🚨Trump State of the Union LIVE Right Now! We're INSIDE US Capitol, Special Guests
Guests inside the U.S. Capitol—including Dr. Ronnie Jackson, Congresswoman Nancy Mace, and Senator McCormick—speculate on Trump’s health, Iran’s nuclear threats, and a potential 2024 regime change while praising his economic deals like $14B in Pennsylvania steel investments. They demand accountability over Epstein’s trafficking ties to figures like the Clintons, push for the Save America Act (76-85% public support), and mock Democratic opposition, linking open borders to crimes like Sarah Bextrom’s murder. Trump’s administration is framed as ending wars, deploying the National Guard, and securing a trillion-dollar military budget, all while championing "America First" policies—from tariffs to healthcare reforms—positioned as a patriotic revolution against global decline. [Automatically generated summary]
I think the president is going to lay out everything that's happened in this country over the last 13 months since he's come back to lead the place.
And I think it's going to be epic.
There's a lot of things that people are concerned about.
Number one, we've talked about this before, affordability.
Everybody's talking about it.
People want to be able to get food on the table, keep money in their pocket, live a great life, build the American dream, and pass it on to their kids.
And that's what people want.
That Biden economy was awful for everyone.
Donald Trump has already laid the foundation of fixing that.
We're seeing the early news of that happening.
Right now, as we speak, wages are up, gas prices are down, inflation is steady.
We got more work to do, but this is way better than what the Democrats do when they're in control.
30% of the costs of building a new home is government.
It's local government permitting, state government approvals, some federal government stuff.
We got to squeeze all that out of the system.
We got to squeeze those timelines, get it much quicker to build a home.
And the funny thing is, Benny, a lot of the homes that we build, especially starter homes, it's the same design over and over.
You might change the renderings or you, instead of tiles, you might have just like a regular roof or a tin roof in Florida, but you got to get the permitting timelines down.
So you get government costs out of building new homes.
You get government costs out of building new homes.
You can deliver homes cheaper.
It helps first-time homebuyers, young kids trying to get started.
And it also helps seniors on fixed income because you got a lot of seniors.
They've had the big house.
They want to get out of it.
They want to be able to downsize, get something affordable that fits their budget.
That's why what Governor DeSantis is trying to do in Florida, which I support, eliminating homestead property taxes, that helps that as well.
Big stuff in Florida that we can get done.
But part of that work is going to be here in Washington.
And it's so great to have a president in Donald Trump that you can work with who's always thinking about the next idea necessary in order to make America great again.
Yeah, thinking about young people, man, like, because this is something that was absolutely critical in 2024.
It's like focusing on the future of this country domestically.
Everybody's looking out and saying, like, you know, and I listen, I'll tell you that.
I don't know if you chat, let me know.
You love that meme with the eagle flying in?
Like, I don't want to dive too quickly in the policy because this is the only, this is the only guest that we're going to have on that actually watched the Eagle meme.
I saw with us.
I'm not sure that you can officially endorse that.
What happened to Al Green getting picked up by the Eagle?
But look, what I'll say when it comes to foreign policy, you have to let the president cook.
Look at his foreign policy decisions in the aftermath.
He's now been president.
This is his fifth year as president now.
Has he put troops on the ground?
Has he gotten us into some endless war?
Unlike previous administrations, both Republican and Democrat, got us into long wars, never got us out of them.
Or you had Joe Biden when he was like, well, we're just leaving.
We had 13 service members die, another 100 or so who were badly wounded, who needed medical care.
Donald Trump has not done that.
He's actually taken care of our fighting force.
And morale is way up at the Department of War and in the armed services.
Our recruitment levels we're seeing, we haven't seen in 50 years in the United States military.
So I would tell people who are concerned about Iran, do I want to be in some long, drawn out, endless war with the Iranians?
No, I don't.
I want American treasure to be spent here at home.
I want young people to be focused on their futures here at home.
But we also cannot just ignore the world.
I'll tell you, Benny, people who say, let's just be America only, then what you're going to do is America will look inward and our enemies will surround us.
The Chinese will surround us.
The Russians will surround us.
And that is true.
Don't believe me.
Look at what's already happened in South America and Central America with China's Belt and Road initiative.
The reality is, and Marco Rubio, who's done great, he said it best in Munich.
I want to hear the next wave of the plan, but I'm telling you, Donald Trump's economic strategy and plans way better than Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush.
So you raise such a critical point about like the pre and post conviction because he pleads guilty, right?
And then Jelaine Maxwell in 2013 is at Chelsea Clinton's wedding front row.
So don't tell me you distanced yourself from Hillary Clinton lost her mind on that.
Sorry, I don't, I want to ask a lot of other questions, but like I just couldn't believe what you've done to these people because she's now losing her mind.
She's done these interviews.
She's finally being asked questions about it.
It's not jiving with reality.
She's like, we cut him off.
We cut him off.
Jelaine Maxwell was front row at your daughter's wedding like years afterwards.
Well, you know, we, our subpoenas aren't any good off the United States territories.
So obviously the Virgin Islands is a U.S. territory.
Our subpoenas are good there.
But I'm watching very closely what's going on in Britain.
Remember, this is something that gets lost in translation.
What the British authorities have arrested Prince Andrew or brought in Prince Andrew and brought in the former ambassador of the United States from Britain.
It wasn't on sex crimes.
It was on potential treason, which goes back to the question we mentioned earlier.
Was he an asset for the United States or for Israel or for Britain or for Saudi Arabia?
Was he a double agent?
Was he a triple agent?
I mean, because if he were, a lot of these prominent officials in the Obama administration, his top counsel, his general counsel in the Obama administration was probably communicating with Epstein more than anyone all the way to the end.
Well, every lawyer would advise their client to say as little as possible in a deposition.
And he was pretty long-winded, but, you know, or he could have been like, don't, don't commit perjury.
Because if he lied under oath to Congress, that's perjury and he will be referred to the Justice Department.
So we're reviewing all of his answers and we had hoped to get more out of Wexner.
But these guys, these men are, you know, you talk about George Mitchell or some of these men.
They're over 80 and some of them are over 90 years old.
These crimes committed years ago, if evidence was never destroyed, it's hard to put stuff together that happened decades ago and your only living witnesses are in their late 80s and early 90s.
So the people are coming off the awards stand, and they're all coming over and getting selfies with the president, of course.
They're walking right up to him.
And the last match, as you may remember, was this guy that came out against an Olympic gold medalist and was a huge underdog and beat the Olympic gold medalist for real.
Stood up and saluted the president.
And the president leaned over and said, the best sporting match I've ever been to.
Well, very strategic, very targeted, no boots on the ground, using this superior capability that America has shown.
I'm not sure that that's what's going to happen, but I think it's hard to trust that even if Iran came to the table tomorrow, that they're going to be a trustworthy partner.
But listen, I wouldn't rule out the possibility of President Trump getting a last-minute deal.
But I also think he's committed to making things happen one way or the other.
We just hope that he doesn't take his eye off the ball with domestic policy, with the future for young people.
Young people want a future here in this country and not in a sandpit somewhere else 5,000 miles away.
I know the young men of Pennsylvania feel that way.
They also, it's amazing.
Your election in Pennsylvania, decided by a very small number of votes, Pennsylvania's had screw, let's just say some screwy election results and some goofy election results.
We've tracked a number of stories of broken machines and incorrect tabulations.
So critical for the Save Act.
We just want to thank you for being on board right away with the Save America Act and supporting it.
Well, first, no one knows the importance of every legitimate vote counting to me.
I lost my first rate race by 900 votes.
I won my second by 15,000 out of 7 million cash.
So this is a huge, huge thing.
50% of Americans more don't trust in our elections.
So we've got to fix that.
The Save America Act fixes that by ensuring that legally, it's already a requirement by law, that a person has to prove their citizenship before they register to vote.
Seems pretty basic.
Second, that when they show up, just like when you show up to buy beer, when you show up to get on an airplane, when you show up to get blood, you got to show.
an ID.
Those are the two requirements.
And that's what the Save America Act does.
It's an 80-20 issue.
The Democrats resist it.
We've got to make them stand on the floor of the Senate and defend their opposition.
If a body of 100 can't get 60 votes for an 80-20 issue, we're completely dysfunctional.
I know we want to be respectful of everyone's time, but perhaps like maybe just like an introduction and what is the, this is, this is, man, gentlemen, this is what people want to see.
Yeah, why don't you people want to see like American manufacturing back?
People want to see like American grit and steel back.
So he approved the merger between Nippon and United States Steel.
$15 billion investment and for purchase it and then another $14 billion to invest into all the facilities and improve steelmaking in the United States, which is huge for us.
And I can't tell you, Benny, what a big deal this is for Pennsylvania, but what a big deal it is for the country to be back on our front foot on domestic steelmaking.
And that goes across all of manufacturing.
It's happening in Pennsylvania.
This is one good example.
There's data centers, there's energy infrastructure.
Han Wa bought the Philadelphia shipyard.
We see this with Eli Lilly just announced a new plant in the Lehigh Valley, $3.5 billion of investment.
Westinghouse just got an order for $85 billion worth of nuclear reactors.
This manufacturing renaissance is happening in Pennsylvania.
It's happening across the country.
It's happening because of these policies.
It's creating great jobs.
Nip on U.S. Steel was the first of many things that happened just in the last year.
What do you want to see from your state, from the people of Pennsylvania?
Obviously, a great energy straight, great grit state.
So, so many hot button issues that go through the country go travel through Pennsylvania, sort of like the future of young men in this country, the future of young people in this country.
As Pennsylvania goes, quite frankly, the keystone, you know, so will the rest of the country go.
What do you want to see quickly from the president tonight?
