Donald Trump on Wednesday pledged to help the United States (US) heal in a speech to his cheering supporters who gathered to celebrate the victory of Trump in race for the 47th US president.
“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,” Trump said in Florida.
Donald Trump was elected the 47th President of the United States, capping a remarkable comeback four years after he was voted out of the White House and ushering in a new American leadership likely to test democratic institutions at home and relations abroad.
The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fighting that I have in my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me.
Trump, 78, recaptured the White House Wednesday by securing more than the 270 Electoral College votes needed to win the US presidency, Edison Research projected, following a campaign of dark rhetoric that deepened the polarisation in the country.
“America has given us an unprecedented and powerful mandate,” Trump said in his speech at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in Florida. “This a magnificent victory for us which will allow us to make America Great again.”
“Many people have told me that God spared my life for a reason, and that reason was to save our country and to restore America to greatness,” Trump said. “And now we are going to fulfill that mission together.”
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“We have to put our country first for at least a period of time. We have to fix it.”
Trump’s political career had appeared to be over after his claims of election fraud led a mob of supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 defeat.
But he swept away challengers inside his Republican Party and then beat Democratic candidate Kamala Harris by capitalising on voter concerns about high prices and what Trump claimed was a rise in crime due to illegal immigration.
Harris did not speak to supporters who had gathered at her alma mater Howard University. Her campaign co-chair, Cedric Richmond, briefly addressed the crowd after midnight, saying Harris would speak publicly later on Wednesday.
“The task before us will not be easy, but I will bring every ounce of energy, spirit, and fighting that I have in my soul to the job that you’ve entrusted to me,” Trump said.
‘Melania has done a great job’
In his speech, Trump also thanked his family for the support, saying his wife Melania “has done a great job, works very hard, works very hard to help people”.
“I want to thank my whole family, my amazing children, and they are amazing children, that we all think of our children.
“Everybody thinks, and children are amazing, but that’s a good thing when you think they are. But Don, Eric, Ivanka, Tiffany, Barron. Lara, Jared, Kimberly, Michael. Thank you all,” he added.
‘Elon Musk is a special guy’
“And you know, when we had the tragic Hurricane Helene. And it hit it, particularly it hit North Carolina. They were really devastated. The water. This was big water. As big as we’ve ever seen, water hurricane. It built lakes out of nothing, fields became lakes. And the danger was unbelievable.
“And the people from North Carolina came to me and they said, ‘Would it be possible at all possible for you to speak to Elon Musk, we need Starlink.’ I said, ‘What’s Starlink?’ It’s a form of communication. So I called Elon.”
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Trump said Elon Musk saved a lot of lives after providing Starlink services to the people in hurricane-hit North Carolina.
“He got that there so fast. It was incredible. So, and it was great. It saved a lot of lives. He saved a lot of lives. But he’s a character. He’s a special guy. He’s a super genius. We have to protect our geniuses. We don’t have that many of them. We have to protect our super geniuses,” Trump said.
In a post on X, Elon Musk said Americans gave Trump “a crystal clear mandate for change”.
Dancing Trump supporters revel in victory speech
Jubilant supporters greeted Donald Trump at the event in Florida on Wednesday over his victory in the US election.
Throwing his arms in the air dancing, Ted Sarvanis, 68, told AFP he felt “extraordinary.”
“This is the greatest American political story in the history of the country,” he said.
Sarvanis was speaking near the stage where Trump had just claimed his win in a speech – though Fox News was the only television network at that time projecting the result of Tuesday’s vote.
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It was a far cry from an event for Kamala Harris at Howard University, where supporters of the Democrat trudged home in the dark Washington night after the campaign announced the vice president would not be speaking on election night.
“I am scared, I am anxious now,” Charlyn Anderson told AFP earlier in the evening.
“We won’t give up until it’s done but I’m scared.”
As the night wore on, Trump’s numbers in the all-important electoral college grew, with three of the seven key battleground states called in his favor, taking him to the brink of victory.
At the Trump event, men donning formal suits and women in dresses mingled at the Palm Beach County Convention Center, where they rubbed shoulders with one die-hard Trump fan sporting their political hero’s name emblazoned on a leather vest.
Whether dressed in formal attire or more casual wear, many of the attendees wore Trump’s signature red “Make America Great Again” baseball caps.
“I feel relieved. I was a little bit scared, because you never know how things are going to turn out,” said Stacy Kurtz, 45.