Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2026
March 25, 2026
Wow, that's a lot of money. Congratulations. Well, we have a hot party. We have a very hot party. And we have a group that likes to see our country in trouble, and we're going to do something about it.
But I want to thank you for that warm welcome, Mike. You guys are great. Richard and Mike worked so hard. And thank you to all the friends and supporters and true American patriots here tonight.
You know, Richard just told me backstage that we have more donors here tonight in terms of not only the dollars, but in terms of the individual people we want to thank. It's a record. And it's a nice place, by the way. Looks nice. Very nice. They don't build too many of them like this anymore.
But with your help this November, we'll defeat the radical-left Democrats, and we'll win a midterm victory like our country has never seen. For whatever reason, I don't know what it is, but a President who wins, Republican or Democrat, almost always does poorly in the midterms.
Nobody knows why—even if it's a successful Presidency.
And there are those that say this has been the first—I mean, really, the best first year ever for a President, and I agree with them, I must tell you. I agree with them 100 percent. But I do. We did a lot.
We settled eight wars. People sort of forget. And we're winning another one, I tell you.
We're winning so big. Nobody has ever seen anything like we're doing in the Middle East with Iran.
And they are negotiating, by the way, and they want to make a deal so badly, but they're afraid to say it because they figure they'll be killed by their own people. They're also afraid they'll be killed by us. [Laughter] There's never been a head of a country that wanted that job less than being the head of Iran. [Laughter] "I don't want it."
We listen to some of the things they say. [Laughter] We hear them very clearly. They say, "I don't want it." "We'd like to make you the next Supreme Leader." "No, thank you. I don't want it." [Laughter]
But I want to express my gratitude to the tremendous leader in this effort, and really a—he's just an incredible Speaker. He's going to go down as one of the great ever: Mike Johnson. And the boss in his family, by the way, Kelly.
And because of the fact that these lights are so bright, I can't see a thing in the audience. But, what the hell, I know you're all friends. Otherwise, I'd get out of here very quickly.
But what a job he's done. You know, think of it. We have—when we have a majority of three, we feel so thrilled. Then, it goes down sometimes to two, then it goes down to one, and then it goes back up to two or three, and we feel rich again. It's crazy. And we're getting all of this passed.
Think about the "Great Big Beautiful Bill." Think of that. The "Great Big Beautiful Bill." We got it done. And remember, that was a 4-year deal. That was 4 years. I said at the time, and Mike agreed, and John Thune agreed—we agreed: Let's get everything done; let's put it in one.
And everybody said we were crazy, we'd never get it passed. And that was 4 years' worth of goodies. But now that we have that, we're going back for more.
We're going back for more pretty quickly. I think you're going to see some pretty good things, which we should win. But of course, the thing that we should win—and who would believe that you can't get voter ID, because all of the Democrats, every single one of them, they stick together. They have lousy policy, they're not good people, but they stick together. They have horrible policy for this country, but they're like glue the way they stick together, and you have to respect that.
We have some very interesting things in store. And I think we're going to have a great election, despite the fact that, if you look historically, for whatever reason, you win the Presidency, Republican, Democrat—so, in 50 years, it's 2. Think of that. In a hundred years, it's
4. And we're going to do it. We're going to do it. We've done—nobody has done more than we have in this last short period of time. Nobody.
It doesn't make sense. I've gone to people. I've asked them—I've asked the greatest political leaders in the country: Why is it that whoever wins the Presidency—not Republican, not Democrat—whoever wins the Presidency doesn't do well in the midterms? And most people can't explain it.
The professionals try and give you an answer. The Democrats would say, if you asked them that question, it's racism. "But there's—but it pertains to you too." "Oh, well, in that case, it's not racism." They always use racism.
Whenever they ask a question—like voter ID, "Why don't you want"—"It's racist." Do they ever have another answer other than racism? And no, it's unbelievable. It's not racism. It's voter ID. It's important for our country. And proof of citizenship is important for our country. Very.
And men playing in women's sports should not be allowed. That's very important. And transgender for everybody, the mutilation of our children should not be allowed. And open borders should not be allowed. Open borders, where the world is allowed to pour into our country, shouldn't be allowed.
And because of the rules that's—and really, in all fairness, you've been doing great, but because of the rules of the Senate, it's very hard for them to get that—the number. And again, you have those Democrats. They stick together. Think of it. They vote against voter ID. They vote against proof of citizenship. They vote against it.
Now, I happen to be a fan of no mail-in ballots, even though I won Florida, which is mail-in ballots by a massive number, the highest number in history. And I won other places. But in California and other States, they cheat so badly with that. They send 38 million ballots out, and of the 38 million, they go to Democrats a hell of a lot. Democrats get sometimes six or seven ballots in one household, and Republicans are calling for their ballot. They're saying, "Please send me my ballot." Very unfair. But I hate that. I hate mail-in ballots.
I've won with mail-in ballots, but I hate mail-in ballots because, basically, it's a way of cheating. Jimmy Carter, the single best thing he did, including his Presidency—no, it wasn't giving away the Panama Canal for $1. That was not the best. But he did that. He did a lot of other things.
But he did do one thing: He had a Commission with Scoop Jackson and some other very respected people. And the conclusion was never allow mail-in ballots, because if you do, there'll be massive cheating, and that's what happens. We can't do it. So we have to do something about that. But that polls not at 99 percent. That polls at about 75 percent, 80 percent.
But voter ID polls at 96 percent, 97, 98 percent with Republicans; 86 percent just came out with both Republicans and Democrats. The only one that fight it are the Democrat leaders, because they want to cheat. The only reason you say—that's the only reason—"I don't want voter identification with a picture"—I always add "with a picture." It's true. And the only reason you don't want that is because you want to cheat. And they do cheat, and we can't let them get away with it.
So we have to keep that fight going. We have to get voter ID, and we have to get proof of citizenship. It's so important. One of the most important things we can do.