Well, I want him to talk about the successes we've had.
I want him to clear the record here on the remarkable things that are happening and then double down on these policies.
The Congress needs to go hand in hand with the president on permitting reform, on housing reform, to make sure that the American dream is available for every working family in Pennsylvania and across America.
We're well on the way based on Trump's first year in office.
We need to continue to keep that pressure on.
We shouldn't back down one bit.
We are on the side of right and we're making huge progress.
There's a guy that's living it and can vouch for that.
You've got salt of the earth in your district, man.
You know, Knoxville.
Been there a couple of times.
Salt Earth's real Americans that actually have real problems.
I know that everyone's talking about bombing Iran, and I would love for you to maybe split the difference here because there's this kind of call, especially from young people, about focusing on the domestic future of America and the future of our people.
And I would love to like see sort of a balance tonight because all of the buzz on my timeline is we're going to bomb Iran.
The stealth bombers are already there.
How do you think the president strikes that balance to tell the gentleman in your district?
You know, we dropped one bomb from 30,000 feet down a hole the size of a refrigerator door, and we eliminated them as a nuclear threat.
Now, granted, probably China and some of our enemies are probably backdooring trying to get them back in that business.
But the reality is Trump knew what he had to do and he eliminated a threat and no Americans lost their lives, which to me, the whole his military operations, when he took out Madura or whatever down there, we did not lose a single American.
And I think God's got his hand on this president.
I really do.
As I've stated many times, he's not going to teach my daughter's a Sunday school class down at Baptist Church on their own task.
So what is the economic message that you want to hear tonight?
I think, first of all, I mean, if you were on the phone with him, I don't want to be rude and ask a gentleman like yourself to disclose a private conversation.
Well, maybe it's different with Senator Kennedy, but I listen a lot when I'm on with President Trump.
And I mean, I'm trying to soak up the historical significance of the fact that some little redneck from West Hills, the 435th most powerful member of Congress, is talking to the most powerful man in the world.
And he calls me by my first name.
I think that to me is kind of, and I think about my mom and daddy.
I think about them, daddy fighting in the Pacific, my mama flying an airplane when she's 17 years old during the Second World War because her brother got killed by the Nazis.
And I think about all those things.
I think about the hardworking people back in Tennessee.
But I think what I think about when they talk about the economics of the situation is he closed the dadgum border, Benny.
And, you know, when I was mayor of Knox County, we had a small school that had, I think, around 200 kids in it, one of our inner city schools.
And I was always shocked that the English is second language.
There's between 15 and 20 different languages.
Now, that's a cost on the taxpayers.
When these folks go into an emergency room, guess what?
They're getting health care because we've got the best dad gum health care in the country.
And you and I are going to have to pick up the tab.
And I mean, these costs are added on to everything.
And when the crime, of course, somebody loses a life or a kid gets raped by one of these dirt bags.
You know, I don't think we ought to send them back to their country.
I think we ought to send them to hell personally.
You know, short piece of rope and a tall tree.
And I'm not being black, you know, because I've dealt with this a lot when I was in the state legislature, these issues like that.
And I think Trump gets it.
You know, we're leading the world now in gas and oil production.
Inflation is fairly stagnant right now compared to under the Biden administration.
You don't hear the Democrats or the liberals in the media. talking about the price of gasoline or the price of eggs.
I just want to know what we're spending tens of millions of dollars on.
I don't know if there's little green men or flying saucers out there.
I've talked to the best pilots in the world, which are American military pilots that fly half a billion dollars worth of aircraft and an incredible amount of training.
And they've told me one guy said, he said, Burch, I think it was 14 feet from my canopy.
Or he said, Tim, actually.
And I've talked to an admiral who had an instance.
I've talked to military men and women.
I've talked to just regular Americans.
Something's going on, Benny.
And, you know, the Bible talks about it as a, you know, God created the heavens and the earth.
And also, it's Ezekiel saw the wheel.
If you read first chapter of Ezekiel, it pretty much describes a UFO.
It talks about a wheel within a wheel.
Now, you know, the classic UFO is the saucer shaped and there's something on top.
And I've never seen anything.
I've not seen any, well, I take that back.
I've seen things, but that's since I've been in Congress and I'm not allowed to discuss this.
I would just hope that the president would disclose everything that I've seen in every skiff I've been in and in every confidential conversation, every picture I've seen, every video I've seen.
You know, I just, I'm just not, I'm not worried about it.
I'm not worried about it.
I know I die right now.
I'm a Christian.
I'm going to heaven.
Mom and dad are going to be waiting on me and it's going to be a great reunion.
And I'll be with Jesus.
I'll be with everybody.
But I don't, I know, I'm not worried about it.
I do not worry about it.
If they have this incredible technology and wanted to get us, I think they'd already gotten us.
So I don't think that's a worry.
So, you know, and I know people make fun of me all the time about this issue, but it has polled over 50%.
I've been in rooms with doctors and lawyers, fellow members of Congress that have seen things, that believe in it, and they just don't want to say it publicly.
And I'm just an idiot, I guess.
So there's your sound tracker.
There's your sound Bible, an idiot.
Everybody already knew that.
Suzuki Kennedy already told me that one you're an idiot.
I told my guys, I said, I don't want a bunch of fluff, none of your usual, you know, oh, you know, chairman, thank you for your hard work on all your great.
And I said, just write the dad gum letter and cut it down.
And I just want to know.
And so wrote it in January 7th, I believe.
And I still haven't heard back, but I'm sure they'll get to it.
You know, we've had, there's been a lot of discussion about the talking filibuster, which I don't completely understand, but Senate Republicans have talked about it to my knowledge one time, Benny, before we, week before last, we had a lunch and we meet three times a week for lunch, all that Senate Republicans do, as do the Democrats.
And we'd set aside an hour to talk about the so-called talking filibuster, because I don't understand it.
And something else came up.
And anyway, we only spent about 20 minutes and we all agreed to be continued.
So the first thing we've got to do, Senator Lee seems to know the most about it.
I think he came up with the concept.
And we need to just sit down and talk, spend a couple of hours so they can explain it to everyone.
What I want the president to do tonight is to look the American people in the eye and talk to them about the things that moms and dads worry about when they lie down to sleep at night and can't.
And at the top of that list, it's not the only thing, but at the top of that list, we have to be honest, is the cost of living.
The anxiety that I think many Americans, not just Republicans and Independents, but Democrats too, feel.
They look around our country today and they see too many undeserving people at the top getting bailouts.
They see too many undeserving people at the bottom getting handouts.
And they're in the middle.
And they get stuck with the bill.
And President Biden created this inflation, which is the most pernicious form of economic warfare imaginable.
And we've gotten it down to 3%, but that's an average, Benny.
Inflation is very sticky.
That's why it's so pernicious.
And people are feeling it.
We've done a lot.
The president's done a lot.
The Republican Congress has done a lot in one big, beautiful bill.
So the president needs to tell that story.
But he also needs to say, this is what else we're going to do.
I would rather be forced to listen to OJ jokes for the rest of eternity than to go back through the Biden administration.
And I don't say that with any animosity.
I don't hate anybody.
I didn't and don't now hate President Biden, but it was a clown rodeo.
It was, it was so much harm was done in this country.
So much money was wasted.
So many opportunities were lost.
It didn't have to be that way.
I think that President Biden was detached.
I'm saying that in a charitable way for a lot of the time.
And he had a lot of people around him, a handful anyway, many of them holdovers from President Obama, who just thought they're smarter and more virtuous than everybody else.
And they took a hard left years ago and kept driving.
I'm a big believer in free will and responsibility, but I couldn't tell you after listening to her for what was 109 days, every day, several times a day.
Real quick, two topics that are very important to the chat as we close here, because I know that you're up against a hard out and want to be respectful of everyone and stuff.
You mentioned, you heard me talk with Burchett about UFOs.
You know, we've seen many interview clips of you out of this world.
I mean, it's what I don't remember who said, you know, the price of liberty is eternal vigilance.
It's the same in Texas.
We have a fight every year, every day to keep Texas free and keep it a place that people want to come to, that's free and that has opportunity, unlike California and New York and Illinois that have taken that over.
It's a greatest state in the Union because it's a bulwark against what's happening in Mexico.
This has got to be uh, hit pretty close to home.
Most people in Texas have like a cartel violence story.
It's amazing.
I've been, we've been asking our Texas audience and we have a huge audience in Texas and everyone seems to have like either know somebody or had a direct cartel experience, and so this has got to be.
This is a matter of life and death.
You know, we saw what happened in Mexico and what's still happening in Mexico, Americans trapped, Americans potentially taken hostage.
Yeah, I mean, it's going to be a long list of accomplishments in a very short period of time, but I also want to hear about the future.
I want to hear about his plans for the future because if they're as good as what he's done in his first term in the last 14 months, we've got a great three years ahead of us.
I feel that every cup Of coffee, I have in the morning.
Yeah, I feel that.
God bless you, Congressman.
This is what this is what I'm talking about.
Just, you know, just glaze for a second.
This is like, this is the guy.
This is the point, right?
The guy has his cup of coffee and he says, oh, you know what?
How about this?
I'm going to leave this powerful position.
Trump calls me every day.
I've been with him when Trump will just randomly call him, like, hey, what's up, bro?
Like, it's I'm going to leave that life because I love my family so much.
That's the difference.
These people that are fossils that live here and die here and like become, you know, Joe Biden styles falling down in the hallway, humiliating themselves.
You're not going to be a senator like that, right?
I want to make sure now, ALX, do we have the C-SPAN?
Wow, that was really fun 90 minutes.
Do we have non-stop, non-stop?
Do we have the sorry?
Like, like, chat, I'm just trying to ask the questions that I know that you love.
