[applause] thank you so much for that incredibly kind introduction usually want to your parents take her that but if i'm being honest i wished our teenage daughters her that. i may get a little more respect at home. [laughter] it such an honor to be here tonight with you and the great people of allegheny county to whom you've given so much. those of you now his whole life has been about service. service to the county as a

councilman from 2015 and service to the community has a dedicated businessman and service to the party culminating in the selection as a chairman in 2019. with a lifetime of service starting long before that in the united states marine corps. told me when you. uniform on and take the oath to protect, defend and serve the country, you never stop serving. you are a true patriot and a public servant. [applause] and so is our guest of honor tonight. my dear friend senator tom cotton. [applause] tom and his wonderful wife anna have dedicated their lives to the national security of this country.

decorated combat veteran tom served the 101st airborne division. [applause] the original band of brothers and in the third infantry division the old guard at arlington cemetery after leaving the army he was elected in 2012 and since 2014 he has represented his home state of arkansas in the united states senate here is a man who wakes up every day thinking how to protect and defend america. in the senate time as a leader on the intelligence and arm services and judiciary committee when i have the honor of serving as deputy national security advisor to president trump, he was truly an invaluable advisor to the white house i remember sitting in the oval office as he helped the president develop a national security strategy

that defeated terrorist around the world and help to orchestrate the groundbreaking abraham accord that brought peace between our ally israel and arab neighbors the first piece to be had in 40 years. [applause] recently tom had a new york times best-selling the call sacred duty about his former unit, the old guard and its vigil at arlington cemetery. in it he describes a great length our nation goes to to recover honor and memorialize our fallen warriors. we do these things for them , but also for us, the living. their stories of heroism and

of patriotism remind us what is best in ourselves. and they teach all of our children what is best in america. ladies and gentlemen senator tom cotton. [applause] >> thank you. thank you all. thank you all very much for the incredibly warm welcome and thank you for that great introduction. have to say i am so grateful to be here. supposed to be here five years ago but one of my bundles of joy gave me the flu.

distinctly five years to cash my rain check that among so many patriots who made the republican party what it is today. [applause] i am so grateful for all of you for what i do for my state and nation but i cannot do that without all of you we cannot do without marianne malloy of pennsylvania, arkansas and all across america. so bless to visit. the very first person i met when i walked in the door today. a lot of you have been so kind she is still the best. [laughter] thank you marianne and sam for having me. we are at a turning point in this country. the election this year will be historic. with america under assault on the left and conservatives under attack we have to

redouble the efforts to win everywhere and that starts right here in the keystone state. [applause] that so many great candidates for governor who will reverse the policies and make sure that chief aiding and abetting goes looking for work in november. [cheers and applause] and i have to say although pat toomey is one of my favorite senators i'm confident you will not just send another republic and that someone who will be even greater than pat toomey in the united states senate. that it really is vital that we win the selection.

forget senator or governor and the house races and all across the country. to put the brakes on the biden agenda to protect this country that is what the american people expect republicans to do to protect the country and the pocketbooks and her families and communities and not seems a cap against long odds sometimes and maybe a tough job but we all need to have the courage of our convictions to do the right thing. and it reminds me of my oldest son gabriel we were reading one of his favorite books one of the children's bible stories. [applause] maybe your kid has been meeting them. is that i want to read david

versus goliath. is that i like it because the little guy is the big guy of the story. he only read at 182 times by then. [laughter] i said that's great. he said daddy do you know who the bad guys were? he said the philippines. [laughter] i thank you mean the philistines? he said oh yes yes. the philistines. so then the moment if at all with the many new line eight daddy do you know why a david was able? i said why? because he believed in god who gave him the courage to do what was right. [applause] so like a drill sergeant in

basic training said you need to do the hard right over the easy wrong maybe they are reliving the days of their drill sergeant my recruiter may have said i have done the hard thing or the foolish thing. went in to see him is that i want to sign up for the hard thing. what you want to do? i want to go to officer school infantry and then airborne school and go downrange. what you do for a living? i was dressed like this and a lot of people go into recruiting station stress like this. [laughter] i said i'm a lawyer. the army needs a jag if you

