President Trump Remarks @Republican Members Issues Conference (Transcript)

We all know that.

Without further ado, my friends, I want to present to you not just our host and the property owner, but the forty-fifth and the forty-seventh president of the United States, Donald J. Trump.

President Trump Addresses the Conference

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: A lot of friends. Sit down. We have a little time. Just everybody. Thank you very much and to our great speaker, Speaker Johnson.

And a load to the men and women of one of the most consequential Republican majorities in history. It’s not a big majority, but it’s just about the most consequential. The job you’ve done is incredible. And they are members that are warriors and really people that are for the American people. And that’s why you’re doing well, and I think that’s why we’re going to continue to do well.

We’re fighting a little tradition, you know. Historically, the person that wins, Democrat or Republican, wins the presidency. For whatever reason, it doesn’t work out. But we’ve done a lot. I think we’ve done the best first year of any president ever, and that includes you. You came along with me, and you made it happen. So with your help and hard work, we’re making America great again, and we’re doing it much faster than we thought. And it’s better, and our country is doing really well. I mean, at a level that nobody thought.

We took a little excursion because we felt we had to do that to get rid of some evil. And I think you’ll see it’s going to be a short term excursion. How good is our military? Right? Amazing. How good? Short term. Short term. Thank you. They’re great.

Recognizing Republican Leadership

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: You know, we all together in my first term, we rebuilt our military. And I didn’t know I’d be using it so much in the second term, but we have a military like no other. It’s not even close.

But I especially want to recognize the rest of our amazing House Republican leadership team and so many of my friends that are congressmen, some senators. We have some great people in this room, but including a majority leader, a real brave guy because I know the real story. I was there that night with him in the hospital when he was given a very small chance of living by a doctor who was very good, by a wife who was desperately in love with him. She cried so much because I’ve seen the other two. I’ve seen guys at the end of the line. The wives aren’t exactly shaken up. When they don’t cry, when they have no tears or any sign of tears, this is not a good sign of a great marriage.

But he must have a great marriage because she was really, she was just devastated. She was going to lose her guy. But it worked out. The doctor said more blood was put into him than he’s ever seen. He was in big trouble. I looked at him that night and I said goodbye to him. But he made it. He was brave. And look at the way he fought back for so many different things. Steve Scalise.

And we have another one, Tom Emmer, who I really got to know over the last few years. And I’ll tell you, he’s a winner. He’s a champion with another great wife. We got good wives up in there. You want to say great wife? Fine husband. But Tom is just a real champion and a winner. And if you have a problem, you go to him, he gets it solved. So thank you very much. Great job. You’ve done a great job.

And our conference chairwoman is Lisa McClain. And we all know Lisa. Don’t get on her wrong side. It could be a very, very bad experience. Thank you very much. Great job, Lisa. Great job.

Record-Breaking Event and Republican Spirit

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And a very special thanks. You know, you broke a record. This is over 20 million. That’s the biggest of these type of events that there’s ever been, by actually, by a lot. You know, you didn’t just break it. You broke it by a lot. So I want to congratulate you. But there’s just great spirit. The Republican Party has fantastic spirit. The level, I don’t think has been seen before. I really don’t.

We have to get a couple of people on board, which, in at least one case, is virtually impossible. I wonder who that might be. A sick person. But I want to say a very special thanks to everyone at the Congressional Institute for helping organize this event. This has been amazing.

Reflecting on the State of the Union

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And over the past nine days, we’ve been reminded of how vital our Republican majorities are. And it’s, you know, it’s America’s future. We’re really fighting because these people, you saw the other night at the State of the Union, you saw these people. They wouldn’t stand for a mother who just lost her daughter by having her throat slit from behind. They wouldn’t stand for the helicopter pilot who just got the Congressional Medal of Honor for landing safely in Venezuela, a helicopter with a lot of soldiers on that. And he was able to land it safely and his leg was practically ripped off.

And for those people that know about helicopters, you land them pretty much with your legs. Right, Tom? You land them with the legs and he was in bad shape and he got it. He not only landed, he landed in exactly the right spot, as blood was pouring down the aisle, which didn’t make all of those soldiers in the back feel too good. They’re looking at a pilot who’s bleeding out. But they didn’t want to stand for that.

They didn’t want to stand for a one hundred year old soldier who had left a legacy of bravery. Everybody talked about it for years, and it was time for him to get the Congressional Medal of Honor. They didn’t want to stand for him. There’s something wrong with those people, and we can’t let them ever be in a position where they can leave this country again or destroy this country again because we almost lost this country. This country was close to being lost.

Military Strength and Operation Epic Fury

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The representatives in this room provided the pivotal votes in securing a record 1 trillion dollars for the United States military this year. And now, the world is witnessing the importance of that investment with one of the most complex and stunning operations ever conducted, and that’s Operation Epic Fury. That’s a great name, isn’t it? Epic Fury. That’s even better than Midnight Hammer, which was pretty good too. Right? That was where we knocked out their nuclear potential. That was a big day because if we didn’t do that, they would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks. And I think we’d be in a lot different situation.

