Speaker Johnson to RNC:"We Will Make America Safe Again!"

July 16, 2024

Milwaukee, WI –Speaker Mike Johnson, Permanent Chair of the 2024 RNC Convention, delivered remarks Tuesday evening focused on tonight's Convention theme of "Make America Safe Again."

Speaker Johnson’s remarks as delivered:

Good evening, my friends! What an amazing crowd and what a great time it is to unite our Party and to send President Donald Trump back to the White House! That's what we are going to do.

But we’re not just uniting as Republicans. We’re uniting today as Americans in the wake of the assassination attempt on the life of President Trump.

Everyone hear me clearly and listen to me at home and make no mistake: The House is conducting an immediate and thorough investigation of these tragic events and that work has already begun. The American people deserve to know the truth and we will ensure accountability. I promise you that.

This has always been an important principle to us. We in the Republican Party are the law and order team. We always have been – and we always will be — the advocates for the rule of law.

And we all know that that principle, as well as many others, is in serious jeopardy today. We’ve come to a moment in America where the basic things that we once took for granted are being openly challenged like never before.

My friends, we are no longer just in a battle between two opposing political parties. We are, but it's not just Rs vs Ds anymore. We're now in the midst of a struggle between two completely different visions of who we are as Americans, and what our country will be.

The Republican Party stands for the foundational truths that made America the greatest nation in the history of the world. We are the most free, the most powerful, the most benevolent nation that has ever been. It's not even close.

But we have no guarantee that this grand experiment in self governance can endure unless we respond to the call to keep it.

Two hundred forty eight years ago, we boldly proclaimed in our Declaration that 'all men are created equal' - not born equal - created equal. And that we're 'endowed with our Creator with certain unalienable rights.' 

See, we understand that our rights do not come from government, they come from God. There's another thing we recognize - we are made in His image. And because of that, every single person has inestimable dignity and value. And your value is not related in any way to the color of your skin, what zip code you live in, where you come from, what your talents are, or what you can contribute to society. Your value is inherent because it is given to you by your Creator. That's what we stand for.

I speak a lot about what I call the seven core principles of American conservatism. What do we stand for as Republicans, they want to know.

I think it boils down to a few things: Individual freedom, limited government, the rule of law, peace through strength, fiscal responsibility, free markets, and human dignity. Indeed, those are the seven core principles of American conservatism, but they're actually the core principles of our republic itself. And while they resonate in our hearts, and in the hearts of most Americans, the radical, woke, progressive left has disdain for those principles. They have a very different vision for what America should become. They want to tear down those foundations and remold us into some sort of borderless, lawless, Marxist, socialist utopia.

We're here to say not on our watch. We will not allow that to happen.

It was just three weeks ago that Kelly and I dropped off our oldest son at the Naval Academy. In four years, he'll graduate and he'll join the 1.3 million active duty service members who bravely defend our country. We're so proud of Jack and all our children, but like most parents today, we're concerned about their future.

America can't risk four more years of Joe Biden's weakness that has invited so much aggression by our enemies. We can't survive the dramatic increases in violence, crime, and drugs that the Democrats' policies have brought upon our communities. And we cannot allow the many millions of illegal aliens they've allowed to cross our borders to harm our citizens, drain our resources, or disrupt our elections. We will not allow it.

My friends, we are watching the principles of faith, family, and freedom that once defined our nation now being trampled under foot by the radical left. As President Trump raised his fist and gave a rally cry on Saturday, now is our time to fight, and we will!

We're in a fateful battle of ideas, my friends, and we have to recognize that. But in this battle, and in November, the American people will reject the Party of self-destruction, and they will elect the Party of peace and prosperity and opportunity. The GOP will grow our House majority, we will take back the Senate, and we will return Donald J. Trump to the White House.

Standing arm-in-arm, we will make America safe again. We reach out tonight to everyone watching at home, we invite all Americans who believe in the promise of our great nation to join us in this fateful battle. We can and we will reverse this current decline. We can restore our founding principles. And we can preserve this exceptional nation that God has entrusted to us and what Abraham Lincoln referred to as, "the last best hope of man on the Earth."

Thank you so much, God bless you, God bless our troops, and God bless America.