are motivated to go overseas it's only six treatments of training to be a captioner lieutenant and make more money. i said i want to be infantry and go downrange he said you had a very good lawyer are you. [laughter] [applause] he was right about that that i was able to join and then become part of the 9/11 generation from thousands of americans all walks of life to answer the call to do our duty after the towers were struck to defend our freedom around the world. nothing special about us. we did what all the generations of americans going back from 1776 had done. all those young men and women is pictures i saw this

afternoon driving in from the airport and saw the banner on the light post pennsylvania zone to them given their life in service of their country to go back decades and centuries to honor every day in your communities here in pennsylvania. because we know them everything we have today and we over to them to defend this great country just like they did. [applause] and who will do it if republicans want? the democrats don't have what it takes to defend this country and keep it safe. joe biden doesn't. joe biden has forgotten that the surest way to preserve the peace is to maintain our strength.

only the strong can survive in a dangerous world. only the strong can preserve their freedom. only the strong can protect the week. only the strong can afford to be merciful. but yet joe biden's weakness has unleashed chaos and conflict all around the world. it was barely six months ago when we saw the collapse of kabul and when joe biden left behind hundreds of americans, thousands of brave afghans to have served alongside of us and he called that an extraordinary success. ladies and gentlemen that is not an extraordinary success. i'm sorry that is defeats with dishonor and republicans will

never let it happen again. [applause] we were humiliated in front of the world in afghanistan because of joe biden's incompetence. we lost 13 brave troopers who never should've been there. and, is it any surprise that one month after kabul fell that vladimir putin began to amass forces on the border. because weaknesses provocative he saw what happened in afghanistan and since the day joe biden took office. a series of weak and one-sided concessions whether it is a bad arms control treaty or add

gas pipeline running through germany or a fancy summit in your. or the refusal to retaliate from cyberattacks of the colonial pipeline and other infrastructure. and he thought joe biden cannot stand up to a depraved seventh century band of savages in afghanistan. there is no way he can stand up to a nuclear russia in europe. and unfortunately, four months, he didn't. we saw in october and november and december and january, it may not have been public but i promise you that we knew it. and we never signal to russia that we wouldn't stand for it. all of the weapons that are rushing to ukraine right now we did not rush there in those

months. all the solutions we impose on russia we did not impose them. every step of the way, president biden signaled we would stand idly by while russia invaded a sovereign nation 45 million souls. unfortunately that is exactly what happened three weeks ago. now, i will from some of the steps he has taken since then but i have to say he is still pussyfooting around ham hot and hedging. not sharing intelligence and shares a little bit more, but not providing antiaircraft missiles. telling ukraine it's okay if poland gets you the aircraft but it would be a dangerous provocation of the united states gave them to you. how does that figure? exactly the logic he had all last fall and winter you

cannot send weapons to ukraine because vladimir putin might invade if we do. how foolish does that look in retrospect? every step of the way, president biden has been dragged kicking and screaming to do what we should have done weeks ago. weather by president zelensky or the bravery of the ukrainian people or republicans or congress. and if he will take the steps necessary, then i promise you i and republicans in the congress well. we will make sure. [applause] because ukraine has earned the right to defend its territory and defend its people. and i have to tell you i was so heartened on the drive-in that in addition to seeing the

banners honoring america's fallen, to see multiple homes just to see the flag flying outside but you can find yourself. some of those homes along to descendents of ukrainians for the home nation and to support it i have seen so many people and the ukrainian flag or a within in ukraine's national colors. were father jason. [applause] >> i'm not sure you heard the

story. the ukrainian catholic church recently returned from ukraine where he helped to save 22 orphaned babies class he and his associates take 22 souls who might otherwise sally be featured in a video that president zelensky showed us yesterday the slaughter of innocent. these people have earned the right to defend themselves. they have earned the right to have unconditional support of the american people and american arms. we should arm every last ukrainian in the country to spend their territory and reclaim their freedom.

