Good morning it's great to be with you all again. And when I say again, I was here almost exactly a year ago with you. What a 14 months it has been, what 12 months it has been—14 months of this administration.

By the way, I was out talking to you some this morning. The most common question was like how'd you lose all that weight? It's hard work and pray that I can keep it off would y'all? I would appreciate that.

I got asked this morning too, do, do you miss the pressure? Aren't you glad you're out of the fire. I miss every single minute of it; I wish that we were back there leading America.

Look, let's go. Let's go through. Let's go through the list of just these these past 14 months. What's changed.

When I talked to you last year, I spoke about all the things that President Trump and I had done here and abroad for America to protect each and every one of you.

In the last 14 months, we've seen governors that don't wear masks but requiring three year olds to do so.

We've seen a man break swimming records in girls swimming races.

We've seen a Russian dictator now terrorize the Ukrainian people, because America didn't demonstrate the resolve that we did for the four years prior.

In the last 12 months, we've seen that now it's okay to steal something as long as it's worth less than thousand bucks. A minor incursion, if you will, into Walgreens.

We've seen the number of border crossers on our southern border go up by four times, something that we would never have permitted to happen.

And we've seen, and we've seen a debacle in Afghanistan that had the result of 13 Americans not come home to their families. I want to take this one minute. I know I was a soldier. Many of you probably served in Afghanistan. Many of you would have friends and family. I want to take just a minute to tell every one of you, I know watching what happened in Afghanistan was hard, and it was difficult, and it was depressing. And some of you have questioned whether your service was just wasted.

As a former Secretary of State, I want you to know that the work that you did in Afghanistan saved American lives. I saw it firsthand, that your work was noble and important. And this Secretary of State, and  this Secretary of State wants you to know that I love you, I thank you for your service. God bless you; you saved American lives.

You know the other day, President Biden said—he was in one of his moments, he's kind of wandering around—he said, well, they're against all these things that I'm doing. What are Republicans for?

So let's go through the list.

First. First, we're making sure he doesn't own a single branch of government just as quickly as we possibly can.

Second, you saw this with President Trump. We were disruptors; we were prepared to break glass when what the establishment was doing made no sense. We were preparing to break it. Republicans are prepared to do the right thing to protect the American way of life everywhere and always.

You should know that we defended that border protecting American sovereignty. We built the wall. We changed the course of history by telling folks if you want to come to America, this greatest nation in the history of civilization sounds great. [Inaud] then go back and wait. When we did that, we changed and we provided security for the United States of America.

We protected every human life. I couldn't be more proud of the fact that when I came in to be Secretary of State, your dollars, your money, your hard-earned money that was being paid in American taxes was going to foreign countries and being used to promote abortion around the world. And in an instant we stopped it and saved countless lives.

I remember too, I remember we were the barbarians, we were the rubes, we didn't know what we were doing. Look pretty competent now.

I say that not in joy but in sorrow. Because America demands good leadership, and the world is depending upon it.

When when the Iranians were threatening our friends in Israel, and when a general in Iran was trying to further his plan to take more American lives, we did the right thing. We restored deterrence. We did not send 50,000 soldiers across the world. We took a strike that changed history. We, we struck Qasem Soleimani so he would never kill another American.

We made clear, we made clear to our friends everywhere that we were going to be friends with our friends, and we moved the United States embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem recognizing that place.

And when I traveled on Good Friday of 2018 on a mission that the President had given me to meet with Chairman Kim to tell that ruthless leader—who had sent a young American home from detention only to die—I went to see Chairman Kim to tell him that we were prepared to do the right thing, but Chairman Kim must do the right thing; he must release American hostages. And we got all three of the American hostages home. And we and we did not take one penny of yours and give it to a bad guy to get them back. We simply presented American power. We convinced Chairman Kim not to do any nuclear testing, not to conduct long range missile testing.

And as I, as I stare at the world today and our security right here at home, the things that matter to us in our everyday lives, the capacity to take care of our families and the ability to know that we can safely walk our streets without the threat of bad guys from around the world presenting risk to us—the risk of terror the risk of bad folks and drugs coming across our southern border, the threat of the invasion of our nation from the Chinese Communist Party, America was in a better place. And today we should continue the fight, we should continue to fight to make sure that that is so in the future.

I want to talk about the things that matter to Americans right here at home. We see on our TV, the bombs the missiles, the Soviet tanks, the Russian tanks moving across Ukraine. My first assignment when I was a young lieutenant, was I was in a border unit patrolling what was then the East German border. It was the last time we had Americans in Europe standing face to face with the Russians. How did we prevail? It was peace through strength, that was Reagan's model. It was the model that we use for four years in the Trump administration. We put America first and we told people around the world, you cannot tread on us.