And then you had, of course, what they did in Venezuela, how that was. That was just so far so good. We’ve done a real job. We’ve got all good ones. If you go back and you look at Afghanistan with Biden, one of the worst, I think the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. If you look at what happened with Jimmy Carter, also with Iran. If you look at what happened with the helicopters and the hostages, it cost them the election. What a mess.

The world respects us right now more than they have ever respected us before. And because of Republicans, you people in Congress, the United States has by far the strongest and most powerful military on the face of the earth. We’re the strongest military anywhere in the earth, and now everybody understands it.

Crushing the Enemy: Iran’s Military Demolished

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Together with our Israeli partners, we’re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force. Iran’s drone and missile capability is being utterly demolished. The Navy is gone. It’s all lying at the bottom of the ocean. Forty-six ships. Can you believe it?

In fact, I get a little upset with our people. I said, what quality of ship? Excellent, sir. Top of the line. I said, why didn’t we just capture the ship? We’re going to use it. Why did we sink them? They said, it’s more fun to sink them. I said, that’s a — they like sinking them better. They say it’s safer to sink them. I guess it’s probably true. But think of it, we knocked out forty-six. It actually took three and a half days.

Their terrorist leaders are gone or counting down the minutes until they will be gone. Think of it, we had leaders and they’re gone. Then we had new leaders and they’re gone. And now nobody has any idea who the people are that are going to be the head of the country, and we will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.

And remember, Iran did so many bad things. If you look at Soleimani, who was taken out, as you know, but if you look at Soleimani, the father of the roadside, you call it a roadside bomb because most people don’t understand the different terms.

Honoring Fallen Warriors

It was when they plant bombs in roads as you drive by, happily drive by, the bomb goes off. And no matter how strong the armament, it just kills the people. Or you lose your arms, legs, and face. And those bombs got worse and worse. And he got happier and happier. We took him out.

That was a big thing because he was the head. It might have been a much different story. They may have been much more capable than they are had he lived because he was capable. He was vicious, violent, and capable. But we got rid of him first term, and we did so many things.

I mean, we’ve done so many things. But as you know, on Saturday, I traveled to Dover Air Force Base to be with the families of six fallen warriors as they returned to American soil. And I know that everyone in this room joins me in sending our prayers and eternal gratitude to the families of those great heroes. Those families are incredible families. Devastating to be.

Hardest thing to do. You know, I’ve done it a lot. The hardest thing to do is to go to Dover because Dover is where, for the most part, a lot of the fallen, the warriors, the great young people that have died in war, they seem to mostly go to Dover. They come home to Dover. Dover does a great job of handling things.

They have men assigned to the family. They have men and women that are incredible assigned to the families. It’s a beautiful thing, but it’s also a very sad thing. But they all said one thing to me, “Make sure you win, sir. Make sure you win.”

They didn’t — they weren’t playing games. They want to make sure they said it. Everybody said it. They were separate, but everybody said the same thing. “Make sure you win.”

We will. We’ve already won in many ways, but we haven’t won enough. We go forward more determined than ever to achieve ultimate victory that will end this long running danger once and for all. Forty seven years. It should have been done a long time ago.

World would have been a different place had some president had the courage to go and do it. They should have done it many, many times. They had many opportunities. The United States of America is the greatest and most exceptional nation in human history and will not be threatened by evil terrorists and lunatics any longer. We just can’t do that.

America Under Biden: A Laughingstock

And, you know, when I always talk about how great our nation is, I don’t know. I don’t consider our nation very great for four years under Biden. We were a laughingstock all over the world. We were a laughingstock. So, you know, I say great, great, great.

But I don’t know. When you look at what happened with so many different things, the open border, twenty five million people, many of them very bad people pouring into our country with open borders that just said, “Come on in. Come on in. Makes no difference.” They emptied their jails into our country.

Eleven thousand eight hundred and eighty eight murders, fifty percent of which murdered more than one person. The drug dealers came in. The mentally insane came in. They emptied their mental institutions. They emptied their insane asylum. That’s a step above a mental institution. They emptied the mall right into our country, and we’ve done a great job of doing what we’ve done.

Think of it. We have the lowest crime rate that we’ve ever had. We have the lowest murder rate in one hundred and twenty five years, and we’re saddled with all of the problems of the criminals that were let in.

You know, look, they’re smart people. I know the people that run those countries, every one of them, and they’re all streetwise, very smart. And I would do exactly the same thing. They emptied their jails into our country. I said that was going to happen when I heard that they were having open borders.

