Transcript: Trump Remarks at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s 2026 Policy Conference

All things. That’s why, as we prepared to enter the 250th year last month, tens of thousands of patriots came together on our National Mall, and we officially rededicated America as one nation under God. And we’re not changing. We’re not changing. And we always have been, and we always will be. We’re not going to let them take it away.

A Nation Founded on Faith — Defending Religious Liberty

But as we celebrate this anniversary, we must also remember that our country could have been marking this occasion under very different circumstances. The last administration carried out a reign of persecution and repression against Christians and people of faith like America has never seen before. It was terrible.

They turned a nation founded on freedom for believers into a place where Catholics were targeted by the FBI, where pro-life grandmothers were put in jail for praying, and where members of our military were thrown out of the armed forces for their religious beliefs. The radicals responsible for these offenses would have loved nothing more than to mark America’s 250th anniversary by driving God from our public square once and for all. They wanted to do that.

I don’t know how anybody could vote for these people. They were so bad. They were so evil. And yet, in many ways, incompetent, certainly incompetent on policy, open borders, transgender for everybody, men and women’s sports, just grossly incompetent ideologies, and so many more.

But they did not get that chance because they lost an election in a landslide, and we won an election in a landslide. And while I am in the White House, I will defend Christians and all Americans of faith 100 percent. You have it 100 percent, and you’ve seen it already.

The Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty

So, upon taking office, I created the first-ever Presidential Commission on Religious Liberty, led by Texas Lieutenant Governor — a great guy. I don’t know if he’s here. I know he’s coming over to my office in a little while — I think called the Oval Office — beautiful office — Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick, and my friend, Dr. Ben Carson.

I don’t know, there’s so many people, and there’s some — I don’t know if they’re here. They may be here. But they’re two great people. And later today, at the White House, they will present me with their official report and recommendations to ensure that America continues to uphold the first right in our Constitution, and that’s religious liberty. We have to uphold religious liberty. That’s the most important thing.

Actions Taken to Protect People of Faith

On day one of my administration, I ended the weaponization of law enforcement against religious believers. You know that. I pardoned the Christians Joe Biden threw in jail for saying prayers. He threw them in jail. And he didn’t know what the hell he was doing. The guy’s grossly incompetent. But he was surrounded by very smart — in some cases, brilliant — lunatics.

I got rid of the sinister Johnson Amendment so that pastors can speak the truth from their pulpit. We created the very, very popular White House Faith Office — first time that’s ever happened. And I set up an official Department of Justice Task Force to eradicate anti-Christian bias — anti-Christian bias. Who would think? At a high level, too, although it’s fading — going to fade fast.

That task force just produced a new documentary revealing the abuses of religious freedom that they uncovered. It’s called By Dawn’s Early Light. And it’s out right now. And it’s really supposed to be — I have not seen it. I cannot tell a lie. I have not seen it. But I’ve heard about it, and I hear it’s great. And I will see it, I hope, soon.

I also signed a historic executive order to combat the scourge of anti-Semitism in our country. And we reinstated the warriors who were thrown out of our military by the Biden vaccine mandates and restored them to their former ranks. And we let them back with full pay. Is that good? We want to cut costs, but we figured we have to do — we have to take care of them.

And we’re protecting our churches and synagogues by prosecuting mobs of radical-left lunatics and agitators who try to harass and intimidate people in their places of worship. Not so long ago. And to help parents send their children to schools that share their values, I signed the largest expansion of school choice in the history of our country, including in Texas.

Protecting Prayer, Parental Rights, and Election Integrity

And in my direction, the Department of Education issued new guidance protecting the right to prayer in public schools. That was a big thing. And these are all things that we were — you know, they fought us very strongly, very, very strongly. Hard to believe they’d fight us on that, but we had to fight the good battle. But we won every time.

We slashed federal funding for any school that pushes transgender insanity on our youth. We expanded the Mexico City policy to stop taxpayer dollars from being used to promote radical gender ideology around the world. Radical gender ideology, it is. I made it the official policy of the United States government that there are only two genders — male and female.

