Trump delivers remarks at Congressional picnic

[0:18] I have a breaking news today. [0:54] The house passed the fostering the future act. [0:58] Thank you, Chairman Smith, Chairman LaHood, ranking member Davis and [1:06] the house or representative for voting unanimously to leave America's foster [1:12] children above partisan politics senators, we have momentum. [1:19] Now it's your turn to bring the fostering the future act across the finish line. [1:25] Let's support our next generation and swiftly get this to the president for [1:31] his signature. [1:37] The White House congressional picnic has been cherished American tradition for [1:42] a great part of our nation's 250 year history. [1:47] Beyond politics, it provides an important social ritual where our nation's leaders [1:53] share a moment of light heartedness as we transition into the warm summer months. [2:01] This evening's beautiful setting brings families from both sides of the political [2:06] aisle together to enjoy Americana. [2:09] The Marine Band's wonderful music, great food, and some friendly gaming competition. [2:16] This great American social tradition reminds us that some fun and laughter with our families [2:23] can bring unity, especially with our children and loved ones by our side. [2:30] I have seen firsthand how much can be accomplished when Republicans and Democrats come together with [2:37] a shared purpose, particularly for the betterment of our children. [2:42] We experience great bipartisan success with the Take a Down Act. [2:49] I saw the spirit of American unity shine once again during my recent engagement with the House, [2:56] Wains and Means Committee as we began to shape legislation to protect America's foster care community. [3:04] Young Americans deserve every opportunity to learn, grow, and succeed. [3:10] And I believe we will continue making meaningful progress on their behalf. [3:16] Make the most of this evening so that we can be impactful together with greater alignment [3:23] in the future. [3:25] And now it's my pleasure to introduce my husband, President Donald J. Trump. [3:30] What a great job. [3:39] Great job. [3:40] I have to follow that. [3:41] I hate it. [3:42] I never like following our great first lady because it makes me look not so good. [3:49] I want to thank all of you for being here. [3:51] It's amazing. [3:52] Excellent. [3:53] Thank you, Melania. [3:54] We're truly blessed to have such a first lady. [3:57] She's been so popular. [4:00] See that movie. [4:01] It became number one. [4:03] She then went to streaming. [4:04] It became number one, and I say there's only room, remember this, for one star and a family. [4:12] So I better get rid of that. [4:14] That's not so good. [4:17] But she's been amazing. [4:18] And people love her, as you can see by the results. [4:22] And that was a big thing today. [4:23] Congratulations on that vote. [4:25] She had a bipartisan vote. [4:27] I should use you for some of the things I want to try and pass. [4:31] But I join Melania in congratulating the House of Representatives on passing the Fostering [4:37] the Future Act, which is a big deal this afternoon to modernize foster care, an issue [4:43] close to the first lady's heart. [4:45] And hopefully it will quickly pass in the Senate. [4:48] I'm sure it will. [4:49] It's great. [4:50] It's a great thing. [4:51] And I want to thank everybody. [4:52] We have a lot of senators. [4:53] We have a lot of Congress people. [4:55] And I want to thank you all. [4:58] I'm thrilled to welcome you all to the White House this evening for a very special annual [5:03] tradition, the congressional picnic. [5:05] It's been going on for many years. [5:07] And we're joined by many of the members of the House and the Cabinet, Senate. [5:12] And I just want to say a special hello to Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. [5:17] He's going to go down as one of the great speakers. [5:19] We've done a lot together. [5:20] We've done a lot. [5:22] Where are you, Mike? [5:23] Where are you, Mike? [5:24] Hi, Mike. [5:25] He's a great guy, actually, and he's done — he's worked so hard. [5:32] I want to thank also John Thune, who's worked so hard, and he's been really — he's a terrific [5:38] person. [5:39] He really is a terrific person. [5:40] And we have a lot of things to pass. [5:42] But one of the things we did pass was a great, big, beautiful bill, and that covered a lot [5:48] of territory. [5:49] I want to tell you. [5:50] Let's do it all at one time. [5:52] And it was four years' worth in one bill. [5:54] Everyone said that couldn't be done. [5:56] And I want to congratulate and thank the Senate House for the unbelievable job. [6:03] And while there are too many members in the House and Senate, I'd like to — I see half [6:08] of you right here. [6:09] And I'd like to introduce everyone, but I want to let people enjoy themselves tonight. [6:15] So — but we have so many represented. [6:18] This evening, it will be something very special to remember that all of us here tonight continue [6:25] a priceless tradition. [6:27] This really is a great tradition. [6:30] We represent the oldest and most extraordinary constitutional republic on the face of the [6:35] earth. [6:36] And a special privilege and a unique responsibility