I didn’t believe that they were going to have — when I realized that they actually were going to have open borders, I said, we’re going to have every person in jail. We’re going to have every drug dealer. We’re going to have all these countries all over the world. The Congo, they emptied their jails. All the way from the Congo to all parts of South America, Asia. They sent in their people in jail, murderers. Some of the worst people on earth got sent into our country.

And I’ll tell you what, ICE is unbelievable. What they have to put up with and how tough they have to be. That goes for border patrol and it goes for law enforcement, our law enforcement people.

Democrats Sabotaging National Security

Sadly, even as our service members are fighting bravely to protect America abroad, the Democrat minority in Congress is deliberately sabotaging our national security at home. And you’re going through it right now, fellas. I mean, you’re going through it — it’s not even believable. You know, we should be very safe right now, especially when we’re attacking somebody that’s evil, bad intention.

But last week, fifty three House Democrats voted against a resolution affirming that Iran remains the world’s number one state sponsor of terror. How the hell would you do that? I mean, almost every act, whether it’s Hamas or Hezbollah, no matter what, you take a look, it’s Iran or Iran sponsored.

And even more outrageously, as we speak, Democrats have shut down the Department of Homeland Security. They’ve got it shut down. Do you believe it? Right now. Because they care more about amnesty for illegal alien criminals than about protecting the lives of American citizens.

I mean, take a look at it. The American citizen is being scoffed at by Democrats. It doesn’t make sense. None of this stuff makes sense to me, you know, when they — when they sat and they wouldn’t stand up for incredible people. They just refused to clap. Stand up.

By the end of the speech, by the way, they were all standing because somebody was passing. No. “You people are getting killed tonight.” They’d stand up for everything I was saying. At the end of that last half hour, they were standing up for things that they shouldn’t have stood up for because they got the word, “You’re getting killed tonight. Stand up and clap for the woman that just lost her daughter, please, to a violent criminal.”

But Democrats must vote immediately to reopen the Department of Homeland Security so that we have the resources to keep America safe.

America Is Winning Again

And under our pro-America, pro-worker, pro-family agenda, our country is winning again, and America is respected again. And I think we have a country that’s as hot as it’s ever been ever before, maybe hotter. And I say it all the time. The king of Saudi Arabia said it to me better than anybody could say it. He said — I’ll get along with him very well, very smart person. He said, “You know, a year and a half ago, your country was dead, absolutely dead. We never thought it was coming back. And now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world.”

It’s true. We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world by far. And that’s before we showed off our military strength with Venezuela and now with Iran.

You know, Iran was supposed to be this big, powerful country. We rapped the hell out of them. And, you know, I don’t know when they cry uncle, but they should have cried it two days ago. Right? But they don’t have anything left.

In our country, inflation is plummeting. Incomes are rising. The economy is surging. Our border is the most secure at any time in American history. And the murder rate is the lowest in a hundred and twenty five years.

That’s before my father was born. My father was born six years later than that. I don’t know if he’d like me to say that. Never like to talk about his age. He said, “Don’t talk about that.”

But think about a hundred and twenty five years ago — 1900, the year 1900. The stock market has set fifty three all time record highs since the election, and it’s going to go a lot higher as soon as we get rid of this stuff that we’re doing right now that we really had no choice.

I mean, I think I asked people, I said, “Would you rather do this or would you rather go along nice and smoothly, but eventually have a catastrophe the likes of which perhaps the world has never seen?” And just about everybody says, except for lunatics, that you had to get it done. Should have been done a long time ago.

The average 401k is up almost thirty five thousand dollars. Think of that. It’s at the best they’ve ever done.

The Iran Threat and Military Action

And I think you’re going to see some real numbers when this gets — because this was always a dark cloud hanging over not only Israel, which was going to get wiped out. You know, if we didn’t do that B-2 attack, Israel would have been wiped out. They would have had a nuclear weapon within two weeks after that.

And even now, I think they were looking to take over the Middle East because when you look — and we have pretty good proof — all of those missiles that were so stupidly aimed at Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, they were all aimed, and others, at countries that were sort of like, “Leave us alone.” They were sort of neutral, but they weren’t doing it. All of a sudden, they’re getting hit with missiles. And they could have gone one of two ways. They could have gone toward their side, like “We’re with you,” or they could have gone with our side. And they really went with our side, and they’ve helped us, and they’ve been a big force.

But they got hit, but they were going to be hit with us. Had we not done the B-2 raid, and had we not done this one where we said, “Yep, it’s time to go in. We have to go in. Have no choice.”

Number one, if we didn’t go in, they would have come in after us. Because I see the Democrats trying to justify it, and they’re failing because the voter on the street is saying, “You’ve got to be kidding.” But I see where they go. Well, they’re always saying, “No, no, there was no reason.” Well, I’ll give you the best reason of all. Within a week, if they were going to attack us — one hundred percent. They were ready. They had all these missiles, far more than anyone thought, and they were going to attack us. But they were going to attack all of the Middle East and Israel. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it on Israel. And this was going to be a major attack on all.