That wasn’t too tough. That was sort of an easy one, but, you know, we have a man running in Texas who thinks there are six genders. I don’t know what — he’s going to have to discuss that with us. Can you believe it? Six genders. And we officially banned the chemical and surgical mutilation of our children.

The Save America Act: Fighting for Election Integrity

And now we have to pass the Save America Act to protect our sacred American elections. Have to pass it. Hard to believe, right? Hard to believe that we even have to fight for this. We have to fight for everything. Nothing comes easy. Nothing.

All voters must show photo ID. Not so bad, right? All voters must provide proof of citizenship. Is that so hard? And we’re fighting the Democrats and a few Republicans who are doing a tremendous disservice to this country. We have a few Republicans that are fighting it. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. You should call her and tell her to get on the ball. She’ll never win another election, I can tell you.

She’s got to vote. It’s called the Save America Act. It’s voter ID — ideally, photo ID, right? So you can look and you can say, “Oh, that person’s okay.” Or for lots of reasons, that person is not the same person. We want proof of citizenship. And we want no mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, and military deployment or travel. It would be very judicious.

What’s Happening in California

Look what’s happening in California, where the ballots still aren’t in. They’re still not — can you believe it? Weeks afterwards. You know what’s happening? They’re cheating. The kid won, or he was certainly in the top two. I don’t know him. I never met him. I don’t know that. And he went away quietly. We didn’t go away quietly, but he shouldn’t go away quietly. He should protest because it was, in my very strong opinion, that was a rigged election.

That kid should be in the runoffs. The woman who edged him out after, like, a long time — days, days and days. And then you’d hear reports, Spencer Pratt is not doing so well, even though he was strongly in the lead. And then you hear, “Spencer Pratt has a 20 percent chance of being in the runoff.” I said, they just rigged the election. And then you hear that a woman who nobody ever heard of is in the runoff, not him.

And then they tried to hurt Steve Hilton, too. And I called the U.S. Attorney and I said, “You have to look into this because Steve Hilton did great.” He’s running for governor, and you could see it. The election was there. He was doing great. Then, day after day, you’d hear reports about vote counting. They go on for weeks.

El Tigre and the Colombia Election

You know, Colombia just had an election. The country of Colombia. Thirty million voters. And I endorsed — I now — I’m endorsed. We do so well with endorsements, like almost 100 percent success. But I endorsed somebody running, El Tigre. El Tigre. I liked him. You know why? Because he likes me. I don’t know. He used to talk about Trump. “I like President Trump.” I don’t know. How can you not — so I endorsed him. I didn’t know. He was way down the list. He was not going to win.

Election Integrity and the Fight Against Cheating

No chance of winning. I endorsed him, and he won. Did he just announce he won? But think of it. They had 30 million votes. By 9:30 in the evening, every single vote was counted, and there were no complaints. He won. Every vote was counted. Here we are in California. They’re going to go for weeks and weeks and weeks. And you know what they do? They cheat. How many votes do we need? How many votes? That’s why they take their time. How many votes do we need? Okay, here they are. It’s — honestly, it’s terrible. We’re a third-world country with elections.

Protecting Children and Religious Liberty

And we will also enshrine a permanent law that says very easily and succinctly, no men in women’s sports and no transgender surgery for our children. Never forget, if the radical left ever gets the chance, they will bring all of this insanity right back at levels that you’ve never seen before. You will never have seen anything like it, if they ever get their chance. And they’re trying like hell.

I call them the Democrats. I exchanged an E for a U — the Dumb-agrets. And that’s counter — it’s trending number one, the word Democrats. I just can’t believe I didn’t think of it nine years ago. I should have thought — the Democrats, they are horrible. They want to resume the transgender mutilation of our children. They want to restart the war on Christians and churches. And as you saw with the communists elected in New York City recently — they’re communists, they’re not Social Democrats — they want to completely destroy the traditional American way of life.

The Easy but Destructive Sell of Communism

Communism is very easy to sell. It destroys everything, but it’s very easy. I’ll be honest, I think I’d be the greatest communist in history. I’d give free rent. Ladies and gentlemen, from now on, you don’t have to pay any rent. From now on, anybody wants a house, don’t worry about it. Just pick the house you want. Everybody gets free food. Everything is free from this point forward. Everyone is going to vote for me.