Maybe like Comer didn't want to answer all questions about Epstein and Bercha didn't want to answer all questions about the UFOs, but we just had to go there.
We hit some economy, economic questions.
We hit some Iran.
We're doing our best to kind of like hit the interests, but I'm not going to leave you hanging, chat.
I know we got to hit the UFO and the Epstein stuff.
And we got Scott Pressler coming up.
We got some more special guests coming up too.
So I do want to ask ALX.
I'm hearing some sound now here.
Yeah.
Or maybe we could just, maybe we should just flip this on.
I mean, I think this would potentially like I'd be able to hear it straight through his straight through his stream yard.
We're doing a digital, we're doing digital guests now, Scott Pressler.
Oh, yeah, that's going to, we're going to have a mixed minus.
Why don't we, why don't we, I want to ask ALX about the March of the Senators.
So something hilarious is going to happen here in just a few minutes, which is that all the senators are going to get paired up like besties and get marched through like through the United States House of Representatives.
Do we have the actual shot from inside of the do we have the C-SPAN shot up?
Yeah, like let's hear it.
Let's let's let's do an audio test.
We're bringing on a digital okay, great.
Okay, so this is the this is the well of the house.
You can see some uh what is that?
You got a couple guys down there.
Oh, wait, no, sorry.
This is the well of the senate.
So they're lining up.
Okay, so they're lining up.
Mute this.
They're lining up for the march of the senators where they're going to take all the senators and they're going to make them besties and force them all to like march together like a goofy marriage march and they're all going to have to walk here.
We got the White House.
We got Donald Trump coming out of the way.
That sound worked great, Klein.
So we're just going to do it like that.
That's great.
We got Donald.
We got the Donald Trump emerging soon from the White House and heading over.
Maybe we could pop Jeremy on and then just keep this because I want to get Trump's departure.
Right?
Okay.
Yeah, because we're going to have Trump leaving the White House.
Kind of fun.
Sit back and like watch a little bit.
Enjoy the show.
This comes the sit back and watch and enjoy the show part of the program.
Again, the president imminent in his traveling to the U.S. Capitol building to describe the golden era, a golden era that on this program is brought to you by, well, gold.
Well, I'm so excited to hear about his policies and strategies and tactics that he's going to implement over the next three years.
He tipped everyone off, Benny, when he called this the golden era.
Over the last 12 months, we've seen gold prices up over 100% since he took office, which has been incredible.
Silver prices are up over 170%.
And if anybody watched and paid attention to his first term, we saw that gold prices were up 50% during his first term.
So that golden era little hallmark of his is coming true.
And the tactics and strategies and his innovative policies, the tariffs are all strategies to help spur the economy on.
And I think they're genius.
But what other people are starting to pay attention to, our clients have been taking advantage of this, is that these policies and strategies that he's implementing is creating the perfect storm for gold.
And that's why we've seen gold prices continue to go up and they will continue to go up as he implements these innovative strategies.
Because a lot of people, this is my, Jeremy, this is my like kind of split is that the lot, you know, we're going to hear a lot about, I think, foreign policy.
Many, the big buzz is about Iran.
Is Iran going to get bombed?
And I would just caution, obviously, that there's so many people, especially young people in our audience that want a focus on domestic policy and want to focus on the American future.
And I think that that's like a critical balance to strike.
Obviously, there were so many wars, you know, Ukraine, you got Ukraine and Gaza, and there's so many different things that were going on.
And the administration, I think, has heard that message and wants to shift before the midterms to domestic policy.
Well, I think that he's got to talk about the job numbers reports that have come out, and he's going to be calling for lower interest rates.
He's going to be hammering Jerome Powell, I think, over and over about what he can do to spur the economy on because he inherited this, right?
He inherited Biden's overspending and his policies and this bloated government.
And he's trying to come in there and clean house and do the right things.
And so he's going to be trying to push some of these agenda items, I think, for Jerome, obviously, for the Fed to hear, for the American people to hear.
And then obviously on the international front, I mean, this guy is a real deal peacemaker, but Iran is a huge problem and it's complicated.
And so I think that we won't get as many glimpses on what we wish he would say, because obviously he likes to surprise and he's probably got something up his sleeve regarding that whole situation.
But from geopolitical crises, he's solved one after another, but there's a lot of heat on him.
And I think that's going to continue.
So I'm excited to hear what he's trying to do, what he wants to do to try to combat that.
Ultimately, for our client's sake, I want to hear what his economic policies are going to be and how that's going to affect retirements.
Because gold and silver have been retirement multipliers this last 12 months in his first year.
And I think that the key that I'm going to be like leaning in on are what are the new economic policies or how is he going to continue to evolve his economic policies?
Because we've got the most dynamic president ever.
And how is that going to affect our clients?
How is that going to affect our clients' retirement accounts?
And we want to position them in the best possible way for both protection and growth.
Jeremy, I got to tell you, man, the king of the golden era about to emerge from the White House, we know this because we just saw Dan Scavino and Susie Wiles and Walt Nada, who is like the president's personal bodyman, just exit.
Economic Policies and Retirement Multipliers00:02:26
I would love to hear anything that he's going to say regarding the jobs, the Fed rate cuts.
People have to understand that the Federal Reserve and their rate cuts, that environment and what that does for the economy, what that does for your retirement accounts is massive.
So anything that I can hear and I'm listening for regarding him cutting these rates, we're in a rate cutting cycle right now, which causes gold prices to go up historically.
This is the fourth one of the century.
Each time gold prices have gone up at least 50% during each one of those times.
So I'm looking for what is he going to do?
What is that shot that he's going to do to inject into our economy?
And then he's going to talk about the tariffs.
He's going to be bringing up the tariffs and what exactly is he going to do when it comes to these tariffs.
How is he going to implement them?
Because again, these strategies are there to help us bring in revenue.
So we don't have to raise taxes.
American people have to understand what he's trying to do.
And again, this is the golden era and it's causing these actions and these policies are also great for gold and silver.
Well, it feels like I live on Capitol Hill at this point.
I've been meeting with a lot of those members of Congress, but I'm where I need to be back home in Pennsylvania, and I will be joining a debate watch party imminently.
So what is so, okay, so you're back in Pennsylvania.
We had Senator McCormick on the stream just a little bit ago, and he's, it sounds like he's doing great, representing the state, great.
He sold the SAVE Act like really hard.
And he was talking about how critical it is to make sure that the SAVE Act gets passed.
This is something that you've devoted practically your life to, this side of registering Republican voters, but it's actually your work with registering Republican voters that makes you so locked in for the Save Act, right?
I mean, because this makes it, it invalidates all of your work when millions and millions of illegals can vote.
You know, I spend all day, every day trying to get out the vote and I hear constantly from people, Scott, why should I vote if my vote is going to be negated by a fraudulent vote?
And it just makes my work that much harder.
And at the end of the day, here's what I come to.
2024, we duly elected a Republican House, a Republican Senate, and a Republican White House.
And the voters not only expect their votes to be secure, but the voters demand action.
And besides hearing, why should I vote?
I hear why should I give Republicans the majority if when they are in power, they do not wield that majority in order to push forward President Trump's agenda.
And so, Benny, tonight, I want to hear President Trump invoke the Save America Act on the floor.
And more importantly, I want to hear President Trump invoke that senators must pass the agenda that the House has done its job.
Otherwise, President Trump's not even going to be a two-year president.
It was a remarkable thing this morning to have Mike Lee on the program.
And Mike said that Scott Pressler is an example of what can happen when a single American decides that they are going to pressure this old stodgy body into doing something.
And it was one of the kindest things I've ever heard anybody say, quite frankly, in politics.
Yeah, he said that you have a cot and you've been sleeping in the hallways up here.
I don't even think that's legal, Scott.
But he, but he said that, you know, you've been a, and I think anybody who's been following online knows that you've been a one-man wrecking crew for this issue.
Can you give us, and that's what he said.
He said, Susan Collins, there wouldn't be 50 votes without Scott Pressler.
Today is day 55 of asking kindly and respectfully for Senate Majority Leader Thune to bring the Save America Act to the Senate floor for debate.
But I'm not in this alone.
We've had millions of Americans calling.
emailing, writing handwritten letters, showing up to meet their members of Congress.
And I do believe that maximum peaceful pressure campaign has ultimately gotten on board.
Even Senator Thune is now a co-sponsor.
As you just mentioned, Susan Collins is a supporter of the Save America Act.
But one thing that was invaluable is I have to give a shout out to the Republican Study Committee, which is chaired by Texas Congressman Phluger.
You know what happened, Benny?
In the past week, I had the opportunity to speak at the Republican Study Committee before 55-0 members of Congress.
And in the same kind of tone that I'm speaking to you right now, very matter of fact, but deliberate, I told that body, you're doing your job, but it is the senators that if they do not pass the Save America Act and secure our elections and therefore inspire voters to vote, that really it's the Senate's in action that is putting your jobs, your seats in the House of Representatives at risk.
And I think that really kind of sunk in.
I was just recently with Mike Collins out of Georgia.
He just endorsed the talking filibuster.
Lauren Boebert talks about the Save America Act every single day.
So the House gets it, but it is all of you at home, the Benny J community and everyone across America that has been peacefully and respectfully telling their members of Congress, we elected you as the majority and we are expecting you to wield that power on behalf of us.
And we're not done.
The last thing I want to say, Benny Jay, I'm so sorry, is we're announcing a Save America tour.
So Senate Majority Leader John Thune, I'm coming to Rapid City, South Dakota on March 21st.
I'm coming to Sioux Falls on March 22nd.
I'm coming to Woke County, Wake County, North Carolina, to make sure that we're sealing the deal with Tom Tillis, Senator, on March 24th.
