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It began with phony exit polls. And I got a call from my daughter at about 5:00 and she was called by people in their business and her husband Jared, great guy he was called.

"They called me and they said, I’m sorry, dad, it looks really bad. It looks really, really bad. I said what’s the problem? Tell me. Now, I was doing — very interesting. I really assumed I lost. I believe that these things are supposed to be correct. So I sort of thought I lost. And I was okay with it. I wouldn’t say great. In fact I called my vice president I said not looking good, right, Mike?"

I said not looking good. You were getting the same numbers that I was getting.

Of course a lot of it is phony stuff, too. Because they will say Donald Trump is a bad person, do you agree or not? So people would say yeah. No, but it’s easier have yes in a big box like that. No you can’t find it. A lot of it is phony deals going on. But, I will tell you. So I got the call. And they said looks bad. Looks really bad. And they want to be nice to me. This is — they’re talking this way because they wanted to be nice. They actually thought we might lose. Strongly. So I said don’t worry about it don’t worry about it. Whatever happens, last month I didn’t do interviews. I did rallies. I did three a day. I did three a day.

[Cheers and applause]

And I’ll be honest. I was surprised when I got a that call because I thought every I mean every time we had a rally. Look at this building, they are still pour not guilty back. Except we had major arenas which were packed. And then we would have 20, 30,000 people outside they couldn’t get. In I said it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense but that’s okay. Because, you know, like they say in football and in sports, he left nothing on the table, nothing on the field. All right? I was okay.

Because for the last month I decided not to do interviews because they give you interviews and then they chop up your sentences and cut them short. You’ll have this beautiful flowing sentence where the back of the sentence reverts to the front and they cut the back of the sentence off and I would say I never said that. So I said you know what? I’m not going to deal. They are very dishonest people.

[Crowd boos]

I said I’m not going to deal with it. All I did for one month I would do two and sometimes four speeches a day.

Rallies like this, massive crowds, right?

[Cheers and applause]

And they would call can we have an interview of Mr. Trump? I said watch me with the speech. Tell them, watch me. Whatever you want to take you can take. Watch me with the speech. So we did three or four a day. I will tell you what, that’s tough stuff. So I did three a day. Couple of fours. And I always had in mind the last three, but on the last three the third I was going to do five. And then I was going to do six and six. Now, when you do six speeches where you have ten, 15, 20, 25 and even 30,000 people, that’s not so easy. Good stamina, high energy, do you agree, high energy. So I did the three a day, and a lot of speeches. No days off. There was no Sunday off. Although I did go to church whenever possible. I did go to church, but no days off. And then we got down to the last two and I did six speeches. They know. They were exhausted, the press. And then on the seventh day, which you remember, Monday, right, I did six speeches. And then I heard that my opponent, does anybody remember my opponent?

[ Crowd boos ]

They don’t remember. They don’t remember.

[ Crowd cheers ]

Governor, these people are brutal. Now I know why it’s always a blood bath for you guys, but you win. That’s all, but I heard I did six, right, six on Sunday. And then Monday comes along and I did six.

And about three hours before the final speech, I’m saying, oh, boy. This is it. This was it. Started 16 months before coming down the escalator, right? A lot of things we talked about illegal immigration, turned out to be right. Talked about trade, turned out to be right. We did six speeches and then I heard that Hillary was going with her husband and with President Obama, who by the way has been very nice, and his wife has been very, very nice. I’m telling you.

[ Crowd boos ]

They’ve been very nice, but they were on a plane going to Michigan. I said whoa, that was not a planned trip. They spent $2 billion. You don’t get credit of this. I spent a tiny fraction of what they spent. In the old days if you spent less money and won, you got credit for it. Nowadays, whoever spends the most money, doesn’t make sense. We spent a lot less money. We spent a fraction of what ey spent and they had unlimited money. They did a poll. We didn’t. Why should I spend money for a poll when the newspapers give you polls every single day. They spent a lot of money. They found obviously trouble in Michigan because they had an unscheduled trip to Michigan. They went to Michigan, did not have a good crowd and I said at 6:00 that afternoon, I said, let’s go to Michigan. Now, by the time I finished in New Hampshire. It was already like 9:30 or 10:00. I said let’s go to Michigan. And my people said are you crazy. You just did six speeches.

