America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.
Dr. Ben Carson, Trump’s former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, speaks at the 2024 Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
Transcript
Announcers: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome former United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson.
Ben Carson: Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. You know. Sarah Huckabee always says to me, I hate to follow you, but I think she turned the table on me tonight. I want to thank you all for being here and for being involved. Like many of you, last week I watched with horror as the events unfolded in that Pennsylvania field. I saw President Trump, a dear friend, escape death by mere inches, and my thoughts immediately turned to the book of Isaiah that says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. Well, let me tell you the weapons that they use.
First, they tried to ruin his reputation, and he’s more popular now than ever. And then they tried to bankrupt him, and he’s got more money now than he had before. And then they tried to put him in prison, and he’s freer and has made other people free with him. And then, and then last weekend they tried to kill him. And there he is, over there, alive and well.
You know, I have no doubt that God lowered a shell of protection over President Trump. And I joined millions of Americans in thanksgiving for President Trump’s safety. And I encourage you to join me in praying each day for his continued protection. You know our hearts, our hearts go out to the victims in the audience. Let us also pray for them and their families.
These events have brought unusual clarity to the times we are living in. We have all harbored the nagging feeling that everything we love is slipping away. All you have to do is turn on the television. The free press, a pillar of any free society, has abused the public trust and resorted to lies, deception and disinformation.
They divide us along lines of race, class, and gender rather than uniting us around our shared bond as Americans. Our government has been no better, shredding our Constitution and upending the rule of law. We have a wide open border, a broken education system, and chaos breaking out around the world. And on top of it all, we have a president who, well, if you can’t say anything good, don’t say anything at all.
But ask anyone around the world, what does, what does it mean to be an American? Most will tell you that it means unlimited opportunity. That where you begin in life doesn’t dictate where you will end. That, that’s the America I grew up in. And in no other country could a poor, inner city kid, raised by a single mom, make it to an Ivy League school, then to medical school, become a successful neurosurgeon, run for President, and eventually become a member of the President’s cabinet.
You know, and as a member of his cabinet, I had a chance to work closely with him. And I got to tell you, this is a man who is a gift to us as a nation. He is very gifted, he is very smart, he is very compassionate, he cares about people. But I tell you, the first time I met him was before either of us got into the political arena. And somewhat, we were at Mar-A-Lago, and someone came up to him said Mr. Trump. Rod Stewart just walked in and he said, I don’t care, this is Ben Carson.
But I feel blessed that I’ve been able to live the American dream. But my story is moving further out of reach in America today. The lessons my mother taught me, like hard work and the value of well-rounded, patriotic education and faith in God above all else, are being forced out of the public square. But we’re all here today because we know we can bring these things back.
By God’s grace, we live in a country where the people rule. We have the power to choose the kind of nation we will be, and the kind of men and women that will lead us. And today, the choice could not be more clear. The most repeated phrase in the Bible is this, do not be afraid or fear not. It appears 365 times in Scripture, a reminder to live each day with faith, hope, and joy, as joyful warriors for Christ.
And, and when God is with us, nobody can stand against us. With this assurance from the Almighty, even the face of evil itself cannot shake our resolve. We will keep fighting, We will keep praying, and by the grace of God, we will save our country, and reelect President Trump together with Vice President Vance this November.
And I want you to remember this. In 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville came to America to study our nation, because the Europeans were fascinated. They wanted to know how could the nation, barely 50 years old, already compete with them on virtually every level? So he looked at our government, and he was duly impressed by our checks and balances and separation of powers. And then he looked at our business environment. He was duly impressed by how we encourage entrepreneurship and innovation. And he looked at our educational system, and he was blown away by the fact that he could find a mountain man in the middle of the woods who couldn’t read, who could tell him about the Declaration of Independence. But the thing that impressed him the most was when he went to our churches, and he heard those inspirational sermons from the pulpits that inspired a ragtag bunch of militiamen to defeat the most powerful army in the world, and gave the American people a moral base.
And, and he concluded his two volume set Democracy in America with these words. He said, America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great. It is our job to make America good. And let’s do this by reelecting President Trump so we can make America great.
Thank you very much.