So I want to thank House majority leader, a brave guy. Oh, boy. I was with him that night where he wasn't supposed to make it. Steve Scalise. He is great. What a strong guy. Where are you, Steve? We love Steve. Ah, there he is. We love Steve. What a—what he—what a thing he went through. And then he went through another battle too, and he's a tough cookie. He outlasted it all.
I was with his wife, his family that night—that horrible night. And the doctor told me very, very small chance. And here he is. I actually think he's a better looking man now than he was a few years ago. [Laughter] I actually think he's better looking. I don't know what the hell he did. I think he had the greatest doctors in history. He's a better looking man now.
Also, another great-looking guy. He was born good-looking, and he's got an even better looking wife. His wife is a winner. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer. Where is Tom? Where is Tom? Hello, Tom. He's great. Great guy.
Conference Chair Lisa McClain. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, Lisa. Thank you, darling. NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson, who does such a good job all the time. All the time. Deputy chairman of the NRCC, a guy who worked for me for 6 years. And when they said:
"We want to take him. Could we share him?" then I knew he was good. And then his
congressional seat came up in Georgia, where he lived, and he said: "Sir, my dream is to be a Congressman. Would it be okay if I ran?" I said: "No, I don't want you to run. I want you to stay with me. Please stay with me." He said, "Please." I said, "All right, I'll let you run." Brian Jack. He's done so great. Brian Jack.
It's always a tough name to have somebody—you ever have the names Brian, Jack? You know, these—I call them the two first names. You have two first names. People would say, "You know, that guy, Jack Brian, is fantastic." I said, "Who the hell is Jack Brian?" [Laughter] I had that the other day. He was telling me what a great guy Jack Brian is. I—"Who is he?" "He's a Congressman." I said: "Listen, I know the Congressmen. There's nobody named Jack Brian." But he was talking about Brian Jack. Brian, you're a tremendous guy. Really understands, loves politics. Loves being a Congressman.
And dozens of Republican warriors in the House. You're incredible people, and you are warriors. And you have to take a lot of fake news, like I do. We take so much fake news. You know, if you listen to the news, you think we're losing a war in Iran where we're decimating the other side. I mean, the better ones have us doing okay. We are decimating. They've got no navy. They've got no anything. The whole thing is—and then you watch the news. I said, "Oh, I thought we were doing better than that." The fake news really has to change, because people—you know, when you can win an election with 94 percent negative stories, and you win it in a landslide, there's something wrong with the news, because it shouldn't be happening. And you know, they used to have 96-percent approval rating. They just edged out at 14. I'm extremely proud of that, actually. I've exposed them for being fake news. And we are going to hopefully change that
because I think you really need great news to be great, and they are not great, and they're not leading us to greatness, but we are going to lead us to greatness.
We're also joined tonight by many of our terrific "MAGA Majority" candidates. A group of new candidates from across the country will help grow our margin in the House, including Jay Feely, great football player. Kevin Lincoln. Joe Mitchell. Laurie Buckhout. Hi, Laurie. Mike LiPetri. Tano Tijerina and Eric Flores. All new and all leading, and all going to win big.
Thank you very much. Welcome. Welcome to a group of outstanding people.
And let's get the ball—you know what: We have to get them across the finish line. We've raised more money than we ever has—have, and we're raising a lot more. You know, I did something, and not—I haven't done this as a candidate. I saw the great job that Mike had done, and they raised a lot of money for the evening.
And the greatest thing about being President is, you don't have to make contributions. You know? [Laughter] Nobody ever asks you for money. They want your endorsement, but they don't want—nobody ever asks for money. It's great. I said, "It's the only thing where I save money in this business." [Laughter] Nobody ever asked.
But I saw Mike the other night. I did something that I never do. And I don't do this bragging. I do it because it's fun to talk about. He was close to raising $20 million, and I said, "I'll give you a million so you hit your mark." I gave him a million dollars. I never do that in politics. I never do it, but I do it for him. And we're going to do a lot more, by the way. I'm going to do a lot more.
We're going to raise—we've already raised a lot of money, but I'm doing a lot more, because we got to win. Our country is at stake. Really, our country is at stake. These people are crazy that we're dealing with.
The State of the Union speech—you don't mind if I go off this crazy teleprompter a little bit?
You ever—you know, it's boring when you do the teleprompter thing. Right? Very boring.
But no, it's—we had the State of the Union speech the other night. I announce all these heroes, and I announce women that have gone through tragedy, like the incredible woman who lost her daughter to a maniac when he slashed her from behind, right? And I say, "Please, please say hello." And she stands up devastated, and the Democrats are sitting like dead people, like dead. No movement, no heart, no anything.
Then I announced a congressional Medal of Honor being bestowed on the captain, a helicopter pilot who helped us win in Venezuela by landing a helicopter when his leg was practically shot off, with blood pouring down. You know, they land the big Chinooks. A lot of people, a lot of great soldiers, in that helicopter. And he was shot from underneath with machine gun fire. Leg was practically chopped out. And if you know about helicopters, you land the helicopters with your legs. And he had legs that were not in good shape.
And he landed it. And he was high up, and he was able to land it exactly where it was supposed to land. Without that, the mission would have been a failure, probably. Had to land exactly in that spot, exactly on time. And he got it. And then he said, "Okay, I'm going to pass out now. Take over." Can you imagine that?
And we gave him the congressional Medal of Honor, and the Democrats sat there without movement. Then we gave another congressional Medal of Honor to a 100-year-old hero, 100 years, who was a legend in the military for what he had done. We gave him the congressional Medal of Honor. A hundred years old, and the Democrats sat there emotionless, no clapping, nobody standing. Republicans, you did very well. You were going wild for all of them.
Now, at the end of the evening, they were clapping on everything I said, because they were called in by people watching on television. Did you see they were passing around notes and they
were saying: "You guys are being killed tonight. Start clapping." And they were clapping for everything. Everything I said, even good Republican things, they were clapping wildly. But it was too late. They have no heart.
