WATCH: Richard Grenell’s full speech to the 2020 Republican National Convention

Transcript:

During the presidential primary debates four years ago, one outsider stood alone, and said
in public what most Americans thought in private. It was fourteen years after the start of
the war in Afghanistan, and twelve years after the invasion of Iraq. Where thousands of
American troops had died and trillions in taxpayer dollars have been spent. And yet no
candidate could bring themselves to admit that something had gone badly wrong with
American foreign policy. That the American voter, the American soldier, and the American
taxpayer had all been let down. Except for one, Donald Trump. He called America’s endless
wars what they were, a disaster. The media was shocked because Donald Trump was
running as a Republican. And yet he said out loud what we all knew, that American foreign
policy was failing to make Americans safer.

After the end of the Cold War, Democrats and Republicans in Washington bought into the
illusion that the whole world would start to resemble America. And so they started to pursue
unlimited globalization. They welcome China into the World Trade Organization. They
engaged in nation building in Afghanistan, and tried to export democracy to Iraq. They
signed a nuclear deal with Iran, and a global climate agreement in Paris. But they didn’t
ground any of it in the interest of the average American. So for decades while Washington
politicians built a global system, American wages stagnated. Our great cities and industries
were hollowed out. Entire communities were devastated. And our manufacturing plants
were shipped off to China. That’s what happened when Washington stopped being the
capital of the United States, and started being the capital of the world.

As U.S. Ambassador to Germany I had a front row seat to Donald Trump’s America first
foreign policy. I wish every American could see how President Trump negotiates on their
behalf. I watched President Trump charm the chancellor of Germany while insisting. that
Germany pay its NATO obligations. I was proud to witness President Trump say to foreign
leaders, I don’t blame you for wanting America to pay for your security, I actually respect
you for out negotiating the presidents before me. But it stops with me. I won’t let the
American taxpayer be taken advantage of. Donald Trump’s administration has always made
clear that our priority is the American people’s security. That’s the job of all leaders. To put
their people first. And we’ve seen how this strategy has succeeded. In four short years
Donald Trump has led even some Washington Democrats to agree and the Chinese threat,
on trade deals that benefit America first, on alliances that share responsibility.

In four years Donald Trump didn’t start any new wars, he brought troops home. He rebuilt
the military and signed peace deals that make Americans safer. The Washington elites want
you to think this kind of foreign policy is immoral, and so they call it nationalist. That tells
you all you need to know. The DC crowd thinks when they called Donald Trump and
Nationalists and their insulting him. As if the American president isn’t supposed to base
foreign policy on America’s national interests. A return to the Biden way of thinking means
America gives the radical terrorist regime in Tehran a plane load of cash in the middle of the
night. Well you see, President Trump also sent an aircraft in the middle of the night to deal
with Iran, but that plane was on a different mission. An air strike to take out the head of
Iran’s terror machine who plotted the deaths of Americans. But we also must be clear that
when those who seek freedom takes tremendous personal risk in places like Hong Kong,
Tehran or Minsk, there is no doubt who President Trump’s administration supports. We will
always stand with the people who fight for it there God given freedoms.

Don’t be fooled, the Washington establishment is trying to sell you on their candidate. Joe
Biden was first elected to the senate in 1972, 48 years ago. Well, it’s actually the typical
Washington story. Just this year 22 Democrats ran for president. They rejected all of the
outsiders and nominated the ultimate Washington insider. Someone they had to pull out of
retirement. Every time Joe Biden offers a new idea you should ask yourself, why didn’t he
try that over the last 48 years?

Today the Democrats blame a global pandemic that started in China on President Trump,
and they still blame Russia for Hillary Clinton’s loss in nineteen in 2016. As acting Director
of National Intelligence, I saw the Democrats entire case for Russian collusion. And what I
saw made me sick to my stomach. The Obama-Biden Administration secretly launched a
surveillance operation on the Trump campaign and silence the many brave intelligence
officials who spoke up against it. They presented bogus information as facts. They lied to
judges. Then they classified anything that undermined their case. And after Donald Trump
won the election, when they should have continued the American tradition of helping the
president elect’s transition into the White House, they tried instead to undercut him even
more. Former Vice President Joseph Biden asked intelligence officials to uncover the hidden
information on President Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor three weeks before the
inauguration. That’s the Democrats. Between surveillance, classifications, leaks and puppet
candidates, they never want the American people to know whose actually calling the shots.
But with Donald Trump, you always know exactly who is in charge, because the answer is
you. You’re in charge. Not lobbyists, not special interests, not war mongers, or China
sympathizers, or globalization fanatics, with Donald Trump and Mike Pence in the White
House the boss is the American people. President Trump rightly calls his foreign policy
America First. America first does not advance the interests of one group of Americans at the
expense of another. It has no bias about red or blue, educated or not educated, urban or
rural. America First is simply in the belief that politicians should focus on the equality and
dignity of every American, and that this duty is fulfilled by promoting the safety and wealth
of the American people above all else. That’s America First. That’s the Trump doctrine, and
that my friends is four more years.