it is. [6:41] It's really something very special. [6:42] I'm standing here, and I'm looking at our great American flag, and it's hard to believe. [6:46] But I put that in two months ago, and I put one on the other side. [6:52] You know, this is actually, in theory, this would be — I consider them both — we have two [6:57] fronts. [6:58] I've never figured out — nobody else has either, for — since, if you think about [7:02] it, 1792, nobody's figured out which is the front and which is the back of the White [7:07] House. [7:08] So when I'm speaking here, I say the front, and when I speak over there, I say the front. [7:14] It actually has two fronts, and I put two flags up. [7:17] And it's a great pole, and it's a beautiful flag, and it's amazing that it wasn't up before. [7:22] We have another flag, slightly smaller, on the top of the White House, but it's a little [7:26] bit on the smaller side. [7:28] But everybody loves that pole. [7:30] It's a beauty, and it represents so much. [7:32] And I want to thank the company that put it up. [7:35] The best — I think they make the best — it's hard to believe — I have so many different [7:38] developments all over the world. [7:40] I always like putting the flag up. [7:42] And I know a lot about flagpoles, and that's the best flagpole there is. [7:45] Okay, so congratulations. [7:47] We have two of them. [7:48] We got actually two for the price of one. [7:50] We negotiated a tough deal. [7:52] But we have — finally, we have a really representative flagpole and flag up in front of our White House, [7:58] so that's good. [7:59] I also want to recognize the incredible congressional spouses, families, and children who make enormous [8:05] sacrifices so that their loved ones can serve, so that their loved ones can get beat up by the [8:12] enemy. [8:13] And they do that. [8:14] They do. [8:15] They're warriors. [8:16] It's not easy. [8:17] And I want to give them — the spouses — a very special hand today. [8:22] Thank you. [8:23] Thank you, darling. [8:24] Thank you. [8:25] You put up with a lot. [8:26] It's not easy. [8:30] But on the eve of the 250th year, there's so much for our country to celebrate regarding [8:36] our — really, the party. [8:42] We have a party that's really at a point that I don't think we've ever been at. [8:48] And America is thriving. [8:49] America is winning. [8:50] And America is respected, perhaps like it has never been respected before. [8:56] If you go back two years, we were not respected. [8:59] We were a dead country. [9:00] I'll tell you what. [9:01] We were a dead country. [9:02] And today, we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. [9:05] There's nobody even close. [9:06] And the — hey, I don't know if you saw the numbers today, but the stock market's [9:15] at an all-time high. [9:16] We had 67 all-time highs. [9:19] So we've been here for a little bit more than a year now. [9:22] And we had 67 all-time highs. [9:24] And I want to say that in our first term, we finished the term out. [9:30] Despite COVID and all the other things, we had a great — we had really an amazing [9:34] period of time. [9:35] And we finished at the highest point in the history of the stock market. [9:40] And now we're blowing it away. [9:42] We're blowing everything away. [9:43] And we're going to end that war very quickly. [9:46] They want to make a deal so badly. [9:48] They're tired of — this should have happened for 47 years. [9:52] Somebody should have done something about it. [9:54] And it's going to happen. [9:55] And it's going to happen fast. [9:56] And you're going to see oil prices plummet. [9:59] They're going to come down. [10:00] There's so much oil out there. [10:01] They're going to come plummeting down. [10:03] But even with that, the stock market's at an all-time high. [10:08] Jobless claims recently hit the lowest level. [10:11] And since 1969 — the best numbers since 1969 — and more Americans are working today [10:19] than at any time in the history of our country. [10:22] Think of that. [10:23] And we have a war. [10:26] We have something happening that I — you know, we just hit — it's very interesting — two [10:31] and a half months ago, we hit the best numbers that we've ever hit as a country. [10:36] Jobs, the best. [10:37] Everything was the best. [10:38] Stock market, the highest. [10:39] And I called my people in. [10:41] I called them in. [10:42] I said, congratulations, everybody. [10:44] But we're going to have to make a little journey down to a place called Iran. [10:48] We have to stop them to have nuclear on their mind. [10:52] And we're not going to let them have a nuclear weapon. [10:54] And we've done a hell of a job. [10:56] And we're — I think we're going to be finished with that very quickly. [10:59] And they won't have a nuclear weapon. [11:01] And hopefully we're going to get it done in a very nice manner. [11:05] Factory construction, as you heard today, also is up. [11:08] Housing starts are up. [11:10] And consumer spending is up. [11:12] All things — we have an economy. [11:14] People aren't seeing it yet. [11:16] When we inherited, when we started, we had the highest inflation in the history of our country. [11:23] And we actually had — just before the war, before the energy force, other things up or