And now you see what they're doing. They're just creating chaos. They want to create chaos. It's all they're good at, creating chaos. They can't do policy. No good. But they're doing it for two reasons. Number one is, they want to deflect from all of the tremendous success that we're having in this military operation. I won't use the word "war" because they say if you use the word "war," that's maybe not a good thing to do. They don't like the word "war," because you're supposed to get approval. So I'll use the word "military operation," which is really what it is. It's called a "military decimation."
But they don't like the good publicity. They don't like to see us succeed. They want to see our country fail. And also, what they really want is they want illegal immigrants to come in, criminals—doesn't matter—because they want to get their votes. They think they're going to get their votes, and we're not going to let this happen. We're not going to let our country be destroyed by these people.
So, 16 months ago, with the help of many people in this room, we saved our country in the most important electoral victory in American history. Could be.
Let me ask you. Let's do a poll. Fake poll. We'll do a real poll. We're tired of those fake polls. I get so many, although I got one yesterday from CNN: "What is the percentage of people in MAGA"—which is most of the Republican Party, by the way—"that support the President?" The number was 100 percent. Can you believe it? In fact, he went wild—Harry. He went wild. It may be the last time he ever does the show, but these are okay. No, it was a hundred percent.
Even I was surprised at that. That was pretty good.
But we won all seven swing States by millions and millions of votes. We won the Electoral College by 312 to 226. We won the popular vote for the first time of any Republican in many decades. And biggest of all is we won—that's where you see all red, except for a—two little blue lines on the edge on the map—we won 86 percent of all counties in America, 2,700 to 525. That's pretty good. That's what they call a slaughter.
And together, the Trump administration and our Republican majorities in Congress won a mandate from the American people. And every day since, we've been fighting to keep our promises into—in the true sense, the greatest expression, the greatest motto, call it a logo, call it whatever you want—the greatest phrase in the history of politics: "Make America Great Again." It really is the greatest. It's the greatest.
And we probably have to start—we'll never—we'll never abandon that phrase, but we'll probably have to start changing, because when you say, "Make America Great Again," that means it's not great now. We've made America great. We've rebuilt our military. You know, I rebuilt our military in the first term. I didn't think I'd use it this much, but we've used it, and there's no military like it anywhere in the world. We have the greatest military anywhere in the world, and it's not even close.
And, with the help of our Republican warriors that are right before me in the House, we ended the illegal alien invasion of our country, passed the largest border security investment in history, and achieved the strongest and most secure border on record. I built a thousand miles of wall, and without that wall, we could have never done what we did.
And for 10 months in a row—this is outside. I mean, this is the facts. In fact, these numbers are given by people that they say are predominantly Democrat. They're the ones that make it up.
For 10 months in a row, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States of America. Think of that. That's pretty good. That's pretty good.
We've also accomplished the largest reduction in illegal drugs in history—in the history of our country. Think of that. With the flow—deadly fentanyl across our border is down by 61 percent. Think of that: 61. Not good enough. But I'll tell you what: It's down 98 percent coming in by water. Do you notice that? [Laughter] And we're trying to find out who the 2 percent are, because we think they may be the bravest people on Earth. [Laughter] They are brave people.
Either that, or they don't watch television. One or the other. I think it's that they don't watch television. Down 98 percent by water. We had a lot of it coming in by water.
And now, if you watch closely, you'll watch that same treatment being given to land. Land being much easier than water. We did the water first. That forces them onto the land. And then we're going to do the land, and you'll be very happy about it. We've reduced drugs coming into this country by an astounding amount.
Now the Democrats have shut down the Department of Homeland Security in an attempt to return to open borders, where criminals come in from all over the world. From the Congo, they come. You know, the Congo opened its jails and released all of its prisoners into the United States of America through the totally open southern border—Sleepy Joe Biden border.
The TSA agents have been hurt badly by the Democrats who made three different deals with us over the last short period of time, breaking the original one and then breaking the current ones because they don't want to settle, they want chaos, as I said, so that our great military triumphs against Iran can't be displayed on television, because they're displaying airports.
But I have to tell you, they did one thing that's been helpful. We decided to use our great patriots of ICE. These people are great. They have endured so much punishment, all because they want to get murderers, drug dealers, people who are totally mentally insane—many, many of the worst criminals in the world—get them out of our country.
And, in so doing, we sent—I sent ICE to the airports yesterday, and they have been so great.
They have been so great. And you know what's happened? It's—and they didn't need any rehabilitation, but they did in terms of the fake news. And they're doing such an unbelievable job at the airports that—they had one line. It was 4 hours yesterday, and today was a half an hour.
Big, big difference.
And if we have to, we're going to send in the National Guard—if we need to. Because we only—you know, we have 6,000 ICE agents, and we have 40,000 of the other people that they're helping out, some of who really were forced, because the Democrats don't want to pay them. The Democrats don't want to pay them. You have to remember that. The radical-left Democrats need to get DHS back and open immediately.
Together, we're going to make, with them—not the Democrats, because they've gone out of their way to make our country unsafe. And remember that. According to them, it's a war. They're doing this during a war. They're doing this during a war. We're not supposed to be doing it. But we're going to make America totally safe again very quickly.
And we—the largest drop—we had the largest drop in violent crime in our country despite all of these criminals that have been allowed in. Murderers. Despite all—think of it: 11,888 murderers allowed into our country, many of which—more than 50 percent killed more than one person. Thank you very much, Joe Biden.
Thank you to Kamala, who was the border czar who never went to the border and never made one phone call to Border Patrol. The Border Patrol is incredible. They've never had a phone call from her. Four years. But they get phone calls from me every single day. "How are we doing
on the border? How are we doing on the border, Paul? How are we doing?" "How are we doing, Brandon, on the border?"
And we got it down to where people don't come anymore. It's obvious—now it's easy. They used to storm the fences. Now they don't come anymore because they know they're not getting in.
But think of it. The murder rate, despite the fact that they allowed massive numbers of criminals into our country, is the lowest it's been in 125 years. Nineteen hundred. Before my father was born. Before my father, Fred, who was the greatest. My father was born after that. Think of that though: 125 years.
