Remarks at a Conservative Political Action Conference in National Harbor, Maryland

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

And a very special hello to CPAC. It's been a long time. We've loved being back, and it's——

Audience member. We love you, Don—[inaudible].

The President. It's hotter than ever. This place is packed. You've got to see outside. They can't—they don't know what's happening. [Laughter] They have no idea what's happening.

And a friend is here from Argentina, and a friend is here from Poland. Stand up. Great—great job. Great job. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Welcome back to the Nation's Capital, where our movement is thriving, fighting, winning, and dominating Washington like never before. Nobody has ever seen anything like this before. They used to have little smaller crowds here. This is a little bigger.

The fraudsters, liars, cheaters, globalists, and deep-state bureaucrats are being sent packing. The illegal alien criminals are being sent home. We're draining the swamp, and we're restoring Government by the people, for the people.

For years, Washington was controlled by a sinister group of radical left Marxists, warmongers, and corrupt special interest who drained our wealth, attacked our liberties, obliterated our borders, and sucked our country dry. Not any longer.

But, on November 5, we stood up to all the corrupt forces that were destroying America. We took away their power. We took away their confidence. They lost their confidence. You know, you ever watch? They lost their confidence. Oh, it's so nice to watch. [Laughter] And we took back our country. And we must be doing something right, because we've got the highest poll numbers that I've ever had, and that any Republican President has ever had.

And our approval rating is now the highest ever across all demographics. Rasmussen just came out at 56 percent; InsiderAdvantage, 56; RMG Research, 57 percent. And we have many polls in the mid-60s. One at 71 percent—we like that, 71. And according to YouGov—a big deal—70 percent of Americans believe that what we are doing is right and we are keeping our promises.

That's all we're doing, when you think, is keeping our promises. That's all we had to do. And their promises weren't worthwhile to go and vote for. They loved men playing in women's sports, open borders, little things like that.

Audience members. Boo!

The President. But don't tell them. Don't tell them. Keep it quiet. [Laughter] We'll tell them about a week before the next election. [Laughter] No, keep it quiet. Let them think it's a great thing, what they're doing.

You saw Maine yesterday—right?—the Governor of Maine.

Audience members. Boo!

The President. She's fighting to keep men in women's sports. You ever see what happens to a woman when a woman boxes a man who transitioned to womanhood? Did you ever see what happens? It's not pretty.

Audience member. Because she's not a woman.

The President. It's not pretty.

Let her do that fight. Let them all do that fight, because I think that's about a 90-10 issue, and I can't figure out who the 10 percent are. Nobody can.

So today I want to say thank you to all of the incredible patriots of CPAC and all of the incredible patriots in our country, 77 million. And it's actually much more than that, because, despite that, they cheated like hell. It was just too big to rig. It was too big to rig. Seventy-seven million.

Remember, I used to go—I'd say: "Look, we're leading in the polls by a lot. Don't believe the polls. Just go and vote. You've got to vote. We're going to make it too big to rig." And they tried, but it was too big to rig. One of the great statements. We love it—because everybody went and voted.

We fought through hell together, but in the end, we achieved the great liberation of America. We're liberating our country right now. We're doing all these things that you're reading about. We're liberating our country.

I first spoke to this gathering 14 years ago, and I won your straw poll. I didn't know anything about a straw poll. They took this big straw poll, and I won by, like, 27 points. And I figured, you know, that's good. Maybe I should keep doing it, and I did. And I became President. Isn't that great? Who would think? Who would think?

[At this point, the President referred to President Javier Gerardo Milei of Argentina.]

But he became President too. He's a MAGA guy too. Make Argentina Great Again, right? Make Argentina Great Again.

I kept hearing about this man. I kept hearing about this man in beautiful Argentina—and it is beautiful, but, boy, did it have inflation. Inflation made it less beautiful. I hear you're doing fantastically. We're very proud of you, actually. And Make Argentina Great Again. Thank you very much. Great honor to have you.

But now it's my honor to address you for the first time as your 47th President of the United States. Great honor.

Audience members. U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

The President. I want to begin by thanking Matt and Mercedes Schlapp for the incredible job they do—and everyone—everyone they put together. They put together an amazing team—the American Conservative Union—for organizing this event, along—oh, you have some big players here. Senator Ted Cruz, Eric Schmitt, Jim Banks of Indiana.