They had all of those missile sites and all those launches that we got rid of — about eighty percent of them right now, by the way. Got rid of most of that. You don’t see — it’s died down to a trickle. They have very few launches left. What our military has done is amazing. They wiped out almost twenty percent, maybe twenty two, twenty three percent. But the rest are going very quickly. And the missiles have been largely knocked out. The drones have been knocked down, and we’re hitting where they make the drones. We know them all. And we’re knocking the hell out of that now where they manufacture the drones.

A lot of work. A lot of brilliant work. But we’re going to have a much safer world as soon as it’s finished. That’s going to be finished pretty quickly.

The Great Big Beautiful Bill and Economic Wins

With the help of our House Republican majority, we passed the largest tax cuts in American history, and we have to keep talking about it. And with the great big beautiful bill, we delivered no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security for our great seniors.

And we did something else which is great that nobody ever talks about, Tom, and we have to talk about it. We made interest on auto loans fully deductible. That’s never happened. We’ve never had that. You know, rich people always get deductions, but middle income people, people that have to struggle a little bit, never did. But now they can deduct the interest paid against their taxes.

We have one little proviso, and I put this on. It’s very important. Only if the car is made in America. Alright? That’s going to have a huge impact. That’s going to have a huge impact.

We passed the Trump accounts to give every child in America a head start on the American dream, and that’s so good. The Dell family — Dell computer — put up $6.25 billion. Think of it. It started with very little, nothing. Very, very little. Started making computers on his bed. And he said, people started liking them better than the ones from the store. And he never stopped. And he can write a check for $6.25 billion.

He said, in his incredible wife, Susan, they said that’s the best thing they’ve ever done. He’s so proud. He’s going to do it again. He’s going to do more. And we have a lot of other people, a lot of very rich people are doing it. A lot of people that aren’t so rich are doing it. They’re doing it for their kids, but it’s turning out so some young child turns eighteen or twenty one and all of a sudden they have one hundred thousand dollars in the bank. What a difference that is between having that and having nothing. And it could be more than that. It could be a lot more depending on what happens with the world.

And we passed one hundred percent expensing and bonus depreciation on all new equipment, factory construction and investments. And that’s what made our first term.

Lowering the Cost of Living

TRUMP: We had the greatest economy in the history of our country in the first term, and this one’s going to blow it away. Again, we had a little pause, but it’s not a very big pause. With your help, we also passed the largest regulation cuts in American history, ending the Green News scam, one of the greatest scams in history, and massively increasing production of American oil, natural gas, and clean beautiful coal. We brought coal back. You’re not allowed to say coal without clean beautiful.

Got to be clean beautiful. China uses coal. They’re building about sixty-five massive coal plants right now. But China, great respect for China, but, you know, they make all the windmills. Right?

The only thing they don’t do is use the windmills. They make them. But try finding wind farms in China. There aren’t too many of them.

In my State of the Union address, I laid out an ambitious agenda that should be our roadmap this year, and it’s starting with lowering the cost of living.

You know, they gave us a mess. We inherited a mess, an absolute mess. And the mess was many things. They were bad with our military. They were bad with everything.

I mean, they said, one thing that they did right, they can’t name one thing, but they also gave us very high prices. And then they said the word affordability. That’s the first time I ever heard it. They said affordability. My first day in office, they said affordability.

They’re the ones that caused the problem, but we’re really bringing down prices big. Do you notice you don’t hear that word anymore? They don’t say it anymore because we brought down prices so much. So our message is simple. Democrats created the high prices, and our policies are totally ending them.

And they’ve ended, we’re doing better. We’re even bringing them down further. They’ll be way down. And we’re bringing, you know, if you go back into the last period, I would say, I think it’s two and a half months, one point seven percent inflation. Three months, one point four five percent inflation.

Think of that. Whereas they had the highest inflation in the history, the single highest inflation in the history of our country. Now, you know, I always say this, they say forty-eight years because I don’t want the fake news to get me on this. They say it wasn’t history. It was forty-eight years that the inflation was the highest in forty-eight years.

But I don’t know. In some ways, forty-eight years sounds even worse because it’s very specific. But they had the highest inflation probably in history. But in forty-eight years, we inherited that.

Healthcare and Drug Prices

TRUMP: One of the first targets must be the crushing healthcare. We have to crush the and take over the healthcare situation, which we can do. For the first time, we can do it. Since the passage of the Unaffordable Care Act, big insurance companies have gotten rich. They’ve made money like practically no other companies have made, with our government giving them hundreds of billions of dollars, and their stock prices soaring up to seventeen hundred percent, a thousand percent, twelve hundred percent, sixteen hundred percent, and even seventeen hundred percent.

