Everyone and, you are welcome to come in. I dont want anyone not inside. Do you want to come inside . Your good, good. It is great to be here, give brian and lisa a massive hand. [applause] you are so blessed to have a sweet spot like this. I will tell you, dont ever forget Small Businesses are the heart of our economy. [applause] so i loved driving here today. Because i am in ida grove, the sweet part is this looks like a prettier version of where i grew up. So i grew up playing on farms, i played in a dairy farm surrounded by farm field. And every kind every time i come to iowa, i love that because there is a sweet peace about it. I grew up in a town of 2500 people, to stoplights, a little bigger then ida grove. You couldnt think about doing something wrong without someone already telling you off. Neighbors took care of neighbors, that is the blessing of growing up in a place like this. You know what it means to take care of each other. And everybodys child is your child, everybodys mother is your mother. And i love that about small towns. So my mom started a business out of the living room of our home, 30 years later it was a successful company. I started doing the books for the Family Business when i was 13. It wasnt until i got to college that i realized that was child labor. [laughter] i am not an ivy leaguer, i went to community college. I went to clemson, are there any tigers . I went on and graduated with an angry in accounting, with a degree in accounting. I am not a lawyer. Accountants are problem solvers. One day i was sitting with my mom telling her how hard it was to make a dollar and how easy it was for government to take it. And my mom said, quit complaining about it, do something about it. I did not know you worse you were not supposed to run against a 30 year incumbent. Once i realized he was related to half the district, the only option was to win. I told them we have way too many lawyers in the state house, i think we need a good accountant. The district took a chance on me and we won. My fight really was for Small Businesses at that time. After i had been there for a few years, the one thing that was happening in South Carolina if they mostly voted on things by voice vote, all in favor say aye, but one day, they voted themselves a pay raise. All in favor, say aye, all opposed, silence, the ayes have it. Yet to this day you cannot find someone who will say that they voted themselves a pay raise. I filed a bill that said anything important enough to be debated on the floor of the house or senate is important enough for people to know how their legislators voted. And the speaker of the house said, the bill away, we do not need to have it, we will decide what the public needs to see and what they dont. Well, long story short, after i decided not to put the bill away , they stripped me of everything. They stripped me of my sin euro t, he took me off all of my ash they they stripped me of all my seniority. So i ran for governor, and now anything debated on the house or senate requires a legislative vote on the record and we did it on every section of the budget. And you were listening to my playlist earlier, i love music. On the day of the bill signing, we blasted out the state house pat benatars hit me with your best shot. [applause] when i became governor, South Carolina was hurting. We had our jobs in the textile basket, when textiles went overseas, so did our jobs. We had thousands of people on welfare. And South Carolina was the book of the jokes. So we got to work. By the time i left, we were building planes with boeing, more bmws than any place the world, we brought in mercedesbenz, volvo, five International Tire companies and they were referring to us as the beast of the southeast, which i still love. [applause] we dropped that 11 unemployment down to 4 , and we acknowledged the truth. We said if you have to show picture id to get on a plane, you should have to show picture id to protect the integrity of the election voted election process. And we passed that. We passed one of the typist toughest illegal immigration laws in the country, and by the time i left, North Carolina was named the most patriotic state in the country and the number two state in the country people were moving to. Then i got the call from the united nations, and my honest answer was, i dont even know what the u. N. Does, just that everyone hates it. [laughter] i was not wrong about that, but when you get the chance to serve your country, you jump. When i got to the u. N. , i wanted countries to know what america was for and against. I did not care if they did not like me, but i wanted them to respect america, and we got to work. We pulled ourselves out of the iran deal. We passed the largest section sanctions against north korea. We moved to the embassy from tel aviv to jerusalem and acknowledged a truth. The biggest thing we did, we took the kick me sign off our back and america was respected again at the u. N. Now i am running for president and i do not need to tell you how bad things are. You do not need to turn on the news to see it. We are 34 trillion in debt. We are having to borrow money just to make our interest payments. China owns some of that debt. I would love to tell you that biden did that to us and he has sent us down the socialism creek that we have to stop because it is dangerous. But i have always spoken in hard truths and i will do that today because you deserve it. Are republicans did that to us too. You go back and look at that 2. 2 trillion covid stimulus bill that they passed with no accountability that has now expanded to where we have 100 million americans on medicaid, 42 million americans on food stamps. That is one third of our country. Did republicans try and make it right . They turned around and opened up a earmarks for the first time in 10 years, pushing through 7000 of them last december. Want to know how they spend your money . 10 million to tear down a hotel in alaska. 