Stefanik Receives The Ronald Reagan Defender of Freedom Award, Addresses Faith And Freedom Coalition Conference

Watch her full speech here.

Chairwoman Elise Stefanik’s address as delivered:

“Thank you so much, Ralph. It is truly a humbling honor to be here today. But let’s get this energy up. Are we ready in 136 days to fire Joe Biden and Save America

Are we ready to reelect my good friend and your good friend, President Donald J. Trump? Yes, we are. 

Again, it is truly an honor to be here today and I want to first start by saying thank you, thank you to each and every one of you for your grassroots efforts every day from all you do across the country at the local, regional, state and national level. 

This is the most important election in our lifetime. We know that this election is different, that the stake of our nation, the protection of our Constitution, are on the ballot this November. We have to leave everything on the field to save our great nation and save the American Dream. And President Trump is the only one who will be able to get that done.

I also want to thank Ralph for his extraordinary leadership. He has been a leader in the conservative movement from a very young age, he is a wonderful friend as is his family to mine. I’ve gotten to know him on the campaign trail, particularly as we’ve worked to support President Trump and Republicans up and down the ballot. So to earn this award and be presented by Ralph, such an esteemed conservative leader, it’s truly a humbling honor for me. 

Let’s talk about what’s at stake this election cycle we have seen under Joe Biden crisis after crisis. Let’s start with the historic Biden Border Catastrophe. This is the most wide open catastrophic border crisis in our nation’s history. And let me tell you, it’s not just our Southern Border. I know we have so many Southern Border states who are here represented today, but it is our border across the country and our Northern Border. I was just up in my district in Upstate New York meeting with Border Patrol and we’ve seen more illegals crossing than ever before, including individuals on the terrorist watch list. And the American people are smart. They know that the millions of illegals that have poured into our country are because of Joe Biden’s unconstitutional, illegal executive actions, wiping away President Trump’s most effective border security policies in our nation’s history. That’s why when President Trump says he will secure the border, build the wall, end catch and release, restore Remain in Mexico policy. We know what the most secure border is in our nation’s history and it’s President Trump’s border security policies. Those are on the ballot this November.

And it’s not just border states, as I mentioned, whether your Northern Border states or Southern Border states, every district every state is a border state and border district. Every community is a border district, the leading cause of death for young Americans is fentanyl poisoning, which is flowing in across our borders because of this border catastrophe. We’re going to run and we’re going to win on securing the border.

On top of the border crisis, we also have the Bidenflation Crisis, the highest rate of inflation in my lifetime. If you talk to hardworking Americans, which I do every day, I was just in my district, visiting small businesses, visiting with members of the workforce, visiting with hardworking families. This inflation is crushing hardworking families going to the grocery store every week the price of eggs, I’m a new mom the price of diapers, the price of baby formula, the price of food, bacon, meat, it goes up and up and it’s a direct result of Joe Biden’s failed Biden economics policies which have hurt catastrophically families, small businesses, manufacturers and farms. Compare that with the America First economic boom that we saw under President Trump. 

We’re going to restore American greatness. We’re going to restore the great America First economy, and we will get that done. House Republicans working with President Trump to fight back and crush this inflation that has been hurting so many families. 

And we also, and this is tied to the economic crisis we’re seeing, the inflation crisis under Joe Biden, the Energy Crisis. On day one, Joe Biden declared war on American energy independence and hardworking Americans are footing the bill. We’re paying more for utilities. Paying more at the pump. All of those energy costs continue to go up. We’re having to rely on unAmerican energy. We must be the energy leader in the world. We know that under President Trump on day one, we will unleash American energy independence, the hundreds of thousands of jobs that come from that, the billions of economic growth that come from those policies, we will get that done.

We also have a catastrophic Crime Crisis. And I can speak to that from a traditionally blue state like New York, where we have seen Democrats that control all levers of government, advocate for defunding the police, for failed bail reform which allows violent criminals to return back to our streets. We have a crime crisis in places like San Francisco, New York City, other places across America. But what the American people are seeing through, is at the same time as this catastrophic crime crisis, we’re seeing the illegal weaponization of our courts and radical district attorneys like Alvin Bragg going after Joe Biden’s chief political opponent, that is Donald J. Trump. It is a form of election interference. It is illegal, it is unconstitutional.

We must do everything we can as the American people to make sure that we restore equal justice under the law, that we stand up against this radicalization, this corruption of our courts. I’ve been proud, as a member of the New York delegation and just a proud New Yorker, to file ethics complaints against Alvin Bragg, the corrupt process, the jury selection process.