down — we had the best numbers. [11:32] We had — inflation was at 1.6 percent for the last three months just prior to the war. [11:40] And now you're going to see numbers like that again. [11:43] We inherited high prices, and we got the prices down. [11:47] And we got them down to numbers that, in some cases, people have not seen before. [11:51] But think of it. [11:52] Inflation at 1.6 percent. [11:54] Manufacturing right now is booming. [11:57] American companies are purchasing core capital goods at the highest amounts ever in the history of our country. [12:04] Our previously wide-open border is now the most secure border in the history of the United States of America. [12:12] And last year — remember, we inherited a mess. [12:17] And last year, we had the largest drop in murder rate ever recorded to the lowest level in 125 years. [12:24] That's the year 1900. Think of that. [12:26] And working alongside many of you — and you are unbelievable — the senators, the cabinet members. [12:35] And we have such a great cabinet. [12:37] And all of the congressmen and women — you're the most incredible people. [12:41] But working alongside of many of you here, we passed that. [12:45] Very important. [12:46] And again, remember, I went to John and I went to Mike. [12:49] I went to a lot of the senators and congressmen and women, and I said, [12:53] we can try and do this at one time, get four years' worth — that's why we call it the great, big, beautiful bill. [13:00] We can do it at one time, give it a shot, but everybody says it's impossible to get approved. [13:05] Well, we got four years' worth of goodies approved in a period of time — and in a period of time that they said would be impossible. [13:12] And we're lucky we did. [13:14] And it's gotten a little bit harder as time goes by. [13:16] In fact, the only one that gets things approved now are Melania and her friends. [13:22] She gets them approved bipartisan. [13:24] I'm going to have — I'm going to talk to her later. [13:26] I'm going to say, what are you doing? [13:28] But it's great. [13:29] It's great stuff. [13:30] But what we did do is we got something done, and we've got — we're getting a lot approved. [13:35] We're getting a lot — you're going to be seeing that, too. [13:37] You've been watching it. [13:38] Amazing. [13:39] Amazing. [13:40] With really small majorities, we've gotten record-setting numbers approved. [13:45] And when you add no tax on tips and no tax on Social Security, all of the things — think [13:51] of this — no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on Social Security for our great seniors, [13:58] and that's just the start. [14:00] A deduction — you buy a car, and you get a deduction for the first time on the interest [14:05] you're paying on your loan. [14:06] If you're borrowing money, you take out a loan, you get a deduction. [14:09] It's never happened before. [14:11] We have so many different things. [14:13] One other thing I have to say, because it's affected so many people — estate taxes or [14:18] the death tax. [14:19] You love your children. [14:21] You want to pass on your estate to your children. [14:24] Well, in the old days, meaning not so long ago, your children would have to go out and [14:30] borrow tremendous amounts of money to go and take care of the farm or the small business, [14:35] whatever it may be. [14:36] But it especially affected those in small business, but more than anything farmers. [14:41] And they'd go out. [14:42] The children would go out, borrow money from their bank, wouldn't be able to pay it back. [14:48] Bad, bad things happened to them. [14:50] Many of them couldn't handle life, actually. [14:53] And we got it. [14:54] There's no estate tax. [14:57] There's no debt tax on your farm, on your small business. [15:01] Nobody thought that was possible. [15:03] So if you love your children, you can leave your business to your children. [15:07] You can leave your farm to your children, and they'll be very happy. [15:11] Now, if you don't love your children, don't bother. [15:13] Then it doesn't matter what I'm saying. [15:14] It's just a big waste of time. [15:16] But if you love, think of it. [15:18] You have no debt tax. [15:19] You have no estate tax. [15:20] You can leave it to your children, and we love that. [15:24] It was so important to me. [15:26] We've restored the American strength on the world stage. [15:29] We're respected all over the world. [15:31] You might have seen. [15:32] I was in China a few days ago with President Xi, and it was some display. [15:37] We had a great time, but we also got a lot of business done, a lot of great business for [15:42] our farmers with soybeans, record purchases of soybeans, and lots of other things. [15:47] And they're buying many, many Boeing airplanes, and they're buying a lot of other things, too. [15:53] We had a great relationship. [15:54] I've always had a great relationship with President Xi. [15:57] Together, on a bipartisan basis, we passed the Lincoln-Riley Act to get dangerous, [16:03] criminal aliens off our streets. [16:05] We love Lincoln. [16:09] We passed the Genius Act to keep America at the forefront of finance and new technology. [16:14] And working with Melania and the group, Congress passed the Take It Down Act to protect