And we're going to do peaceful rallies in the backyards of any senator that has not yet come on board with the Save America Act.
And of course, we extend that opportunity and invitation to you, Benny.
And a lot of ranked choice voting is designed by leftists and Democrats in order to split and destroy any potential America first vote.
It's designed in order to get rid of the will of the people so that the will of the special interests and corporations can always win and the will of billionaires like George Soros can always win.
That's why George Soros came up with it.
So it's terrible.
Well done, Scott.
Awesome.
I really look forward to that.
We have 15-minute warning.
Actually, sorry, 13-minute warning right now.
Okay, so we're going to hear clearly the president's going to talk about the Save America Act.
And I think the president should absolutely talk about how we get that over the finish line.
What else do you want to hear, Scott?
Nobody is more well-traveled across the country than you.
Something that obviously I think hits my heartstrings.
And as I watch kind of the drums of war bang for Iran, that's fine.
You know, it's fine.
But I think that people from Pennsylvania, I know this is where you're from, people from New Jersey, you spent so much time there.
I think that these people like really want to hear domestic policies that say the pothole in front of your house is more like fixing that is more important than putting a new pothole in the Middle East.
Well, at the end of the day, what did the people vote for in 2024?
They voted for deportations, removing illegal aliens from our country.
And quite frankly, if we deport 20 million illegal aliens, we no longer in America have a housing price crisis.
And we can bring down cost for young people.
We can bring down costs for senior citizens.
We're bringing down the gas.
We're putting forth energy independence.
We're securing the border.
But how appropriate or how kind of coincidental is it, Benny, that during a partial government shutdown, when the Democrats are putting our country, our people at risk, not fully funding the Department of Homeland Security, you have the cartel in Mexico, our southern neighbor, literally torching the state.
Here's what I want to see.
If there are any strategists out there in the Congress, I want to see the House of Representatives put forth a bill, basically putting forth a resolution making the Democrats choose between supporting the cartel and actually supporting the American people.
And I want them to force this issue that it is the Democrats that are not funding our country and any violence that comes to our shores from the cartel.
And by the way, the cartel is currently in our country, actively working, is going to be because of the Democrats shutting down our government and choosing politics over people.
And I really hope he focuses on the issue of the Department of Homeland Security, because that is at the heart of the majority of Americans.
Why is Hakeem Jeffries not saying that it's racist to vote?
I was with Derek Van Orden, a wonderful Wisconsin congressman.
He pulls out his ID when he's shown me a tour of the Capitol and Congress, and he goes, Scott, I cannot vote without this electronic ID.
So Democrats need to get their act together, and that's why we're asking Benny for a talking filibuster to bring the Save America Act to the Senate floor.
And it's going to have to be Spartacus, Corey Booker, who's going to have to tell 84% of Americans why he is against legislation that 76% of the black community supports, 82% of Latinos support, 85% of white Americans support, the majority of Democrats, the overwhelming majority of Republicans.
And clearly, the American people support this bill.
So force the Democrats to tell the popular vote why they are against that legislation.
But up in the gallery, you know, this is presumably where they're going to be seated, unless they're going to do something cool, which we've never seen before, which is maybe them walking in.
We will be bringing all of you live with us to the Artemis launch to head back to the moon.
We'll be doing that next month.
AFPI, you want to come with us?
That'd be fun.
Okay.
I'm sure there's plenty of policy when it comes to space exploration.
AFPI, our dear friends here.
Again, couldn't have gotten this stream done without their team.
Massive shout out in the chat to AFPI.
You got to check out their work.
You got to put pen to paper, the people that actually write the laws in this country.
That's why it's critical to partner with them.
We can sit there all day and bang on the table and bluster and talk about things we want to have changed.
Do you know how you actually have to do it?
It sucks.
It sucks.
You got to write legislation.
You got to write executive orders.
You got to explain these things to the American people.
So like instead of just sitting there and bitching and complaining and crying all day in my little podcast studio, we're partnering with the people that can actually get the laws written so we can actually get things done.
You've already seen some of the major effects on housing policy, but there are so much more of that to come.
So there are two levels.
You've got to be able to hit the grassroots level.
And this is what we try and do every single day.
We make everything from funny memes, cover images, going out into the wild.
Man, Jared Isaacman, bro, we just flew on jets with him.
He's the NASA administrator.
He's flying me in a jet.
I'm in like a fighter jet upside down with Jared Eisenman two months ago.
So cool.
Anyway, of course, we're filming all of it and taking you with us everywhere so you can see and understand the world around you.
So you got to gain critical mass, but then you've actually got to have a plan.
And the way that plan gets implemented is you got to write that legislation and get it passed.
So that's what we're going to do with the Save Act.
Chris, come on, man.
You guys had a big hand in the Save Act.
You're probably helpful all the time in the Save Act.
Yes, right.
Yeah?
Fantastic.
Got to get across the finish line.
Chris is over here.
Chris is over there.
He says he doesn't want to be on camera.
Chris, you ain't got to come in and give like a shout out to AFPI.
Less than five months from now, our country will celebrate an epic milestone in American history, the 250th anniversary of our glorious American independence.
This July 4th, we will mark two and a half centuries of liberty and triumph, progress and freedom in the most incredible and exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the earth.
And you've seen nothing yet.
We're going to do better and better and better.
This is the golden age of America.
When I last spoke in this chamber 12 months ago, I had just inherited a nation in crisis with a stagnant economy, inflation at record levels, a wide open border.
horrendous recruitment for military and police, rampant crime at home, and wars and chaos all over the world.
But tonight, after, I can say with dignity and pride that we have achieved a transformation like no one has ever seen before.
before and a turnaround for the ages.
It is indeed a turnaround for the ages.
And we will never go back to where we were just a very short time ago.
We're not going back.
Today our border is secure. Thank you.
Today our border is secure.
Our spirit is restored.
Inflation is plummeting.
Incomes are rising fast.
The roaring economy is roaring like never before.
And our enemies are scared.
Our military and police are stacked.
And America is respected again, perhaps like never before.
After four years in which millions and millions of illegal aliens poured across our borders totally unvetted and unchecked, we now have the strongest and most secure border in American history by far.
In the past nine months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted to the United States.
But we will always allow people to come in legally, people that will love our country and will work hard to maintain our country.
The flow of deadly fentanyl across our border is down by a record 56% in one year.
And last year, the murder rate saw its single largest decline in recorded history.
This is the biggest decline, think of it in recorded history, the lowest number in over 125 years, year 1900.
In fact, substantially before my wonderful father, I had a wonderful father, Fred, before he was born, substantially before he was born.
That's a long time ago.
He wouldn't like me to say that, but that's a long time ago.
The Biden administration and its allies in Congress gave us the worst inflation in the history of our country.
But in 12 months, my administration has driven core inflation down to the lowest level in more than five years.
And in the last three months of 2025, it was down to 1.7%.
Gasoline, which reached a peak of over $6 a gallon in some states, under my predecessor, it was quite honestly a disaster, is now below $2.30 a gallon in most states.
And in some places, $1.99 a gallon.
And when I visited the great state of Iowa just a few weeks ago, I even saw $1.85 a gallon for gasoline.
Mortgage rates are the lowest in four years and falling fast.
And the annual cost of a typical new mortgage is down almost $5,000 just since I took office.
One year.
And low interest rates will solve the Biden-created housing problem while at the same time protecting the values of those people who already own a house that really feel rich for the first time in their lives.
We want to protect those values.
We want to keep those values up.
We're going to do both.
And we are going to keep it that way.
The stock market is at 53 all-time record highs since the election.
Think of that.
One year, boosting pensions, 401ks, and retirement accounts for the millions and millions of Americans.
They're all gaining.
Everybody's up, way up.
In four long years, the last administration got less than $1 trillion in new investment in the United States.
And when I say less, substantially less.
In 12 months, I secured commitments for more than $18 trillion pouring in from all over the globe.
Think of it, much less than $1 trillion for four years versus much more than $18 trillion for one year.
What a difference a president makes.
A short time ago, we were a dead country.
Now we are the hottest country anywhere in the world.
As thousands of new businesses are forming in factories, plants, and laboratories are being built, we have added 70,000 new construction jobs in just a very short period of time.
It's getting bigger and bigger and stronger.
Nobody can believe what they're watching.
American oil production is up by more than 600,000 barrels a day, and we just received from our new friend and partner, Venezuela, more than 80 million barrels of oil.
American natural gas production is at an all-time high because I kept my promise to drill, baby, drill.
More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country.
Think about that.
Any time in the history of our country, more working today.
And 100% of all jobs created under my administration have been in the private sector.
We ended DEI in America.
We cut a record number of job-killing regulations, and in one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record off of food stamps.
And for all of these reasons, I say tonight, members of Congress, the state of our union is strong.
And I asked him, the one shot, the one where you put your stick in the back and it hit the neck of your stick and bounce off.
You practice that?
It was that little ucky.
He refused to answer that question.
But I just want to tell you that the members of this great hockey squad will be very happy to hear based on their vote and my vote.
And in this case, my vote was more important.
That I will soon be presenting Connor with our highest civilian honor, which we will be given and which has been given to many athletes over the years.
But when I say many, not too many, like 12.
It's called the highest civilian honor in our country, the presidential medal of freedom.
Democrats barely can find the will to stand up and applaud for team Usa also pleased to say that the next time the Olympic torch is lit, it will be here in America for the 2028 Olympics and it's the summer version, right in Los Angeles.
We're going to do a good job in.
Los Angeles is going to be safe, just like Washington Dc is now one of the safest cities in the country.
And this year, and I must say I got them both.
I got them in the first term and I was disappointed because I didn't think i'd be the president when this happened.
