Editor’s Note: The following could be a transcript of comments that President Donald Trump will deliver Monday afternoon during his visit to Utah to shrink the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. But it probably isn’t.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you all, thank you very, very much.
My fellow Americans, it is such an honor for you to have me here in the great state of Utah. A huge honor. I was just told backstage that this is the largest crowd ever gathered — ever — in this state. So many people. Just tremendous.
The last time I was in Utah was just before the Republican primary, when 70 percent of you Republicans voted for Zodiac Ted Cruz and not me. No hard feelings. Then, in the election, most of you didn’t vote for me. OK. Now the polls show most of you still don’t like me.
But here I am. You’re stuck with me.
I want to welcome Gov. Gary Herbert, Sen. Mike Lee, members of your congressional delegation, but especially my dear friend, Orrin Hatch. Orrin, as you know, just passed a massive, massive tax cut bill, the largest tax cuts in history. Cut all the taxes. It’s going to save me a lot of money. Huge. Not that you’ll ever see my taxes, but it’s more than most of you will make in a lifetime. So much money, I’ll be able to keep paying Jared Kushner’s legal bills. So thank you, Orrin.
Orrin has been in the Senate for a long time. And the failing media keeps making up fake polls that say Utahites want him to retire. But I need his help, because I’m draining the swamp, and nobody knows the swamp like Orrin Hatch. So let’s hope we can get Orrin to run. Or at least get him to shuffle a little bit.
Orrin has been such a loyal friend, the least I could do is come out here today and get rid of a couple national monuments. It fits my administration’s main focus on rolling back the legacy of the last president who, maybe he was born in this country, maybe he wasn’t. We may never know.
This morning, I was fortunate enough to tour Welfare Square. And welfare is bad. We want jobs. Great jobs. So many jobs. But you Mormons can do things how you want.
The Mormons — such great people — have been in this state a long, long time. So long. Orrin knows. He was there. You Mormons came here with all of your wives and settled this land when there was nothing and then had more wives. It’s amazing. And I’ve had my share of wives, but what you did was really so, so remarkable.
And at some point there were also Indians. Great Indians. And I’m listening to the Indians and what they want. I have tremendous respect for Indians, except that one, you know, that one in Congress. My staff made me promise I wouldn’t say “Pocahontas” during this speech, so I won’t, but you know who I’m talking about. She’s a nasty, nasty woman.
Pocahontas. There, I said it. I feel better now.
The tribes — and I love all the tribes, such great tribes — overwhelmingly support the Bears Ears monument. But my Interior Secretary, Ryan Zinke, came out here last summer to listen to people who didn’t want a monument and reported back that those people really, really don’t want the monument. It’s a very, very hard situation.
So I’m making a deal. It’s what I do. I make the best deals. And I am announcing today the new monument that will protect one bears ear, and I’m letting the tribes choose which one. It’s a good deal, a great deal, and I’m really very, very pleased with it and I know you will be too.
The Grand Staircase is another story. That monument was created by Bill Clinton who is married to Loser Lying Hillary who can’t get over the election. It’s sad to watch. She just can’t move on. It was a year ago and she always brings it up. It’s pathetic.
But if there’s one thing I know it’s grand staircases and let me tell you, yours is not that grand. Have you seen the gold escalator in Trump Tower? That is a thing of beauty.
So right after we finish the border wall, I have asked Secretary Zinke and a tiny, unknown and unqualified contracting firm from his hometown in Montana to build the grandest golden escalator you Utahnians have ever seen. It’s going to be spectacular and you’ll really enjoy it.
The rest of the monument will be dedicated to mining coal. But we won’t just put people back to work mining the coal. Because we want clean coal. The cleanest. So we’ll put people to work cleaning coal, too. Scrubbing it until it sparkles. And we will keep those thousands of coal washing jobs right here in America because nobody washes coal better than American coal washers.
So I look forward to coming back here before long and visiting your Bears Ear Monument, whichever one it is, and riding that escalator and enjoying all that wonderful clean coal and we can remember that today was the day that we made Utah great again.
Thank you, and God bless Utah and God bless my defense attorneys.
