NOTE: The remarks re Biden and stairs are not all there in the official transcript. Would be interesting to find out if some of Trump’s actual words were edited out somehow. I trust Heather, but it would be a good idea to ask someone who was there if Trump actually said “be cool” and mentioned Obama’s stair behavior. In any case, it is clear that we are here witnessing a vain and deranged dipshit.
Donald Trump 00:15:16-00:15:34 (18 sec)
How would you like to have your thing signed by an Autopen? You know, when I have a general and I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, the gorgeous paper, I said throw a little more gold on it, they deserve it. Give me, I want the A paper, not the D paper. We used to sign a piece of garbage, I said this man’s going to be a general, right?
Yeah. I don’t want to use this. I want to use the big, beautiful firm paper. I want to use the real gold writing when you talk about the position. And they’re beautiful and — but how would you like to have that where you — some kid sitting in the back office is having it signed with an autopen? I thought about it and I thought about you people first, admirals, generals.
I said somebody works his whole life, he gets into maybe the academies or wherever. But however you got there and you go through years of work and now you become an admiral or a general or whatever. And when you do the president of the United States signs your commission, as you know, and that commission is beautifully displayed.
And I sign it — actually, I love my signature, I really do. Everyone loves my signature. But I signed it very proudly. And I always think to myself, how can you have an autopen sign this? It’s just so disrespectful. To me it’s just totally disrespectful. And it turned out that almost everything he did was signed by autopen, except for when he gave his son, Hunter, a pardon, he signed that one.
And that’s actually the worst signature I’ve ever seen. That was a bad — the autopen looks much better. But as leaders, our commitment to every patriot who put on the uniform is to ensure that American military remains the most lethal and dominant on the planet, not merely for a few years, but for decades and generations to come, for centuries.
-Official transcript
We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every day, the guy is falling downstairs. He said, It’s not our President. We can’t have it. I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs for, like, a month, stairs, like these stairs, I’m very—I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall, because it doesn’t work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their legacy. We don’t want that. You walk nice and easy. You’re not having—you don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don’t—don’t pop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a President, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never seen it. Da-da, da-da, da-da, bop, bop, bop. He’d go down the stairs. Wouldn’t hold on. I said, It’s great. I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it. But eventually, bad things are going to happen, and it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country. We were dead. This country was going to hell.
Heather Cox Richardson: September 30, 2025