>> what you see and ukraine is the responsibility of other putin through the war of aggression without provocation but also and also those to conclude president biden who did not take them seriously and did not stop and with the lessons of history that is the price of weakness in the world. and that has unleashed the world and we pay for and ukrainian people are paying dearly for and until they stand up to it and until we stand up to brutal dictators i president xi in china.

we will risk paying for it more in the future. .. .. 1970s. we have russia invading other countries. we have an energy crisis.

we have gas prices through the roof and an incompetent democrat in the white house. pretty soon, joe biden is probably going to tell you to turn down thermostat and put on a sweater. some may be already doing that because of the price of your heating bills. these prices are not affordable for working americans. and what's worse, we've done it to ourselves by canceling the keystone pipeline, refusing to approve the export facilities, by canceling leases on public lands and permits. what do we do when we ban the import of russian oil, we go begging to those like iran and

venezuela. there is more than enough in pennsylvania alone to replace what we import from russia if we would produce it right here in america. [applause] what's the solution, the solution is $4.50 a gallon. that isn't a problem for the democrats. that is what they want. they told you that for years because they want you to get out of your pickup truck and suv. they want you to live downtown in high-rises and take the subway where the train and ride an electric moped or whatever it is he takes to work every day this week. [laughter] he wants you to drive the 55,000-dollar electric car to work. a car that couldn't get you on one charge to cleveland sports

pittsburgh. this is what they cannot have and that is why it's so important that we stand up and fight back. joe biden said he wants to make things great except for oil and gas. if we are going to protect our country and pocket books from the inflation and produce that oil and gas that means we have to protect workers right here in america. we have to protect them from decades of bad trade deals which to be honest were pursued by both parties too often.

that includes two of the disastrously wrong decisions of the generation giving communist china permanent normal trade relation. congress just voted today to revote permanent normal trade relations and we should vote tomorrow to do the same thing. [applause] we have the world's communist superpower. the most dangerous adversary and they've done it through every crime in the books through illegal dumping and subsidies, current manipulation, economic espionage, intellectual property theft, even the use of slave labor to this day and it costs us dearly. here it cost 30% of what your

manufacturing jobs. 230,000 families without a breadwinner because of these failed trade policies. it's time to turn them around and protect our workers and make sure that they have good high paying manufacturing jobs in the united states. [applause] it's not just open trade policies, its open border policies for the last 30 years as well. for too long the country has imported cheap illegal labor to take american jobs and drive down american wages and it needs to stop now. [applause] i know we are a long way from the mexican border right now, but 100,000 of our fellow citizens died last year of opioid overdose.

100,000. when 100,000 americans are dying every year, every state is a border state and every town is a border town and it's time to secure the border. [applause] yet it's not just illegal immigration at the border. it's time to crack down on employers who abuse the laws and higher illegal labor to take america's workers jobs. [applause] i hear all the time there's going to be ceos that don't like that and tell me that america won't do the job, there's no job that hard-working americans will not do. [applause] my response why don't you pay them more and give them better training and more benefit and why don't you treated them a tra

little bit better. that's what the republican party should stand for. [applause] it threatens our communities and i want to talk now about the republican party's responsibility to protect the communities and families and kids. crime is skyrocketing all across the country. it's driven in no small part by the open border and the drugs and illegal criminals crossing the border. the democrats want to condemn the criminal justice system as inherently racist. and i know the prosecutors into the sheriffs and the police officers i met tonight find that deeply offensive, and i find it deeply offensive despite what the democrats belief. every stage of the criminal

justice system, systematically racist. so what do they want to do? when you get arrested and charged with a crime they want to eliminate the bail system and they want to reduce sentences and limit them in mandatory minimums, and what has resulted? the worst increase in the murder rate on record. those hundred thousand drug overdoses last year nationwide, 5,000 right here in the keystone state. thirteen of your fellow citizens on average every day, dying in pennsylvania from drugs largely coming across the wide open border. you've got those like larry in philadelphia who refuse to even

