Donald Trump (48:28)
Well, thank you very much, everybody, and I'm thrilled to be back in the great state of Texas, which we won over and over again. Ah, thank you very much. The gleaming shores of the Gulf of America. That's one of the things we do. You know, if we did so much, that's like one of the. I don't want to call it a throw in because it's very important, but it's like a little throw in. I said, you know, we ought to just sort of change the name. We have 92% of the frontage. But they were there first. They've been here 100 years, longer. Gulf of Mexico 100 years longer. Now it's the Gulf of America because we have 92%. I wouldn't say Mexico was thrilled, but they were fine. And I'm delighted to be here at this national treasure, one of the largest energy export hubs anywhere in the world. Anywhere in the world. The port of Corpus Christi. We had a lot to do with it. That bridge, we had so much. What a nice bridge. Ooh, I like that color. What a nice bridge. And we dredged nation deeply. I guess they said 54ft or something. It's about as deep as you can go. I think we could go a few feet deeper. And then you could. Then you could. You want to go a little bit deeper. What the hell? What the hell? It's only money with the men and women here today. We're unleashing America's potential, strengthening our security, increasing our prosperity. We had the most successful country anywhere in the world. A year and a half ago. We had a dead country. Our country was dead. You know it better than anybody. And cementing America's status as the number one energy superpower by far anywhere on earth. And I want to thank Venezuela because our relationship is a very good one. We're very, very good one. We're having a very good relationship. That boat, that ship is from Venezuela. For four long years before it took office, the Biden administration, sleepy Joe Biden, one of the worst presidents in history, not one of the. I have to think the worst. How could you get? Can you get worse? Somebody said, please don't be political today, okay? But he's the worst President, we and its allies in Congress waged a radical left war on American oil and natural gas like you've never seen before. They were killing our. They were killing our country and killing your area right here. In fact, they say if I wanted, I could. If I ran for the mayor of Corpus Christi, would I win? I think so. What the hell? I looked at your job stats. You have done very well with, with Trump. They killed the Keystone XL pipeline. This is the Biden group. I don't. Here's the good news. In all fairness, he had no idea what the hell was happening. But it was his administration of horrible people. Horrible radical left people. No, he used the auto pen very well. There's never been anybody in history that used an auto pen like that, almost conclusively. He piled crippling regulations on producers and refiners, imposed natural gas export ban and slashed new leases for drilling by 95%. That's Biden under their green news scam, one of the greatest scams in history. Gasoline reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states, fueling the worst inflation in the history of our country. We had the worst inflation in the history of our country. You know, you've heard me say this before. The fake news sitting back there. They say, they say Trump exaggerated. It wasn't in history. They say it was 48 years. Okay, we'll take that too. You know, In a way, 48 years sounds even worse if you want to know the truth. But they tell me it's 48 years. It's not. I think it's the history of our country. But whether it's 48 years or the history of our country, they're both pretty bad. Do we agree? But all of that changed my first day back in office. It all changed. Our country started coming back like never before. On day one, I declared a national energy emergency. I ended the Biden export ban, and I told our great Texas energy workers to very simply, drill, baby, drill. Since my inauguration, US oil production is now up by 600,000 barrels a day. Natural gas production is at an all time record high by far. And today, right here in Corpus Christi, the price of gasoline is down to just less than actually now. $2.30. I just left Iowa two weeks ago. $1.99. And then I passed another one, $1.85. It's happening. It's happening. So we're witnessing a historic American energy boom like we've never seen. And this port is right at the center of the action. So who lives here or this area who lives. A lot of happy people here. It's nice to be loved, you know? It's nice to be loved. Thank you. Thank you. In my first term, I approved vital federal funding to deepen the channel and fully modernize the port of Corpus Christi. Since that crucial investment, companies have flocked here, creating tens of thousands of jobs and generating billions and billions of dollars in revenue for your community. Joe Biden came in and tried to cut off the port funding immediately. Tried to cut it off. What we did, we had a tremendously successful first term. And he came in and tried to take away what we had. But today, the dock workers, we stopped them. And today the dock workers, energy workers, and great people of Texas once again really have a president that loves our country, a president that fights for our country, and a president who's got your back. Nationwide exports of liquefied natural gas are up 37%. Think of that. And the past year, the highest level in American history and going up a lot. Crude oil exports are up by hundreds of thousands of barrels a day. Venezuela, think of it. 80,000. 80 million so far. We just started. 80 million barrels of fuel. 80 million barrels of oil. Think of what that means. Think of a stadium with 80,000 people. Now say 80 million. That's what we've taken. And it's great for Venezuela and it's great for us. It's great for us, great for Venezuela. And a lot of it like that, a lot of it comes right here. And with our new friend and partner, Venezuela, we're going to do a lot of other things. We're going to be doing a lot. We're having a great relationship with their government. Has anybody ever witnessed anything so beautiful, so decisive and so popular with the people of Venezuela? It was very popular. In fact, 360,000 barrels of Venezuelan crude are right now sitting in the tanker on my left. It's a nice one. So where the hell does that one come from? For the benefit of both our nations, we're going to refine their oil right here in America and right here in Texas and then export it to all over the world. We're going to keep some for ourselves, we're going to give some to them, and they're going to make more money than they've ever made before. We'll help build their country again, which was a disaster. And we're going to build it up and we're going to benefit also. And that's the way it's supposed to be, right? It's going to be great. One person who has witnessed our energy turnaround firsthand is Jesse Robinson. Jesse, Come on up here, Jesse. He began his career at this sport working on the first front lines of railroad operations and has risen to become one of the port's key leaders. I can see that by the way, you all know him. Helping to drive the American energy surge like this is a surge like nobody's ever seen. Jesse, come on up and say a few words.