The problem is, after two or three years, the country is a disaster area. The country fails. They always do. It always does. So easy to sell. That first year, boy, you’re the most popular. It’s happening right now in New York and California. But you’ll start living in squalor. You’ll live in squalor. There will be no food. There will be no housing. There will be no military. There will be no law and order. There will be no nothing. You’ll be a third-world inhabitant in every way, and everyone will suffer or die. You’ll suffer or die. That’s what happens. For thousands of years, it’s been happening, by different names. Thousands of years.

I would be — I’m telling you, I’d be the greatest communist in history. It would be so easy. You wouldn’t have to work. You could stay home. The problem is, a couple of years go by, the whole place collapses. Always does. Always has.

The Democrat Party’s Dangerous Lurch to the Left

But I’m sorry to say, assassinations of those who oppose them is a very important element of their ideology. Assassinations are a big deal for them. They’re animals. They’re animals. In many cases, they’re not smart, but in some cases, they are. It’s easy for them to get followers because they make promises that they know they can’t keep.

And the Democrats aren’t fighting back. That’s why they’re dumb. They’re not fighting back. They’re afraid. I watch Schumer. He’s afraid to fight. I watch guys that are pretty normal. And guys that we oppose, they’re afraid to fight. The Democrats have taken a tremendous turn left. And many of these people — I looked at some of the people that got elected the other night in New York. These are — these are, in many ways, stupid people. In some ways, and intellectually, probably pretty smart. But they’re people that want to destroy our country. They hate our country. They hate our people. They hate the Democrat Party.

The Democrat Party’s Dangerous Drift Toward Communism

The Democrat Party is in big trouble because this isn’t stopping with New York. This is going all — too easy to get elected. Giving everything away. Too easy to get elected. Very dangerous. But you’ll soon have nothing left. That’s the problem.

In many ways, they’re allowing them to just go their own way, do your own. We don’t want to take a chance on saying anything bad because we’re afraid we’re going to lose our jobs if we do. They’re afraid they’re going to lose their election if they even think about saying anything bad about this new breed of sick people. They’re not smart enough or tough enough to fight the plague that’s happening. It’s happening right before your very eyes.

If they fought them the way they fight Republicans or the way they fight me, they’d be victorious. They didn’t beat us, but they’d be victorious against the communists. But they don’t have the courage to do so, so they’re turning communists themselves, becoming a communist party. These are not social Democrats. These are hardcore, godless communists. They’re godless communists. All communists are godless. They don’t believe in God.

The Greatest Threat to America in 250 Years

This is the most serious threat to our country since its existence, in my opinion, 250 years ago. This is a major threat to our country. It isn’t something that’s easily solved, but with a little love and help, some hard work. Because it’s ironic, we’re celebrating a very important birthday, our most important birthday so far, 250 years. And instead of speaking about Christ, and instead of speaking about freedom and victories of all different kinds, we’re speaking about yet another threat to the foundations of America.

These ruthless communists will attack all religions, but in particular, Christianity. They always do. They’re after Christianity more than any other religion. It seems to be more and more throughout the world, maybe because we’re doing so well. I don’t know. Maybe if we weren’t doing well. But you see the numbers, how they’re growing, how the churches are filling up. It’s a beautiful thing to see. I mean, look, it happens to be during my presidency, so I don’t mind taking credit for it. I’m very proud. But a lot of great things are happening.

Protecting Christians Around the World

All communist countries attack religions violently. It’s part of their deal. As you know, we recently struck Nigeria and largely ended the slaughter of great Christian populations. They have a great Christian population. They were being butchered. Butchered. Thousands and thousands of people were being killed. Children, women, old people just being slaughtered, hatched to death. They know that if they go further, the attack will be far greater and that they don’t want to really get involved anymore so much. You know, we hit them very hard. We knocked out their leader. We knocked out their second leader and their third leader.