But strange things took place and now i've got them because I got the Olympics.
I got the 2026 Fifa World Cup and I wanted to claim the 250th but I didn't get away with that one.
I couldn't claim that one for myself, but we're getting the World Cup.
This will be a year to celebrate our country and the heroes who have kept it free, men like Buddy Taggart.
At age 17, Buddy volunteered to defend America in World War II, serving in the Pacific under the great General Douglas MacArthur.
He fought bravely in the famous Battle of Manila, worked so hard.
He was badly wounded and almost killed by enemy machine guns in Luzon.
And 81 years ago, this month, he liberated the largest internment camp.
in the Philippines, one of the largest anywhere in the world.
But he earned many honors, including a purple heart and a bronze star, came home, started a family, and tonight he is in the gallery looking forward to July 4th, 2026, his 100th birthday.
So, buddy, you're a brave man, and we salute you.
Even in times of challenge, setback, and immense heartache, the spirit of 1776 has always shone through very brightly.
It was July 4th of last year when floodwaters tore through a girls' summer camp in central Texas, one of the worst things I've ever seen.
I was there, rising 26 feet in the matter of minutes, tragically claiming many, many lives.
You all remember that one?
As the waters threatened to sweep her away, 11-year-old Millie Kate McClaymond closed her eyes and prayed to God.
She thought she was going to die.
Those prayers were answered when Coast Guard rescue swimmer Scott Ruskin descended from a helicopter above.
Nobody knew where he came from.
It was Scott's first ever rescue mission, young guy, but very brave, very, very top, always top in his class.
And he lifted not just Millie Kate, but 164 others to safety.
People watched Scott from a distance and they couldn't believe what they were seeing.
The winds were blowing, the rain was pouring, everything was going in that rapid water.
Nobody's ever seen anything like it.
They said, wow, that's something.
Tonight, Scott and Millie Kate are here together, reunited for the very first time.
Thank you, Scott, Millie Cate.
And Petty Officer Ruskin, I'm pleased to inform you that I am now awarding you the Legion of Merit for Extraordinary Heroism, which is what it was, Extraordinary Heroism.
Thank you.
I'd like to have the military aid to please come down and take care of the service, military aid.
Thank you very much.
Take care of that very important service.
Thank you very much.
From 1776 to today, every generation of Americans has stepped forward to defend life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
And they're really doing it for the next generation.
But now it's our turn.
Together, we're building a nation where every child has the chance to reach higher and go further, where government answers to the people, not the powerful, and where the interests of hardworking American citizens are always our first and ultimate concern.
That is the debt we owe to the heroes who came before us, and that is the promise we must keep to America for our 250th year.
Last year, I urged this Congress to begin the mission by passing the largest tax cuts in American history, and our Republican majorities delivered so beautifully.
Thank you, Republicans.
All Democrats, every single one of them, voted against these really important and very necessary massive tax cuts.
They wanted large-scale tax increases to hurt the people instead.
But we held strong and with the great, big, beautiful bill, we gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great city.
And we also made interest on auto loans tax deductible the first time, but only if the car is made in America.
Recently in Pennsylvania, I met Megan Hemhauser, a devoted mom who homeschools her children, beautiful, two children, during the day while waiting tables at night as her husband works overtime operating very heavy equipment.
Megan is here this evening and she's happy to tell you that she is so, so much richer because with no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and her expanded child tax credit done again by Republicans, Megan and her husband will take home more than $5,000 extra just for the year, cutting her tax bill in more than half.
Under our bill, parents like Megan can also activate their children's brand new Trump accounts.
And I didn't name it.
I did not name that.
Nobody believes me, but I did not name it.
It was named by a very tall man, sitting right there in the third row.
Nice man, a good man.
Tax-free investment accounts for every American child.
This is something that's so special and has taken off and gone through the roof.
Millions will be pre-funded courtesy of the U.S. Treasury and private individuals like Michael and Susan Dell, who have donated $6,250,000,000 to fund the Trump accounts for 25 million American children.
they're great people when i asked michael how do you make all that money He said, well, I just sat on my dorm in school and I made computers and I'd sell them to people.
And I just kept selling and selling and selling.
And pretty amazing story.
That's called the American Dream.
He sold a lot of computers, a lot of those laptops.
So I congratulate him on that.
But I really thank him and Susan, as well as others like Brad Gerstner, a very tremendous guy.
He was behind it right from the beginning.
brad gerstner thank you brad so with modest additional contributions these young people's accounts could grow to over 100 000 or more by the time they turn 18 Think of it.
How much money is that for somebody that started with nothing?
Over $100,000, could be much more than that.
To make this investment in our children's future, go to trumpeaccounts.gov, trumpeaccounts.gov.
And a lot of people are doing it.
For our country, both economically and on a national security basis.
Everything was working well.
Countries that were ripping us off for decades are now paying us hundreds of billions of dollars.
They were ripping us so badly.
You all know that.
Everybody knows it.
Even the Democrats know it.
They just don't want to say it.
And yet these countries are now happy.
And so are we.
We made deals.
The deals are all done.
And they're happy.
They're not making money like they used to, but we're making a lot of money.
There was no inflation, tremendous growth.
And the big story was how Donald Trump called the economy correctly.
And 22 Nobel Prize winners in economics didn't.
They got it totally wrong.
They got it really wrong.
And then just four days ago, an unfortunate ruling from the United States Supreme Court.
But the good news is that almost all countries and corporations want to keep the deal that they already made, right, Scott?
Knowing that the legal power that I, as president, have to make a new deal could be far worse for them.
And therefore, they will continue to work along the same successful path that we had negotiated before the Supreme Court's unfortunate involvement.
So despite the disappointing ruling, these powerful countries saving, it's saving our country, the kind of money we're taking in.
Peace protecting many of the wars I settled was because of the threat of tariffs.
I wouldn't have been able to settle them without.
will remain in place under fully approved and tested alternative legal statutes.
And they have been tested for a long time.
They're a little more complex, but they're actually probably better, leading to a solution that will be even stronger than before.
Congressional action will not be necessary.
It's already time tested and approved.
And as time goes by, I believe the tariffs paid for by foreign countries will, like in the past, substantially replace the modern day system of income tax, taking a great financial burden off the people that I love.
Moving forward, factories, jobs, investment and trillions and trillions of dollars will continue pouring into the United States of America because we finally have a president who puts America first.
I put America first.
I love America.
For decades before I came along, we had the exact opposite.
From trade to health care, from energy to immigration, everything was stolen and rigged in order to drain the wealth out of the productive, hardworking people who make our country great, who make our country run.
Under Biden and his corrupt partners in Congress and beyond, it reached a breaking point with the Green News scam, opened borders for everyone.
They poured in by the millions and millions from prisons, from mental institutions.
And record-setting inflation that cost the typical family $34,000 in just a speck of time.
Now the same people in this chamber who voted for those disasters suddenly used the word affordability, a word.
They just used it.
Somebody gave it to them, knowing full well that they caused and created the increased prices that all of our citizens had to endure.
You caused that problem.
you caused that problem.
They knew their statements were a lie.
They knew it.
They knew their statements were a dirty, rotten lie.
Their policies created the high prices.
Our policies are rapidly ending them.
We are doing really well.
those prices are plummeting downward.
The price of eggs is down 60 percent, Madam Secretary.
Thank you.
The cost of chicken, butter, fruit, hotels, automobiles, rent is lower today than when I took office by a lot.
And even beef, which was very high, is starting to come down significantly.
Just hold on a little while.
We're getting it down.
And soon you will see numbers that few people would think were possible to achieve just a short time ago.
Nobody can believe when they see the kind of numbers, and especially energy, when they see energy going down to numbers like that, they cannot believe it.
It's like another big tax cut.
I'm also confronting one of the biggest ripoffs of our times, the crushing costs of health care caused by you.
Since the passage of the Unaffordable Care Act, sometimes referred to as Obamacare, big insurance companies have gotten rich.
It was meant for the insurance companies, not for the people.
With our government giving them hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars a year as their stock prices soared 1,1200, 1,400, and even 1,700%, like nothing else.
That's why I introduced the great health care plan.
I want to stop all payments to big insurance companies and instead give that money directly to the people so they can buy their own health care, which will be better health care at a much lower cost.
In addition, my plan requires maximum price transparency.
And I did that in my first term, and the Democrats immediately terminated it with full knowledge that they were doing a very bad thing for the people.
Costs were going to go way up, and that's what happened.
And now I'm bringing them way down on healthcare and everything else.
I'm also ending the wildly inflated cost of prescription drugs like has never happened before.
Other presidents tried to do it, but they never could.
They tried.
Most didn't try, actually.
But they tried.
They said they tried.
They couldn't do it.
They didn't even come close.
They were all talk and no action, but I got it done.
Under my just enacted most favored nation agreements, Americans who have for decades paid by far the highest prices of any nation anywhere in the world for prescription drugs will now pay the lowest price anywhere in the world for drugs, anywhere, the lowest price.
So in my first year, second term, should be my third term, but strange things happen.
I took prescription drugs, a very big part of healthcare, from the highest price in the entire world to the lowest.
That's a big achievement.
The result is price differences of 300, 400, 500, 600%, and more, all available right now at a new website called trumprx.gov.
And I didn't name that one either, by the way.
And here tonight is the very first customer ever to get that big discount.
For five years, she and her husband have struggled with infertility, and they turned to IVF.
One drug has been costing Catherine $4,000 to purchase.
But a few weeks ago, she logged onto the TrumpRX website and got that same drug that cost $4,000, got it for under $500, a reduction of much more, actually, than $3,500.
Catherine, we are all praying for you and you're going to be a great mom.
