Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2025
November 13, 2025
The President. Well, thank you very much, Matt. And congratulations on doing a fantastic job and winning your race just very recently, and now you're going to go for the whole big bag. And I—we're very proud of you. You're a tremendous guy.
And hello to the patriots of Tennessee's Seventh Congressional District. A special election for United States House of Representatives is underway in your district right now, as we speak, and I'm calling to urge you to get out and vote. And his name is Matt Van Epps, and he's a star. He's great. He'll be great for you. He'll never let you down.
Both early in-person voting and absentee mail-in voting are currently open, or you just go and you just vote on Tuesday. So, if you have a ballot, return it immediately. And if not, go vote for Matt Van Epps and—first thing tomorrow. It's amazing how it—time flies, but that's a big thing. But I'd get out and—a lot of people like to vote in person. I like to vote in person.
If you need more information about where to cast your vote, go to swampthevoteUSA.com.
That's swampthevoteUSA.com.
Matt Van Epps has my complete and total endorsement in the race, and that's because he really deserves it. He's a true America-first patriot who has dedicated his entire life to serving our country. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, a great student, and then Matt honorably fought for our country for 10 years as an Army Special Operations helicopter pilot. And he has incredible courage and known for great bravery. Everybody respects Matt.
Now Matt is a lieutenant colonel in the Tennessee Army National Guard. He's also served as the commissioner of the Tennessee Department of General Services, ensuring your State's government ran smoothly and efficiently and—which is what he did, and people respected him for doing it.
Matt's opponent in the race is a left-wing lunatic named Aftyn Behn who, as you understand, is not the greatest. And he's been called the A.O.C. of Tennessee because of how radical left and how dangerous her policies are.
As a state representative, she was endorsed by the so-called Democrat Socialists of America, the same group of Communists who gave us Manhattan—in Manhattan. We have a beauty in Manhattan. We have a communist mayor. Not even believable, but we got a Communist. We'll just have to see how that all works out. I don't think it's going to be pretty.
In the state house, Behn fought for massive tax increases. She supports transgender mutilation surgeries for children. She wants to defund the police. And she has referred to crime as, quote, "a way for people to express themselves." That's a beauty—"a way for people to express themselves."
If elected, Aftyn Behn and her fringe Marxist agenda would be a catastrophe for years to come, allowing crime and allowing open borders. She's very big on open borders, let people pour into our countries from—our country from jails and from mental institutions and from all over the place, just like we had with Sleepy Joe Biden, but we've taken care of it.
We have, by the way, the most secure border now we've ever had in the history of our country.
As your representative in Congress, Matt Van Epps will fight for strong and secure borders and law and order for your communities. Matt will vote to cut your taxes. And by the way, the "Great Big Beautiful" tax bill that we just passed, which is incredible, is giving unbelievable tax cuts and regulation cuts to everybody.
As you also know and as you see every day you go to the pump, gas prices are way down. Energy prices are way down. Grocery prices are down and going to be way down very shortly. And we're just making America affordable again. We're making America really great again, greater than, I think, we even thought.
We're going to have close to $20 trillion invested in our country in 1 year. As an example, Biden had less than $1 trillion in 4 years. We're going to have it close to $20 trillion. Could be more than that. It's never been—in the history of the world, there's never been anything like that. We're going to have a lot of great years.
But Matt will defend the Second Amendment, and he will always stand for religious liberty—very strong on religious liberty, which we like to hear.
Joe Biden almost destroyed our country, and now we're bringing it back faster than anyone thought possible. But to keep our momentum going, you need to vote from Matt Van Epps in
U.S. Congress. You're going to have somebody that you're going to be very, very proud of.
And so, once again, early voting is underway, both in person and by mail. Please fill out and return your ballots as soon as you can or go in person. I think, at this point, go in person and vote for Matt Van Epps. And you're going to never, ever regret it. He's never going to let you down. He's a winner, and he's going to be with Tennessee for a long, long time, making you very proud.
And I want to also thank you, because, as you know, I won Tennessee for every primary and every race by a lot, by massive. We have the record. We have the alltime record for votes in Tennessee.
And I just want to thank everybody on the line. There's thousands of people on the line, and I want to thank you all. I love you. I love your State, and I will see you—I'll be there a lot. I'm always there a lot.
And, Matt, good luck, and do well. And I have no doubt you're going to be winning. But I hope everybody gets out there and votes. And remember, we won by saying, "Too big to rig." So even though Matt looks like he's doing well in the polls, you've got to make sure you get out and vote, because bad things can happen if you don't.
So thank you, everyone. And I'll turn it back to Matt. Matt, good luck. Thank you.
NOTE: The President spoke at 6:07 p.m. via teleconference from the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Tennessee Democratic congressional candidate State Rep. Aftyn A. Behn; Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; and Mayor-elect Zohran K. Mamdani of New York City. The transcript was released by the Office of Communications on November 14. Audio was not available for verification of the content of these remarks.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : Tennessee Republican congressional candidate Matt Van Epps, telerally remarks.
Names: Behn, Aftyn A.; Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Mamdani, Zohran K.; Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria; Van Epps, Matt.
Subjects: Border security; Firearm rights; Inflation; Tennessee, special congressional election; Voter participation.
DCPD Number: DCPD202501121.