President Donald Trump’s 2023 National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony featured an AI assistant citing Jesus’ birth and a disputed Rwanda-Congo war claim (34 years, up to 20M dead). He praised Christians, thanked ICE, border patrol, and military families—highlighting two National Guardsmen—and boasted of a "most secure border" with zero illegal entries in seven months. Trump also touted economic strength, stopped inflation, and claimed the U.S. now "settles wars globally," citing 8,000 Russian-Ukraine casualties last month while dismissing 27,000 as "needless." Contrasting Saudi Arabia’s alleged 2022 "U.S. is dead" remark with his 10-month turnaround, he declared America the "strongest and hottest," ending with a divisive message of love for all citizens before pivoting to C-SPAN promotions. [Automatically generated summary]
He potentially put the lives of U.S. service members at risk.
There's no real penalty here for him or anything like that, but I does find that he put the lives of people at risk because he texted the time, the location, the weapons being used, the platforms being used to attack these Houthi militants in Yemen.
Headlines today also say that he broke Pentagon protocol.
unidentified
How so?
By using Signal, right?
I mean, there are multiple ways that Pentagon and U.S. government officials can communicate securely with one another.
Signal, while I said it's encrypted, and lots of us use it for lots of things, it's not formally approved by the government.
It's not secure, even though it's encrypted.
It can be intercepted, you know, in one way or another.
And it depends what device he used.
I mean, it seems that he used his government cell phone, which a lot of folks have installed Signal on, but they also have them on their laptops and things like that.
So he went out, and everyone did.
So did Mike Waltz.
You know, everyone who's on that chat went outside normal government protocol to chat on Signal.
The Pentagon Press Secretary, Sean Parnell, put out a statement saying the Inspector General review is a total exoneration of Secretary Hagseth and Prime Minister.
unidentified
Live now to the White House, where President Trump is hosting the annual National Christmas Tree Lighting Ceremony.
And it's a beautiful job they did on creating that tree.
It's a beauty.
And let me also recognize Vice President JD Vance and Second Lady Usha.
As well as Secretaries Scott Besant, Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretaries Doug Bergh and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Administrator Kelly Loeffler, and their wonderful families are doing a fantastic job.
And I see out in the audience the great one, Wayne Gretzky and Janet.
Thank you very much, Wayne, for being here.
He's used to this kind of weather.
Let's also express our gratitude to the great people of the National Park Service.
They're incredible, the job they've done.
As well as the unbelievable performers here tonight, you're going to see some incredible performers.
And we have in the audience the Beach Boys.
They're great.
During this holy season, Christians everywhere rejoice at the miracle in Bethlehem more than 2,000 years ago when the Son of God, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, came down from heaven to be with us.
You're right.
Full of grace and truth, he brought the gift of God's love into the world and the promise of salvation for every person and every nation.
And we just settled another war today.
You saw that with Rwanda and the Congo.
It's been going on for 34 years.
Millions of people killed.
Could be 20 million.
They don't know what the number is, and we just settled it today.
That was a big one.
We're very happy to announce it on this important day.
Tonight, this beautiful evergreen tree glows bright on the dark and cold winter night and reminds us of the words of Gospel of John, in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.
Beautiful words.
With the birth of Jesus, human history turned from night to day.
His word and his example call us to love one another, to serve one another, and to honor the sacred truth that every child is specially made in the image of God.
For 250 years, think of it, our country is 250 years is a big year.
I'm so happy that our presidency was delayed.
Otherwise, I'd be sitting home watching television, not being invited.
I would be extremely upset.
And remember, we have not only the 250 years, but we have, this is a big one.
We have the World Cup and we have the Olympics coming up all within this four-year period.
See, if they didn't rig the election, I would have been sitting, because can you imagine I wouldn't have any of them, and I probably wouldn't have been invited.
I would have been very upset by that.
But America has stood tall in part because millions of our citizens have heeded that call and the faith and service of Christians have been essential parts of America's strength from the very, very beginning.
Incredible.
We love the Christians.
We love all religions.
And by the way, religion is coming back to the USA.
You see that very strongly.
So this Christmas season, let me say thank you to everyone who serves the needy and lifts up the communities inspired by faith.
Thank you to the police, law enforcement officers, first responders, ICE, and border patrol agents who risk their lives every day to defend the innocent, protect the good, and keep the evil in danger at bay.
And thank you to the men and women of the United States military, including the brave heroes of our National Guard here in Washington, D.C., where we've set a record for lack of crime in 28 years.
So I just want to say we have a great place, and I want to pay my highest respects to those two great guardsmen.
You know who I'm talking about.
They paid in one case the ultimate and the other.
Andrew is getting better.
Sarah, unfortunately, is watching from a high, watching from heaven.
Parents are so incredible.
And Andrew is hopefully getting better.
He got hit hard defending us.
And I just want to pay my respects to them, too.
Incredible people, unbelievable people.
I spoke with the parents and met the parents today, the parents of Andrew.
They have spirit, and they love our country so much you wouldn't believe.
But as a nation, we have much to be grateful for.
On this holiday season, our border is secure.
Our spirit is restored.
Most secure border we've ever had in the history of our country.
Seven months, and nobody has come in illegally into our country.
Nobody, not one.
Our economy is thriving.
Inflation has stopped.
Our nation is strong.
And America is back bigger and better, stronger, better than ever before.
Think of it.
And we're making peace all over the world.
We're settling wars at levels that nobody's ever seen before.
Eight of them.
We're looking for one more.
That's Russia-Ukraine, if that's possible.
And I think we'll get there eventually.
Last week, 8,000 soldiers killed last month.
They had 27,000 soldiers needlessly killed.
We got to get that stopped.
We're working very hard on it.
Just over one year ago, our country was in very, very serious trouble.
The king of Saudi Arabia said to me very strongly, sir, one year ago, your country was dead.
Now you have the strongest and hottest country anywhere in the world.
Can you imagine?
We did this in 10 months.
What a difference.
And it's true.
Everybody feels that, and all leaders feel that.
So as we prepare to celebrate the miracle of Christmas, we thank God for his many blessings.
And together we rejoice at the true source of greatness, happiness, and strength.
The good news is that glorious nights.
2,000 years ago, think of it, 2,000 years ago, it was indeed a glorious night.
So I want to thank everybody here.
I want to pay my deepest respect and love to all of our great citizens, like 350 million people.
We love them all.
Whether you like them or not, we love them all.
We want to take care of everybody.
We have to take care of everybody in our country.
I want to wish everybody a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and have a good time.
And you're going to see some great entertainment.
Thank you very much, everybody.
Merry Christmas.
Happy Hanukkah.
Happy New Year.
Thank you, everybody.
unidentified
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