Where is Eric? Where is Eric? Is it—hello, Eric. You can see Eric anywhere. If—he's right in the back of the room—he stands up.

They're all good. These are great people.

Representatives Riley Moore, James Comer, Harriet Hagerman [Hageman; White House correction], Byron Donalds.

Our great Attorney General—she's going to be great—Pam Bondi. Where is Pam? I don't know where she is. So many people. So many people. Secretary Doug Burgum. Secretary Chris Wright—oh, he's going to get that energy out of the ground. Secretary Scott Turner. Our next Ambassador to the United Nations, Elise Stefanik, who just gave a great speech, by the way.

A very good friend of mine—is this guy central casting, though? Tom Homan. Is he central casting? Where is—hello, Tom. Are you awake—I love—how can I love a guy like that? But I do. [Laughter] He's doing a great job. Thank you, Tom, very much. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Arkansas Governor, Sarah Sanders. Thank you, Sarah. Thank you.

And Pennsylvania attorney general, Dave Sunday. I love that name.

We're also honored to be joined by President Duda of Poland, who's a fantastic man and a great friend of mine. And we got 84 percent of the Polish people that voted for us. So you must be doing something right—huh?—hanging out with Trump.

And again, President Milei of Argentina, thank you very much. Thank you very much. What a great guy.

And the Prime Minister of Slovakia, Robert Fico. Robert—thank you, Robert. Thank you. Nice to see you.

The leader of the U.K. Reform Party, who, by the way, did really well in that last election. I've been his friend for a long time. And I wasn't sure: Am I supposed to be his friend or not? But it never mattered to me if he did well or not. I always liked him. But it's easier to like him when he got the kind of votes he got. He really took—[laughter]—he took it by storm, but they say he's going to do even better this time. Nigel Farage. Where is Nigel? Thank you, Nigel. Thank you. What a great guy.

The leader of Spain's Vox Party, Santiago Abascal. Thank you, Santiago. Thank you. Thank you very much. I thought that was you. Thank you very much. Great job you're doing.

And a friend of mine, Eduardo Bolsonaro of Brazil, the Chamber of Deputies. Thank you. Thank you. Say hello to your father. Thank you very much. Great family. Great gentleman and great family.

And our great First Lady, Melania, is watching us right now on television, so give her a hand. Give her a hand. Whoa.

Thank you. Thank you. Oh, she's going to be happy.

Audience member. We love Melania!

The President. That's so nice. We love our First Lady. Everybody does.

With the help of so many incredible supporters here today, we're going to forge a new and lasting political majority that will drive American politics for generations to come. I think we're going to do fantastically well in the midterms.

You know, in theory, the one that wins the Presidency does not do well in the midterms. But I think this is going to be a change. We're at a level—I don't think we've been at this level, maybe ever, as the Republican Party. We're a bigger, better, stronger party than ever before. More people in our party than ever before.

But the people have given us a resounding mandate for dramatic change in Washington, and we're going to deliver it. We're going to use it, and we're going to make America great again by using it. So it's going to be something.

But think of it, at the Presidential level, we won the popular vote by millions and millions of votes. We swept all seven swing States—Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Georgia, Arizona, Nevada—all by great margins.

We won 85 percent of all of the counties in America. That means that map was red. Did you ever see the map? Did you see the certified map? Where is it? I want to see a certified map. It's all red. You can hardly find the blue.

Think of this. They won 525 counties, and we won 2,600 counties. It's the biggest margin ever recorded. And incredibly, for the first time ever, all 50 States shifted toward the Republican Party. It's never happened before. So it was, indeed, too big to rig.

We won the largest number of African American votes in Republican history, by far. We won the largest number of Hispanic American votes any Republican, ever. Hispanic Americans, we love you. The energy, the brilliance of Hispanic Americans.

We won all of the cities and towns along the Texas border. Whereas, before I ran, we won none. We never used to win any. I got a call from our great Governor of Texas, who said, "President, you just won every single town along the Texas border to Mexico." I said, "Oh, is that good?" He said, "It hasn't happened since Reconstruction." I said, "Define 'Reconstruction' for me." He said, "That means, essentially, the Civil War." That's a long—[laughter]—that's a long time. But that was when I first heard about it, actually.

Our party has become the proud voice of hard-working citizens of every race, religion, color, and creed. And I think one of the main reasons, not that we're conservative or not that we're anything else, we are the party of common sense. It's about common sense, right? It's all about common sense.

