'God spared my life for a reason': Trump hails election victory in rousing speech
Donald Trump is making his comeback as the 47th President of the United States fending off a tough challenge from Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
"America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate," Trump said.
“Every single day, I will be fighting for you with every breath in my body,” he further added.
Fox News projected that Trump had defeated Harris, the other news outlets are yet to call the race for the Republican candidate. However, as per the latest projections by the news agency Associated Press, he is just three votes away from winning 270 of the total 538 votes in the Electoral College.
In his rousing victory speech, Trump said, "We are going to help our country heal, we are going to help our country heal. We have a country that needs help and it needs help very badly."
"We've made history for a reason tonight, and the reason is going to be just that we overcame obstacles that nobody thought possible. It's a political victory that our country has never seen before," he added.
Interestingly, Trump also spent several minutes heaping praises on Elon Musk, crediting him for saving lives with StarLink after Hurricane Helene caused widespread destruction in North Carolina.
"And you know, when we had the tragic hurricane Helene, and it hit, it particularly hit North Carolina. Fields became lakes and, the danger was unbelievable. The people from North Carolina came to me and they said, would it be possible at all for you to speak to Elon Musk? We need Starlink," Trump said.
"I called Elon Musk and said Elon you have something called Starlink, they need it really, really badly in North Carolina. Can you get it? He had that there so fast. It was incredible. So, it was great. It saved a lot of lives. He saved a lot of lives," he added.
He further called Musk a genius and said, "We have to protect our geniuses. We don't have that many of them."
The world's richest man has spent over $120 million into backing Trump's campaign and the Republican candidate had earlier said that he will appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission.
Here are the key quotes:
- "I want to thank the American people for the extraordinary honour of being elected your 47th president and your 45th president. "
- "This will truly be the golden age of America."
- "Winning the popular vote was very nice. There is a great feeling of love in this very large room."
- "The number of victories in the Senate was absolutely incredible. Nobody expected that, nobody. We have some great new Senators. It also looks like we will be keeping control of the House of Representatives."
- "I want to thank my beautiful wife Melania, the first lady. She also has the No.1 best-selling book in the country."
- "We’re going to seal up our borders, we want people to come in, but they have to come in legally."
- "We have a new star, Elon [Musk]. A star is born. He is a special guy, he is a genius ... We have to protect our geniuses."
- "I want to thank millions of Americans for showing up in record numbers and delivering a victory. We will pay you back and do our best job. We will turn it around, in every way. This will be remembered as the day the American people regained control of the country."
- "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is going to make America healthy again. He wants to do some things."
- "China does not have what we have. We have the greatest people and that's the most important thing."
- "Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, Arab Americans ... everybody came out in our support. It was a historic re-alignment. The Republican Party is the party of common sense!"
- "God spared my life for a reason. And that reason was to save our country and restore America to greatness. We will fulfil that mission together."
- "We had no wars in four years [during his earlier term], although we defeated ISIS."
- "It is time to put the division of the past four years behind us. Success will bring us together."
- "We have to put America first for a period of time at least. We have to make America great again. I won't let you down. Our future will be safer and stronger than ever before."
- "If I lose an election, if it's a fair election, I would be the first one to acknowledge it. So far I think it's been fair."
