America’s cup is overflowing this Thanksgiving, according to President Trump.
Trump spent Thursday morning talking to troops around the globe, and then meeting with Coast Guardsmen in Florida to praise them for their effort to help hurricane-ravaged areas of the country this year.
He used his remarks to remind servicemembers that America’s economy was roaring, and that his government would soon use that new wealth to boost the U.S. military even further.
“The economy is doing really great,” he said in a Skype address to troops. “When you come back, you are going to see with the jobs and companies coming back into our country and the stock market just hit a record high. Unemployment is the lowest it’s been in 17 years.”
“We want to have a country, where I can buy new Coast Guard cutters, and not have to worry about it, alright?” he told the Coast Guard. “And that’s what we’re doing, we’re building up wealth, so that we can take care of our protection.”
Wealth generated from the soaring stock market, he said, would help reverse years of cuts to the military.
“We’re ordering tremendous amounts of new equipment — we’re at 700 billion dollars for the military,” he said. “And, you know, they were cutting back for years. They just kept cutting, cutting, cutting the military. And you got lean, to put it nicely — it was depleted, was the word. And now it’s changing.”
And the tax cuts he has promised will also help, he said. The Senate meets next week in an effort to get a tax cut bill across the finish line, and Trump said those “big, fat, beautiful tax cuts” would do even more to spur growth and help America afford more national security infrastructure.
“And hopefully we’ll get that and then you’re really going to see things happen,” he said.
Trump also gave his administration credit for ending the Obama administration’s policy of leaving Afghanistan by a certain date, and installing a new plan of making sure Afghanistan is stable before leaving.
“I have to say just directly to the folks in Afghanistan: everybody’s talking about the progress you’ve made in the last few months since I opened it up,” he said in his Skype broadcast. “We opened it up, we said go ahead, we’re going to fight to win.”
“We’re not fighting anymore to just walk around, we’re fighting to win, and you people are really, you’ve turned it around over the last three to four months like nobody’s seen, and they are talking about it, so thank you very much,” Trump added.
Trump also said his unshackled military is finally making progress against the Islamic State, which some saw as another slam against President Obama.
“What you’re doing with ISIS is again, being talked about. … We’re being talked about again as an armed forces,” he said to the leader of the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion in Iraq.
“We’re really winning. We know how to win,” he said. “But we have to let you win. They weren’t letting you win before. They were letting you play even. We’re letting you win.”
But Trump also made it clear that members of the military were playing a critical role in bolstering U.S. national security around the world.
“We love you. We really do. We love you,” he said. “And this is a Thanksgiving that you won’t forget. You’re in a very different part of the world than you were used to, but boy are you doing a job there. And thank God for you. Thank God for you.”