Think about this. It is so corrupt that in the jury selection process the jurors were asked, do you follow any social media accounts of President Donald J. Trump? If any of them said yes, they were not allowed to serve on the jury. They were not asked that about Joe Biden. They jury shopped and then they illegally judge shopped. The fact that this is a judge that donated to Joe Biden, it is corrupt, corrupt to the core. And on top of that, the judge’s direct family members are some of the chief fundraisers for radical Democrats like Adam Schiff, fundraising off of this illegal lawfare court case going after President Donald J. Trump. We must save our country at the ballot box this November. It will be the American people that save the Constitution and save this country and fight back.

And I will tell you this is part of the reason why recently you’ve seen President Trump gaining in poll after poll. He is ahead in every swing state. But importantly, even states like New York, Democrats are in big, big trouble. President Trump is within single digits in New York State and we are proud as New Yorkers that no state flipped more House congressional seats than New York state from Democrat to Republican. We will continue to go on offense to build this majority and send Democrats packing.

On top of the Biden Border Crisis, the Inflation Crisis, the Energy Crisis, the Crime Crisis, we’ve also seen Joe Biden’s weakness as Commander in Chief on the global stage. We saw the catastrophic withdrawal from Afghanistan, an absolute absolute black mark on America, the way the rest of the world views America. We then saw Israel, our most precious ally, under attack from the vicious Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists, leading to the deadliest day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust. And what have we seen from Joe Biden? What have we seen from this White House? We have seen anti-Israel policies, they have turned their back on our most precious ally. And I am very proud that President Trump – if you look at our greatest defender of Israel from the White House, it was President Trump. The Abraham Accords, the embassy to Jerusalem, support for Israel, the Iron Dome support. 

And I recently had the opportunity to deliver remarks in the Jerusalem Room at the Knesset, and I’m very proud, over my lifetime, even before I was in Congress. I am proud to be a lifetime supporter of Israel. And I know you are as well, and America is as well.

I had the opportunity to travel to Israel when I was an undergraduate, I had the opportunity to travel when I was a young professional, and I have been there many times as a member of Congress. And it is more important than ever that the United States, that America, shows moral leadership, and standing with Israel. There should be no equivocation, no daylight when it comes to US support for Israel.

And unfortunately, in the aftermath of that bloodiest day since the Holocaust, we saw our “most elite” universities fail. It was not just moral equivocation, it was moral bankruptcy that we saw on full display. Now I want to ask you, did you see that committee hearing clip?

Yes.

The world saw that committee hearing clip and I want to take you into that committee hearing. I was deeply concerned with the rise of antisemitism, particularly after the October 7th Hamas attack against Israel. I graduated from Harvard myself, I’m the first member of my immediate family to have that opportunity to graduate from college. But I’m what I’m most proud of is I graduated and stayed a conservative, which is a big achievement.

So I encouraged my colleague, Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, that we needed to have a hearing to address and combat this rise of antisemitism on our college campuses. And she agreed. We had the hearing with university presidents from MIT, from Penn and from Harvard, and throughout the hearing, we did not get a lot of direct answers. They were trying to avoid answering our questions. The question that is now the most viewed testimony in the history of the United States Congress, that was the last question of the committee hearing. It was not my prepared question. I thought, how can I ask this question in a moral way to force a yes answer. And that question was this: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate your university’s code of conduct?” And one after the other after the other said, “it depends on the context,” and the world heard. We know it does not depend on the context. We know that that is not reflective of American values. UPenn’s president was forced to resign within 48 hours, it took a month Harvard president was forced to resign as well.

And we have a message for Higher Ed. Two down, so many to go, we will continue! 

We will continue to stand up for what’s right, we will continue to hold these universities accountable. Each of those higher ed institution relies on nearly $1 billion of US taxpayer funds every year. If there is any support for antisemitism, if these schools refuse and fail to protect Jewish students, we will defund them. We will stand up for US taxpayer dollars and we will hold them accountable.

And it’s not just looking at US taxpayer dollars. We are very focused on the foreign funding piece. If you look at the amount of foreign funding from adversaries that are flowing into our higher ed institutions, it made news just this week. Those universities are not disclosing according to the law, how much money they’re receiving from these foreign countries. That needs to be fully transparent for the American people. These are American institutions.

So those three universities, MIT, Penn and Harvard, we’ve since had the Columbia University president who failed in that testimony. Her presidency is untenable as she chose to negotiate with the pro-Hamas encampment as they refuse to enforce the rules, as they fail to protect Jewish students. We will continue to, using our subpoena power, to bringing them under oath in front of these committees until we root out this rot of antisemitism to its core.

So again, I am just so grateful to have had the opportunity to speak with you today. I’m very proud to serve as House Republican Conference Chair. My goal every single day is to make sure House Republicans are unified, that we are focusing on the issues that matter to the American people, that we are going on offense communicating our positive message of making America great again and the America First movement. And we are crisscrossing this country to not only flip the Senate, but to gain seats in the House, and most importantly, to elect PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP. Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here. Thank you to the Faith and Freedom Coalition for this award.”