Administration of Donald J. Trump, 2026
August 28, 2026
The President. Wow, this is a great honor. To be with you is a great honor. And I just want to thank Jessica, Anil, Jack—great Americans, great patriots, brave people.
I wouldn't do it. I will tell you right now. I hate to admit it. I would not want to do it. But some people love it more than anything. And you have amazing courage. And the job you've done, even to be selected, along with your fellow compatriots—you have some very good friends on board too from different places, and I don't know if they're hearing us, but just welcome them also.
But I just want to congratulate you. And today, you know, we announced a very big thing, because we're going to do a very special academy. And whether it's West Point, Annapolis, the Coast Guard Academy, if you look at the Air Force Academy, we're going to have an academy for what you people do. Everybody in this room would be excited.
And it'll be at the same level. I said, "It has to be at the same level." If we're going to do it, it has to be at that very high level. Those are among the hardest schools to get into in the whole country. I would say almost at the top, and that's what we want.
So we're going to set that up, and we'll remember this day for that. And I didn't realize that when I announced it, nobody knew about it, and the room went sort of crazy. They liked it, but we just announced it, and you probably saw. So congratulations on that.
[At this point, crewmembers of Expedition 75 aboard the International Space Station joined the President at NASA Mission Control Center via videoconference.]
Are you feeling well being all the way up there?
Mission Commander Jessica U. Meir. Well, first of all, that is very exciting news. We are thrilled to hear it. It's the first we've heard of it as well.
And we want to welcome you on board the International Space Station. We and all of our colleagues are very thrilled to have you up here today.
We're all doing very well. We've been in the middle of several spacewalks, and we're getting ready for another one next week.
The President. That's very exciting. And I have a couple of people here that are very special—to two people, at least.
And do you want to say hello? Come on over.
SpaceX engineer Anna Menon Anna Menon, wife of Mission Flight Engineer Anil Menon.
Hi, it's Anna. Great to see you guys up there. We love you guys. You're doing a great job.
Duke D. Brady, husband of Commander Meir. Hi, babe. Have a good time up there. We'll see you soon.
The President. Not bad, right? How could I let them stand here and, you know, they want to say hello, and you want to say hello. "Who needs Trump? We want to say hello to them." Right?
It's an honor. This was a big day, and it's a big day, actually, for our country. And you have some tremendous plans. We have some tremendous plans ahead, and it's going to be something very special.
What's—I'm very proud of Space Force because I did that. It was during my term. And a lot of people didn't believe in it. A lot of people in the next administration wanted to end it. And frankly, the military put their foot down. The military absolutely put their foot down. They wouldn't let that happen. There was almost a revolt, and now it's a part of the whole thing.
A lot of the victories, when you look at Venezuela, when you look at what we've done with the drug people coming in by boat and by land, frankly, that people don't know about so much, we get all that information from space and from what the people here and what some others are doing. So it's incredible. Incredible how important it is. Such a big deal.
And it will get—with the high technology, it will get more and more—with years, it'll get more and more important.
So congratulations. You're really pioneers. In a true sense, they're really pioneers. And Jared certainly is a pioneer.
And when I came originally, I went to Florida and looked at the Kennedy Space Center, and it was closed. It was just closed, and the runway was grass strewn. It had grass growing through the cracks—a lot of cracks and a lot of grass growing through.
And now, when you look at it, it's like a different world. We're back. But it was sad to watch.
That was very, very sad. Sad time for our country, actually.
And I just congratulate everybody. And be careful, be safe, and we love you all. Thank you very much. Thank you.
Flight Engineer Menon. Thank you, sir. And I would like to say, as a colonel in the Space Force, that I am very proud to serve in the largest domain imaginable. And last week, I got the great honor of doing a spacewalk and got to look at the Space Station from the robotic arm and saw the incredible ingenuity that we are capable of.
And I'm just so proud and excited that we are going to pave the way to our next journey to the Moon, Moon Base, and Mars. And thank you for propelling us in that direction.
We are watching your plans right now come to fruition, and grateful for your leadership during this time period. Thank you for coming today.
The President. Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Would you like to say, with that beautiful mustache—I want to get a mustache like that.
Would you like to say something? Go ahead. [Laughter]
Mission Flight Engineer Jack Hathaway. Absolutely, sir. I appreciate it.
Yes, the mustache is a lot of fun. You definitely have to have one in space. It's great in microgravity. It's in the great tradition of naval aviation.
And if you're going to start an academy, you know I graduated from the Naval Academy. I'm sure they're more than excited to support it and have it on board.
And we're excited to be a part of the American space program. You're in MCC right now.
Within 50, 100 feet of you are some of the finest minds that we have at NASA, and they're backed up by hundreds and thousands of more people at Johnson and Kennedy and all the centers around the country.
America's leadership in the space program is incredible. We're excited about it. We're excited about going to the future. And our big team down at NASA is ready to execute and get Americans back on the surface of the moon.
The President. Thank you very much. And we'll all see you when you get back, right? We're going to see them when they get back, good and safe.
And God bless you all. Thank you very much.
Commander Meir. Thank you. We will continue doing our best to inspire all of the bright minds and the next generation as well.
We are so excited about the energy that we feel and the energy that has been kicked off by the Artemis II crew. Thank you for honoring them today as well.
We had the pleasure of speaking to them while we were up here on the International Space Station, crew to crew, and it made us all incredibly connected and incredibly proud for what we have accomplished as a country and as an international program.
The President. Great job. Very proud.
We're going to see you when you get back. In fact, if you want Oval Office time, right? It's going to be another Oval Office time. We have a good—we have good luck with the Oval Office. Right, Jared? So you'll—we'll see you in the Oval Office. Okay?
Thank you very much. Be safe. God bless you.
Commander Meir. Thank you so much for your visit. We hope you have a wonderful stay in Houston.
NOTE: The President spoke at 12:31 p.m. from the NASA Mission Control Center at the Lyndon
B. Johnson Space Center. In his remarks, he referred to NASA Administrator Jared T. Isaacman. Flight engineer Meir referred to NASA Artemis II crewmembers Reid Weisman, commander, Victor J. Glover, Jr., pilot, Christina H. Koch, mission specialist, and Canadian Space Agency astronaut Jeremy Hansen, mission specialist.
Categories: Addresses and Remarks : National Aeronautics and Space Administration Astronauts, teleconference with President in Houston, TX.
Locations: Houston, TX.
Names: Brady, Duke D.; Hathaway, Jack; Isaacman, Jared T.; Meir, Jessica U.; Menon, Anil; Menon, Anna.
Subjects: Illegal drugs, interdiction efforts; International Space Station; NASA astronauts, greeting with President; National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Space exploration, expansion efforts; Suspected drug-trafficking vessels, U.S. airstrikes in Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific; Texas, President's visit; U.S. military readiness, improvement efforts; U.S. Space Force.
DCPD Number: DCPD202600565.