On August 23, 2024, President Donald Trump signed executive orders to host a free IndyCar race in D.C. as part of America’s 250th celebrations, praising Roger Penske’s 20 Indy wins and 4 Daytona victories while touting economic benefits. He criticized the DOJ’s $3–4B probe into Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s headquarters renovations as "theft" or incompetence, nominating Kevin Warsh—a Harvard/Yale grad—as Powell’s replacement. Trump claimed his policies ended eight wars, reduced crime (e.g., 2,000 arrests in D.C.), and slashed taxes on tips, Social Security, and overtime, contrasting Virginia’s Democratic tax hikes. He also highlighted a U.S. naval flotilla near Iran and progress in Ukraine despite recent losses, framing his reelection as a mandate for law-and-order and border security. The event underscored his vision of America’s legacy through automotive spectacle and policy triumphs. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
Source
Participants
Main
d
donald j trump
admin22:10
Appearances
d
doug burgum
admin02:04
g
greg ip
wsj00:31
k
kevin warsh
00:48
s
sean duffy
admin01:14
|
Speaker
Time
Text
America 250 Celebrations00:06:16
unidentified
Of America's Trips Beyond Earth.
Recall the timeline of Americans in space from the creation of NASA through Neil Armstrong's historic steps on the moon with the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum Apollo curator Tiesel Muir Harmony.
It all begins at 8 a.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 2.
President Trump signed an executive order to bring the IndyCar race to Washington, D.C. this year.
The race would be part of America 250 celebrations.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Interior Secretary Doug Bergham, and Penske Corporation CEO Roger Penske were at the Oval Office for the announcement.
The president also answered reporters' questions on several topics, including his nomination of Kevin Warsh to serve as the next chair of the Federal Reserve.
So I have some incredible people, and this is a very exciting thing that we're doing.
And it was fast.
They've wanted to do it.
I understand they've been here hundreds of times over the years trying to do it.
And they're going to give you a little bit of history.
Roger Penske, everybody knows he's a legend in many different things, but certainly in racing, he's won the Indianapolis 500 20 times.
On the 18th time, I said, he's been a friend of mine for a long time, but on the 18th time, I said, I think I'm going to give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom because, you know, how do you do that?
Japan, Germany, Roger, right?
Everybody, they want to win the Indy 500.
They spend billions of dollars getting a car.
This guy wins it like every year.
He won it so many times that he ended up buying the track.
He's a genius and a real genius at cars and racing.
And they are going to put up something that's really amazing.
It's really having to do with our great 250th birthday where we're having so many wonderful things.
UFC is coming, as you know, in front of the White House with building literally a stadium.
We're going to have over 100,000 people.
And this is going to have a lot of people.
I won't even say how many people because I think it can set a record for racing.
It's going to be very, very important.
We're celebrating greatness with American Motor Racing.
That's going to be the name of the event.
It's going to take place on August 21st through the 23rd.
And it's going to be so exciting.
And I love the racing.
I don't have a lot of time to watch it, but I love the racing.
And just before we start, I will say numbers came out this morning.
They're phenomenal for the country.
So we announced yesterday that for the first time in, I think, 28 years, America made more steel than Japan.
Can you believe it?
Japan's a big steel country.
America made more steel than Japan.
The numbers are record-setting numbers.
Every one of our numbers are good.
We've never had anything like it.
We have over $18 trillion coming into our country.
We're building thousands of plants and all sorts of businesses all over the United States.
It's never been anything like it.
$18 trillion investment.
So we have over, fellas, we have over $18 trillion being invested in the United States of America.
The record was $3 trillion 10 years ago, not by us, by another country.
And we're going to do 18, and I think the 18 is going to go higher.
We're just looking at 11 months, the 12th month hasn't come in yet, but it's going to bring us over 18, maybe even hit 20.
So you have 18 to 20 trillion dollars coming in, and we've never had anything like it.
We have a record we just set, as you know.
The SP 500 just set a new record, 7,000.
Nobody thought that was possible at this quicker time.
They thought maybe at the end of four years or five years or six years.
But we did it in the first year.
And we had 48 stock market highs, Roger.
So Roger's a big beneficiary because he has a lot of stock.
But anybody that has stock, including people with 401ks.
So the economy has never been like this.
It was just announced that crime is at an all-time low.
Lowest number, the best numbers on crime in the history, in the recorded history of our country, and the lowest numbers of murders in the history of our country that we have, recorded history, it goes back 125 years.
That's not bad.
And a lot of that is because of the fact that we have a closed border.
We've taken out thousands and thousands of criminals and murderers and drug dealers and everything else.
And we've either brought them back to their country or in some cases we have to put them in our jails because we don't want to have them come back.
And so we don't want to just bring them back to their country and then they maybe come back.
But Roger Penske is the chairman, as you know, of Penske Corporation.
He's got everything you can imagine, mostly, I think, to do with automotive.
And I'd like to ask him to say a few words about the event because this is going to be, they're putting everything behind it, and I think it's going to be really exciting.