Over the past month, we've confirmed an all-star team of warriors, patriots, visionaries, and put the "America first" agenda into action.

I see Doug Burgum sitting right over there. I'll tell you, he was so good. I looked at him, I said: "I've got to have him here. I've got to have him." He's—you know, he was a great—he was a great Governor. He's involved with a little thing called energy. He's got the Department of Interior, and Chris Wright has the Department of Energy.

So Chris has no energy, and Doug has all of the energy. [Laughter] Chris has more Interior, but he doesn't have—so I merged them. So now you have an energy guy, and you have the guy with all the energy, and you're going to drill, baby, drill, aren't you? Huh? Drill, baby, drill.

And, Kathryn, stand up. His wife is incredible. She is such an incredible woman. Incredible woman. You got very lucky, Doug. [Laughter] It's good to be successful, isn't it, Doug? [Laughter] She's an incredible woman. He's an incredible guy.

In addition to the great Cabinet Secretaries we have here today, we confirmed Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to end the woke insanity and rebuild our military. Pete is fantastic. Thank you.

To stop the weaponization of Federal law enforcement—I know about that, I think, better than any human being on Earth—this week, we swore in a new Director of the FBI, somebody that everybody wanted: Kash Patel. Kash is great. He's a popular guy. He went through with a blessing of a lot of good people too. I'll tell you, it was great.

To end the politicalization [politicization; White House correction] of our intelligence agencies, we confirmed Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, who is something. Very respected—highly respected.

And, to make America healthy again, we confirmed Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Great guy. We need him. We need him.

You know, there's a number on autism, as an example, with children—autism. And you go back 15 years, it was from 10- to 20,000. You had like 1 in 10- to 20,000—some say 10, some say 20, but it was in that vicinity. That's a big vicinity. Now it's 1 in 36 babies have autism—1 in 36. Think of—it was 1 in, probably, 20,000 people. Now it's 1 in 36. There's something wrong. Something's wrong, and Bobby is going to find it, working with Dr. Oz, by the way. Working with Dr. Oz.

Together, we've achieved more in 4 weeks than most administrations achieve in 4 years. We made a lot of progress. I heard O'Reilly last night say, "Donald Trump, for the first 4 weeks, is the greatest President ever in the history of our country." That was O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly, he's all right.

You know who he said second was? George Washington. That's not bad. [Laughter] I beat George Washington. I love beating George Washington. [Laughter] Thank you, Bill.

On our first day in office, we declared a national emergency at our southern border. After years of politicians using our military to defend foreign borders while leaving our country defenseless and helpless, we deployed a group of people, Active Duty troops to defend our border and repel the invasion of our country. This was an invasion.

You know, we had a great first term—a really great first term. And I called it an invasion. And we had great numbers, but now we have the best numbers we've ever had. We've never had numbers like this. And we've done it all in 4 weeks. Think of it. That was Tom Homan, Kristi Noem, the whole group.

On day one, I ended the catch-and-release, I reinstated "Remain in Mexico," and I signed an order that will end birthright citizenship for the children of illegal aliens, because it wasn't meant for these children.

It wasn't meant for people that escaped or invaded, came into our country illegally. It was meant for the children of slaves. Because when it was done many, many years ago, it was during a very tough period in this country's history, and that was meant for the children of slaves. I wish people would understand that so they could get this thing approved and we don't have millions and millions of people coming into our country, and they shouldn't be here.

This week, I also canceled Temporary Protected Status for migrants from Haiti. They're pouring into our country. Pouring in.

If I weren't elected President, there'd be nobody in Haiti anymore. They were pouring in at levels—from other countries too. All over Africa, the Congo. All over South America. And they were coming in from prisons and mental institutions and insane asylums, jails, and gang members. And you'd have to see—gang members, drug lords, people that are drug addicted.

They were sending them all into our ridiculous and very stupid Biden open border. Our border czar was Kamala. Haven't said that name in a while.

Audience members. Boo!

The President. I haven't said that name. No, I haven't said that name in a while: Kamala.

I'll bet nobody knows her last name. Nobody ever knows her last name. [Laughter] Even during the campaign, you'd have to say "Kamala." It's strange. You know, a little different name, Kamala, because the last name was Harris. I used to say "Senator Harris." They—nobody knew who the hell I was talking about—[laughter]—so I had to go Kamala.