So now I'm calling on Congress to codify my most favored nation program into law.
Now, the one thing I'm not sure it matters because it's going to be very hard for somebody that comes along after me to say, let's raise drug prices by 700 or 800%.
But John and Mike, if you don't mind, codify it anyway.
They may do it.
Codify it anyway.
Thank you.
Many Americans are also concerned that energy demand from AI data centers could unfairly drive up their electric utility bills.
Tonight, I'm pleased to announce that I have negotiated the new rate payer protection pledge.
You know what that is?
We're telling the major tech companies that they have the obligation to provide for their own power needs.
They can build their own power plants as part of their factory so that no one's prices will go up.
And in many cases, prices of electricity will go down for the community and very substantially down.
This is a unique strategy never used in this country before.
We have an old grid.
It could never handle the kind of numbers, the amount of electricity that's needed.
So I'm telling them they can build their own plant.
They're going to produce their own electricity.
It will ensure the company's ability to get electricity while at the same time lowering prices of electricity for you and could be very substantial for all of you cities and towns.
You're going to see some good things happen over the next number of years.
Another pillar of the American dream that has been under attack is homeownership.
With us tonight is Race O'Wiggins, a mom of two from Houston.
She placed bids on 20 homes and lost all of those bids to gigantic investment firms that bypassed inspection, paid all cash, and turned those houses into rentals, stealing away her American dream.
She was devastated.
Stories like this are why last month I signed executive order to ban large Wall Street investment firms from buying up in the thousands single family homes.
And now I'm asking Congress to make that ban permanent because homes for people, really, that's what we want.
We're also working to make it easier for Americans to save for retirement.
And under this administration, we will always protect Social Security and Medicare.
They are not protecting it for our seniors.
will always protect social security medicare medicaid since i took office the typical 401k balance is up by at least thirty thousand dollars That's a lot of money.
We have millions and millions of people because the stock market has done so well setting all those records.
Your 401ks are way up.
Yet half of all of working Americans still do not have access to a retirement plan with matching contributions from an employer.
To remedy this gross disparity, I'm announcing that next year my administration will give these oft-forgotten American workers, great people, the people that built our country, access to the same type of retirement plan offered to every federal worker.
We will match your contribution with up to $1,000 each year.
As we ensure that all Americans can profit from a rising stock market, let's also ensure that members of Congress cannot corruptly profit from using insider information.
They stood up for that.
I can't believe it.
I can't believe it.
Did Nancy Pelosi stand up if she is here?
Count it.
pass the stop insider trading act without delay i wasn't sure if anybody even on this side was going to applaud for that I was very impressed.
Thank you.
I'm very impressed.
But when it comes to the corruption that is plundering, really, it's plundering America.
There's been no more stunning example than Minnesota, where members of the Somali community have pillaged an estimated $19 billion from the American taxpayer.
Oh, we have all the information.
And in actuality, the number is much higher than that.
And California, Massachusetts, Maine, and many other states are even worse.
This is the kind of corruption that shreds the fabric of a nation, and we are working on it like you wouldn't believe.
So tonight, although started four months ago, I am officially announcing the war on fraud to be led by our great Vice President, JD Vance.
He'll get it done.
And if we're able to find enough of that fraud, we will actually have a balanced budget overnight.
It'll go very quickly.
That's the kind of money you're talking about.
We'll balance our budget.
The Somali pirates who ransacked Minnesota remind us that there are large parts of the world where bribery, corruption, and lawlessness are the norm, not the exception.
Importing these cultures through unrestricted immigration and open borders brings those problems right here to the USA.
And it is the American people who pay the price in higher medical bills, car insurance rates, rent, taxes, and perhaps most importantly, crime.
We will take care of this problem.
We're going to take care of this problem.
We are not playing games.
Delilah, Delilah Colton was only five years old in June 2024 when a 18 wheel tractor trailer plowed into her stopped car traveling at 60 miles an hour or more.
The driver was an illegal alien led in by Joe Biden and given a commercial driver's license by open borders politicians in California.
Doctors said Delilah would never be able to walk or talk, have a good life.
She wouldn't even be able to eat again.
But against all odds, she is now in the first grade learning to walk.
And she's here this evening with her dad, Marcus, a fantastic man.
Delilah, please, you are a great inspiration.
Please stand up.
Thank you, DeLauw.
Many, if not most illegal aliens do not speak English and cannot read even the most basic road signs as to direction, speed, danger, or location.
That's why tonight I'm calling on Congress to pass what we will call the Delilah law barring any state from granting commercial driver's licenses to illegal aliens.
And yesterday, as you probably saw at the White House, I hosted a ceremony with Americans who lost their treasured loved ones to the scourge of illegal immigration.
People came into our country, how we allowed this to happen with our open borders.
These are the angel moms and families that for decades our government betrayed and our media totally ignored, totally, it was terrible.
Hard to believe, actually.
In 2023, a 16-year-old high school cheerleader named Elizabeth Medina was supposed to perform in her town's Christmas parade, but she never arrived.
Her mother, Jacqueline, went home to look for her and she found her lying dead in a bathtub, bleeding profusely after being stabbed 25 times.
Lisbeth's killer was a previously arrested illegal alien who had broken in and just brutally extinguished the brightest light in her family's life violently and viciously.
Her heartbroken mother is in the gallery to remind everyone in this chamber exactly why we are deporting illegal alien criminals for our country at record numbers, and we're getting them the hell out of here fast.
We can never forget that many in this room not only allowed the border invasion to happen before I got involved, but indeed they would do it all over again if they ever had the chance.
If they ever got elected, they would open up those borders to some of the worst criminals anywhere in the world.
The only thing standing between Americans and a wide open border right now is President Donald J. Trump and our great Republican patriots in Congress.
As we speak, Democrats in this chamber have cut off all funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
It's all cut off.
It's all cut off.
They have instituted another Democrat shutdown, the first one costing us two points on GDP.
Two points we lost on GDP, which probably made them quite happy, actually.
Now they have closed the agency responsible for protecting Americans from terrorists and murderers.
Tonight I'm demanding the full and immediate restoration of all funding for the border security, homeland security of the United States and also for helping people clean up their snow.
We have no money because of the Democrats and it would be nice.
We'd love to give you a hand at cleaning it up, but you gave no money.
Nobody's getting paid.
It's a shame.
So you have to think about it.
We have, in case you didn't know, pretty large snowstorm out there.
One of the great things about the state of the union is how it gives Americans the chance to see clearly what their representatives really believe.
So tonight I'm inviting every legislature to join with my administration in reaffirming a fundamental principle.
If you agree with this statement, then stand up and show your support.
First duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.
Isn't that a shame?
You should be ashamed of yourself not standing up.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
That is why I'm also asking you to end deadly sanctuary cities that protect the criminals and enact serious penalties for public officials who block the removal of criminal aliens, in many cases, drug lords, murderers all over our country.
They're blocking the removal of these people out of our country.
i'm asking you to approve the Save America Act to stop illegal aliens and others who are unpermitted persons from voting in our sacred American elections.
That cheating is rampant in our elections.
It's rampant.
It's very simple.
all voters must show voter id all voters must show proof of citizenship in order to vote
And no more crooked mail-in ballots except for illness, disability, military, or travel.
None.
And this should be an easy one.
And by the way, it's polling at 89%, including Democrats.
89 percent and even the new communist mayor of new york city i think he's a nice guy Speak to him a lot.
Bad policy, but nice guy.
Just said they want people to shovel snow.
They got hit hard.
Wants them to shovel snow.
But if you apply for that job, you need to show two original forms of ID and a social security card.
Yet they don't want identification for the greatest privilege of them all, voting in America.
No, it's no good.
No good.
Both Republicans and Democrats overwhelmingly agree on the policy that we just enunciated.
And Congress should unite and enact this common sense, country-saving legislation right now.
And it should be before anything else happens.
And the reason they don't want to do it, why would anybody not want voter ID?
One reason, because they want to cheat.
There's only one reason.
They make up all excuses.
They say it's racist.
They come up with things, you almost say, what imagination they have.
They want to cheat.
They have cheated.
And their policy is so bad that the only way they can get elected is to cheat.
And here is one more opportunity to show common sense in government.
In the gallery tonight are Sage Blair and her mother, Michelle.
In 2021, Sage was 14 when school officials in Virginia sought to socially transition her to a new agenda, treating her as a boy and hiding it from her parents.
Hard to believe, isn't it?
Before long, a confused Sage ran away from home after she was found in a horrific situation in Maryland.
A left-wing judge refused to return Sage to her parents because they did not immediately state that their daughter was their son.
Sage was thrown into an all-boys state home and suffered terribly for a long time.
But today, all of that is behind them because Sage is a proud and wonderful young woman with a full ride scholarship to Liberty University.
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Sage and Michelle, please stand up and thank you for your great bravery.
And who can believe that we're even speaking about things like this?
15 years ago, if somebody was up here and said that, they'd say, what's wrong with him?
But now we have to say it because it's going on all over numerous states without even telling the parents.
But surely we can all agree no state can be allowed to rip children from their parents' arms and transition them to a new gender against the parents' will.
people like this democrats are destroying our country but we've stopped it just in the nick of time didn't we no one cares more about protecting america's youth than our wonderful first lady now a movie star she's a movie star Can you believe it?
Who would have believed that?
Over the past year, she has had an incredible impact, championing AI legislation, advancing a landmark executive order on foster care, and helping secure $30 million to launch the Melania Trump Foster Youth to Independence Initiative.
It's a tremendous, really a tremendous thing that happened and had a lot of bipartisan support.
She gets much better bipartisan support than I do.
I get none.
She gets a lot.
Someday you're going to have to tell me how you did that.
