Trump to Young Conservatives Summit: 'Now We Are a Beggar Nation'

Former President Donald Trump, seeking to capitalize on President Joe Biden's sagging approval ratings among young Americans, delivered a fiery speech Saturday night in Tampa, Florida.

"Now we are a beggar nation," Trump told the young crowd of the Turning Point Action Summit. "We are a beggar nation, with Biden down on his knees pleading for energy from all over the globe — going to Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, going to countries all over the globe asking for help.

"And we have more liquid gold under our feet than all of these other countries that you hear about and that they talk about all the time. We have more liquid gold than they do. Can you imagine this?"

Trump pointed to the failed energy policies of a country like Germany, which he excoriated for selling out to the "climate change hoax" pushed by "radical left Democrats."

"They're begging Russia," Trump said of Germany, which led the charge to turn away from fossil fuels for renewable energy — only now to have to turn back to it. "They made the deal: They're going to get 72% of their energy from Russia."

Trump continued: "Remember they laughed at the United Nations when I made the speech and these German guys — and I have a little German in my blood, I'll tell you — they were laughing? They thought it was so funny, so cute that I was saying this.

"And it turned out to be right. And nobody knew it would happen so soon. But I said this is going to end very badly for Germany — very, very badly."

Trump blasted Biden for talk of declaring a "climate emergency," mocking the histrionics of the anti-energy, anti-American Democrats.

"Global warming, now they say climate change," Trump said. "If it's too hot, they say climate change. They can never go wrong. It took them about 10 years to get that right.

"They once talked about global freezing. Now, it's climate change, because you can't miss with climate change. Anything can happen. It's raining like hell, climate change!"

Trump questioned the dishonesty of those pushing green energy propaganda.

"I wonder if they really mean it," he said. "They're smart people. I wonder if they really mean it, or do they just hate our country?

"Because it's not believable that they think open borders are great. That they think defending people that we shouldn't be defending, that are destroying us. Let's take care of them. Let's not do anything to them. Or that defunding our police is a great thing.

"Or we don't want voter ID."

Trump, speaking to the young conservatives in his movement at Turning Point Action, warned Biden's approval ratings among young voters "is in the teens; this is something that Democrats have long dominated."

"Given Joe Biden's atrocious record, it's no wonder that young people are deserting them, and the Democrats, they're deserting them in droves," Trump said. "Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

"Not only young people, by the way, but Hispanics. Look at the Hispanic population, African Americans, Asian Americans."

Trump added, "Their extreme ideology has nothing to offer the next generation."

Trump drilled down on the future: "The radical left is the past; our movement, Make America Great Again, America First, our movement is the future. It is the future."

Trump vowed to fight back to "defeat the climate crisis hoax," support "legit news," which he said now is making strides against "fake news," amid the failures of the Biden administration for everyday Americans.

"Over the past two years, the world has seen the radical left's agenda in action, and it's been very sad to watch," Trump said. "The results are worse than anything everyone could have ever even imagined. In just two short years our country has gone from the strongest it has ever been."

Trump lamented that Americans are paying the price for inflation, and, in addition to the unwinding of the Trump administration's energy independence, violent crime with Biden's open borders.

"We're like a dumping ground, and you're paying the price, and you will in the future," Trump said. "Remember, when they say Trump was right."

Trump blasted the death and destruction of America in Democrat-run cities as being that of a "Third-World nation" and even worse than Afghanistan.

"In our movement we believe America should be a sanctuary for law-abiding citizens who love our country, not for criminal aliens," Trump said.

"We went 18 months without one American soldier being killed in Afghanistan — very different than our Democrat-run cities where many, many people are killed in a week in cities that are run by Democrats. That are badly run by Democrats."

Trump, repeating his midterm election mantra, once again stopped short of declaring another run for the White House in 2024.

"I ran twice; I won twice, and did much better the second time than I did the first, getting millions and millions more votes than we did in 2016, and, likewise, getting more votes than any sitting president in the history of our country by far," Trump said, as the crowd erupted into a chant of "USA! USA!" He added, "And now we may just have to do it again."

Among Trump's 2024 campaign vows was to end the indoctrination of American children.

"You can't teach the Bible, but you can teach children that America is evil, and men can get pregnant," Trump lamented. "You would not trust these people to babysit your children for 20 minutes, then why should we then let them educate millions of American students, six hours a day, year after year after year?

"Whatever it takes, the conservative movement must liberate America's children from the captivity of these Marxist teacher's unions. What they're doing to our children and to our country is incredible."

Trump called it "a matter of national survival."

"If we don't fix this our country we'll be in a very sad state," he said. "It already is. Our country has never been in a position like this before. It happened all in a short period of time.

"Across the United States, we need to implement strict prohibitions on teaching inappropriate racial, sexual, and political material to America's children in any form."

He also vowed to protect "women's rights" by keeping "men out of women's sports."

"Whether it's politically correct, I don't really care: I think it's so disrespectful to women that they should never, even let this happen, but this should never been allowed to happen," he said.

"You talk about women's rights, this is the opposite of women's rights. This is a horrible thing and they're not allowed to even talk about it. But I'll talk about it."

And, for conservatives, Trump vowed to end partisan and political censorship, calling freedom of expression and speech a fundamental pillar of Democracy. He decried that the "fake news" media has become a "partner" to leftist ideology.

"They used to be like the police for honesty, and now they have no credibility whatsoever," Trump said of the liberal media.

"If debate can be silenced, if dissent can be suppressed, if conservative ideas can be systematically shut down, then very simply we do not have a free country anymore. That's what happens. That's what happened with communism in various countries."

Trump pointed back to one of his first political predictions of his 2016 campaign, warning Democrats would turn American into Venezuela.

"If this were to be allowed to happen, we would be Venezuela on steroids: I used to use it all the time, and everybody used to laugh," Trump said, vowing a Republican-led Congress and White House should be "ruthless in going after this new censorship regime."

"Our country will rot from the corruption, confusion, and destruction — just the same as we were aTthird-World nation," Trump said. "Right now, in many ways, we are a Third-World nation when you look decision that are being made.

"Probably, right now, if you look at it, we are worse than a Third-World nation."