I said, I don’t care. This is the presidency, right? This is the presidency.

So we went to Michigan with no notice with like a tweet. We went up, now I do have between Facebook and Twitter and Instagram almost 40 million people so that’s a lot. That’s a lot, but with a tweet, so we get there and it’s very late. It’s like 12:30. And our vice president elect, our vice president elect was there with me. And we had at 12:30 in the morning and I started speaking at 1:00 in the morning, we had in Michigan, 31,000 people inside and outside. 31,000 showed up.

[ Crowd cheers ]

I said, I said to Mike and I said to everybody, we’re going to win Michigan. I tell you. It hadn’t been won in like 35 years, but we are going to win Michigan and we ended up winning Michigan. I got the bad news from my daughter. And I said, that’s too bad. So I go and see my wife. I said baby, I tell you what. We’re not going to win tonight because the polls have come out and, you know, I always used to believe in exit polls. I don’t believe in them anymore. It’s just looking bad, but you know what, I’m okay with it because of the fact I couldn’t have worked any harder. You can’t do any worse that than. If I lose, I lose. And, you know, what, if I lose I lose and I’m going to have a nice easy life. We can all relax together, right?

So I felt, you know, you don’t feel good if you didn’t put out and you lose, but if you put out every single ounce of energy in your blood, you feel like okay. There’s nothing more you can do. So I told her, and she looked at me and she has seen these rallies and she said you’re not going to lose. She goes you’re not going to lose.

So then I figured hey, just a nice wife that’s trying to be nice. And guess what, she’s a great person. So what happened, Melania, right, we love Melania. From the escalator. They love Melania. She’s great. She said you’re not going to lose. Okay.

So now the poll just closed and they start announcing numbers. Oh N is going to be embarrassing. Trying to figure out what I’m going to do. I had this ballroom that’s not very big because I didn’t know if we were going to win or lose. If we lose, I don’t want a big ballroom. I love you folks, good night everybody, bye. I’m out of there, right. And she had this massive convention center with a big fireworks display. And they were paying about $7 million for the fireworks and it was a big deal and they knew they were going to win until the final week. They knew bad things were happening and I got a good sign when four days before the end, I called up Mike, they just cancelled the fireworks was the front page story. They cancelled. Now, usually you cancel fireworks because you don’t want firework IFS you’re going to lose. Did anybody ever use fireworks if you’re going to lose. In the history of elections you don’t set off fireworks if you’re going to lose. So they cancelled the beautiful fireworks and I wanted to be a wise guy so I offered them five S on the the dollar for their fireworks. We never heard back. No, we never heard back. We never heard back, but that was a good sign, do you agree? I’m telling you. So I figured it’s election night, figured we’re going to lose. This was cool. I never did this stuff before.

By the way, did we all do a good job together, right? It’s a movement.

So then the real numbers started coming. And we started with like Ohio. And I was expected to win Ohio by two points or three points. When I say I, I’m talking about the two of us and all of us. So it comes in. We have breaking news, Donald Trump has won Ohio in a massive number, but we won Ohio very close to 10%. So the 2% of 3% was now close to 10%. I said that’s good. Then we have breaking news, Donald Trump has won the great state of Iowa. Said, whoa. And that was supposed to be close. We were up a little bit in the polls like one point. We won it by more than 10 point V points. Then I’m saying this is a little different than the exit polls. That’s going on? The exit polls had me tied in Ohio. Then they would get a little bit like — they were surprised by the numbers, right? People standing back there. Two, three of them, I see. Three of them. All of a sudden they get to areas we just dominated and we’re sort of tied. And we haven’t gotten to the panhandle yet. She loves the panhandle. I love the panhandle too. They told one of the networks, yes, we feel very good about Florida. Florida is going to be ours. North Carolina will be ours. That’s the fire wall. North Carolina. Ladies and gentlemen, we have breaking news, Donald Trump has won the state of Florida. Now, they spent 10-1, 10-1 on North Carolina. I love that state. We won South Carolina easily. North Carolina was something to be something that’s very hard to win. Very, very hard to win. Ladies and gentlemen, we have breaking news. And you see these people. They go to like, oh, one of the networks is going ladies and gentlemen, we have breaking news, Donald Trump — they’re like in a state of absolute, like, getting sick.

