Trump's Remarks to Rural Stakeholders on California Water Accessibility; Bakersfield, CA

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Spoiler alert: the farmers and construction workers were crying.

Remarks

Remarks by President Trump to Rural Stakeholders on California Water Accessibility | Bakersfield, CA

Land & Agriculture

Issued on: February 20, 2020

JACO Hangar
Bakersfield, California

February 19, 2020
3:00 P.M. PST

THE PRESIDENT: Hi, Chloe. Hi, Chloe. Hi. Hi, Chloe.

Well, I want to thank you. And before we begin, I want to just say that —

{snip}

I’m thrilled to be here today as we take historic action on behalf of our incredible farmers and ranchers, growers, and communities throughout the Central Valley — (applause) — and all across the great state of California. What they’re doing to your state is a disgrace. (Applause.)

After decades of failure and delays in ensuring critical water access for the people of this state, we are determined to finally get your problem solved. The state is not doing anything to help, but hopefully they will eventually come along.

Now that they’re rationing water for people, they’re saying you’re going to get, very shortly — I heard the governor saying you get 50 gallons. Fifty gallons sounds okay. People tell me it’s like nothing. By the time you do with your showers, and your hands, and your tissues, and everything, 50 gallons is very, very little. Can you imagine a state being rationed, when you have millions and millions and millions of gallons being poured out into the Pacific Ocean that you could have? And you’d have more water than knew what to do with. It’s crazy. (Applause.) Crazy. Crazy.

So we’re honored to be joined by a warrior — a real warrior named Devin Nunes. (Applause.) And, Elizabeth, thank you, because you have to put up with it, Elizabeth — wherever you may be. But Mrs. Nunes is here, and she’s a fantastic woman. And — but Devin has been, from day one, from the day I met him.

And, you know, this all started because I was driving up — what was the highway, Devin, that we were driving by?

REPRESENTATIVE NUNES: Ninety-nine.

THE PRESIDENT: Ninety-nine. Does everyone know 99? (Applause.)

And I kept saying, “Devin, why are these fields all brown and they look like desert?” They look like they were starved. It’s too bad you have a drought. And then I’d see little patches of the most beautiful land I’ve ever seen. And then I’d go to the next and I’d see acres and acres of brown, really dry, horrible-looking stuff. And then I’d see a patch of the most beautiful farmland I’ve ever seen. I said, “What’s going on? It’s too bad you have a drought.” He said, “No, we don’t have a drought. They won’t allow us to have water in the state of California.” That’s how this all started.

Believe it or not, that’s how I really got to know Devin Nunes. Then he became a hero because he found out what was going on in government — (applause) — and he found out about the hoax and the witch hunt, and all of the horrible things that have gone on.

But we got over the fact that I said, “Boy, that’s a beautiful area, but why is everything else barren?” And it’s because of water. You send millions and millions of gallons out. And we have now given full permission that you don’t do that anymore. We have given — and the hard — the hard permits were, by the way, the federal permits. The state could do this with a flick of the governor’s hand. And we hope that he’s going to do it because it makes so much sense.

But I want to thank Devin for being an incredible warrior. And, likewise, Kevin McCarthy — (applause) — who I think we can say — I mean, we have to work hard. We can pick up seven seats in the state of California. (Applause.) Seven seats.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Get rid of Pelosi!

THE PRESIDENT: And I want to thank —

(Laughs.) He said, “Get rid of Pelosi.” That’s okay with me. (Applause.) A lot of people agree. Look what’s happened to San Francisco. So sad what’s happened. When you see a slum — where it’s a slum. It’s worse than a slum. There’s no slum like that. What they’ve done to San Francisco is a crying shame. And it’s something that we’re going to do something about, because if they don’t fix up, clean it up, take care of the homeless, do what they have to do, but clean up their city, the federal government is going to have step in. We’re going to do it in Los Angeles and San Francisco. (Applause.)

{snip}

THE PRESIDENT: (Laughs.)

To confront this problem, in 2018 I ordered the administration to update the outdated scientific research and biological opinions that helped to determine water allocation right here in the state of California. In other words, how much water is available for agricultural producers, communities, for all of the people that live in your great state.

Well, a lot of people speak badly of your state. I love your state. I understand your state. You have the potential like no place else, but you need the right government. You need the right governor. (Applause.) You need the right governor. (Inaudible) so much.

You know, I was explaining on the way in: cars. You could build a car for $3,500 less. It would take a tiny bit more — just a glass of fuel more. But that would take many cars off the road because people would be able to buy many cars that are obsolete that are what they call “gas guzzlers.” The new car would be safer because it would not be made out of papier-mâché, because it would be allowed to be a little bit heavier. It would be a little stronger. It would be safer. It would cost you $3,500 less. And because of your rules and regulations in California, it will end up in a court case with your governor. It’s so crazy. We’re already in a court case over a train. Over a train.