The government gave them essentially trillions of dollars. And I want that money to be paid to the person, not to the insurance company, and let them go out and buy their own health care. And people love it. People love it. You’ll get better healthcare at a much lower cost, and they’ll be sort of part of the system. But the money we spend on it is so much. We spent numbers that nobody could even believe.

But the healthcare companies, because the Democrats are owned by the insurance companies. Remember that. And so they have a problem. That’s why it’s hard to get it fixed because they are totally owned and controlled by the health care, by the insurance companies. Health care insurance, but the insurance companies themselves.

So when you want to do something that’s good for the people but bad for the insurance companies, it’s very, very hard for them to go in a different way. Now Republicans never do that kind of thing. Right? You have, you’re owned by nobody. Right? Nobody.

See? Young girl up here say, yes. Some of them are a little bit shaky, but they’re Republicans. We love them. We love them anyway. Right, Mike?

But they are owned by those big, powerful insurance companies that are making a fortune, and it’s hard to get them to do the right thing. They know what the right thing is. So we want the money to be paid directly to the people, and let the people go out and buy their own health care. And people love it. They love it. We can own the issue. For the first time ever, Republicans can own that issue.

Most Favored Nation Drug Pricing

TRUMP: I’m also asking you to take swift action to codify my most favored nation policy on drug prices. That alone should win the midterms.

And I tell this story all the time. My first term, third year, I actually had a slight, it was one quarter of one percent decline in drug prices. First time in twenty-eight years. I was so proud. I went home, told our great first lady who’s now a movie star.

Can you believe that that movie was hot? And it is hot. She became a movie star. It was a good movie. But I went home and I said, you know, it’s amazing. We do so well. We work so hard. This issue is the single biggest issue.

I had a news conference, I’m embarrassed to say, a long time ago, my first term third year, because I went up to a level that nobody’s, I did things that nobody’s ever done. Twenty-eight years, I brought it down one quarter of one percent. Now I brought it down eighty percent, ninety percent, seventy-five percent.

Depending on, you know, it’s driving the fake news crazy because I say four hundred percent, five hundred percent, six hundred, depending on the way you want to talk about it, if you want to talk about pricing. But using a conservative number, what we’ve done is, we paid the highest price for drugs anywhere in the world, and now we pay the lowest price for drugs anywhere in the world. We are tied for the lowest price. Whoever has the lowest price, that’s what we pay. And I did that through tariffs.

We had a little disappointing decision, to put it mildly, from the Supreme Court. Terrible decision for the people. But the good news is I have lots of other ways of doing the same thing. I just have to work a little harder. They want me to work harder, but we’re doing the same thing with a lot of work.

But I used tariffs to get this because I went to other countries. The drug companies were not easy, but I got them. I said, we’re not paying. We were paying for a pill, a hundred and thirty dollars, that in London and Germany and different places, you’d pay ten dollars. So we were paying thirteen times more. They’re paying ten dollars. We’re paying a hundred and thirty.

And the drug companies, I called them in. We had a rough time, but it wasn’t that bad. And they agreed because they knew that I couldn’t get the countries. You had to get the countries to approve it.

And I called up, and you’ve heard me say this a couple of times, not often, but I called the countries up. I called up France. I said, “Emmanuel, you have to cut your good friends from America a reasonable deal. What’s happening is you are paying a tiny fraction for drugs.”

He said, “No. No, Donald. I cannot do anything about that.”

I said, “You can. You can.”

And he said, “No. No. I will not do it. I will not do it,” because he’d have to raise his pill from ten dollars to twenty and maybe even thirty. Ours would come down from a hundred and thirty dollars down to twenty dollars. Think of that. From a hundred and thirty. That’s what you’re going to get. From a hundred and thirty to twenty. But he has to double his price from ten dollars, and they were the boss.

I said, “No. No. You will.”

“No. Donald, Donald, I cannot do that.”

And I heard this from all the other countries too, very elegant people. And they were saying, “No. No. No. We cannot do this. We will not do this.”

I said, “Yes, you will. One hundred percent.”

“No, no. We will not.”

Because, you know, they have to double up their prices. And I said, “Well, here’s the story. If you don’t do it, I’m going to put,” in the case of Emmanuel, I said, “a one hundred percent tariff on all wines and champagnes coming into the United States.”

“No. No, Donald. You cannot do that.”

I said, “I’ve already got the legislation. It’s right in front of my desk. I’m going to sign it, Emmanuel.”

He said, “Donald, I will agree to this.”

So he agreed. Everybody agreed. I got every country to agree. And now you’ve done something that no other president could have done. No one. I don’t want to brag. But, you know, they’ve said this about a lot of things. No other president could do some of this sh I’m doing. No. No other president. The things I’m doing, nobody else was going to do it.

