve ever seen. But when you get 16,000 -- good to see this group of people. (Laughter.) But when you do 16,000, thats really something.
And then Florida hit, and you know that one very well. You knew that one pretty well, right? The job you did in Florida. And then, Puerto Rico.
And I really mean that. I think that there is no brand, of any kind -- Im not just talking about a military brand -- that has gone up more than the Coast Guard. Incredible people. Youve done an incredible job. And I love coming in here and doing this with you today. I think its -- well, we have to keep you very well fed. (Laughter.) This is good stuff. But its an honor.
And the First Lady, you know --
MRS. TRUMP: Happy Thanksgiving.
AUDIENCE: Happy Thanksgiving.
THE PRESIDENT: And we went together to Texas, and we saw what you were doing. And you just followed that storm, right next to that storm. And you just -- you saved so many people.
I still havent figured out how people take their boats out into a hurricane. Someday youll explain it. Gene was just telling me that they actually do it to save their boat, in many cases. But theyre not thinking about their life, theyre thinking about their boats. And, I dont know -- I mean, they go out in a boat and they think, I guess, theyre -- you know, theyve got a wonderful boat, theyve had it for years, it can weather anything. And then they have 25-foot waves pushing out -- and that would be the end of them.
So you saved a lot of people. And I just want to thank you on behalf of the whole country and on behalf of us. What a job youve done, and thank you all very much. And Ill also take questions if you have them.
Now, should we leave the media here to do the questions? (Laughter.) Or should we tell them to leave? You know what, its Thanksgiving, so lets let the media stay. Okay?
Anybody have any questions about the country, how were doing, or any of those things? I love it when you don't. (Laughter.) See, that means you're doing great. I love that. That's the greatest.
The press, I know, doesn't have any questions. If you do, we won't take them, but that's all right. (Laughter.) The press has plenty of questions.
But the country is doing really well. Stock market, all-time high. This is all good stuff. I just spoke to a lot of your friends in Afghanistan and in Iraq. We spoke to the USS Monterey -- great ship, great missile ship. We spoke to a lot of different folks from the Air Force, the Army -- just now, a little while ago at Mar-a-Lago.
The telecommunications systems, what you can do now, we go live to Iraq, live to Afghanistan. I mean, its really incredible. But I told them our country is doing great. And you folks are fighting so hard and working so hard. And its nice that youre working for something thats really starting to work.
Weve cut back so much on regulation and all the waste, and all the abuse. And the stock market on Friday hit an all-time high. The highest its ever been, ever.
Your whole, long life, the stock market is higher than its ever been. And that means your 401(k), all of the things that you have, whether its -- even if youre in the military, you have a country thats really starting to turn.
We want to have a strong country. We want to have a country where I can buy new Coast Guard cutters and not have to worry about it, all right? And thats what were doing, were building up wealth so that we can take care of our protection. And were ordering tremendous amounts of new equipment. Were at $700 billion for the military. And, you know, they were cutting back for years. They just kept cutting, cutting, cutting the military. And you got lean, to put it nicely. It was depleted, was the word. And now its changing.
The Navy, I can tell you, we're ordering ships. With the Air Force, we're ordering a lot of planes, in particular the F-35 fighter jet, which is, you know, almost like an invisible fighter. I was asking the Air Force guys, I said, how good is this plane? They said, well, sir, you can't see it. I said, yeah, but in a fight -- you know, a fight -- like I watch in the movies -- they fight, they're fighting. How good is this? They say, well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it. Even if it's right next to it, it can't see it. I said, that helps. (Laughter.) That's a good thing.
But, I mean, we have equipment that -- nobody has the equipment that we have. And it's sad when we're selling our equipment to other countries but we're not buying it ourselves, okay? But now that's all changed. And the stuff I said -- the stuff that we have is always a little bit better too. You know, when we sell to other countries, even if they're allies -- you never know about an ally. An ally can turn. You understand. You're going to find that out. But I always say, make ours a little bit better. You know, give it that extra speed. A little bit -- keep a little bit -- keep about 10 percent in the bag, because what we have -- nobody has like what we have, and that's what we're doing.
But we're really proud of the Coast Guard. And I'm very proud -- I walked in today and Gene said, the day I got elected, the following morning they were putting up the statement that I made right on your front door -- right on your glass. And I came in and the first thing I noticed, of course -- I said, wow, look at that. And I said, did you put that up just for me because I happened to be coming here today? And you did that the first day, so that tells me something. That tells me something. Thank you. Special guys.
Let's go, fellas, come on. Let's get up here. Let's get up here.
END 10:16 A.M. EST
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