Former President Donald Trump looked back to the future Friday by pitching the creation 10 new American cities, with flying cars and lots of babies – launching a ‘quantum leap’ agenda as part of his 2024 presidential run.
In a video posted to Truth Social, the ex-president explained that he’d take a tiny percentage of federally owned land and hold a contest for the best ideas, to then build as many as 10 ‘freedom cities’ from scratch.
In those cities there would be ‘towering monuments to our true American heroes’ and ‘vertical take-off and landing vehicles.’ ‘Just as the United States led the automotive revolution in the last century, I want to ensurue that America, not China, leads this revolution in air mobility,’ Trump said.
Additionally, the cities would be filled with children, with Trump suggesting the federal government during his second term would give out ‘baby bonuses’ to increase procreation.
Trump’s futuristic pitch comes on the eve of his return to the Conservative Political Action Conference, where he’ll deliver the keynote speech Saturday night.
He’s been a presidential candidate again for three and a half months – though much of his campaign has been backward-looking – as he settles old scores and repeats his previous policy ideas.
Former President Donald Trump launched a ‘quantum leap’ agenda Friday as part of his 2024 presidential run
Ahead of his speech before CPAC, Trump said he wanted the U.S. to pursue flying car technology and said he’d give young parents baby bonuses to drive up the American birth rate
The Trump plan for a ‘quantum leap in the American standard of living’ pulls from his roots as a real estate developer, his career before becoming a reality TV star and a politician.
He’s previously pitched futuristic ideas such as a missile shield and championed the creation of Space Force during his time in the White House.
‘Past generations of Americans pursued big dreams and daring projects that once seemed absolutely impossible. They pushed across an unsettled continent and built new cities in the wild frontier. They transformed American life with the interstate highway system – magnificent it was. And they launched a vast network of satellites into orbit, all around the earth,’ Trump said in the video.
‘But today, our country has lost its boldness,’ he said. ‘Under my leadership, we will get it back in a very big way.’
‘Our objective will be a quantum leap in the American standard of living,’ he said. ‘That’s what will happen.’
Trump then talked about the vastness of the federally owned land and said he’d use ‘a very, very small portion of that land, just a fraction, one half of one percent – would you believe that’ to build entirely new cities based on the contest winners’ designs.
‘These freedom cities will reopen the frontier, reignite American imagination and will give hundreds of thousands of young people and other people, all hardworking families, a new shot at home ownership and in fact the American dream,’ he said.
Trump added that ‘forgotten communities’ would be turned into hives of industry, as the U.S. closes the door on imports from China.
He pledged to lower the cost of living, especially the cost of buying a car and building a new home. ‘And they will be beautiful homes,’ he said.
‘And I will ask Congress to support baby bonuss for young parents to help launch a new baby boom,’ the ex-president said.
He said he’d ask all the state’s governors to join him in a national ‘modernization and beautification campaign’ which would include ‘getting rid of ugly buildings’ and refurbishing parks and public spaces.
Similarly, at the very end of Trump’s White House tenure, Trump had signed an executive order that called for traditional designs for federal buildings and lambasted modernist architecture.
‘Very importantly I will also make sure these new places are safe,’ he continued. ‘We love and cherish our police, they will do the job the way they have to,’ Trump added, repeating his support for police officers that he expressed during his 2020 campaign, amid a wave of Black Lives Matter protests.
Trump’s call for ‘towering monuments’ in his new freedom cities, echos the executive order he signed just two days before President Joe Biden’s swearing-in that called for a National Garden of American Heroes, which would include statues of 244 historical figures.
The ex-president also pushed during his 2020 run that Confederate monuments should remain, as the Black Lives Matter protests had many city officials around the country reassess whether they should still be on display.