And we've achieved a miracle right here in our Nation's Capital, where we have a safe city. You can walk to work. You can walk to Congress. You can walk to the Capitol. You can walk to the White House.
When I came, this place was so dangerous. We were having two and three people killed every single week. Now you don't see it at all. We have actually, in a very short period of time—we've already done it. But in a very short period of time, we have one of the safe—Washington, DC, is right now—from one of the most unsafe cities anywhere in this country, is now one of the most safe cities anywhere in the country. We have done a great job.
And that's not just by having great people from our military there—National Guard. It's because we removed 4,000 hardened criminals out of our city and out of our country. In some cases, they were so dangerous and so bad—
They came from Biden. This guy that couldn't walk off a stage. See this stage? See how many stairs are here, all of it? He couldn't—he could never find the stairs. And people don't want that. People want a President that's able to walk off and find the stairs. Could never——
Did you ever see that? Where he looks out—"Oh, I'm finished." First of all, his speeches were extremely short. They lasted a matter of seconds, and then he'd walk off. [Laughter]
[At this point, the President walked around behind the podium]
"Where am I? Where"—[laughter]—that—look, I couldn't stand—he was probably a nice guy. I couldn't stand this guy.
You ever see the weaponization? If we look at somebody—"Donald Trump is weaponizing Government." We've done just the opposite, unfortunately. Unfortunately.
I hope they're looking at some of these criminals that cheated on the election. I hope they're looking at them. Because what they did to us and what they did is incredible. But I looked at Biden, and he weaponized like nobody's ever been weaponized before.
Me. Forget about me. So many people. Republicans. Many of you in the audience—Congresspeople. Many of my friends, you were taped and you were—your phone was taken away. Right, Scott? A lot of things happened that were very bad. They weaponized.
But the fake news will say, "Oh, Donald Trump mentioned a dirty cop named Comey, and therefore he's weaponizing Government." No, they weaponized. And we're not going to let them happen.
I think Comer and all these guys—you're out there someplace, I think, because I can't see a damn thing with these stupid lights they have up. [Laughter]
But I want to thank you, Jim Jordan, Comer. Where are those guys? Where are—stand up.
You deserve it.
Now they have to take your recommendations. They have to take your recommendations, and they have to act. They have to act. We can't just be sending out all these hundred percent recommendations and nothing happens.
But I want to thank Speaker Johnson, the Republican Congress. We also passed the largest tax cuts in American history. Think of it. With the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," we delivered no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors. Think of this. I mean, think of the no tax on tips. You know how I got that one? A lot of people hire consultants. You all pay them millions and millions of dollars.
I was having dinner with a group of Republicans in Nevada—a State that we never win, right? And this waitress comes over. And I won't say she was beautiful, because if you call her beautiful, that's the end of your political career. So I refuse to say. I refuse to say that she was so beautiful. [Laughter] The end of your career. It's true. If you call somebody beautiful nowadays, it's over. You resign in disgrace. So I will not say it.
I said, "How are you doing, Gina?" "Sir, it's terrible. The Government's after me for tips." I said: "Really? Do you have like—I mean, do you report your tips?" I—it turns out the hotels pretty much report their tips. It's actually not quite as good as you would think.
She said: "No, sir. Sir, may I make a suggestion?" "What? What do you want? What do you know about politics?" "No, I'd like to make a suggestion. I'm voting for you, sir. You should have no tax on tips," she said.
"What?" "No tax on tips, sir." I said, "Say it one more time." [Laughter] "No tax on tips, sir."
I was with a group of 12 people. I got up, immediately walked outside of the restaurant where there were about 250 lunatic media. [Laughter] I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, after an exhaustive study"—[laughter]—"I have decided to have, as a very big part of my agenda, no tax on tips. This has been years in the making."
And I won Nevada in a landslide. [Laughter] You know, I kept saying, "Well, the problem is, she's just going to follow me up." You know, Kamala—real genius—she's going to follow me up. She waited months, and then, just before the election, she said, "No tax on tips," and they laughed at her. It was over. We had the issue. We killed them on that issue.
We won Nevada, which you never win. You know, Republicans don't win it very much. It was many, many years. But we had a great election. That was a great election.
But I ask you this—I want to do this. Which was the bigger and more important election?
Okay, I'm going to ask you. Then I'm going to ask you just to cheer one way or the other. Let's—because we had two great elections.
We had three, because 2020 was equally good, but they cheated. Millions of votes. Dirty cheats. Dirty, rotten cheaters. [Laughter] Which was the most important election? Which was the more glamor——the whole thing, right? Which was the better election? I'm going to go 2016 or 2024. Ready?
Twenty-sixteen. [Applause] Whoa. Twenty-twenty. [Applause] Whoa.
Could be right. A lot of people feel that way. I mean, 2016 was unique because somebody that had never done this before won. I never did it before. I went to Washington. I didn't know anybody. I was lonely. I said, "Do you have any people that are any good?" And some RINOs gave me some names that I didn't like too much. [Laughter] But we had great people.
You know, we rebuilt our military—2016, that 4-year period. We rebuilt our military. We got the largest tax cut in history—superseded now by what we did in 2024 with the "Great Big Beautiful Bill." I love the "Great Big Beautiful Bill."
But we did a lot. We did a lot. We had a great first term. But the—our second term is blowing it away. It's blowing every term—so far, it's blowing every term of every President away, and soon—you know, we hit—I have to say, we were going so smooth. And I say, "I hate to do it, but somebody has to." For 47 years, no President had the guts to do what you had to do.
And we hit 50,000 on the Dow. Everyone said, "Well, 50,000 will take place in 5 or 6 years.
There's no way you can do it during his term." And I did it in the first year. Then they said, "You'll never reach 7,000 on the S&P"—Standard and Poor's. "You'll never reach 7"and we did it in the first year. We would—going like a rocket ship. The market was good. Everything was good.
And then I said, "We're going to have to do something about Iran, because they're going to have a nuclear weapon very soon, and they're crazy. They're crazy. They're out of their minds. And we have to stop them." And I say: "Well, we're going to take a big hit. We're going to go through this certain route, and we'll get right back here. But we have to go and stop him."