I say they say it all the time, “Sir, could you do this? You’re the only one who can do it.” But we got it done, and we got the countries to all go along. Because I said, if you don’t do it, I’m going to raise your tariffs to two hundred percent, to one hundred and fifty percent, and that’s ten times more than I’m asking for. And every single one, it would, if it took me five minutes, that was like a long time. I was doing badly with that one.

So now we have most favored nation pricing into permanent law, and you should codify it. But I don’t care that much about codifying it because what politician’s going to agree to increase drug prices by five hundred percent. Okay? So but it’s still good to have it codified. Don’t you agree?

You know, they’re saying, “Sir, we have to codify it.” And I said, that’s okay, but there are other things you should codify. That, I can tell you. This one, you should codify because you want to take credit for it. You want to take credit for it.

So if you can, please codify it. Get out there and codify. You’re getting an eighty percent, eighty-five percent, fifty-five percent, seventy percent reduction in drug prices. Codify it. But if you don’t, no president’s going to raise it, in my opinion.

Although they are crazy, you know. These people are crazy. They could find a way. You better get it codified.

Housing and Public Safety

TRUMP: And as we work to bring down interest rates so that more Americans can afford a house, I’m also asking you to ban the Wall Street firms, large Wall Street firms, institutional investors from buying up thousands and thousands of single family homes, hundreds of thousands of homes, because homes really are for people, not for hedge funds. We want to get the market out so they can do it, and we’re stopping it. We want people to be able to buy a house. It’s the American dream. Buying a house is a part of the American dream.

And we must also stand up for the safety of our citizens. One of my guests at the State of the Union was Anya Zoritska, the mother of a beautiful twenty-three-year-old Ukrainian girl who was stabbed to death on a train in North Carolina by a deranged criminal, arrested more than a dozen times. And I had the mother, as you know, at the State of the Union, and she was devastated. Beautiful woman, devastated, uncontrollably devastated. And we couldn’t get one Democrat to even clap.

The Republicans clapped and went wild and they loved her. Not one Democrat in that whole room even thought about clapping. They sat there frozen faced, disgusting.

House Republicans should get every member of Congress on record and pass a tough new crime bill that imposes harsh penalties for dangerous repeat offenders, which this nut was. Cracks down on rogue judges and prosecutors and ends no cash bail. No cash bail is a big part. I mean, you have a man murders somebody and by that afternoon, he’s out on bail. No cash bail. It’s a huge problem.

We also need to end deadly sanctuary cities and you have bills before you now and you’re working on things. But hopefully you can do that, Mike, because it’s terrible. They’re sanctuary for criminals. That’s all they are, sanctuary for criminals. They fight ICE all the time. That was a problem up in Minnesota. They had a lot of criminals in there. They wouldn’t give it to us.

And to stop illegal aliens who cannot even speak English from driving eighteen-wheel tractor trailers, they have no idea what they’re reading. I wouldn’t be able to do it in their countries. There’s arrows and there’s speed limits. They have no idea what they’re reading. And in many cases, they’re on drugs on top of that. We need to ban any state from granting commercial driver’s licenses to illegal aliens.

Endorsements and Congressional Wins

TRUMP: And I want to thank House Republicans for passing another common sense measure. I would think it’s the easiest thing. Just told Mike, you know, you were at nineteen million dollars. I have to say this because I’ve never contributed. I was a huge contributor for years and years. Once I became president, I never contributed any money because the greatest thing about being president is I no longer have to contribute. Nobody ever asked me for money. They asked me for my endorsement.

I’ve endorsed just about everybody in the room. But keep winning. Right? Yeah. One twenty-four and O this Tuesday. A hundred and twenty-four wins, no losses. Is that good? And there were some rebels. We endorsed a few rebels. Right?

The SAVE America Act and Election Integrity

TRUMP: A few that Mike was saying. I don’t — it’s going to be a tough one. But we’re one twenty four and o. But as president, nobody ever asked me for money. And as president, you know, like as president, you sort of don’t make campaign contributions. Right? Doesn’t even — but I heard you were at nineteen million dollars today. I said, “Has that ever been done?” “No, sir. It’s a record.”

But twenty would sound better. Right, Mike? Yes. He said, “I’m going to give you one million dollars.” It’s the first time I’ve done — I never did it before. I never did it before. I never did it before. Now I’ll be hit up by every political group, every Republican running. “Sir, can I have some — give me a little cash?” I’ll have Emory come up to me and say, “How about a little cash for my campaign?”

I will no longer have the excuse that as president I’ll send you — anyway, no. But we had to hit the twenty. Right? We had to hit the twenty. That was a hell of a thing. You beat it by a lot. You beat the record, the previous record by a lot.

Passing the SAVE America Act

But I want to thank House Republicans for passing another common sense measure. To me, the easiest of all — the Save America Act to protect our sacred American — look at this. Look. It’s the easiest thing we have. I can’t — it’s the easiest thing we have.