Sounds a little bit like Iran, actually. That’s all about a different cause that we have to do because we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. Can’t let it happen.

So, I’m saving Christians throughout the world, even though we are not in those various countries where you read about this. But they’d like to make our country just like those countries. That’s where they started. They started right where we are right now. But I’m saving them by hitting these terrorists very violently and very hard. We’re hitting them very hard by the greatest weapons on Earth, taking them out. We know where they are. We hunt them down or we take them out. Think of it, they go into a village and they just kill everybody. It’s like crazy.

They Want to End Religion

They will close your churches in this country. They go communist, and they’re trying to. They will kill your people. And that’s what they’re about. They want to end religion. They have to end religion because their ideology doesn’t work if you have strong religion. People like you that are so incredible and love our country so much and love God. This is the greatest threat to our country since its founding, in my opinion, 250 years ago. What’s happening right now? It’s the greatest threat.

Rent Control and the Attack on Property Rights

People don’t look at that. Well, oh, three people were elected. No, no. Many more than three people. And the other people are being swayed because they don’t have the sense to see what’s happening. They don’t have the sense. Their followers are not leaders, even though they’re politicians, in some cases successful ones.

For the first time in history, the powerful Rent Stabilization Board is an example that sets rents in New York City. It just happened today. They’ve done it for years and years, and they’ve been very far left. They’re run by Democrats, and they give landlords a hard time for years and years. It’s called rent control. They give landlords a hard time, but they always give some increases so they can survive.

But they just came out, first time ever, with a ruling, zero rent increases for landlords. Zero for the next two years, despite the fact that energy, supplies, real estate taxes, and just about everything else has gone up. They’re supposed to allow you to have that. Zero. They’re giving them nothing. They’re basically confiscating their property.

And the one representative for the landlords who’s on the board — I think they have eight or nine people on the board, and you had one who was representing one out of, like, eight. But at least you had somebody. But that person walked off in disgust, walked off, and got booed.

Mayor Mamdani, who came to the White House and seems like a nice guy, but he said he was going to do this in his campaign. Nobody thought he was serious. He said he was going to make sure that people don’t have a rent increase, even though energy went up.

Energy Prices and the Decline of Cities

It’s going to come down. It’s coming down fast right now. I hope you’re watching what’s happening. We had a low number just now. It’s $69 a barrel. That was — some people said it was going to be $350 by now. Sixty-nine, and it’s going to be $300, $350. Never hit those numbers at all, even in the height of it all.

But what the mayor doesn’t say is that these buildings will soon turn into ghettos and slums, and that everybody will continue leaving New York. And as this spreads throughout the country, very much like an uncontrollable form of cancer, the country itself will be taken down. It will be third world — strictly third world. And it’s happened many times before to very big and very powerful countries. But it’s not going to happen to the United States of America. No way.

Because communism really is the past, and freedom is the future. That’s what we are. All we want is freedom. Freedom is going to be — freedom gets you everything.

The Midterms and America’s Renewed Strength

Everyone needs to get out and vote in the midterms. We have to win this election. This election is very vital. If we don’t, everything that we’ve gotten — we’ve gotten so much. I mean, religious liberty. But we’ve gotten so much. Our military is the strongest in the world. I built it during my first term. Strongest in the world. And people respect us again. They respect us maybe like never before. We were laughed at a year and a half ago. We were laughed at. And now we’re the most respected nation anywhere in the world.

And in our 250th year, we will make our nation stronger and safer, better, more prosperous, and more faithful — very important — more faithful than ever before.

Today, we have the largest economy on Earth. We’re expanding it a degree and to a degree that nobody thought possible. They never thought what we’re doing for the last year and a half. It’s only a year and a half. What we’re doing for the last year and a half, nobody thought was possible. We have the strongest military on Earth. We have the most powerful technology on Earth. We’re winning on AI. We’re winning with automobile manufacturing. Do you see how many plants are coming back into the United States? Tariffs. Tariffs. If they don’t come in, they have to pay massive tariffs.