Every President should have done it. I heard that, today, Blinken made a statement that he should have done it. Thanks a lot, Blinken. I appreciate it. [Laughter] Blinken is Biden's guy, I guess. Who the hell knows who he is? He's his guy.
But he should—he came out with a statement that they should have done it. They made a mistake. They should have done it. And other Presidents should have done it.
Obama should have done it. Obama was worse. Obama gave them the absolute right, title, and interest—gave everything to Iran. You remember that? When Bibi Netanyahu came over and begged him not to do it.
He gave Iran the right to have a nuclear weapon at the highest level within a very short period of time, and I terminated that agreement as soon as I came to office. And if I didn't terminate it, that weapon would have been used 3 years ago. It would have been used a long time ago.
And then we stopped it a second time with those beautiful B–2 bombers. They went in, and they knocked the hell out of the nuclear potential. And if they didn't do that attack, Iran would've had a nuclear weapon within 2 weeks to 4 weeks after the attack. But we did attack, and we obliterated the site. And we saved it there too.
We did many things. Taking out Soleimani was very important. He was an evil man. But that was a big event. We took out—in my first term, we took out Soleimani, and they never had leadership that could compete with that. He was an evil guy, but he was a real leader, and he was a very tough general. Probably wouldn't have been quite as easy, I will tell you. I don't think we would've—would've taken us an extra day.
But under our leadership, America is also highly respected again. Perhaps we are now respected like never, ever before. I don't think we have ever been as respected now.
You know, if you think about it, a year and a half ago, our country was viewed as a joke. We were a joke. All over the world they were laughing at us—how stupid we were, how weak, how pathetic. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world.
We're the hottest country in the world. King of Saudi Arabia said it. He said, "Sir"—I was in Saudi Arabia, came back with $2 trillion for our country. I came back with $2 trillion from Saudi,
$2 trillion from Qatar, $2 trillion from U.A.E., all—they're great.
They're all fighting. They got hit. Nobody expected they were going to get hit. It made them angry, and they came to our side immediately—all of them and others.
But I came back, and I remember the statement like yesterday. He said, "Sir"—King of Saudi Arabia. And he said: "Two years ago, you were a dead country, and now you're the hottest country in the world. Congratulations." It's true. We're the hottest country anywhere in the world. There's nobody close.
We're the most powerful military. We have the most powerful military. You saw that in Venezuela. One hour, the war was over. And, you know, this is a larger country now that we're fighting. But the war essentially ended a few days after we went in. We knocked out their navy. We knocked out everything. It's amazing. We have the greatest military. We make the greatest military equipment. And now, if you notice, I said: "You've got to make it faster. Got to make more of it," because we need it. All made in America. But we make the greatest.
You know, we had an attack. One hundred missiles were shot by Iran at a very important thing that we had. I won't tell you what it was for certain reasons. One hundred missiles going 2,000 miles an hour were coming at this element of importance—tremendous power and importance.
And of the 100 missiles coming at us, 100 missiles were immediately shot down, shot out of the air and fall into the sea. Think of that. Not one missile got through. That was the Patriot system. It's great. We have the best equipment in the world. We have the best military and most powerful, most lethal military in the world by far.
Earlier this year, in a stunning display of American military strength and skill, we apprehended the outlaw victor—you know this, from Venezuela—named Nicolás Maduro and brought him to face American justice. He's been killing people for a long period of time with drugs and everything else, but killing people. A violent man.
We went in, and we got him out of his house. And his house was located in a military base with thousands of soldiers, and we went in so violently that everybody said, "We'll pass." [Laughter] Then, they came back and waved goodbye as he flew out in a helicopter. The soldiers were saying: "Bye. Leave us alone."
Thanks to the men and women in the room, we made a $1 trillion investment in the United States Armed Forces, and we now have the strongest and most powerful military that the world has ever seen. Nobody close. Nobody close.
And the situation in Iran is also a stark reminder of just how high the stakes are for the midterm elections. If Democrats had won in 2024, our country would right now be a nation in terminal decline. I don't even know if we'd have a nation right now. The spirit was so bad.
You know, something I'm very proud of—if you go back a year and a half, you know, we couldn't get people to join the military, the police forces, nothing. The Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force—they wouldn't join. They didn't want to join during Biden. His last year, they had the worst recruitment in the history of our country. One year later, we set records on recruitment. We had the greatest recruitment in the history of our country. The spirit was back.
But Iran would long ago have had a nuclear weapon if it weren't for us. The entire world would be under mortal threat, and the prospects for peace in the Middle East would be absolutely shattered forever. And forget the Middle East—we would have a cloud over us too, because he would have used it, and they would've used it on us without hesitation.
Our military would be woke, politicized, starved for resources. ICE would be effectively abolished. They would've terminated ICE so that all these murderers and drug dealers and killers
and the mentally insane would be in our country, instead of being shipped back to their country like only ICE could do.
These are great patriots that have been abused. And I said before, and I mean it. The people are saying, "What nice people." Now, I must tell you, when I first sent them in 2 days ago, I looked, and they were wearing masks.
And I think they have to because a lot of people are up—but in an airport, no. I said, "Fellas, do you mind taking off your masks in the airport?" And they took them off, and people said, "Wow, these are nice guys." And they're helping the people with their bags. They're moving things along. It's a beautiful thing to see. People are starting to say: "ICE, you're nice guys. We really appreciate it." So the Democrats, in their violence and viciousness, have done us a favor.
But the cost of energy and electricity would be the highest ever, which it was, prior to this administration. Inflation would be soaring to country-wrecking levels. You know, we had the highest—I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country. They say 48 years. What difference does it make? It's the highest in the history of our country.
And our Nation would be ravaged by rampant crime, woke lunacy, and transgender for everybody. That's where we would've been. People would have been flowing into our countries at the same levels they were—they were destroying our country.
And you know, we are a party—remember this; it's okay, it's a pretty obvious statement, I think, but we're a party of common sense. We are the party of common sense—because whether you're conservative or liberal, it's really not about—it's really common sense. You need borders. You need education. You want to buy a house. You want—we're the party of common sense.
