Trump Led RNC Midterm Convention Crowd in a Pledge That Included the Line 'I'm Gonna Try and Cheat Like Hell Like They Do'

At the Republican midterm convention in Dallas, in his closing remarks on the convention’s final night, Donald Trump asked the audience to raise their right hands and led them through a pledge, line by line. Trump says “To the greatest president in the history of the United States” and the audience answers; the transcript then marks the next lines as Trump’s alone: “I don’t care if I’m registered or not, I’m gonna try and cheat like hell like they do,” followed by the words “never been bigger cheaters” and a promise that he and his friends and family will vote on November 3rd or before.

The words are Trump’s own. They were not a supporter’s, and he was not reading someone else’s pledge. The Fox LiveNOW full-speech video captions (pledge at 18:27 to 19:13 of the stream) and the CBS News clip captions carry the same words in the same order. He ends the pledge with “So help me God” and adds, “You know what happens if you don’t vote? You go to hell.”

One point of record for anyone quoting it: the event was the closing remarks of the September convention, not an October event.

Verification note: the Factbase page is a transcript of the recording and the broadcast captions are live captions. This pass did not ear-check the audio; the wording rests on those independent transcript chains agreeing.