Tariffs, Trade, and the American Worker

Make your car outside, but you have to pay massive tariffs to come in. If you build your car in the United States using U.S. workers — our great American workers — you don’t have any tariffs to pay. So they’re all pouring in. It should have been done years ago by other Presidents.

We have the greatest culture on Earth, and above all, we have the greatest people on Earth. We do. We have the greatest people.

America’s Comeback on the World Stage

But think of it. I was with the King of Saudi Arabia, and he said, “Mr. President, two years ago, your country was dead. It was a dead country. And today, you’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.” It’s amazing what’s happened.

We were laughed at. We had a man who couldn’t speak, couldn’t think. He didn’t know what the hell was happening. He kept falling down all over the place. If he was standing here now, he would have been off the stage before he started. But if he was standing here now, he wouldn’t know how to get off the stage. He had to be led off the stage. It was a disaster, and it was a rigged election.

But we did it again, and we got it right. Too big to rig. We made it too big to rig.

The Cost of Open Borders

It was a rigged election. And look what happened because it was a rigged election. Twenty-five million people came in — many criminals, murderers — 11,808 murderers, more than 50 percent of whom created more than one murder — murdered more than one person. These are not going to be the citizens of our country. There’s not a thing you can do to change that.

But drug dealers at the highest level. The worst — some of the worst people on Earth came in through open borders — Joe Biden’s. But really, it was the ideology’s open-border policy where everybody could come in. They came from all over the world. They emptied their prison populations into the United States of America. Think of that.

But we’re getting them out. We’re getting them out faster than anybody can imagine. And we’re going after the bad ones first. We’re getting them out.

Iran Will Never Have a Nuclear Weapon

Last week, we signed a historic agreement to accomplish what no President has ever been able to accomplish before — that Iran will never have a nuclear weapon. We’re not going to let that happen.

And thanks to the power and skill of the United States Armed Forces, Iran today has no Navy, no Air Force, no anti-aircraft capability, no radar, virtually no manufacturing. Their drone capacity has been cut by 82 percent. Their missile capacity has been cut by 80 percent. Their rocket launchers have been cut by 90 percent. Their leadership has been killed a first time, and their leadership has been killed a second time. And nobody wants to be the leader of Iran anymore. They said, “Who would like to be the President?” And everyone said, “No, thank you.” It’s amazing.

And then the fake news, like the New York Times, which is a failing publication. But the fake news — ABC, so bad. ABC Television Network. Fake ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN. They actually said, for a little while — it didn’t play well — that Iran was much stronger today than it was four months ago. Think of it. They have no Navy. They said they’re stronger. They’re dying to make a deal. They’re giving us a lot.

This should have been done over the 47-year period that they’ve reigned with terror. And that’s what they did. They reigned with terror. When you see a young man or woman walking around without legs or without arms, or a face that was obliterated — it happened from the roadside bomb that was created — the creation of General Soleimani, who I killed in my first term. And that was a big killing. He was a mad genius, but he was going to knock out five of our military installations. I found out about it.

The Killing of Soleimani

And in all fairness, Israel was supposed to do it with us. And the night before that took place, we heard from Israel that they will not be doing it. They don’t want to do it. And I said to a couple of generals that we had, who were very good — I said, “What do you think, generals? Can we do it?” Because we worked on it for 30 days. Worked on it with Israel. They said, “We’ll do it, sir. Can we do it as well?” “We’ll do it better.” And he was dead the next day. He was dead. In the valley of death. He died in the valley of death.

We had him all. We knew when he was coming, where he was coming, how he was getting there. We knew everything. But we lost our partner. I don’t blame them that much, to be honest, really, because it’s a tough sell. But they told us the night before they won’t be doing it. We did it ourselves. And we did it so incredibly well.

We also took out the head of Iraq’s ISIS division. And we took out both of them by luck. By luck, with Iraq. But had he lived — because he was a brilliant general, very sick man, mentally. But he was a brilliant general. It may have been a different story. I don’t think so. I think we would have knocked the hell out of him, whether he was there or anybody else was there. But he was a brilliant general.