Now the problem is you call it the SAVE Act, and nobody knew what the hell the SAVE Act — have you been seeing — I’ve been working overtime the last month. It’s called the — the Save America Act. And I saw Schumer yesterday. “We will stop Save America.” He’s getting killed. They can’t do it.

And then the things within the Save America are so good. But just a title. So we had that with MAGA. Greatest name of all time. Make America Great Again, MAGA. It just worked. You know, I had something — “Keep America Great.” It was good, but it didn’t have that MAGA. You know, there was nothing you could — I had TAG — TAG. And TAG, I said, you know, no longer — that’s not good. But MAGA is great, and we’ll always respect MAGA. We love MAGA. We’re never going to let you down with MAGA.

But this one’s even better if you think about it. This says America. We’re going to save America. The Save America — how can they fight us? The Save America Act. And I’ve watched them. I watched Schumer, who’s horrible. What a horrible politician. He is now a Palestinian officially. He is — he is registered as a Palestinian. He’s a proud — he’s taken the biggest turn of any human being I’ve ever seen. He’s gone from totally pro-Israel to totally pro-Palestinian. He wants to protect the Iranian people that are quite nasty.

The Five Key Provisions

But it’s very simple. All voters must show — the act — voter ID. Ready? This is not complicated. Voter identification.

Now, I have a whole list, but I don’t want to put — I have, like, hundreds of things on the list. If you go shopping, if you do this, if you buy a car, if you license a car — get — point to everything you need to have identification. So all voters have to show identification, ID. All voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote. So you have ID and you have citizenship. So far, good.

No mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel. Mail-in ballots are a disaster. Jimmy Carter — the best thing he ever did — he headed a commission after he was president. It was the single best thing, and he did a thing on mail-in ballots. He said mail-in ballots should not be allowed because they are inherently dishonest. And we have seen it time and time again, and we just keep going with it. And I put that down as a top three.

Look, no mail-in. Now you have the exceptions for the military, and I would even say foreign-based military. But for the military, for disability, for illness. And if you’re traveling, you know, you have an excuse. And I was lenient on that. But those three things.

Then I added two more. These are best of — you know, best of. These are called “best of Trump.” We should also add on to this bill. And so what I’ve asked Mike to do is to draw a new one with these few things added, and let’s go for the gold.

Let’s not just get one like voter ID, but, you know, it can be given to you by your daughter. You know, your daughter — she has to be of age, like, above six years old, she’s allowed to say. You had to see some of this stuff is so bad. They’re doing everything possible because they know if we get this, they’ll probably won’t win an election for fifty years. Okay? And maybe longer. And they’re going to fight like hell.

But, boy, do they get killed because even the Democrats — you saw the numbers today? Democrats voted eighty-six percent that this stuff should be passed. The Democrats. With Republicans, you’re at ninety-eight percent. But Democrats are at eighty-six, except for the people that run the Democrat party because they want to try and win elections illegally. It’s the only — the only reason you vote against voter ID is because you want to cheat. There’s no other reason.

They come up with reasons. They say it’s racist. That’s their number one — racist. Then you have to explain it and they’re just sitting there mumbling. They can’t explain it. And it’s actually very insulting when they use the term racist. Very insulting to the people that they’re trying to so-called defend, but they’re not defending.

Then why I wanted to add two more to it — because they’re — I say ninety-five percent, maybe a hundred percent. No men in women’s sports. Very simple. Add that in.

And I wanted to add in one other — I’m not even adding in no open borders because, you know, there’s some people that like open borders. These people are crazy, but that’s okay. Because I want five things that are, like, close to a hundred percent. No transgender mutilation surgery for our children. You can’t have transgender for our children.

So those five things — five things: voter ID, citizenship, mail-in ballots — no mail-in ballots. Right? We don’t want men playing in women’s sports. That’s got to be about close to a hundred percent. We don’t want men playing in women’s sports and no transgender mutilation of our children.

Now, that should be the easiest thing to get passed that you’ve ever had. Each one — it’s best of, best of Trump. Those are best of Trump. I have some that are very popular, but I wouldn’t put them in that category. This is the number one priority.

A Call to Action for House Republicans

It should be for the House. And I’d like to ask Tom, Steve, Mike, all of you, if you would — I’d like to have you go back and Lisa. Hello, darling. She was — she was screaming her affirmation of what I said. She went — the kid went wild. She was so happy that somebody finally said, “Let’s vote on this.” Lisa, you’re going to get it done. Okay? I gotta count on you. Forget the men up here. I gotta count — deal.

But it’s actually a matter — in a serious way — of national survival. We can’t have these elections going on like this anymore. You know, you use paper ballots — right now they have watermark. It’s so safe. It’s so good. You put it, it gets under a light, it says, you know, a code. It’s very, very hard to cheat.