Roger, please.
unidentified
Well, thank you, Mr. President.
This is a really amazing time for us as a company to support the 250th anniversary for the country.
And there's no better way for us to bring automotive and speed into the DC area and to have the opportunity to be able to compete here with our IndyCars.
As you know, we own the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.
We are taking that history of over 100 years and the speed and what's taking place there with different manufacturers and bringing it here to this race will be amazing.
Certainly the Freedom 250, when you think about it, it's just a byproduct of what the President has done during this year.
And this will be an event, obviously, in August, which will make a huge difference.
And we're excited.
The areas for people to see.
Most of the grounds will be free.
So it's going to be an economic benefit to the area, to the city, and obviously with our Fox partner, Eric Shanks, will be our media partner.
And believe me, what they did for us at Indy this past year, they're going to take that and put it on steroids, really, and take it to the next level.
So thank you, Mr. President, for allowing us to come into your service.
We just don't come in and ask the president to sign.
There's a lot of work that goes into this.
As you can tell, Bud and my chief of staff, Pete, all had a lot of meetings on the Hill.
We couldn't be more excited about this.
Again, I'm going to repeat, this is free for the American people to come to your nation's capital and see a great road race, freedom, America, speed, and road racing.
It doesn't get more American than that, Mr. President.
So thank you for signing this, and thanks for all the support.
This birthday that's coming up, the 250th anniversary of America Freedom 250, is the most monumental birthday maybe of any country ever in the history of the world.
And President Trump, with his directive, to celebrate this thing, we've got a, what's more American than race car driving?
What's more monumental than the Indy 500 as an icon of what's going on in our country?
And so merging the history and the tradition of our capital, Washington, D.C., with the speed and the innovation that goes on in the IndyCar series is incredible.
And it's a great metaphor because the speeds we're talking about is the speed of President Trump.
I want to reiterate, there weren't 81 meetings with the Trump administration.
One week we have a race as opposed to like four months of talking.
So I think there's also a metaphor here about President Trump, who's an incredible sportsman.
He's an athlete himself, but he loves sports.
And so whether it's soccer, UFC, the football draft, NFL football draft coming, IndyCar, and all the teams that he hosts here, I mean, to any American who loves sports, you ought to love this president because he's bringing professional sports to our capital.
And again, August 21st to 23rd, you talk about the economic impact.
By the time all these reporters get done telling the story, there's not going to be a hotel room available in this city on that weekend because everybody's going to want to be here.
People that maybe have wanted to see an IndyCar race their whole life are now going to have an opportunity to come to their capital, celebrate 250, and see an IndyCar race for free.
And they're going to be able to see it on the National Mall.
And wherever you put down your lawn chair and watch this race for free, you're going to be staring at the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial.
And I'm sure there's going to be fireworks this weekend, too.
I'm sure of that.
And if you need a permit, you can get one from the Terrier Show.
So anyway, it's absolutely incredible.
And congratulations to Sean, the Penske organization, Fox Sports, everybody for putting together this is going to be a great celebration for America.
Don't go for second or third because there are a lot of different routes.
I said, pick, even if it's more difficult to get, to get approved.
Pick the absolute best site.
And they were actually looking at another site.
And when I said that, they said, well, the best site is this site, the site we're doing.
I said, let's take a look at it.
And we think it's the best site too.
It's actually better than the original site they were looking at.
But if we're going to do it, we want to do it right.
So this is going to be something in terms of the road width, the crowds, and everything else that we can all best site, one of the best sites they've ever seen, actually.
And it'll be beautiful.
So I'm going to sign this.
And if you have any questions on this subject, that'll be great.
We had a border that allowed 25 million people to come in.
Many were murderers.
They murdered people.
We had 11,888 murders.
We had prisons, including Venezuela, but Venezuela opened its prisons.
So did the Congo.
The Congo in Africa opens its prisons and dumped people into our country.
Many countries did that.
I would have done that if I were leading a country.
I would have dumped the prisoners into our country.
We had opened borders.
We had all these things.
I was elected on law and order.
I was elected on the economy.
I was elected on a lot of reasons.
Because when I took over, we inherited a mess.
Prices were too high.
Inflation was the highest it was in 48 years.
I say ever, but the media always corrects me by saying it's only 48 years.
I think 48 years almost sounds worse.
But when I was elected, I was elected to do a job.
And one of the big things I was elected to do is law and order.
We now have the lowest crime rate in the history of our country.
We have the lowest murder rate in the history of our country.
We have Washington, D.C., which was a dangerous place to walk, is now a totally safe city.
You can walk with your husband or your wife.
You can walk with your children right down the middle of the city.
Nothing's going to happen.
We did a great job.
We had the National Guard.
We have soldiers.
We have people that nobody's going to mess with.
And we've taken out.
Remember, it's not just that.
In Washington, we've removed over 2,000 criminals.
And you know, if you look at the numbers, a very small percentage of your population, 2%, 3% of your population, causes 90% of the crime.