It’s one of the biggest things ever to happen in the Middle East, the killing of Soleimani. People have said it’s the biggest thing to happen in 100 years because he was a dominant force. I actually think that Khomeini and all of the people in Iran were happy about it because they were afraid of him, too.

The Economy and the Detour to Iran

Over the past few weeks, the stock market and your 401Ks skyrocketed upward like pretty much nobody has seen before. Oil prices are plummeting downward, and the world is a much safer place. We had to take that detour to knock out Iran if we didn’t do that. And we’re still — you know, we still have a fight. They have some capability, not much. They’re not winning or anything, but they have some capability. They can still shoot.

You know, they shot a drone yesterday at a big ship going into the Hormuz Strait. They shot four of them. We knocked down three of them. One of them, I guess — we didn’t miss it. Nobody saw it coming. And it hit a ship and did some damage. But you can’t do that stuff. But very soon, they will be — we’re going to be at $2.50 gasoline.

You know, I was in Iowa making a speech the day before we did the attack. And again, we had to turn it around. Everything was going so well. It’s like, you’re doing so well. We have the best economy. Everything is great. And I said — I brought my people into the room, my financial people and other people. I said, “Listen, we just set a record in the stock market. We just set a record in every single thing, including 401Ks. Your 401Ks — most of you have 401Ks — are at the highest they’ve ever been.” Everything. And this was true three and a half months ago, before the attack. Everything was good. We had records on everything. We were doing great.

And I said, “I hate to tell you, but we’re going to have to take a detour. We’re going to have to go to war or go to a military operation” — which my people would prefer that I use as a term because war means things that they don’t like. But whether you call it war or not, it is what it is. And we’re going to go down to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and we’re going to have to hit them very hard.

And don’t forget, when Barack Hussein Obama did the JCPOC, if you look at that — Barack Hussein Obama.

Iran, the JCPOA, and Preventing Nuclear Disaster

Have you heard of him? He was a disaster. He was a disaster. He gave them $1.7 billion in cash. $1.7 billion in cash and tens of billions of dollars. Gave it to Iran. Thought he could buy their friendship, and it was just the opposite. They used the money, and they built missiles and everything else.

And I terminated the JCPOA, which was his agreement. It was the Iran nuclear deal. It was a disaster. By the way, it expired a long time ago, but I terminated it long before it expired. If I didn’t do that, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon. If I didn’t send the B-2 bombers in 10 months ago, they would have had a nuclear weapon. We obliterated that nuclear dust. Very important.

And then you wouldn’t have Israel. Israel would be gone. I know you have a lot of good fans of Israel in this room. And Israel would have been gone, and probably the Middle East would have been gone. And they could have taken a shot. We would have wiped them out pretty quick. But they could have taken a chunk of us, too.

The Economy and a Historic Decision

But in my first term, I created the greatest economy in the history of the world. The first term was a great success and rebuilt the military, did everything. But now we’re blowing it away. We’re doing much better this time.

And again, we did have to make that excursion. How would you like to be given the best numbers we’ve ever had as a country and tell people, “Guess what, we’re going to war?” And nobody in the room knew what I was talking about because they weren’t — it wasn’t their thing. And I said, “We got to stop them from having a nuclear weapon, because you want to see problems? Let a crazy country have a nuclear weapon. You’ll see problems like you’ve never seen before.”

The stock market has set 73 all-time record highs since the election. And more Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. That’s pretty good.

The Border Crisis We Inherited

In January 2025, we inherited the worst, most dangerous, most wide-open and insecure border in history. I actually think, in the history of the world — I don’t think it’s just here — you could just walk into the country. And again, they were letting prison populations — they were taking buses and dropping them off at our border, and people coming out — murderers coming out of prison, drug dealers. The worst — the worst people. They made our criminals look like nice people. That’s the only thing nice. Our criminals, for the first time, looked very nice by comparison to these people.

But they dropped 25 million people over four years into our country. And it’s the single hardest job I have, getting them out. We’re getting them out pretty rapidly, but it’s a very hard thing. But it’s — think of it — prison populations from the Congo, from all parts of South America, from all parts of the world were taken in, driven through Mexico, and dropped off at our border, and they would walk right into our country.