our [16:20] nation's children. [16:21] So that was something. [16:22] And everyone here tonight has a lot to look forward to so that in the coming months, [16:27] we're going to have some very amazing events. [16:30] One of them is going to be right there where you're standing. [16:34] The hardest ticket I've ever... [16:36] I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets. [16:40] It's a one-of-a-kind UFC. [16:43] That's going to be something. [16:45] UFC event on the South London. [16:48] Right there, we're going to build an arena. [16:50] It's going to hold probably, I would say, 4,000, 5,000. [16:55] The great Dana White is putting it on. [16:57] We'll get it up to the max. [16:59] And behind you in the park, a beautiful park, a beautiful open piece of land, we're going [17:04] to have anywhere from 75,000 to 100,000 people, all free of charge. [17:09] We're building eight giant screens back there. [17:12] So we have a small arena here that we're building. [17:16] Never happened before. [17:17] And in the back, we're going to have close to 100,000 people watching the fight. [17:22] They're going to be all championship fights. [17:24] It's going to be great. [17:25] We also have, as you know, the Indy. [17:28] Roger Penske is doing the Indy around the Capitol. [17:31] And that'll be in August. [17:33] That's going to be unbelievable. [17:34] They've been trying to... [17:35] He said he's been trying to do that for 25 years. [17:38] He's made 129 trips to Washington. [17:41] He was never able to do it. [17:42] Then he met me. [17:43] One trip took a half an hour and we got it done. [17:47] And it's going to be fantastic. [17:49] And we have then, of course, FIFA. [17:51] Johnny. [17:53] Good old Johnny. [17:54] He's great. [17:55] He's doing a fantastic job. [17:56] Johnny Infantino. [17:58] We have the FIFA World Cup and our great American State Fair on the National Mall. [18:03] And the Freedom 250 Grand Prix here. [18:07] And then on July 4th, we have an unbelievable display. [18:11] And don't forget, we have a thing called the Olympics coming up. [18:15] I got the Olympics during my first term. [18:18] And then I got FIFA during my first term. [18:20] And I said, oh, I won't be able to see it because it happened now. [18:24] But then strange things happened with an election. [18:27] And I didn't get to serve the four years that I was supposed to serve. [18:32] I don't want to say it. [18:33] I don't want to be controversial. [18:35] Well, the election was rigged. [18:37] And we came back and we did something very special. [18:41] And I ended up getting the Olympics and getting FIFA. [18:45] And we got 252. [18:46] I want to take credit for 250 years, but that I'm not going to get away with. [18:50] But we're going to have an amazing period of time. [18:53] So we have exciting things happening. [18:55] I just want to leave by saying our country is so strong. [18:59] Our military is the greatest in the world. [19:01] You saw that with Venezuela. [19:02] You see it now with Iran. [19:03] We wiped out their Navy. [19:05] The Navy is gone. [19:06] The Air Force is gone. [19:07] Their anti-aircraft is gone. [19:10] All of their material that they use for warfare is gone. [19:15] Just about everything is gone. [19:16] I don't want to say their leaders are gone because it's not very nice. [19:19] But that happens to be true. [19:20] And they're not going to have a nuclear weapon. [19:23] They cannot have a nuclear weapon. [19:25] We won't be able to put up with that. [19:28] And we're not going to put up with it. [19:30] And just to say one final thing. [19:34] In the history of the world, there's never been anything like happened over the last short period of time. [19:40] $18 trillion, with a T, dollars, is being invested in the United States. [19:48] There's never been anything close. [19:50] As an example, the previous administration in four years, the previous administration in four years had less, substantially less, than $1 trillion. [20:02] We have $18 trillion in 11 months. [20:06] We haven't gotten the results from the last month, from the 12th month. [20:11] But think of that. [20:12] $18 trillion. [20:13] In the history of the world, there's been no country with anywhere even close to that number. [20:18] And all of that money is going to building factories. [20:21] And I mean car plants, auto plants. [20:24] Everything is coming back. [20:26] AI plants. [20:27] We have everything coming back. [20:29] We've never had a situation like it. [20:31] We're building plants, thousands of plants, all over our country. [20:35] $18 trillion. [20:36] It's many times greater than another country, a certain other country that I just visited. [20:42] If you go, I won't mention names. [20:44] If you go back 10 years, that had the record at $3 trillion. [20:48] We're at $18 trillion. [20:50] There's never been anything like that in history. [20:52] So I just want to thank you, all you spectacular people, the political people out there. [20:57] I love you all. [20:58] And we're going to have one hell of a time for the next few years. [21:02] And hopefully the next few years will lead to greatness for many, many years to come. [21:07] Thank you very much, everybody. [21:08] Thank you. [21:09] Thank you, everybody.