We don't want to have men playing in women's sports. You've got to look at some of the records. Weightlifting—a record that stood for 18 years in the women's category was shattered by a male who came in and broke the record by 128 pounds. You think that's good? That's not good. And he was a lousy weightlifter as a man. He was a loser. Can you believe it? [Laughter] He felt awfully good. She felt awfully good about herself.
But from now until November, we're going to fight, and I'm going to personally campaign for every one of you. We're going to go to win in midterms. We're going to have even bigger majorities in the House and the Senate than we have today. Going to help all of you.
Americans saw the true and craven nature of congressional Democrats during my State of the Union. And we're not going to let that happen again. They really are. They're a party—and it's terrible to talk—I want it to be the old way, where they got—you know, Democrats and Republicans used to get together, have lunch, and then they'd fight a little bit and, you know—but it doesn't seem to be happening that way.
And this is before me, because if you go back to Obama, he was a great divider. He divided this Nation. He was a lousy President. The worst President in history was Biden. But Obama was a terrible President. He was a divider. He did so many bad things.
But they're the party of fraudsters, criminals, radicals, illegal aliens, high taxes, and putting America last. That's what they are. They put America last. Republicans are the party for every hardworking patriot. And we do something very much different than them: We put America first. Put America first.
So, as we rebuild—and it's going to come back very quickly. It's already back. I mean, it's back a—it went down a little bit. I actually thought when I went on this excursion, as I call it—excursion into hell, excursion into a terrible place—when I went on to do something that for 47 years should have been done by any of the other Presidents—and you heard numerous of them said they wished they did it, but they didn't have the guts to do it. We had no choice.
But I thought it was going to be much worse. I thought that the energy prices, oil price would go up higher, and I thought the stock market would go somewhat lower. But it didn't matter to me. It's short-term. What we had to do is get rid of the cancer. We had to cut out the cancer. The cancer was Iran with a nuclear weapon. And we've cut it out. Now we're going to finish it off.
As we rebuild the greatest economy in history, a top priority must be to bring down the cost of living. And we were doing that. And we are doing that at a record—at a record clip.
You know, they had a phrase, all these phrases that they came up with like, they're the ones that caused prices to go up. They had the highest prices, and we're bringing down the prices with the worst inflation, which has come way down. You know, last—the last 2 months or 3—last 3 months, actually, inflation was 1.4 percent. But we're ending high prices with tax cuts, deregulation, and, frankly, again, the words "common sense."
For years, big insurance companies have gotten rich with our Government, giving them hundreds of billions of dollars. And under the Great Health Care Plan—that's what we call it; capital "g," capital "h," capital "p"—the Great Health Care Plan, I'm urging Congress to halt all payments to big insurance companies, which are literally controlling the Democrat Party. They have total control over the Democrats. That's why you can't make a deal with them. The insurance companies have taken in trillions of dollars. I want this money to go directly to the American people so they can buy their own health care. And it's going to be better care at a lower cost.
And you guys can do it. You can do it. Every time I mention that, it's like—it goes viral. Give the money directly to the people so they can buy their own. You'll pay much less. They'll pay much less.
But the Democrats won't do it, because they're totally in the pocket of the insurance companies. They made—how about stocks that gone—have gone up 1,400, 1,500, 1,700 percent? As part of this plan, we also need to maximize price transparency. It's a big deal. It doesn't sound very glamorous, but it is.
In addition, it's time to codify my most-favored-nations policy on drug prices into law. We have lowered the price of drugs by 50, 60, 70, and 80, and 90 percent. And there's another way of figuring. You could also say, depending on the way you phrase the statement, 400, 500, 600, 700 percent. Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
I got other countries to do it with the threat of tariffs. I said, "If you don't approve it"—because they got the insurance companies to do it. The health care—the health—we needed insurance, we needed everything. No other President tried to get this done. But basically, very simply, our drug costs, prescription drugs were far more expensive than any other country anywhere in the world. The highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world. But, under the deals I negotiated, we go from the highest price ever paid to the lowest price in the world. It's numbers that nobody's ever seen.
It doesn't even get covered in the newspapers. We've got to talk about it. That alone should win the midterms. But nobody talks about it. That's why I talk about it. Think of it. I lowered prices by 50, 60, 70, 80 percent, nobody even wants to write about it. That's because the fake news is fixed. It's rigged. It's dirty. It's dirty press. For years, Democrats promised to reduce drug costs, but we got it done. All they did was talk. We got it done.
I tell the story—in my first term, my third year—I was the first one in 28 years to lower drug prices. One-quarter of 1 percent. I was so proud of that. I had a news conference. "Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to announce that I lowered drug prices by one-quarter of a percent. First time in 28 years." The prices went down from January to December. Right? Now I'm lowering prices
by 70 and 80 percent. Now we can have it—but nobody wants to pick it up. Nobody wants to pick it up. It's pretty incredible.
But the people understand. The people get it. That's why I got a hundred percent in the CNN poll. Can you believe it? A hundred percent. They must have made a mistake. Boy, those people that put that poll out got fired by CNN very quick. [Laughter] They're no longer working for the—that wonderful, crooked network. How crooked is CNN?
But you know what's worse? I think ABC fake news is worse, actually. But George Stephanopoulos—they had to pay me $16 million for what they said. CBS had to pay me $38 million for what they said. It's actually pretty good. You know, if you bring lawsuits against these guys, they'll—they're so corrupt that they pay it.
How about—this one hasn't been determined yet. How about BBC, where they put me out and they have me saying—and you can't tell the difference—things that I never said that were terrible. It turned out they put out news, and they changed my words having me say horrible things. I said to my wife, "I never said that." "Well, darling, you said it. Look—your lips. Let's watch." TiVo. One of the great things in history. Remember, television would be no good without TiVo or its equivalent.
How about—wouldn't television be terrible if you couldn't play it back? You'd go absolutely crazy, right? [Laughter] So I play it back. And—"You're right." I said: "You're right. Could I have said that? It's so horrible."