The Strongest and Most Secure Border in History

And we’ve quickly turned it into the strongest and most secure border in history. We have the strongest border we’ve ever had, now. And for the past 13 months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. Zero. We have zero. And those are the numbers they report them. And they’re taken by, sort of, a left kind of a group, the stats. You know, if anybody did, they’d like to report them. But we have zero. And they don’t even try because they know they’re probably not going to get in, so they’re not going to make this very dangerous march. We’re saving a lot of lives.

Because then those caravans — you remember, I named them caravans — they’d have 25,000 people, sometimes more. But they’d come up from South America and all through Mexico. They’d go all through. And they’d go through jungles in Colombia. Really tough jungles, too. Dangerous jungles.

On the Border Crisis and the Human Cost of Open Borders

And women would die, and women would be raped. Remember when I mentioned — when I said they get raped — crime, murder. And everyone — my first speech. My first speech was controversial. When I announced I was running, everyone said, “What do you mean, raped?” What I said was peanuts compared to what happened. And the women would come up, and they’d die. They’d be raped. A lot of people would die on those caravans. The journeys up were — they called them journeys through hell. Because they had to go through jungles. They had to go through very dangerous areas. And the people that got here would just walk right into our country. We had no idea who they were. Nobody would even stand there and check. They just came in. Come on in. Come on in.

This was Sleepy Joe Biden’s ideology that was forced on him by much smarter people than him that wanted to destroy our country, because he had no clue.

Record Drop in Murder Rate and the Transformation of Washington, D.C.

But with the help of our law enforcement heroes, in 2025, we achieved the largest drop in the murder rate ever recorded in our country’s history, 125 years ago. Think of that — think of that. The year 1900. That was before my father. My father would hate me saying that because it’s a long time ago. But that was before my father was born. I had a wonderful father and mother. And family. But the lowest murder rate in 125 years.

Washington, D.C. is now one of the safest, most beautiful cities in the country. And just a little while ago, it was a — it was a killing machine. Think of that. A year and a half ago, Washington was a very unsafe city. Now it’s one of the safest cities in the country. It’s one of the most beautiful cities. Doug Bergman and myself and a whole group of people did a great job on the monuments and fountains.

And the reflecting pool was so beautiful. They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it. And it’s in great shape now. They’re terrible. They’re vandals. They’ve caught six of them, I guess. Maybe more. They’ve got others in line to be caught. But we just inspected it. We’ll fix it right after the Fourth of July. Got to let the water out, just fix it. But we caught them. They would cut it, and they would grab this very expensive and very good material — totally waterproof — and they’d rip it. These people are sick. They ripped a scar 350 feet long through the side of the reflecting pool. These are the people we’re dealing with. These are the people that want to destroy our country.

Record Military Investment and Historic Recruitment Numbers

But we’ve invested a record $1 trillion in the United States Armed Forces, and we’re going this year for $1.5 trillion, all made in the USA.

And something that’s so exciting — the recruitment. You know, if you go back a year and a half, two years ago, you could not get anybody to join the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force. You couldn’t get anybody to join. They had tremendous recruitment problems. But now recruitment in every branch of our military is setting records.

Eighteen months ago, we had tremendous shortages, and we couldn’t fill them up. We were never going to fill them up. That included police and firemen. We couldn’t get policemen and women. We couldn’t get firemen and women. Anything with a uniform, because they were ashamed of our country, because we had people that were not respected. You have to respect the President. If you don’t respect the President, you’re going to have a problem. You’re going to have a problem. They had no respect.

And now we have waiting lists. Now you can’t get in to them. Literally, we went from the worst recruitment numbers ever in one year to the best recruitment numbers ever. And it all started on that beautiful day, November 5th, right? A thing called Election Day.

Riding High, But Staying Vigilant

And as soon as we won, before I even got to do anything, those numbers started going through the roof. People love our country again, and they have spirit. You always loved it, but you were down. You were depressed. You were not feeling too good about our country. Especially you, as people with a great religion and a fervor for Christianity and religion, you were very — you should be depressed. You should have been. But now you’re riding high.