So when you move a small, it's amazing how that works.
But the criminals go over and over and over again.
So 2% to 3% of your population can cause over 90% of your crime.
So it's not that complex.
We moved 2,000 people out of Washington.
We brought them back to their countries where they came from.
They came through open borders by sleepy Joe Biden.
And I will tell you, Washington is safe.
If you look at New Orleans, as you know, we went there about four weeks ago.
I was with the mayor of New Orleans last night.
He was at the premiere.
And she was at the premiere.
She was great.
I believe she's a Democrat.
She came over.
She thanked me so much.
She said crime is down more than 50% in just a few weeks.
And you couldn't even walk down the street in New Orleans.
It's so bad.
And now they let us in there.
And she is thanking me so much, so profusely.
She was great last night.
I'd do that.
If I were a Democrat, I'd say call Trump in, let them do what they do.
But we remove people, criminals, from the cities, and they become safe cities.
If you look at Minnesota, Minneapolis, we have crime down there because we took out thousands of people despite all the mess and everything else.
But do these people really want to have rapists?
Do they really want to have drug dealers and people from prisons and murderers?
Do they really want to have them in the community?
You know, it's really insurrectionists and agitators, and they're paid.
And you can tell a lot of reasons.
Number one, they're professionals, you know, with their mouth.
But they're also, you look at the signs, the signs are all professionally made.
They have signs that are gorgeous.
In fact, I want to get the sign because I'm a big, I need a lot of signs for different things, and I want to find out whoever does their signs, they do a beautiful job.
You know, everybody has this beautiful side with brand new wood.
It's like leather panels.
They have a leather handle on the bottom.
These are not people.
These are people that are handed signs.
And we know pretty much, we're getting very close to it, but we know pretty much who's funding this stuff.
These are paid insurrectionists, paid troublemakers.
But I was elected by a landslide.
I won every swing state.
I won the popular vote by a lot.
I won everything.
I won everything.
And I was elected by a landslide on law and order and on strong borders.
We had a border that was so bad, so open, where 25 million people came in over a period of four years and now nobody comes in.
Nobody even tries to come in.
And I can only say, I think, we'll say it very plainly, elections have consequences.
The people want law and order.
And we have a silent majority.
You know, we have a silent majority of people.
They don't go and riot and everything else, but they like what we're doing.
They like having a safe city.
I get calls every single day.
Every person I see working in the White House, people I don't know, many people work here, and they say, I'd like to thank you, sir.
Why?
You made Washington so great.
We walk to work.
They walk to work.
You people know it very well.
You walk to work now.
You used to take an Uber or a taxi or something, and you even felt like in danger there.
Every person in his building, I mean, virtually every time I see somebody, they thank me.
Because a year and a half ago, they lived in hell and now they can walk to work and they're totally safe.
Nothing's going to happen.
And if anything did happen, the person that did it would be living in hell for a long period of time.
Watch America's Book Club, C-SPAN's bold original series, Sunday, with our guest Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author John Meacham, who has written numerous books chronicling American history.
His books include And There Was Light, Thomas Jefferson, and the prize-winning American Lion, Andrew Jackson, in the White House.
He joins our host, renowned author and civic leader David Rubinstein.
Watch America's Book Club with John Meacham, Sunday at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. Eastern and Pacific, only on C-SPAN.
Democracy.
It isn't just an idea.
It's a process.
A process shaped by leaders elected to the highest offices and entrusted to a select few with guarding its basic principles.
It's where debates unfold, decisions are made, and the nation's course is charted.
Democracy in real time.
This is your government at work.
This is C-SPAN, giving you your democracy unfiltered.
President Trump recently announced he's nominating financier and economic scholar Kevin Warsh to be the next Federal Reserve Chair after Jerome Powell's term ends in May.
In a post on Truth Social, the president writes, quote, I have known Kevin for a long period of time, and I have no doubt that he will go down as one of the great Fed chairmen, maybe the best.
On top of everything else, he is central casting and he will never let you down.
The nomination of Mr. Warsh will be considered by the Senate with support from a majority of senators needed to be confirmed.
After the president's announcement, North Carolina Republican Senator Tom Tillis said he will continue to oppose the confirmation of any Federal Reserve nominee until the Justice Department's criminal investigation into the current chair is, quote, fully and transparently resolved.
Chairman Powell revealed earlier this month he's being investigated by the Trump administration over his testimony on the renovation costs of the central bank's headquarters.
President Trump has repeatedly called for the Fed to lower interest rates.
The president's nominee, Mr. Worsh, has served previously as a Fed governor from 2006 to 2011.
He was nominated by President Bush at the age of 35, becoming the youngest Fed appointee in the history of the agency.
As a private citizen, Mr. Warsh has experience in the financial industry and currently works as an economics scholar at Stanford University.
Up next, we'll show his remarks from last year on the central bank's independence and policies on cryptocurrency from an economic forum hosted by the Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation.