In Three High-Profile Addresses, President Donald Trump Casts Communism as the Greatest Threat to American Liberty and Calls on Americans to Defend the Nation’s Founding Values
President Donald Trump used three recent speeches to issue one of his strongest warnings to date about what he described as a growing communist threat in the United States.
Speaking at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference on June 26, followed by remarks on July 3 and Independence Day celebrations on July 4 marking the nation's 250th anniversary, Trump urged Americans to defend the country's identity against what he characterized as a resurgence of communist ideology.
“There is now a resurgence of the communist menace in our land, including from newcomers to our country who embrace ideas totally opposed to our way of life and our great success,” Trump said on July 3. “These are not mere political disagreements like differences over taxes or regulations. Communism is a mortal threat to American liberty.”
Trump continued by describing communism as an ideology fundamentally opposed to American values.
“They don't want good. They don't love God and they don't want God. They don't love religion and they don't want religion, and they won't have it, but we will not let them win. They have no chance against us. They have no respect for law, justice, principle, tradition, or your God-given rights. It's an ideology of mass theft, mass control, mass lies, and mass murder,” he said.
The president also criticized those who teach that the United States was founded on stolen land by oppressors.
“As for those who pedal Marx's lies about our heritage, who tell our children that we live on stolen land or that our heroes were oppressors, they're doing something much worse than slandering our past, they are slandering and attacking our future,” Trump said.
Addressing thousands gathered along the National Mall on July 4 to celebrate Independence Day, Trump declared that “the communist system is the opposite of the American system, and the communist system has never worked.”
He warned that communism must not be allowed to take root in the United States.
“Our warriors did not fight communism on battlefields across the world, only to have that menace rear its ugly head right back here in America. We're not going to let it happen,” Trump said. “It's like a cancer, you got to cut it out, you got to cut it out fast.”
Trump also thanked veterans who fought against communist dictatorships during the Korean and Vietnam wars.
Earlier, during his June 26 address, Trump referred to “communists elected in New York City recently,” saying they “want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life.”
He argued that those political developments, referring to the election of self-described democratic socialist candidates, reflected a broader embrace of communist ideas.
“They're communists, they're not social Democrats,” Trump said.
In his July 3 remarks, Trump again described communism as “a mortal threat to American liberty” and called it “the greatest threat to our country.” He compared the challenge to major historical events, including World War I, World War II, the Japanese Imperial attack on Pearl Harbor, and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Trump concluded by arguing that communism has consistently produced oppression and destruction throughout history.
“It killed 100 million people just in the last century alone,” Trump said. “Communism is the exact opposite of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It's death, tyranny, and the pursuit of evil.”