But we have to be careful. We don’t want to lose it. We’ve got to win the midterms. We’ve got to win the election coming up. And we’re going to — we’re going to be in good shape. But you have to expose them. If you don’t expose them — I mean, I stand here and I expose them. Some people don’t do it right. They say they’re going to get free rent. Well, that’s okay to say, but everyone is going to vote for them, except for a few of the people in this room.

But you have to say they’re going to get free rent. But in two years, everything is going to collapse and you’re going to live in squalor. When you say that, you can beat the free rent — you can beat the fact that they’re going to take your house away and give it to somebody else, which is essentially what they’d like to do. But it’s happened so many times over the years with really powerful countries, and we’re not going to let it happen.

The Strongest Military in the World

So, we have the strongest and most powerful military anywhere in the world. I built it in my first term, using it a little bit in my second term. And we’re, once again, using it to defend America’s interests and American values.

Look at what happened in Venezuela. We have a great — and, by the way, we’re helping Venezuela. They had a tremendous earthquake. A lot of people killed, and unbelievable — right in Caracas. And we have a lot of people over there helping. But Venezuela has been fantastic. We’ve had a great relationship. It was a one-day war. We hit them so hard. And one-day war. Now we’ve taken out millions of barrels of oil, and we’ve paid for the war many times over.

But just as importantly, they are doing better than they’ve ever done. They’re making more money than they’ve ever done. They’ve never made the money that they’re making now. And it’s really — I mean, outside of what happened last night with the terrible — that was terrible, what happened. It was a big earthquake. Knocked down buildings. But outside, it was really — it’s a happy country again. The people are happy. They’re dancing in the streets. The people running it are doing a very good job.

America’s Story: Faith, Freedom, and Overcoming Every Foe

The United States has never been stronger. We have never been wealthier, or we’ve never been prouder to be an American. Since 1776, America’s story has been a tale of freedom, overcoming oppression, good defeating evil, and faith overcoming every challenge and every foe. We had everybody was winning, and we’re going to continue. Stronger. Maybe stronger.

One generation — think of it — just one generation after our War of Independence, the British tried — they really tried hard to conquer America in the War of 1812. That didn’t work out too well. But they failed, and the cause of freedom won, and it continues to win. The War of Survival ultimately gave America our national anthem and our Star-Spangled Banner.

Many Americans know the story of Francis Scott Key writing the words of the anthem, and watched the flag under attack, and he wrote that beautiful — those beautiful words. But what few realize is that the very same poem also inspired our national motto. The fourth verse of the song ends in these words, “and this be our motto, in God we trust.” In God we trust.

And as you know, the Democrats want to end that. They don’t want the words, in God we trust. They want to have that stricken. They go to court.

They take us to court. We’re never changing that. We’ll fight for that. We’re not changing that. In God we trust. Better believe it. So today, on the threshold of our 250th year, this room is proof that America is still a nation that lives by those magnificent words, in God we trust.

With the help of everyone here today and Americans of faith all across this land, we will continue to protect the promise of the Declaration of Independence — one of which actually is in my office, in the Oval Office, so we cherish it. We will continue to defend our values, our traditions, our faith, and our freedom.

The Golden Age of America

And as we enter the golden age of America — that’s what we have. This is the golden age. We’ve never had anything like it. We have factories all over the country. We have car plants, AI plants, all sorts of plants. Our businesses are expanding. Our numbers are unbelievable. Remember that we’ve never had a year with so many number-one stock markets.

Good to have number-one stock — because that affects everybody. That means jobs. That means success. That’s good, as we said, for your 401ks. It’s good for your stock investments. Everyone is doing well. We have a country that’s just the hottest. It just is so hot. And I’m working really hard to make it even better. We’re going to get rid of some of the flaws. We’re going to make it even better.

But the biggest thing we have to do is we have to stop this horrible thread of cancer that’s permeating our country called communism. We have to stop it because that’s what it’s about. That’s what they want to do quietly.

And we ask that God will continue to bless the United States of America, and God will bless the United States of America because of people like you. Thank you very much. And happy Independence Day, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

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