And we checked it out. It turned out it was done by fake news. It was fake news. They put a—they put words in my mouth, sentences and paragraphs in my mouth that were so horrible. So we brought a suit against them, and they admitted they were guilty. They admitted—can you believe? That's how crooked they are. Now it's only a question of how much do I get. [Laughter] No, they have to be taught a lesson because they're crooked. They're crooked people.
You know, I always say you need great borders. You need great borders, and you really need fair press. And we don't have fair—we have good borders now. We're good. We're the best we've ever been. I think we probably the best—we are considered the best—we are the best at the border that we've ever been, but we have news that's really terrible.
And the other thing you need is you need fair, free, safe, honest elections. You need that.
And the only way you're going to get that is the SAVE America Act.
You've got to add the word "America." Oh, when I watch these people, they hate saying "SAVE America Act." They always say the "SAVE Act." Nobody knows what the hell the SAVE Act means. "SAVE America" is good. The SAVE Act—are you trying to save terrorism? What are you trying to do? It could be you're saving anything. It's called SAVE America Act. Please don't let them—
You know, I saw last night on another fake network, "the SAVE Act"—it's not. It's called the SAVE America Act. I saw Schumer the other night. "We will stop SAVE America." [Laughter] And our great First Lady, who, now, turns out to be a fantastic movie star—do you believe this? She had the number-one movie. Now she's number one on streaming. And you can't have two stars in one family. So this is not good. I've always said, "You can't have stars." There's only room for one star in a family. This is not a good sign. [Laughter]
Now, she has the number-one movie, and now she's got number one on streaming. There's no talking to her. "Darling, congratulations on being number one." "Oh, thank you, darling." [Laughter] There's no talking to her. [Laughter] But she's doing a good job as First Lady, I'll tell you. She really is. People love her. People love her.
But, in our quest to restore public safety, we also need accountability for corrupt Democrat officials who conspire to obstruct Federal law. Less than 1 week ago, a precious 18-year-old college student named Sheridan Gorman was shot and killed while walking in a park innocently. The illegal alien monster charged—was, I mean—is total animal. Remember when Nancy Pelosi got angry because I used the word "animal" in describing a savage killer? We were okay with it. Didn't bother me at all.
The illegal alien monster charged with Sheridan's brutal murder had come illegally from Venezuela, had been released into our country by Sleepy Joe Biden. He had no idea what the hell he was doing. That's why he was—okay. Which is a better term: Sleepy Joe or Crooked Joe?
Crooked Joe Biden, please.
Sleepy Joe Biden, please. [Applause] [Laughter] A lot of people like "Sleepy Joe." Oh, he's pathetic. Worst president.
But he was then arrested again and released again by the Democrat Governor J.B. Pritzker, one of the worst Governors in the history of our country, in the sanctuary city of Chicago. You know, we would stop crime in Chicago just like we did in Louisiana. We had great success.
Memphis, Tennessee, a crime capital. We got it down 71 percent in a matter of a few months.
Washington is the one that we talked about already. So amazing how great we've done. But we could go to Chicago if that slob would allow—if he'd just say: "Please come, Mr. President. People are being killed here all the time. Please come."
I would come, and you would have no crime, practically. Chicago would be easy for us. But they don't want to say that because they, actually, I think, like it. I don't know. They're sick people. But as you saw at my State of the Union, Democrat politicians—they don't care about American blood they spill in their very demented pursuit of these open borders.
Every American needs to know that the larger majorities in the House and Senate—Republicans will—remember this—will end sanctuary jurisdictions once and for all. We need a few more votes. If we get a few more votes—if we could get a few more in the Senate and if we could get a few more in the House, we could do things that would be a miracle. We've got to get out and win.
The time has also come for Republicans to pass a tough new crime bill that imposes harsh penalties for dangerous repeat offenders, cracks down on rogue judges—we got rogue judges that are criminals. They're criminals. What they do to our country, the decisions that they hand down and hurt our country.
And I could tell you something, I've gone through it. And the decisions that these people make—I got a decision on tariffs that's going to cost our country. Not me. I'll do it a different way. Different way. Going to cost our country hundreds of billions, potentially, of refunds, giving them back to people that have been ripping off our country, because the Supreme Court didn't want to put one little sentence that all money taken in up till this date doesn't have to be paid back. Going to cost us hundreds of billions of dollars. So sad to see. And I could give you plenty of others too.
Look at what they did to college sports. Look what they did. You do know—I mean, this is maybe not a sporting environment, but NIL, it's a disaster. College sports are a disaster. A judge made a horrible decision, and the decision got carried up. The appeal was terrible. And what they've done is destroyed college sports and destroying colleges, because colleges can't afford to pay quarterbacks that never threw a ball before, that are 17 years old—$12 million to play college—because every college is going to go bankrupt.
Other sports aren't going to be relevant. Football is going to cause it all. Basketball to a much lesser extent. But your colleges are going to go bankrupt. Did you see where Penn State lost
$525 million? Can you believe it? One of the great schools of Florida lost $450 million. Think of that. Four hundred and—because it's basically professional sports without a cap, and you can't have without a cap.
And we had a good system. We had a scholarship system. Took a hundred years to hone and perfect. And a judge who knew nothing about sports—a female, I believe—not that that matters—I have to put that preface in there. A female, I believe, who knew nothing about sports totally upended all of sports. Hundreds of years of sports in our colleges.
And now we have a mess like you've never seen before. And you know who gets hit the hardest? Women. Because women's sports are being canceled all over college. And other sports that are more minor sports are being dropped.
That means the Olympics are going to be a disaster, because this was training grounds for the Olympics. We had unbelievable training grounds, and they had scholarships and everything. But they're being terminated, because they want to be able to sign football players for $4 million,
$5 million, $10 million.
All because the courts decided to terminate sports in colleges. And it's a very tough thing to get it back, because you have all different sports, all different levels of competition. Nobody knows what to do.
A woman—a judge made a decision knowing nothing about what the hell she was doing.