You should know that I worked for four years on things across the world. I was trying my best to make sure that America was always at the forefront of my mind when I worked with our adversaries and helped our friends.

I could see that the greatest threat from abroad was the Chinese Communist Party. We worked on it abroad. We tried to make sure that the jobs that they had stolen in the United States would no longer be stolen, and that the hard work that Americans did here would be rewarded with a set of trade deals that actually made sense to the United States of America. I'm incredibly proud of what we were able to accomplish.

And I wish I could tell you that the China problem is just all over there; it was something we could turn away from. It's what frankly, the bipartisan establishment Democrat, Republican alike had believed for decades. We sell them a little bit more and life would be good. I wish it were so. But what happens in Beijing does not stay in Beijing. It's why I made the decision to close the Chinese consulate in Houston, Texas. You should know that did not make me any friends at the United States Department of State. You should also know that I didn't really give a rip.

We did it because, we made the decision because the way they were operating one of the largest  spy rings ever operated inside the United States out of that very consulate. They were stealing the secrets from the University of Texas Medical System and our energy companies and we just, it was intolerable, and we just said no we're not going to take it anymore. And we shut it down. Common sense applied to protecting each and every one of you.

Today they're inside our colleges and universities. They're working on local governments our mayors and our governors. You should demand that your mayor, your county commissioner, your school board member, your governor doesn't kowtow, does not bend a knee to the Chinese Communist Party. And your state pension systems, your state pension systems—any of you, any of you are teachers or worked for government, pay money into state pension systems, you should make sure that your state pension system isn't underwriting the very weapons that the Chinese Communist Party may one day use to attack our great nation. It's unacceptable. It's irrevocably evil and we can do better.

You know, we just had a president do nothing to prevent our young best athletes in the world from traveling to Beijing. And all we did was tell them take a burner phone like a drug dealer. Right? Be very quiet. Don't expect, don't, don't use your rights as an American to say the things you care about. Because if you do those bad guys where you're going to compete, well, they just may not let you come home.

We could have done more. We could have prevented [inaud.] from being there. We could have made sure our athletes could do their best and compete across the world without the jackbooted thug Xi Jinping staring them down, taking their DNA, and forever changing the course of history.

These are the things we're for. These are the things Republican, where we know our founding... We know that this is a nation with a deep Judeo-Christian footing, mooring. We must defend it at every turn.

I've done this, I've done this ever since I was a young cadet. I was even thinner then. My friends joke that I boxed at 172. I was 172 pounds; I am not scaring 172 today.

We need to be prepared to stay in that fight. We need to defend these things. There's no room on the things that matter most—that parents get to direct their kids' education, that our schools should be open, our churches should be open. These are things we know in our heart matter to the next generation. We should make sure in those schools and in our churches, we are teaching the greatness of the United States of America. It is an imperative.

I battled, I battled adversaries all across the world. I battled adversaries all across the world. I met with the Taliban; I met with Chairman Kim, I met with Xi Jinping. There is no threat greater to the United States than that which emanates inside our republic, emanates inside our school system. If we do not teach our children in the next generation that we are not a racist nation than surely the bad guys—if we do not teach them that we are not a racist nation, then surely the bad guys will come to be right about in America in decline. It is not true. We will prevent it from being so.

I want to close with this. I have spent these last 14 months watching what's going on in Washington with great trepidation. But doing what I need each and every one of you to do. What my wife and I are committed to doing. We're gonna go stay in this fight.

I have been so heartened. I've traveled from Tennessee to California—yes, even California—I've traveled to Ohio. I was in Iowa last night. I was back here in Florida earlier this week, this weekend past, traveled all across the country helping good candidates who have decided to to give of themselves back to their community. I have watched people who didn't even know where their school board meetings were being held say I'm going to run for school board.

I've watched people sacrifice so much of their own to go fight for what matters in city council races and county commission races and for district attorneys, district attorneys, don't we know now how much that matters.

Let's be in the fight. Let's never give an inch. Let's never compromise. Let's stand on the very things that allowed you to have all the opportunity you have had in the world, that brought you here to CPAC to stand on this conservative platform, and clearly speak to America and say humbly, but boldly, this is the greatest nation of civilization and it is not going to change on my watch.

Thank you. May God bless you all. And may God continue to bless this great nation. Thank you all so much.