But think of it. I was beating Joe badly—really badly, and they changed him. I'm the only one that ever had to beat two people. [Laughter] I had to beat two. I had to beat two. We beat two. "We." I didn't beat, you beat—you beat two people.

No, he was doing badly. That's like the great Dana White. He has a fight, and one guy is doing really badly, so when they take him out, they put another guy in to fight, the same guy that's—I had that. [Laughter] Never happened before.

A lot of things we do never happened before. You ever notice that? We've—the first in everything. So we beat two candidates. They said, "Who did you run against?" Well, we ran against Biden, and we ran against Kamala Harris.

But illegal border crossings now have plummeted by almost 100 percent. The border czar never called the border. Never called the great people of the border. They have unbelievable—I called them so much they couldn't take my calls. They hated me. [Laughter] But then they be-—came to love me. You know why? Because the border people want to have great borders.

But you have to call them on occasion. "How are we doing today? Pete, how we doing?" You have to call, and we called the right guys.

I became friends—you know, the Border Patrol endorsed me. And these people—you have no idea. They weren't supposed to, because you're not supposed to do that. I don't think you're allowed to do it, actually. They did it anyway. They said, "This is—this is crazy." But these are great people.

And ICE and our general law enforcement—and by the way, our great, great firemen and firewomen too. They were great. They all endorsed us. With the police, we got high 90s in terms of—and many of them were unionized, you know.

We have a young lady who's right now going for the Department of Labor, and she tends to be a little bit—a little bit on the—slightly left of center. And everybody said, why did I do that? I said: "You know why I did that? Because unions like her, and labor likes her, and a lot of people like her, and she's very solid, very strong, and she's going to do the right thing." But they all voted for us. They didn't vote for me. They voted for us.

We got the Teamsters. We got the firefighters. We got the police. We got the autoworkers—we're so great. We had tremendous support. So I think it's nice to give them a person in the center, because that's what she—she's going to be very good, I think.

But lot of people would say, "Why did you do that?" I said, "Because I want to do something nice for these people that voted for me." "Oh, gee, what a great political move that was." [Laughter] Now they were all saying, "What a great political move." No, it's just—it's all common sense. Remember that. Remember that.

Sean O'Brien was fantastic. The whole group, they were great.

Over the past few weeks, we've begun the largest deportation operation in American history, larger even than that of President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a very moderate man, but he was very strong on that. He didn't like people running into our country and taking over our country.

I'll tell you, I had 4 years. I don't know if you had this. I couldn't stand it. [Laughter] Don't get angry. Donald, don't get angry, please. [Laughter]

I couldn't stand it, watching these people come in from jails and mental institutions and the worst criminals in the street, gang members being dropped off in buses and bussed into our country. I couldn't stand it. So I said, "I'm going to run for President again." And now we don't have that problem. Now we don't have that problem anymore.

We don't have that problem anymore. We now have the best border we've ever had. And by the way, if they can ever find my world's favorite chart ever in history, I'll show you what it was when I left, and now it's even slightly better.

Can you drop that chart, do you think? I don't know. I never tell them about this, but they used to drop it like magic. If they can, they'll drop it. Who the hell knows. [Laughter] But it's my favorite chart. My favorite chart in history.

We're liberating communities like Aurora, Colorado, and Springfield, Ohio, that have been occupied by illegal alien criminals from all over the world. We're rescuing the Americans whose jobs have been stolen, whose wages have been robbed, and whose way of life has been absolutely destroyed.

And under the Trump administration, our country will not be turned into a dumping ground. We're not going to do it. We're going to have a great country again. It's going to happen soon, a lot sooner than you think.

And we're going to have so much money coming in from tariffs. Oh, you're going to say—your Senators and your Congressmen are going to say: "Please, sir. Please, you're making us look so bad. We have so much money coming in. I didn't know this was going to happen. Please don't do this to us. We look very bad." [Laughter]

But they're great. They're doing—well, I'll tell you, the Republican Senators just—they're sticking together. The Republics—the Republican Congress men and women are sticking together.

And every once in a while, you have one that wants a little action or something. I don't know what it is. It's so sad to see. I just hate to see it. I hate to see it. But they're sticking together.

One thing about the Democrats, they have rotten, horrible policy—the worst policy in history. But they stick together. We have great policy, but sometimes they don't stick, but they've been sticking for us. They've been sticking.