700 million on a courthouse in colorado, and the list goes on. In the 2024 appropriations budget, get ready, republicans put in 7. 4 billion worth of pet projects and earmarks. Democrats put in 2. 8 billion. Now you tell me who the big spenders are. All while one in six American Families cannot pay their you killing bills their utility bills, 50 of our American Families cannot afford diapers, Social Security will go bankrupt in 10 years, medicare will go bankrupt in eight. Congress has one major job. That is to fund the government. Do you know our congress has only delivered a budget on time four times in 40 years . You look at our education system. Everybody wants to blame covid for education. We had problems with education before covid. Precovid, 67 of eighth graders in our country were not proficient in reading or math. Think about that. Now, over 80 are not proficient in history or civics. They came out and said our 13yearolds are scoring at below with levels they have scored in decades in reading and math. We have got some serious issues. And all they want to do is focus on biological boys playing in girls sports . What has happened to us . Then you go and look at the border. Let me tell you, i have been to the border and i did not just go and come back. I went 400 miles down that border. You are not ready for what i saw. Mounds of clothing, paraphernalia, areas that the women and girls have to walk through. When most americans get up in the morning, they get their coffee and watch the news. When these ranchers it up in the morning, they get their coffee and see if anyone has died trying to go over the fence. I have met with multiple sheriffs. They round up whatever Illegal Immigrants they can find before 7 00 a. M. , turned them over to Border Patrol, Border Patrol documents them, and releases them until their court date years from now. When i asked Border Patrol about their job, they said, do you want to know what we do . We are glorified babysitters. They do not let us do our job. 6 million Illegal Immigrants have crossed that border. We had enough fentanyl cross the border that would kill every single american. The number one cause of death in america for adults 18 to 45, fentanyl. And dont think for a second china does not know what they are doing when they send it over. And my parents always told me, you take care of those who take care of you. I am going to ask you if we are taking care of those who take care of us. Right now in america, 33,000 veterans are homeless. One in three suffers from ptsd or thoughts of suicide. We lose 22 heroes a day to suicide. If a veteran needs a doctors appointment at the v. A. , on average it takes 29 days. Why 29 days . Because on the 30th day, they can go to the doctor or hospital of their choice. Midway through the 29 days, gate they get a call to reschedule, and the clock starts all over again. It is shameful how we treat our veterans. That is a lot of bad, right . It is hard to find anything good. Congress could have dealt with any one of those things, but what has Congress Done for you lately . Nothing. Dont you think it is finally time we had term limits in this country . [applause] dont you think it is time we have mental competency test for anyone over the age of 75 . I want to make it clear, because my mom always was like, nikki, you have got to be ladylike. I am not being disrespectful when i am saying that. We all know 75yearolds who can run circles. We know senator grassley, right . But we also know president biden. The senate has become the most privileged nursing home in the country. These are people making decisions on our National Security. These are people making decisions on the future of our economy. We need people who we know are at the top of their game, who are ready to make the hard decisions that need to be made. So now i am going to tell you what i told south carolinians when i became governor. No more whining. No more complaining. Now, we get to work. How do we fix it . When it comes to our economy, lets clawback the 500 billion dollars of unspent covid dollars that are still out there. [applause] instead of 87,000 irs agents going after middle america, lets go after the hundreds of billions of dollars of covid fraud that exists, one out of every seven dollars. If 8 of our budget is interest, quit borrowing. You have to balance a budget every day. I had to balance a budget as governor. Why is congress the only group that refuses to balance the budget . We will stop the spending, stop the borrowing, eliminate the earmarks, and i will veto any spending bill that does not take us back to precovid levels. We are for the first time saying seeing a loss of the middle class. The rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer. We are going to change that. We will start by eliminating the gas and diesel, the federal gas and diesel tax in this country. [applause] you are spending 1000 more per car, and that has got to end. The second thing we will do is collapse the tax brackets so it is simple lipid you need more cash in your pockets if we will grow the middle class. Lets stop with the unfair distortions in the tax codes. Deductions like the state and local tax deduction. All that gives is more wealth to people in blue states. Lets make the Small Business tax cuts permanent. [applause] they made the Corporate Tax cuts permanent, but they made the Small Business tax cuts temporary. If Small Businesses are the heartbeat of america, we need to make those permanent. [applause] and we will make one thing clear to the members of congress. No budget on time, no pay. No more paying them for forgetting the budget. [applause] it is their job. If anyone of us did not do our job, we would not get paid. We will also make sure that we look at the programs on the federal side, think of all of those agencies. Lets move those programs down to the state level. Think education, welfare, health care. Just imagine if we