Transcript of a ceremonial swearing-in where President Trump introduces and praises Pam Bondi as the new U.S. Attorney General; Justice Clarence Thomas administers the oath and Bondi delivers remarks pledging to restore integrity to the Department of Justice and combat violent crime and drug trafficking. The recording centers on Bondi’s record as Florida Attorney General and priorities for the DOJ (crime reduction, dismantling gangs/cartels, addressing opioids/Fentanyl).
Chapters
Hello, everybody. This is a great honor and a real privilege. I'm thrilled to be here today with our nation's next incredible. And she will be incredible. Attorney General of the United States, Pam Bondi. And I want to congratulate Pam. She's worked hard, so hard. And unbelievably fair and unbelievably good at law enforcement. I just want to congratulate you, very special person. And I'd also like to thank Justice Clarence Thomas and his incredible wife, who is here someplace. There she is. Incredible. Highly respected wife, too, I will say. I remember a couple of years ago a little bit more than that. During toward the end of my first term, I was introducing a lot of people at a big event, about 5,000 people in your biggest ballroom. You know what that is. And they were getting a nice smattering of applause. They were very important people. And then I introduced Justice Clarence Thomas. The place went crazy. And it was then that I realized that you are a very popular guy and respected guy. So thank you for being here. It's an honor and a great honor for Pam. Thank you very much. Pam was a career Prosecutor for nearly 20 years and was one of the toughest and smartest and best and most successful attorney generals in the history of Florida. And I think I put it out this morning, I think she's going to end up going down as the most successful or certainly one of the most successful attorney generals that this country has ever had. I really believe that. I know, I know her well. A lot of people in Florida, if you're in Florida, you know her well. And it was all good. It was never a problem. No problem. As a prosecutor, she locked up drug dealers and gang members and human traffickers and was waging war all the time on the pill mills, they called them, that fueled the deadly opioid crisis. And she did better than anybody else. There was nobody like her in the country. She. She also won over $50 billion in lawsuits for the victims of financial fraud and devastating Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which was brutal. And she was the leader of that whole deal getting that people taken care of. As Attorney General of the United States, Pam has a historic and urgently needed task ahead of her. And probably there's never been a time, Clarence, that's more important than right now. We went through four years of not such good, not such good work in many ways. Not just, not just with the president, at other levels. Also with the president. Obviously, she's going to restore fair, equal and impartial justice and restore the constitutional rule of law in America. She will lead the Democrats. You know where they're going to, Lisa, you're going to lead them right down. But I think she's going to be as impartial as you can possibly be. I know I'm supposed to say she's going to be totally impartial with respect to Democrats, and I think she will be as impartial as a person can be. I'm not sure if there's a possibility of totally, but she's going to be as total as you can get. Gianni. Right, but she's going to be fair. And she'll lead the Department of Justice in crushing violent crime, demolishing the gangs, which are all over the place. If you look at New York, if you look at Chicago, if you look at Los Angeles, which is half burned down, unfortunately, because they didn't have the water and they didn't have what they supposed to have. Destroying the terrorist cartels is going to be a very big priority for Pam, and that leads to crime and it leads to a lot of drugs. So she's going to take care of it and she'll stop the invasion of our country and get Fentanyl off our streets. And we're going to be working with her very closely. Kristi Noem and Tom Holman and all of the people are going to be working very closely with Pam. She's going to end the weaponization of federal law enforcement and restore honesty and integrity at the DOJ and the FBI. And she's going to be working with cash, and she's going to be working with a lot of other people that you've been reading about, writing about over the last few weeks. The role of Attorney General comes with immense responsibility. But I have absolute confidence that Pam will fulfill her duties with honor and courage and strength and fairness. She's going to be fair. She's going to be very fair. And now I'd like to invite Justice Thomas to administer the oath of office. And thank you all for being here. It's a great. A very important day. I believe, in our country's history. Thank you very much.
I do solemnly swear.
I, Pamela Bondi, do solemnly swear.
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States.
That I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all.
Enemies, foreign and domestic.
Against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
That I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same.
That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation.
Without any mental reservation for purpose of evasion. Or purpose of evasion.
And that I will well and faithfully.
And that I will well and faithfully.
Discharge the duties of the office on which I'm about to enter.
Discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter.
So help me God.
So help me God.
And before Pam, I just want to introduce her very, very handsome husband. I hate being around him. He looks too good. And he's been a tremendous factor with Pam and have just a beautiful relationship. Who's here? And mother, look how good you look, huh? Look how good. So I just wanted to introduce them. And Pam, have fun.
Thank you. Thank you. President Trump, I've known you for many, many years, and I will you down. I am truly honored, honored that you have asked me to take on this role. And I will make you proud, and I will make this country proud. And I just want to thank all of my friends who are here today, my dear friends and my family, my mom, my husband, my pastor, Aaron Burke is here. So many of my good friends and my colleagues. So thank you all so much. And I will restore integrity to the Justice Department, and I will fight violent crime throughout this country and throughout this world and make America safe again. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Everybody. Thank you. Mr. President, can I ask you. This is a great day. Can we ask about your gospel proposal? A lot of people are talking about obviously got a lot of attention. Everybody loves it, but this is just not the right time. But we'll maybe do something later. This is a very important and, in my opinion, solemn occasion, so I don't want to talk about other subjects. Mr. President, Mr. President, what is your top priority? What is your top priority, Madam Attorney General, for this new position that you've now been sworn into? Well, I can just say very simply for me, overall, very simple. Make America great again. That's what we're going to do. We're going to make America great again. And she's going to take crime out of the system. As much as anybody can do that. She's going to do it.