And I think the Speaker and the leader have done a fantastic job. That's Thune and Johnson, and I think they've done—two guys really working hard and doing a—they're really doing a great job.

But we have a lot to stick with. We have a lot to stick together for, because what we've done has never been done before. Nobody has ever seen anything like this, and nobody has ever seen 4 weeks like we've had, especially the 4 weeks—the first 4 weeks.

You know, that's like if you golf, when you sink that first 4-footer in the first hole, it gives you confidence on the next, so you sink another one. Now you go into that third hole, and you can't—and by the time you get to the fifth hole, you feel you can't miss, right? Like a baseball player, he gets up and he hits the first one, and then the second at bat, he hits that one. And, you know, you get—and we have great confidence. And they've lost their confidence, as I said. They really lost their confidence. I watched them. They're really screwed up.

I watched this MSNBC, which is a threat to democracy, actually. They're stone-cold mean, but—they're stuttering. They're all screwed up. They're all mentally screwed up. They don't know what—their ratings have gone down the tubes. I don't even talk about CNN. CNN is sort of like—they don't—I don't know. They're—they're pathetic, actually. [Laughter]

But MSNBC was mean. Their ratings are absolutely down. This Rachel Maddow, what does she have? She's got nothing. Nothing.

Audience members. Boo!

The President. She took a sabbatical where she worked 1 day a week. They paid her a lot of money. She gets no ratings. I should go against her in the ratings—[laughter]—because I'll tell you, she gets no ratings—all she does is talk about, "Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump." All different subjects. "Trump this. Trump that."

But these people are really—I mean, they lie. You—they shouldn't be allowed to lie. Every night. They are really a vehicle of the Democrat party. They should be paying. Is that Gordon? Yes. Is that Gordon? The great Gordon Chang. Is that Gordon—stand up, Gordon.

Wow. We have everybody here today. Thank you very much. How am I doing on China? Am I doing good? Am I doing good on China? Tell you one thing, nobody has ever done like I've done on China. Nobody ever let people know what was happening with respect to China.

And I happen to like President Xi, and I have tremendous respect for the people of China. Love the people of China. But we've been treated very unfairly by China and many other countries, and we're not being un- —fairly treated anymore.

We had that down to a science in the first term, and then they lost it. You know, we lost over a trillion dollars to China this last year under Biden. Crooked Joe Biden. What do we like better: Crooked Joe or Sleepy Joe? Ready? Ready? Crooked Joe or Sleepy? Ready?

Crooked Joe? [Applause]

Sleepy Joe? [Applause]

Got to stay with Crook.

He had one ability that I didn't have. He could do something that I couldn't do. I don't say that—because he was a horrible golfer. Remember, he challenged me during the debate to a golf match—he said, "I'm a six handicap." I said, "You're not a 36 handicap." [Laughter] He said he's a six. And then he said, "Well, I'm eight." Remember? I said, "That was quick. Picked up two strokes." [Laughter] He said, "No, I'm an eight." But he was—he's not a 36 handicap.

But he had one ability that was amazing. He could go with cameras on him, television—fake news on him, probably because he knows they wouldn't cover it badly. You know, they covered him as well as you can cover him. How the hell can you cover the guy well? [Laughter]

But he had this incredible ability—he could barely walk in the sand. Somebody thought he looked great in a bathing suit. [Laughter] And he'd walk in the sand pulling a thing that weighed about six ounces. You know those aluminums—the aluminum is very good. You can—a child—it's meant for children and very old people to lift, right? [Laughter] So he would put it down, and he'd put it down, and he'd fall into it, and he'd immediately fall asleep in front of the media. [Laughter]

I could never do that. That's the only thing. That's the only thing. I could never do it. [Laughter]

No, he was Sleepy Joe, but he was crooked as hell. You know, there's no question. [Laughter] He was a sleepy, crooked guy. [Laughter] Terrible, terrible President. He was the worst President in the history of our country. I don't care. I'll say it.

Audience member. Yes!

The President. Jimmy Carter passed away recently, and he passed away a happy man. [Laughter] He was a happy man when he passed away because he said that it's not even close, Joe was the worst.

And believe me, I have to clean up the mess. I'm cleaning up the mess, and it is a mess on the border, with inflation—to go over—every single thing he touched turned to shit. Okay? [Laughter] Everything. It's true. It's true. That's true.

