Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2025
October 6, 2025
The President. Well, David, thank you very much. It's an honor. We've had a great relationship, you and I and the Club for Growth, and I appreciate the introduction. And hello to all of the incredible patriots of Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District.
Tennessee has been a very special State to me. I won by a lot. We all won by a lot. I won all three times. I won three primaries and three elections—and by a lot. And I just appreciate it. I love—I love the place. I really do.
And I want to talk to you about a very important special election taking place in your district tomorrow, October 7, to choose your Republican nominee for the United States Congress. And I'm asking that all of you get out and vote and send a great first American champion.
You're going to be—you're going to love this man. He's all about first American and American first. His name is Matt Van Epps, and he's very special. He's going to go to Congress and represent us all very well.
Matt has complete and total—has my complete and total endorsement in this race. He's outstanding in so many ways. The people that know him have no question about him.
Even so, I'll tell you a little bit about him. He's a warrior who spent 10 years serving our country in uniform in the United States Army. He's a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he did really well. He fought overseas as an Army Special Operations helicopter pilot, and he is now a lieutenant colonel in the Tennessee National Guard, respected by everybody.
He's also served as a commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, making sure your State government runs smoothly and efficiently. And you know, it does. It's one of those States that happens to work, and largely because of the people, to be honest. The people are so great. They work.
As your representative in Congress, Matt will be a true champion for the people of the seventh district. He'll vote for strong and secure borders.
You know, when I took over, the border was a disaster. Millions of people pouring through.
And now, as you've been reading, virtually nobody gets through the border. We have the strongest border. Nobody has a stronger border than we have.
But he wants strong and secure borders, so he'll help us keep them that way. No illegal migrants and keeping the criminals, cartels, and gang members out of our country.
Matt will support our campaign to restore law and order to our cities and towns. You see that I'm doing that all over.
Very proud to say that the—our Capital—our Nation's Capital, District of Columbia—was a disaster. It was a crime-ridden disaster. And I sent in the National Guard, and now it's one of the safest cities in the country. The restaurants are thriving. They were dying. It was—the whole place was a mess, and now it's one of the safest places you can imagine. New restaurants are opening. You can't get into a restaurant. Then, everybody is happy. Not only that, we cleaned it. We gave it a good cleaning after Biden destroyed it.
But Matt is somebody that's going to keep those career criminals out of the various places.
Right now we're in Memphis. We're going to Chicago, where you have rampant crime. Even though you have a Governor that says everything is wonderful, you have seven, eight, nine people killed every week. And he—and the Governor stands up and says it's wonderful.
The people understand. That's why they lost the election. The people understand—by so much, by the way—they understand that he's not telling the truth.
But Matt is going to be extremely pro-growth, giving you low taxes, low regulations, abundant American energy production, and bringing jobs and factories back to the State of Tennessee.
We have the largest investment ever made in our country. We're up to almost $17 trillion. As an example, Biden had less than $1 trillion of investment in 4 years. We have over seven—it's going to be over $17 trillion in 8 months. Nobody has ever seen—it's a record, no matter whether you talk about States or countries. It's never been anything like it. They're all coming back into the United States.
The fact is that, as I've been told by many leaders all over the United States, our country was a dead country one year ago and now it's the hottest country anywhere in the world. And Matt's going to help us keep it there and make it, frankly, even better. That's what we want to do.
We got so many of the things that you wanted, just about everything I promised. But we're doing more than I promised, and Matt is going to help me.
We have a good fight on our hands for school choice, where I helped Texas get it and other places.
And Matt is going to help us, very importantly, defend our Second Amendment, protect religious liberty. And we will stop the radical Democrats in Congress are trying to destroy the progress we have. They want to—as you know, they want strongly men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody, all of the different things. It's so crazy. They've gone—I don't know. I think they've lost their minds.
But we have to keep the momentum going. That's why we have to elect Matt Van Epps to Congress, and I think he's going to have a tremendously successful run, which is now going to be coming to an end, in one sense—but in another sense, the fight will start, because you can never assume anything. You have to go right up till election day.
But tomorrow is a big day—a really big day. And I think whoever wins tomorrow is going to win, but I think Matt is going to win because there's nobody that deserves it more than him.
Matt is, as you know, endorsed by Governor Bill Lee, as well as former Congressman Mark Green and a great friend of mine, Jim Jordan, who's a fantastic Congressman—Jim Jordan.
So, once again, I hope you'll go out and see the polls tomorrow and smile. And it's Tuesday, October 7. And you'll vote for Matt Van Epps. He's going to do a fantastic job. The polls open at 7 a.m. and close at 7 p.m. local time. So get out there and vote.
And I want to thank Tennessee for being so nice to me. We've had such great success, not only in terms of the victory, but by winning by so many points. It was—the election would be called about 1 minute after the polls close in every case.
So I just appreciate—I love the people of Tennessee. And with that, I just want to thank everybody for the time, and I'll hand it back to Matt. And, Matt, if you could say a few words, that would be great.
But, again, to the people of Tennessee, thank you very much. Appreciate it very much.
Goodbye.
NOTE: The President spoke at approximately 6:30 p.m. via teleconference from the White House. In his remarks, he referred to David McIntosh, president, David McIntosh; former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.; and Gov. Jay R. "J.B." Pritzker of Illinois. The transcript was released by the Office of Communications on October 8. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Club for Growth Political Action Committee and Tennessee Republican congressional candidate Matt Van Epps, telerally remarks.
Locations: Washington, DC.
Names: Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Green, Mark; Jordan, James D.; Lee, William B.; McIntosh, David; Pritzker, Jay R. "J.B."; Van Epps, Matt.
Subjects: 2024 Presidential election; Border security; Club for Growth; District of Columbia, law enforcement improvement efforts; Illinois, crime in Chicago; Illinois, Governor; Manufacturing industry, domestic investment; National Guard; Tennessee, Governor; Tennessee, law enforcement improvement efforts in Memphis; Tennessee, special congressional election.
DCPD Number: DCPD202500986.