Another thing, and I don’t even bring this up — it costs seven percent the cost of those crazy machines. You know, I love the machines where they get the machines. They spend all this money, and they announced during the election that the tabulation will go along for another three weeks. Right? With mail-in voting.

You know, there’s not a country in the world that does mail-in ballots anymore. They tried it. France tried it. It failed. They go to paper ballots. They’re all doing paper ballots right now. Most of them are doing paper ballots except us. And nobody is doing what we’re doing. And there’s no elections so corrupt as the elections in the United States of America. And we can solve them with this.

And the reason I put those other two that have not much to do with it is because they are equally popular, and I think it might help us. And for those people that like Pfizer, I said maybe you put them together because a lot of people feel very strongly about Pfizer. Some people don’t, but the people that want it, they really want it. And generally, for whatever reason, they’re opposed to what we’re saying about, you know, about the ballots and about citizenship and all of those things. And so put them together and you might get a vote, but we have to get it done.

Going for the Gold — No Watered-Down Version

And then we have to get the Senate to do it. But if you could send a bill up to the Senate — a real — we’re going for the gold. We don’t want what was said. The SAVE Act was — it was alright. Nobody knew what the hell it was including me. I kept saying, “What’s this?” “Save America Act.” Don’t ever say SAVE Act again. It’s a loser. The SAVE Act. Nobody has any idea what we’re — what are we trying to save? It’s the Save America Act.

If you could send it up in full form, full form, meaning to straight — we will — I think the Senate has to approve it. I really do. I think — and they’re going to have to go to the filibuster, and maybe it’s going to be the talking filibuster like the old days, the great Jimmy Stewart. Right? Remember the great movie — Jimmy Stewart? But they have to get it done because if we don’t get this done, I’m for — if it takes you six months, I’m for not approving anything. I’m for not approving anything. I don’t think we should approve anything until this is approved.

And they can’t win politically. Look, you have them in a corner, and they’re listening to every word I’m saying. It doesn’t matter because they can’t win it politically. Because when they say, “We don’t want voter identification, we don’t want proof of citizenship” — all these things are just losers for them. And they can’t — they won’t be able to withstand it.

Just like at the State of the Union, they started clapping at the end. I said that. And the reason — because politically, you have to stand for these great people that were being — and the word came out from people watching it on television, “You guys are getting killed.” And this is an even bigger example.

So if you could — if I could ask the people in this room to go for the gold. We’re going for the gold. We’re not going for the bronze. We’re not going to sign a watered-down version like it’s been set up there. Let’s go for the gold, and let’s just not accept anything else.

I’ll tell you what, I’m willing to just sort of say, I’m not going to sign anything until this is approved. I really am, but that’s how bad it is. And we’re going to have to push the Senate because you have four or five senators that are — I don’t know — four or five Republican senators. You have to explain them to me, but we’re not going to get into that. But we’re going to push them to get it done because I don’t think you can politically exist if you’re not going to do voter ID in these things. I don’t think the people in this country will stand for it.

Guaranteeing the Midterms

So I’m making my biggest plea tonight. It’ll make you — and I’m not doing it for this reason at all — it’ll guarantee the midterms. It’ll guarantee the midterms. If you don’t get it, big trouble, my opinion. If you get this, you have midterms, and they know it. For two reasons. Number one, they won’t be able to cheat. And number two, the people are demanding it.

Every time I go out — “Save America, sir. Save America Act. We want the Save America Act, sir.” That’s all they talk about. They don’t talk about housing. They don’t talk about anything. That’s what they talk about. And if you send it up there, you’re going to win the midterms at levels that you can’t even believe, and you’re going to win every election for a long time until somebody really screws things up, and hopefully that won’t happen.

But I’ve never been more confident that if we keep these promises and deliver in this popular agenda, the American people will stand with us in overwhelming numbers just as they did in 2024.

Too Big to Rig

I heard Mike say it’s actually seventy-eight million votes, but it was actually eighty-six. You know, they cheated like hell unless — but it was too big to rig. Remember? We did — I won three times. First time was great. Second time, they cheated like hell. It was COVID. And their cheating was at an inspirational level. We can’t let that ever happen again.

And then they cheated again in the last election, but I went up — the term I used most was “too big to rig.” You gotta go out. Don’t believe — because we had polls having us way up. I said, “Don’t believe the polls. Go out and vote. Make it too big to rig.” And that’s what happened.

So a couple of races, they cheated or they got away with it. A couple of Senate races, my opinion. But we have to make it too big to rig. That’s what we did. But we shouldn’t have to win an election that way. You could have a hard time winning elections that way. So you got to get that passed.

And if we fight, fight, fight, we will win, win, win, and we will make our country safer and stronger and richer and greater than it ever has been before. And I want to say, very importantly — because they would like you not to say this because this is a terrible thing in their opinion to say — God bless you and God bless America. Thank you very much everybody. Thank you very much.

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