Now Franklin Graham is angry at me. [Laughter] You know that? Franklin wrote me a letter. He said: "I love your speeches. I love them. I love them so much, but they'd be better if you would never use foul language." [Laughter] And I told him, I said, "Franklin, you know"—Franklin Graham is a great guy, by the way, does a great job. The son of the great Billy Graham, right?

But I said to Franklin, "You know, sometimes you need it for emphasis." [Laughter] And he said: "No, no. They'd be even better if you wouldn't use any bad language." That's not really a terrible word, you know? But that's a much more appropriate word—a better—what word would I use to describe? [Laughter] What word could I use? It's so—and we have to be truthful too. So, you know—[laughter].

All countries are now taking their illegal aliens back, even those that stated strongly: "We will never take them back. Don't ever send them to us." But they said that during the Biden administration. They never said it during my administration. Venezuela has taken them back. They were all—Colombia has taking them back. Remember Colombia said, "We will not"—"We will not take them back," he said. And within about 13 minutes, I think—[laughter]—"We would love to take them back. In fact, we will send our planes to pick them up." Remember?

And they said: "What happened? What happened?" And you see these Venezuelan planes loaded up with some real nice people. You wouldn't have wanted to be the pilot on any of those planes. [Laughter]

But they know we're not playing games, and just this week, I officially designated bloodthirsty cartels and murderous gangs as foreign terrorist organizations, something which Biden didn't want to do and nobody wanted to do. It's true.

The full might and power of the Federal Government will now be dedicated to eradicating MS-13, Tren de Aragua—that's the Venezuelan prison gangs. These are very nice fellows. The only thing good about them is they make our criminals look like nice people. [Laughter] It's true.

Remember when they used to say: "People that come in from foreign countries are nice people. These are wonderful people. These are good people. They're not murderers. They're not terrible. They're"—these people make us look like babies. Okay? You know the Hells Angels? They're among the nicest people on Earth when you compare them to these thugs.

And the Hells Angels actually love our country, if you can believe that. They actually do.

But their members and their leaders in the United States will be hunted down—I'm talking about MS-13. They are hunting them down. We would—we removed tens of thousands MS-13, Tren de Aragua, rooted out, arrested, and expelled from our soil like the savage monsters that they are.

We don't have anybody coming up from Argentina. Nobody is coming up from Argentina to facilitate the mass removal of criminal aliens.

I also issued an Executive order to make available the full capacity and detention. We're going to use Guantanamo Bay. We have a detention facility that's actually massive. Nobody even knew it existed. Holds thousands of prisoners. We never used it.

For 4 long years, you had a President who put illegal aliens up in penthouse suites in beautiful hotels on Park Avenue, on Madison Avenue, on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan.

Audience member. Boo!

The President. Now you have a President who is stamping their ticket to Gitmo on a one-way trip back to the places from which they came. Wonderful places. Big difference.

My administration is also moving swiftly to save the U.S. economy from the train wreck of inflation and worse that Joe Biden created. I withdrew from the one-sided Paris climate accord. It was a disaster. That was a disaster.

I terminated the "green new scam." One of the greatest hoaxes ever played on this country is the green new scam. We spent trillions of dollars on this nonsense and just a total hoax. It really set back our country, I want to tell you, monetarily and every other way.

And I canceled Joe Biden's insane electric vehicle mandate, where everybody has to have an electric. And if you want an electric car, get an electric car. If you want a gasoline-powered car, if you want to have a hybrid, you get it.

The only thing you can't do is a hydrogen-powered car. You know why? They said it really works great, but when it doesn't work, you never find the body. [Laughter] It's a bad—that's a bad sign. You know, when it doesn't work, you—they found the body on a tree about 250 yards up the road. [Laughter] It's seriously bad. So we'll leave hydrogen out of it for a little while, I think, or maybe permanently. I'd say permanently.

To crush inflation by slashing spending, I imposed an immediate Federal hiring freeze, a Federal regulation freeze, and a foreign aid freeze. We've given to countries that hate us. We're giving billions and billions of dollars to countries that hate us.

And I signed an order creating the Department of Government Efficiency—you probably haven't heard of it—which is now waging war on Government waste, fraud, and abuse. And Elon is doing a great job. He's doing a great job.