reduced the sizes of those agencies and gave it to kim reynolds to manage. Wouldnt it be so much better . [applause] that is how well in power people on the ground are to do that. And lets focus on spending caps. You cannot spend more than you make. Put spending caps based on our economy and that is how we will get things back on track. Lets focus on making sure we are paying down debt, that we are stopping the excess spending, and we are starting to value taxpayers once again. That is what we will do. When it comes to education, we knew in South Carolina if a child could not read in third grade, they were four times less likely to graduate high school, so we started holding them back. We did reading remediation programs, brought in their parents, and set them up for success. We have got to get our kids reading again. Thats take that national, do the reading remediation plan, make sure that every child in america can read. Otherwise we will be in a world of hurt 10 years from now. [applause] and there should be complete transparency in the classroom. No parent should ever wonder what is being said or talk to their child in the classroom. [applause] i know as a mom we have one job. That is to make sure we do everything we can for our kids. That is why parents need to decide which schools their kids go to. We have to give a child every child deserves an education, regardless of where they are born or raised. No child should be meditated mandated to a school based on their zip code bit lets Start Building things than america again. Lets put vocational classes back in our high schools. [applause] we had apprenticeships all over South Carolina. We taught our kids how to build the things we are making, and we did that if we did that nationally, at the state level, what you did in your vocational classes in iowa what would be different than our classes in South Carolina, but our young people would start to get invested in our economy, and that is what we want them to have. We have to remember, we have to raise strong girls. Strong girls become strong women and strong women become strong leaders. It only happens when you take biological boys out of girls sports. We have to do that. [applause] when it comes to our border, we will do what i did in South Carolina but take it a step further. We will do a National Verification program and require businesses to show everyone they are hiring is here legally. We will defund sanctuary cities once and for all. You saw what happened in philadelphia and that has got to come to an end. We will go back to the remain in mexico policy because nobody wants to remain in mexico. We will put 25,000 Border Patrol and ice agents on the ground and let them do their jobs. [applause] and instead of catch and release, we will go to catch and deport. That is how we will end what is happening on the border. [applause] and i want to talk for a second everybody talks about the border and we need to close it. But lets talk about legal immigration. It is a broken system. It should not take someone 10 years to become a citizen in the United States, but republican and mccracken president s have done this wrong. Four too long, they have done it by quotas. We will take next number this year, x number next year. Go to your industry and see what they cannot find. Think agriculture, think tourism , think tech, think construction. If there are workers that they need, we get people who do those things. Do it based on marriage. That way when you are bringing people in, it builds up our economy do it based on merit. That way when you are bringing people in, it builds up our economy as well. When it comes to veterans, the media will show us when they are deployed and the tears are shed, and they will show us when our military men and women come home. It is a blessed day. I am the wife of a combat veteran. My husband michael served in afghanistan and when he came home, we said a prayer and we knew that we were blessed. But the hard part is when we got home. He could not hear loud noises. He could not be in crowds. Life had passed him by for the year he was in afghanistan and the transition was tough. We cannot just love our men and women when they are gone. We have got to love them when they come back home too. [applause] let us help them with that transition. Lets have telehealth so they get the Mental Health care they need right when they need it. Let them go to the doctor or hospital of their choice. They have earned that right. [applause] let their g. I. Benefits go to things other than education. And if you want to know how we are going to take care of their health care, i think every member of congress should have to get their health care from the v. A. [applause] it will be the best health care you have ever seen, guaranteed. Guaranteed. So we know what we need to do to get our Domestic Health in order. But if you look at what has happened, under the Biden Administration, with the democrats, it has been chaos. Think about it. You have got spending out of control. You have got crime at all time high levels. You have got a completely open border. You have got our institutions that have been infiltrated with all of this woke ideology. We have got a world in a mess. But remember, you do not chase democrat chaos with republican chaos. We need stability. We need to pull it together. Because look at the world right now. We talked about domestic policy. Lets talk about National Security. Every one of us should have a heavy heart for what is happening in israel right now. If you look at what has been allowed to have happened, just take a moment to think about the life of his life of an israeli today. They have just finished their quiet time, shabbat. They were celebrating the new year, having time with their families, and they woke up to people invading their homes, murdering families, taking kids from a concert, dragging them down the streets. Hostages of elderly, women, and children, taken