And students and educators in every state have joined the First Lady's efforts in the presidential AI challenge, keeping America's next generation positioned to succeed and strongly succeed in the future.
Tonight we welcome two young people whose lives reflect the First Lady's impact: Sierra Burns and Everest Nevermont.
I'm very proud to say that during my time in office, both the first four years and in particular this last year, there has been a tremendous renewal in religion, faith, Christianity and belief in God.
This is especially true among young people, and a big part of that had to do with my great friend, Charlie Kirk, a great guy.
So last year, Charlie was violently murdered by an assassin and martyred, really martyred for his beliefs.
His wonderful wife, Erica, is with us tonight.
Erika, please stand.
Thank you, Erika.
Get through a lot.
In Charlie's memory, we must all come together to reaffirm that America is one nation under God, and we must totally reject political violence of any kind.
We love religion and we love bringing it back and it's coming back at levels that nobody actually thought possible.
It's really a beautiful thing to see.
Above all, unleashing America's promise requires keeping our communities safe.
We have made incredible strides, yet dangerous repeat offenders continue to be released by pro-crime Democrat politicians again and again.
We are honored to be joined tonight by a woman who's been through hell, Anya Zuretska.
In 2022, she and her beautiful daughter, so beautiful, what a beautiful young woman.
Irina fled war-turn, war-torn Ukraine to live with relatives near Charlotte, North Carolina.
And by the way, what's going on with Charlotte?
Last summer, 23-year-old Irina was riding home on the train when a deranged monster who had been arrested over a dozen times and was released through no cash bail stood up and viciously slashed a knife through her neck and body.
No one will ever forget there were people on that train.
No one will ever forget the expression of terror on Irina's face as she looked up at her attacker in the last seconds of her life.
She died instantly.
She had escaped a brutal war only to be slain by a hardened criminal, set free to kill in America, came in through open borders.
Mrs. Zaretska, tonight, I promise you, we will ensure justice for your magnificent daughter, Irina.
How do you not stand?
How do you not stand?
I'm asking this Congress to pass tough legislation to ensure that violent and dangerous repeat offenders are put behind bars, and importantly, that they stay there.
Starting last summer, I deployed our National Guard and federal law enforcement to restore law and order to our most dangerous cities, including Memphis, Tennessee.
Big success.
New Orleans, Louisiana, big success.
and our nation's capital itself, Washington, DC, where we have almost no crime anymore in Washington, DC.
How did that happen?
In fact, crime in Washington is now at the lowest level ever recorded and murders in DC this January were down close to 100% from a year ago.
They don't like to hear that.
One of the sick people, one of the brave service members who helped achieve this stunning turnaround was 20-year-old West Virginia Army National Guard specialist Sarah Bextrom.
After a four-month deployment, she voluntarily extended her service and her rank was going to be lifted.
She was doing so well.
They were so proud of her.
But the very next day, she was on patrol near the White House when she was ambushed and shot in the head by a terrorist monster from Afghanistan.
Shouldn't have been in our country.
And all because she wore the uniform of our nation, she was shot.
He traveled here because he didn't like people wearing our uniform.
He was sick and deranged.
Shouldn't have been in our country.
Sarah Bextrom died in order to defend our capital, and we are honored to be joined by her wonderful parents, Gary and Evilie.
Your daughter was a true American patriot, and she will be greatly missed.
She was a great person.
I saw reports on her.
They've never seen anything like it.
So sorry.
Thank you very much.
A great young lady.
I saw reports that were like, perfect.
She was perfect.
Serving alongside Sarah that day was Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe.
The terrorists shot Andrew in the head, and no one thought he could possibly make it.
The two of them, Sarah and Andrew, both shot violently in the head.
Neither was expected to make it.
They weren't even given a chance, except his wonderful mother named Melody, who I spoke to the same night, and she was so positive.
The doctors thought that Andrew was gone, but his mother said, no, no, Mr. President, Andrew will be fine.
He's going to make it.
I've never seen anything like it.
I mean, he was given almost no chance.
She said, I have no doubt, sir, he's going to be okay.
This was a conversation that I had with her that night with her son laying helplessly in bed, blood all over.
Everybody is praying, she said, sir, he will be okay.
The doctors didn't understand what she was saying.
And after looking at the results of the damage done, neither did I.
She was so strong and conclusive that even Andrew's great father felt she didn't really understand the gravity of the situation.
But she turned out to be right, right, Melody?
turned out to be right.
Amazing, actually.
I said, Where does this woman come from?
She's the most positive person I've ever met.
With God's help, Andrew has battled back from the edge of death.
And we're talking about the edge of death on his way to a miraculous recovery.
He's got a little work to do, but he's doing great.
Nice to see you.
He's a good-looking guy.
Nice to see you.
Thanks, Andrew.
Thank you very much.
So, Andrew, while you're up, now I'm going to ask a highly respected General James Seward to present Staff Sergeant Andrew Wolfe and the great family of Sarah Beckstrom with the award created by our late, great President George Washington himself.
We're proudly restoring safety for Americans at home, and we are also restoring security for Americans abroad.
Our country has never been stronger.
My first 10 months, I ended eight wars, including Cambodia.
Isn't it funny?
Sick people.
Cambodia and Thailand.
Pakistan and India.
Would have been a nuclear war.
35 million people said the prime minister of Pakistan would have died if it were not for my involvement.
Kosovo and Serbia, Israel and Iran, Egypt and Ethiopia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Congo and Rwanda, and of course the war in Gaza, which proceeds at a very low level.
It's just about there.
I want to thank Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for your help.
Thank you, Steve.
Thank you, James.
And I also want to thank the mandate report, too, Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
You know, Marco got 100% of the votes when he was in confirmation.
I think our next one was about 54%.
And some of the Democrats are now saying, I can't believe we approved that guy.
And he said it's an honor that they feel that way, right, Marco?
You have done a great job, great Secretary of State.
I think he'll go down as the best ever.
Under the ceasefire, I negotiated every single hostage, both living and dead, has been returned home.
Can you believe this?
Nobody thought it was possible.
Nobody thought that was possible.
Both living and dead.
And those parents who had a dead son, their boy, they'd always tell me their boy, they wanted him as much as though he were living.
That was an amazing period of time.
They came back.
And when we got all of the living hostages back, and many, many before then, but I always said those last 20 are going to be very tough.
But we got many, many more, hundreds.
But I said those last 20 are going to be tough.
We got them back.
But we only got back 14 or 15 of the dead of the 28.
And believe it or not, Hamas worked along with Israel.
And they dug and they dug and they dug.
It's a tough thing to do, going through bodies all over, passing up 100 bodies sometimes for each one that they found.
Tough job.
And they finally got it back to 27.
And then Steve and Jared, they got it back to 28.
They found all 28.
Nobody thought that was possible, but we did it.
And I remember the family of the 28th, they were so grieved, but they were so happy, as happy as it's possible to be.
They had their boy back.
The mother said, sir, we have our boy back.
What a period of time that was, but we got them all back.
So thank you both very much.
And we're working very hard to end the ninth war, the killing and slaughter between Russia and Ukraine, where 25,000 soldiers are dying each and every month.
Think of that, 25,000 soldiers are dying a month.
A war which would have never happened if I were president, would have never happened.
As president, I will make peace wherever I can, but I will never hesitate to confront threats to America wherever we must.
That's why in a breakthrough operation last June, the United States military obliterated Iran's nuclear weapons program with an attack on Iranian soil known as Operation Midnight Hammer.
For decades, it had been the policy of the United States never to allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon.
Many decades.
Since they seized control of that proud nation 47 years ago, the regime and its murderous proxies have spread nothing but terrorism and death and hate.
They've killed and maimed thousands of American service members and hundreds of thousands and even millions of people with what's called roadside bombs.
They were the kings of the roadside bomb.
And we took out Soleimani.
I did that during my first term.
Had a huge impact.
He was the father of the roadside road.
And just over the last couple of months with the protests, they've killed at least, it looks like, 32,000 protests.
32,000 protesters in their own country.
They shot them and hung them.
We stopped them from hanging a lot of them with the threat of serious violence.
But this is some terrible people.
They've already developed missiles that can threaten Europe and our bases overseas, and they're working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America.
After Midnight Hammer, they were warned to make no future attempts to rebuild their weapons program, in particular, nuclear weapons.
Yet they continue starting it all over.
We wiped it out and they want to start all over again and are at this moment again pursuing their sinister ambitions.
We are in negotiations with them.
They want to make a deal, but we haven't heard those secret words.
We will never have a nuclear weapon.
my preference my preference is to solve this problem through diplomacy But one thing is certain.
I will never allow the world's number one sponsor of terror, which they are by far, to have a nuclear weapon.
can't let that happen.
And no nation should ever doubt America's result.
We have the most powerful military on earth.
I rebuilt the military in my first term.
We're going to continue to do so.
Also, we just approved a trillion-dollar budget.
We have no choice.
We have to be strong because hopefully we will seldom have to use this great power that we built together.
it's really called peace through strength and it's been very very effective so thanks to republican in congress we're investing that record number of dollars have no choice in the united states armed forces
Also creating a lot of jobs, but we're not even doing it for that reason.
Because as I said, we have more jobs, more people working today than ever before in the history of our country.
And NATO countries, our friends and allies, they are.
They're our friends and their allies have just agreed at my very strong request to pay 5% of GDP for military defense rather than the 2% which they weren't paying.
We were paying for almost all of them.
Now they're paying five as opposed to not paying three.
And getting that 5% was something which everyone said would never be done, could not happen.
We got it really easily one meeting.
And big difference between 2% that's not paid.
We were paying afraid of many of them.
Very few were paid up.
Now 5%, then they're paid.