prosecute serious crime. you have a third of all criminals out of jail, what you think happens? a 40% increase in the murder rate. democrats want to defund the police and undermine the rule of law. they want an excuse and to apologize for all criminals and that is not what republicans do. we stand up for law enforcement and we always backed the blue. we will never defund the police. [applause] and we believe that there is one place for criminals. it's behind bars. it's time to lock them up once again until the streets and the communities are safe. that's what the american people

expect from us. that's what we have to deliver for them. that's the kind of future that our kids deserve. to be able to walk to school in the morning without fear. to let them go to a park and playing without fear. we can deliver that kind of safety again. and speaking of our kids, they deserve a lot better than they've gotten over the last two years. from the school lockdowns to the zuma schools to the mask mandates, we have abandoned a generation of kids to two years of terrible learning goals that they will never recover from because democratic governors and joe biden all want to control

your kids lives better then youu can control them yourselves. republicans will always stand up for the rights to teach and raise their kids the way they wish. [applause] it is a sad fact those kids are never going to get those two years back and the kids that lost the most are the ones that are most vulnerable who are least privileged, who needed it the most. one thing we could do to give a measure of justice is to fire tony fauci. [applause] i don't know if you agree with me or not but i don't think that he's right very often and rather

than sitting in the white house trying to dictate how our kids are going to learn or how our businesses are going to operate sitting on cnn or msnbc pontificating about things which he knows nothing i think would be pretty better for him to answer to the congress and the american people for his repeated lies about the pandemic and excluding those that likely caused the pandemic. [applause] but you know, sadly and as bad as it was to have those kids walking to school for so long in some ways it even is worse what they are exposed to in the curriculum when they go back to school. [applause] we have a bunch of left-wing radicals in our schools that

can't even teach our children long division because they are too busy teaching them racial division. [applause] they are teaching them to hate their country. indoctrinating them with their strange radical views and the youngest ages as opposed to teaching them the skills they need to succeed in the world and teaching them that this is a good and noble country and they should love this country and stand up and salute its flag. [applause] republicans united at your nextt governor along with the legislature are going to turn things around. we are going to make sure that you are in charge of your kids

education and that your kids get the skills they need and that they are not taught to hate america or hate each other by banning critical race theory from our schools across the country. [applause] i know all this seems like a big test. i know sometimes it seems like but i traveled pretty widely and talked to a lot of our fellow citizens and there are millions of americans just like you. they may not come to the republican party event, but they are with us. it protects them and protects their family. i promise you, there are

millions of people out there just like you. sometimes you meet them in the strangest most unexpected places. a while back joe biden had a crazy nominee in front of one of my committees. i know that doesn't narrow down very much. [applause] all americans harbor racial bias so i asked simply who do you harbor racial bias against? let's just say she was tongue-tied and didn't have an answer. the next day i was walking to vote down the halls of the senate and passed a capital police officer who was african-american and we'd known each other for six years. we don't talk politics. we consider it unprofessional unless they raise it.

talk about our kids, the weather, sports. i said i didn't know you sit around watching committee hearings. he said i don't normally, but i heard about it so i went home and watched it. my son is a junior in college and they've been filling his head with of these lies and nonsense the moment he stepped on campus. i told him since he was a kid that america doesn't owe him anything. we owe america everything and it was good for him to hear from a united states senator what his dad has been telling him for the last 20 years. [applause] i could tell stories like that all night long.

i will leave you with one last story. i used to get asked when i was in the army and still do sometimes why is the flag reversed on our soldiers uniforms? and it is on the right shoulder. i see some heads nodding from my fellow army veterans. it goes back to the days of calvary churches. they carried the colors with them if you were standing on the right side of the formation and it's still reversed on the uniform today even though they are long gone to remind our enemies and friends alike that our army never retreats. it always advances, and at a

time when america is under assault and conservatives are under attack, it is a pretty good lesson for all of us we will never surrender and we will never back down to protect this great country. ladies and gentlemen, god bless you, god bless pennsylvania and the united states of america. [inaudible conversations]

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preschool programs. this is two hours and ten minutes.