AUDIENCE: Booo —

THE PRESIDENT: Billions and billions and billions of dollars. It was originally supposed to go from San Francisco to LA. That didn’t work out, so now they did this in order to get the cost down. It keeps getting — pretty soon, it’ll be like a mile long. (Laughter.) Okay? It’s very sad when you see some of the things.

But think about the car situation. In other words, you’ll get a less expensive car by $3,500 on average that will be safer, that will look better, and that will work better. And you’ll get a lot of gas guzzlers off the wor- — of the market because people are going to be able to afford, and they’re going to want this car because it’s a better car. And we’re going to have to fight it out in court, but we’ll win. We always win. (Applause.)

{snip}

And we’ve secured the historic trade deals, including the new trade deal with China. They’re going to buy $50 billion worth of your product. I don’t know if you’re going to be able to make it. The most they ever bought — remember? — the most they ever bought was $16 billion. Now they’re going buy $50 billion. You know, they agreed to 20.

And on closing — I was saying hello, and I said, “Where are you with the farmers?” “Sir, we’re at $20 billion.” That’s more they ever bought. The most was $16 billion, two years ago. So I got them up to 20. I said, “Make it 50.” (Laughter.) They said, “What?” I said, “Make it 50.” You got 1.5 billion people. Fifty — it’s peanuts. Make it $50 billion. Would you do me a favor? Make it $50 billion.” They agreed to do it. It wasn’t that easy, but they agreed to do it. (Applause.)

See that beautiful tractor over there and the beautiful tractor? I said, “You got to get bigger tractors. That’s all.” (Laughter.) They look like nice, big tractors. That’s a big tractor right back there. You got to get bigger tractors. You got to buy a little more land.

So, Larry, instead of selling your land, buy — buy some more. Okay? You know, buy a little more land. (Applause.)

But, no, they’re going to increase it. So, think of it: If they go to 40 to 50 billion dollars, you’re talking about a whole different industry.

Plus, I got Japan for $40 billion. You saw that. We signed that deal four months ago. (Applause.)

South Korea now is a big buyer. We signed that deal. (Applause.)

And the big one is the USMCA; that’s Mexico and Canada. (Applause.) And now you’re going to be treated with respect. You were treated pretty badly. You had tremendous tariffs going in — as example, on dairy products, you had a 287 percent tariff going into Canada, but we took care of it.

We virtually eliminated all of the taxes and all of the problems that the farmers were having. And I’m very proud to do it. Very special people.

And when I was negotiating the farm deal — I told this to Kevin — you know, some people complain. Not the farmer. They were going up — the fake-news CNN — (laughter) — was putting microphones in your face and saying, “Isn’t this terrible?” Because China — you know, they’re great negotiators — they pulled way back. And the farmers — I tell you, I didn’t hear a negative — they said, “Look, it’s very tough, but somebody had to do this.” This has been going on for 17, 18 years. Really, much longer than that. But it’s been going on at least for 18 years. “The farmer has been hurt. Somebody had to do it. The President is fighting for us.”

And we’re going through a rough patch. But what I did is I solved the rutch [sic] — roof — you know, the patch by getting — we got you $16 billion and we got you $12 billion from the year before. We took it out of the tariffs that we imposed. People don’t say it. They never like to say it, the fake news. But you were hurt the first year by $12 billion. Where we were taking in tens of billions of dollars in tariff, we didn’t get 10 cents forever from China. Now they’re paying us 25 percent on $250 billion, and then more after that.

So what I did is I took out the $12 billion; we gave it to the farmer. Then I took out — the next year, I said to Sonny Perdue — great Secretary of Agriculture — I said, “Sonny, how much this year?” “Sixteen.” I said, “Sixteen billion?” They stopped buying. I gave you $16 billion out of the tariffs. We had billions and billions left over.

And China came and they signed a wonderful agreement. So we’re very happy about it. (Applause.)

But the farmers — and the farmers didn’t even want this money. The farmers said to me — we had 36 farmers in the White House and they said very simply, “We don’t want this money. We just want a level playing field.” I got you better than a level playing field, okay? Better. (Applause.)

And one of the biggest things I did — and I said, “I’m going to get killed on this one.” We terminated the Waters of the United States Rule, which is — (applause) — basically, they were taking your property away from you. And think of that. They called it the “Clean Waters of the United States.” I said, “How do you sign that? How do you do that?” But other than the title, it was a disaster for builders and farmers and everybody.

And I remember when I signed it, I had a lot of people — a lot of farmers and construction workers and a lot of people behind me. And these are people that didn’t cry when they were babies. They would — never cried in their life, and they were crying. A lot of them were crying because I gave them their land back. I gave them their rights back. They took away their rights. If you had a puddle in the middle of your farm, they said it was a lake, it was a river, it was a — I mean, they virtually said it was an ocean, right? You had no right; you couldn’t get anywhere hear it. It was crazy. So we gave it back.

{snip}

Thank you, everybody. (Applause.)

END

3:41 P.M. PST

[Delmette2.0]

1. OMFG!!

That was incoherent, full of lies and not one detail about solving the water problem during a drought.