Courts—bad courts in this country are costing us a tremendous amount of money. And the Supreme Court—that's right—of the United States cost our country. All they needed was a sentence. Our country, hundreds of billions of dollars, and they couldn't care less. They couldn't care less.
And not that it matters—doesn't matter at all—but two of the people that voted for that, I appointed. And they sicken me. They sicken me, because they're bad for our country.
We need a tough new crime bill that imposes harsh penalties for dangerous repeat offenders, cracks down on rogue judges and prosecutors, and ends no cash bail. No cash bail has caused a problem for our country like you wouldn't believe. Killers: They go in, they get out, they go in—they kill two times in one day sometimes. If our Republican majority stand up for these priorities, the American people will stand with us in record numbers.
We have to be strong. We have to be tough. And we can't let these thugs on the other side of the aisle push us around, because what they're doing right now is wrong. And the public knows it. Now, the public knows it, and they're on our side. But you have to fight, and you have to be tough. You have to be much tougher, and you have to stick together. Republicans have to stick together.
So we won't just reelect our majorities this November. We'll expose the corruption and radicalism of the Democrat Party. It's a lunatic—it's a party of lunatics.
We'll defeat the forces of national destruction. We'll complete our mission of national renewal. And the Republican Party will grow larger, stronger, and more dominant than ever before. We have a chance to do that, because we're competing against lunatics, and the public knows it, and they're seeing it every single day.
And together with all of you, we will make America powerful again. We will make America wealthy again. We will make America healthy again. We will make America strong again. We will make America proud again. We will make America safe again. And most importantly, we will make America great again.
Thank you very much, Republicans. Go out and win the midterms. Thank you very much.
NOTE: The President spoke at 7:44 p.m. at Union Station. In his remarks, he referred to Kelly Johnson, wife of Speaker of the House of Representatives J. Michael Johnson; Senate Majority Leader John R. Thune; Jennifer Scalise, wife of House Majority Leader Stephen J. Scalise; Jacqueline Emmer, wife of Majority Whip Thomas E. Emmer, Jr.; Anna Zarutska, mother of Iryna Zarutska, a Ukrainian refugee, who was fatally stabbed on a Charlotte Area Transit System light-rail train in Charlotte, NC, on August 22, 2025; Decarlos Brown, Jr., suspect in the Charlotte stabbing; Chief Warrant Officer 5 Eric Slover, USA, who was wounded in the January 3 U.S. military operation in Caracas, Venezuela; Medal of Honor recipient Capt. Royce Williams, USN; Harry Enten, chief data analyst, CNN; former Vice President Kamala D. Harris; Paul A. Perez, president, and Brandon Judd, former president, National Border Patrol Council; Reps.
Scott G. Perry, James R. Comer, James D. Jordan, and Nancy Pelosi; former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James B. Comey; former Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel; King Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud of Saudi Arabia; former President Nicolás Maduro Moros of Venezuela, who was captured, along with his wife Cilia Flores, in a U.S. military operation in Caracas, Venezuela, on January 3 and exfiltrated to the U.S. for criminal processing in New York City; professional powerlifter Anne Andres; George R. Stephanopoulos, coanchor, ABC's "Good Morning America" program; Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer; Jose Medina, suspect in the shooting of Sheridan Gorman, a Loyola University Chicago student who was killed in Chicago, IL, on March 19; Claudia A. Wilken, judge, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California; and Supreme Court Associate Justices Neil M. Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett. He also referred to S. 1383. The transcript was released by the Office of Communications on Marach 26.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : National Republican Congressional Committee, annual fundraising dinner.
Locations: Washington, DC.
Names: Andres, Anne; Barrett, Amy Coney; Biden, Joseph R., Jr.; Blinken, Antony J.; Buckhout, Laurie; Comer, James R.; Comey, James B.; Emmer, Jacqueline; Emmer, Thomas E., Jr.; Enten, Harry; Flores, Eric; Gorsuch, Neil M.; Harris, Kamala D.; Hudson, Richard L., Jr.; Jack, Brian; Johnson, J. Michael; Johnson, Kelly; Jordan, James D.; Judd, Brandon; Lincoln, Kevin; LiPetri, Mike; Maduro Moros, Nicolas; McClain, Lisa C.; Medina, Jose; Mitchell, Joe; Netanyahu, Benjamin; Obama, Barack; Perez, Paul A.; Perry, Scott G.; Pritzker, Jay R. "J.B."; Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud, King; Scalise, Jennifer; Scalise, Stephen J.; Schumer, Charles E.; Slover, Eric; Stephanopoulos, George R.; Thune, John R.; Tijerina, Tano; Trump, Melania; Wilken, Claudia A.; Williams, Royce; Zarutska, Anna.
Subjects: 2024 Presidential election; 2026 midterm elections; Armed Forces, U.S., recruitment efforts; Border security; College athletics, improvement efforts; Criminal justice system, reform efforts; Department of Homeland Security, appropriations legislation; District of Columbia, law enforcement improvement efforts; District of Columbia, Republican Party event; Election security and integrity, strengthening efforts; Health care costs and affordability; House majority leader; Illegal drugs, interdiction efforts; Illegal immigration; Illinois, crime in Chicago; Illinois, Governor; Iran, nuclear weapons development; Iran, U.S. airstrikes on nuclear facilities; Iran,
U.S. military operations; Israel, Prime Minister; Medal of Honor; Name, image, and likeness (NIL) compensation programs; National Guard; National Republican Congressional Committee; Oil markets and prices; Prescription drug costs, reduction efforts; Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act; Saudi Arabia, King; Senate majority leader; Senate minority leader; Speaker of the House of Representatives; Sports, efforts to restrict transgender participation; Stock market;
Supreme Court Associate Justice; Tariffs; Tax Code reform; Tennessee, law enforcement improvement efforts in Memphis; Transportation Security Administration; U.S. Border Patrol;
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; U.S. military readiness, improvement efforts; Venezuela, U.S. military capture and exfiltration of President Maduro.
DCPD Number: DCPD202600207.