And everything we send over to Ukraine is sent through NATO and they pay us in full.
They pay us totally in full.
Every branch of our armed forces is setting records for recruitment.
This is so exciting.
And every service member recently received a warrior dividend of $1,776.
You know, they put it on my desk.
We got the money from tariffs and other things, a lot of money we have.
We have much more money than people understand.
Have to rebuild that program a little bit, but it won't take long.
But we got the money and it was $1,775.
And they wanted my approval.
And I said, what's the number?
$1,775.
I said, wait a minute, for one more dollar, we can have $1,776.
I said, we're going to figure that.
I never asked anybody if we could afford it.
One more dollar.
I said $1776.
And I said, that's good.
And I'll tell you what, our military, that was four months ago, our military.
I never see a person in the military that doesn't thank me for it.
So we're honored to do it.
They deserve it.
And we call it 1776.
It was great.
And we love our military.
We love our law enforcement.
We love our firemen.
You know, the firemen don't get mentioned enough.
We love our firemen.
We're also restoring American security and dominance in the Western Hemisphere, acting to secure our national interests and defend our country from violence, drugs, terrorism, and foreign interference.
For years, large swaths of territory in our region, including large parts of Mexico, really large parts of Mexico, have been controlled by murderous drug cartels.
That's why I designated these cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, and I declared illicit fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction.
And with our new military campaign, we have stopped record amounts of drugs coming into our country and virtually stopped it completely coming in by water or sea.
You probably noticed that.
We very seriously damaged their fishing industry also.
Nobody wants to go fishing anymore.
We've also taken down one of the most sinister cartel kingpins of all.
You saw that yesterday.
In January, in January, elite American warriors carried out one of the most complex, spectacular feats of military competence and power in world history.
No one's seen anything like it.
Foreign leaders, I won't tell you who called me and they said very impressive.
They couldn't believe, they all watched.
They saw what happened.
This is a different fighting force than we had years ago when we fought to tie.
You know, it's a great fighting force.
I'm so proud of it.
Look at Space Forces, my baby, as we did that.
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My baby is becoming so important and America's armed forces overwhelmed.
All defenses are not only defeated enemy good fighters to end the reign of outlawed dictator Nicholas Maduro and bring him to face American justice.
And this was an absolutely colossal victory for the security of the United States.
And it also opens up a bright new beginning for the people of Venezuela.
We're working closely with the new president of Venezuela, Del Codriguez, to unleash extraordinary economic gains for both of our countries and to bring new hope to those who have suffered so terribly.
They really did suffer.
With us tonight is Alejandro Gonzalez.
She grew up in a tight-knit Venezuelan family and was especially close to her beloved uncle Enrique.
But after Enrique ran for office and opposed Maduro, he was kidnapped by Maduro security forces and thrown into the regime's really infamous prison in Caracas.
Alejandro feared she would never see her uncle again.
She feared for her own life also.
But since the raid, we have worked with the new leadership and they have ordered the closure of that vile prison and released hundreds of political prisoners already with more to come.
Alejandro, I'm pleased to inform you that not only has your uncle been released, but he is here tonight.
We brought him over to celebrate his freedom with you in person.
There were many heroes on that January raid to capture Maduro, really great heroes.
It was very dangerous.
They knew we were coming.
They were all set.
But the deeds of one warrior that night will live forever in the eternal chronicles of military valor.
Chief Warrant Officer 5, Eric Slover, planned the mission and was the flight lead in the cockpit of the first helicopter.
A big, beautiful, powerful helicopter.
It was a massive Chinook carrying, as you can imagine, many, many American warfighters.
Wearing the dog tags his wife Amy had blessed with holy water before he left.
She knew it was going to be a rough one.
Eric steered the Chinook under the cover of night and descended swiftly upon Maduro's heavily protected military fortress.
This was a major military installation protected by thousands of soldiers and guarded by Russian and Chinese military technology.
How did that work out?
Not too good.
While preparing to land, enemy machine guns fired from every angle, and Eric was hit very badly in the leg and hip, one bullet after another.
He absorbed four agonizing shots, shredding his leg into numerous pieces.
And yet, despite the fact that the use of his legs was vital to successful helicopter flight, legs are the most important part of flying a helicopter to deliver the many commandos who would capture and detain Maduro was the only thing Eric was thinking about.
Then even as he was gushing blood, which was flowing back down the aisle, helicopter lands at a steep angle.
The machine gun stood right in front of him.
They were right in front of him, two machine gunners who escaped the wrath of the previous planes.
Eric maneuvered his helicopter with all of those lives and souls to face the enemy and let his gunners eliminate the threat.
Turned the helicopter around so the gunners could take care of business, saving the lives of his fellow warriors from what could have been a catastrophic crash deep in enemy territory.
Only after safely landing the helicopter with all the warriors aboard in the exact right spot, which was vital to the mission, probably would have had to maybe cancel the mission if that didn't happen.
Eric told his co-pilot, also wounded, but not as gravely, to take over.
I'm about ready to pass out.
The success of the entire mission and the lives of his fellow warriors hinge on Eric's ability to take searing pain.
Unbelievable what's happened to his legs of the bullets and keep on flying and landing.
And people knew what was happening.
Everybody in the back of the helicopter knew because they saw the blood pouring down the aisle.
Chief Warrant Officer Slover is still recovering from his serious wounds, but I'm thrilled to say that he is here tonight with his wife Amy, Eric, and Amy.
Come on in.
So we have a surprise, Eric and Amy.
In recognition of Eric's actions above and beyond the call of duty, I would now like to ask General Jonathan Braga to present Chief Warrant Officer Slover with our nation's highest military award, the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Well, thank you very much, Eric and Amy.
Great to get to know you.
I met with them and with a lot of their fellow warriors at Fort Bragg recently.
You notice the name Fort Bragg?
We have it back.
We brought it back.
We won the First World War with it, the Second World War with it, and then they decided to change the name.
So we changed it back.
Everybody wanted to change back, too.
And 10 of Eric's fellow warriors from that incredible night of victory will also be receiving medals at a private ceremony that will soon be held at the White House.
Eric will do that.
Thank you.
Thank you, Eric.
That's a big one.
Tonight, we've celebrated many truly extraordinary American patriots, but there is one last living legend to honor before we go.
He is one more heroic American aviator, Navy fighter pilot.
Royce Williams served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, flying more than 220 missions.
In disguise over Korea in 1952, Royce was in the dogfight of a lifetime, legendary dogfight, flying through blizzard conditions.
His squadron was ambushed by seven Soviet fighter planes.
It was his first aerial combat of the war, and despite being massively outnumbered and outgunned, Royce led the takedown of four enemy jets and almost destroyed the others, vanquishing his adversaries while taking 263 bullets to his own plane and being seriously hurt.
His story was secret for over 50 years.
He didn't even want to tell his wife, but the legend grew and grew.
But tonight, at 100 years old, this brave Navy captain is finally getting the recognition he deserves.
He was a legend long before this evening.
Royce, please stand up and I will ask the First Lady of the United States to present Captain Royce Williams with his Congressional Medal of Honor.
Thank you, Royston.
Thank you, Eric.
I've always wanted the Congressional Medal of Honor, but I was informed I'm not allowed to give it to myself, and I wouldn't know why I'd be taking it, but if they ever open up that law, I will be there with you someday.
But you know, that's our highest honor, Congressional Medal of Honor, and that's a big thing.
And it's an honor to be in the same room with you.
250 years is a long time in the life of a nation, but in another sense, it's really a mere moment in the eye of history.
Two of the gentlemen we met in the gallery this evening took their first breaths one century ago, 100 years before that on July 4th, 1826, the author of the Declaration of Independence, brilliant, Thomas Jefferson, drew his last breath.
Just a single long human lifespan separates the giants who declared and won our independence from the heroes who stand among us tonight.
Everything our nation has done, everything we have achieved, has been the work of those few great lifetimes.
In those brief chapters, Americans built this nation from 13 humble colonies into the pinnacle of human civilization and human freedom, the strongest, wealthiest, most powerful, most successful nation in all of history.
Americans ventured out across the daunting and dangerous continent.
We carved paths through an unforgiving wilderness, settled a boundless frontier, and tamed the beautiful but very, very dangerous wild west.
From empty marshes and wide open plains, we raised up the world's greatest cities.
Together, we mastered the world's mightiest industries and shattered history's monstrous tyrannies.
And we liberated millions from the chains of fascism, communism, oppression, and terror.
Americans lifted humanity into the skies on the wings of aluminum and steel.
And then we launched mankind into the stars on rockets powered by sheer American will and unyielding American pride.
We wired the globe with our ingenuity.
We captivated the planet with American culture.
And now we are pioneering the next great American breakthroughs that will change the entire world.
All of this and so much more is the enduring legacy, unmatched glory of the hardworking patriots who built and defended this country and who still carry the hopes and freedoms on all of humanity's backs.
For years they were forgotten, betrayed, and cast aside, but that great betrayal is over and they will never be forgotten again.
Because when the world needs courage, daring, vision, and inspiration, it is still turning to America.
And when God needs a nation to work his miracles, he knows exactly who to ask.
There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome, no frontier too vast for us to conquer, no dream too bold for us to chase, no horizon too distant for us to claim.
For our destiny is written by the hand of Providence, and these first 250 years were just the beginning.
From the rugged border towns of Texas to the heartland villages of Michigan, from the sun-kissed shores of Florida to the endless fields of the Dakotas, and from the historic streets of Philadelphia to right here in our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., the golden age of America is upon us.
The revolution that began in 1776 has not ended.
It still continues because the flame of liberty and independence still burns in the heart of every American patriot.
And our future will be bigger, better, brighter, bolder, and more glorious than ever before.