Move FM Global News

WASHINGTON DC – U.S. President Donald Trump is over the moon over the attendance and reception to his 4th July address, a large part of which was delivered off-the-cuff.

“That’s a great crowd of people. We had a phenomenal crowd last night, and it was a fantastic evening for our country,” the president told reporters on the South Lawn on Friday night prior to boarding Marine One.

Mr Trump was also confident the parading of the military would result in a rise in recruitment.

“You’re going to have a lot of people being recruited, I think, based on that. We’re going to have a lot of, a lot of people joining our military. And we really needed that,” he said.

“Our job numbers are so good that the military has a hard time getting people. And I think, really, that you’re going to see a big spike. I’ve already heard it, a lot of people calling in. No place like our military. I think we showed that last night.”

“But last night was spectacular. Yes,” Trump said.

Asked whether the military celebration was to send a message to adversaries, the president said, no. “Well, I don’t think of it in terms of that; we’re just celebrating our country. But there is nobody stronger. There’s nobody that has a military anywhere close to ours,” he said.

“As you know, we spent $700 billion. When I took over the military, it was absolutely depleted. We had old planes, we had old jets, we had bad, I mean, just stuff that was tired. Now we have the finest jets in the world: the F-35; the F-18s, the new one. We have military equipment the likes of which we’ve never had. Building submarines, building aircraft carriers, all made in the USA. So it’s a double. It’s all made …

“And our military now is just about the top, just about the best it’s ever been. There’s nobody that comes close to the power we have in our military.”

Surprisingly, the commander-in-chief also let on that the U.S., rather than working on denuclearisation, is working on buying new nuclear weapons and is renovating.

“What we have, and, in fact, if you look, our nuclear now is in great shape. We’ve renovated. We’ve fixed. We’re buying some new. Never want to use it. You never want to use it. But we have to be in a position that, we have to be in a position,” he said.

“But our nuclear is in great shape. Our military now is in great shape.”

Asked whether he planned on making the military parade an annual event, Trump was non-commital.

“Well, I can just tell you, those people that you see, there’s a lot of people in front of the White House, every one of them loved it. I would actually say, and I want to sort of give a little appreciation, the media, generally speaking, loved it. They loved the evening,” he said.

“We had a lot of rain. I stood in the rain. The teleprompter went out, so I had…”

A reporter then asked: “Is that what happened with the airport comment in the Revolutionary War?”

“Yeah, the teleprompter went out,” the president replied. “It kept going on. And then, at the end, it just went out. It went kaput. So I could have said – and, actually, right in the middle of that sentence, it went out. And that’s not a good feeling, when you’re standing in front of millions of millions of people on television, and, I don’t know what the final count was, but that went all the way back to the Washington Monument. And I guess the rain knocked out the teleprompter.”

“So, but, no, it’s not that. I knew the speech very well, so I was able to do it without a teleprompter. But the teleprompter did go out. And it was actually hard to look at anyway because there was rain all over it,” the president said.

“But, despite the rain, that was just a fantastic evening. I think people really had it. And I think a lot of people. you know, it was really a recruitment situation. A lot of people are going to be going our Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard.”

(File photo).