One of them they say broke down and started to cry, but I don’t think she did really. I don’t think she did. They go, “Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump has won the state of North Carolina.” Now they’re going oh, my. We’re running up the East Coast.

It’s like a marathon.

And now we hit Pennsylvania and they don’t want to call it, right? You saw that. They don’t want to call it. I’m left with 1%. If they got 100 percent of that 1%, they still get killed in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was tough because every Republican forever thought they were going to win the great state of Pennsylvania. Right? They say, that I have said, not me. The bride that got away. It’s always the bride that got away. Pennsylvania, great state. We’re going to win Pennsylvania, but I keep thinking about every time you see the Republicans for 38 years hadn’t won Pennsylvania. It’s one of those states. Very, very tough to win. I just felt so good. We’re getting massive crowds. In fact we’re going there in two days to celebrate. Hershey, Pennsylvania. We’re going to Hershey. Big crowd. So Pennsylvania, they don’t want to call it. They don’t want to call it. There’s 1% left and there’s no way they can catch it. I’m looking and starting to do interviews now because now I’m thinking this is fun. This is great. I can’t lose Pennsylvania. They refused to call it because they’re dishonest people. Okay.

[ Crowd boos ]

It’s all right. Then we go up the coast and then it happened. Right? Number one, the audience they had that night was massive. The debates, did I win those debates folks? The debates had a massive — over 100 million people. By the way, did Mike Pence, did he win his debate? Mike Pence. That wasn’t even a contest.

In fact, Mike had actually got boring. That was not even a contest. Then it happened folks, out of nowhere. They got sick — he was throwing up. You know with the map, boy, that map was getting red as held. That map, that map was bleeding red. Florida, South Carolina, even if your a lousy candidate you win Texas. Texas is Republican and the people are great. I had massive crowds. For three months it’s like Texas is in play and next week it is very close, Texas is in play.

Georgia, remember Georgia. Georgia is in play. I’m saying man, can you imagine if I lose Texas or Georgia. It’s in play. Texas is in play. Georgia in play. This is going to be a disaster. Then they said, Utah. I don’t think a Republican has ever lost. Have they ever lost Utah. I don’t think so. Utah is in play against some guy that I look at them and say, there’s no way. My wife looked at him and said you’re not going to lose to him. Telling you, she’s good at this stuff. I said, yeah, but that I have say he’s tied with me. And she said, no, no, he’s not tied. You’re not going to lose to him don’t worry about it.

So they said Utah is in play. So now it’s like whatever time. 8, 9:00. Goes on. First thing, Donald Trump has won the state of Georgia. Donald Trump has won the state of Utah. I love Utah. Utah. This guy that was put up there to fight me, he was down, Hillary even beat him, okay. All of a sudden I’m saying, wow, what happened. So now we win all these states. And they’re holding Pennsylvania. Ladies and gentlemen, Donald Trump has won the state of Wisconsin. Right. Donald Trump. So they said Donald Trump has won the state. I tell you what. I give a lot of credit to them. To your governor, a lot of credit. How to give a lot of credit to Paul Ryan. Give a lot of credit to vice president Mike pence because they stood up here. They campaign like you never saw before. That was out of the blue. We picked up a state we weren’t really expecting. It was close, but we didn’t know that was going to happen. Then after that Michigan was announced and the greatest was when Pennsylvania came in because that’s a big big big beautiful state. Donald Trump has won the state of Pennsylvania. And they’re going even before Pennsylvania, but they’re doing all this red and that map was so beautiful looking. I’ll never forget the guy who was saying for months there is no path to 270 for Donald Trump, but there was a path to 306. There was no path. In fact they couldn’t get me up. They continue get me up. I went back to Maine four P times for one. The beauty is I was going to 17 different states. I was going all over.

The other would be easier, just a popular vote would be easier and go to New York, California, Texas, go to Florida. That’s it. Iteasier, but the electoral college is genius. It’s genius. You go everywhere and unless you see it, unless you see it, it’s a very different way of campaigning. It’s sort of like if you play golf. Match play versus stroke play. Very different. Unless you see how this works up close and personal, so we ended up winning and I’ll never forgot when they were on the map and they put up Wisconsin and he said there is no path for Hillary Clinton to become president. Donald Trump is your next president of the United States.