We love Elon, don't we? Is that guy—he's a character, with his son X. We love X. He's the only one could get away—his son's really named X—what—he's the only one can get away with naming his son X. [Laughter] If we ever did it, they'd say, "You're crazy."

But he's great. He's doing a great job. And he doesn't need this. He doesn't need it, but he's—he wants to see—you know, he's a patriot. People said, "Well, what official position does he have?" I said, "Patriot." [Laughter] "Oh." They didn't know. They said, "That was good." He's a patriot.

Here are some of the flagrant scams that, as an example, they've spent money on and we've been able to recapture, for a large dose of it, at least:

Five-hundred and twenty million dollars for a consultant to—think of that, $520 million—$520 million. You know, when I hired consultants, and they'd just take advantage of me, it's a horrible thing to watch, and I give them $25,000, I feel I'm overpaying. These guys got $520 million—environmental, social, governance, and investments in Africa.

Twenty-five million dollars to promote biodiversity conservation and socially responsible behavior in Colombia. This is Colombia, South America, not Columbia University. Of course, that might be worse, actually—[laughter]—based on their actions.

Forty million dollars to improve the social and economic inclusion of sedentary migrants. Nobody knows where, who are they, where do they come from. Just sedentary migrants. Nobody even knows what a sedentary migrant is. [Laughter] If they were sedentary, they wouldn't be a migrant, right? [Laughter] They wouldn't move. No, they wouldn't move. They'd stay in the same place. Right, Doug?

Forty-two million dollars for social and behavior change in Uganda; $10 million for Mozambique medical male circumcisions. Why are we going to Mozambique to do circumcisions? [Laughter] It's a lot of money—$14 million for improving public procurement in Serbia.

Here's a beauty: $486 million to a consortium of elections and political process, strengthening ideas, of which $22 million goes to inclusive and participatory political process in Moldova.

Twenty-nine million dollars goes to strengthen the political landscape and help them out so that they can vote for a radical left Communist in Bangladesh. You ought to see who they supported. You wouldn't believe—yes, you would believe it. Nobody in this room would be in that group—$20 million for fiscal federalism and $19 million for biodiversity in Nepal; $47 million for improving learning outcomes in Asia.

Eighteen million dollars for helping India with its elections. Why the hell? Why don't we just go to all paper ballots, let them help us with their elections, right?

Audience members. Yes! Yes!

The President. Voter ID, wouldn't that be nice? We're giving money to India for election—they don't need money. They take advantage of us pretty good. The high—one of the highest tariffed nations in the world. We try and sell something, they have a 200-percent tariff, and then we're giving them a lot of money to help them with their election.

Thirty-two million dollars for the Prague Civil Society Centre; $14 million for social cohesion in Liberia; $9.7 million to develop a cohort—Cambodian youth with enterprise driven skills. Think of that. Millions of dollars for sex change operations in Guatemala.

Twenty million dollars for "Sesame Street" in Iraq. [Laughter] They put on a little play on the street. $20 million. You could do it on Broadway and have $19 million left over. [Laughter] No, it's a scam. They get kickbacks, and all sorts of things happen; it's a scam. Who ever heard of it? Think of it: $20 million. "Sesame Street"—a play.

We're also uncovering outrageous incompetence and fraud in the Social Security. We have—look, let's assume that people, generally speaking—in our case, and everybody in this room, we're going to all live way over 100, but this is a little ridiculous, because not too many people are going over 100. Everybody, hopefully, in this room will.

But there are in the Social Security ranks and files. And what we're doing now is finding out: Do they get paid? Do they get paid? In other words, is somebody taking all of this money?

So they have over 100 to 109, 4.7 million Social Security numbers—think of that—from people whose age is over 100; 3.6 million people whose age is over 110 years—[laughter]—3.47 million people who are over 120 years of age; 3.9 million people whose age goes from 130 to 139 years of age; 3.5 million whose age goes from 140 to 149 years old; 1.3—see, it's coming down now, slowly. [Laughter] No, it's all a scam. The whole thing is a scam—1.3 million people—1.3 who are over 150 years of age. [Laughter] And over 130,000 people are listed on our Social Security rolls as over 160 years of age.

Now, the final is that 1,039—so now we're down into reasonable numbers—[Laughter]—1,039 people are listed between the ages of 220 years old to 229. [Laughter] And we have one person who is listed at 241 years of age. [Laughter] And we have one person listed at 360 years of age, an alltime record. And our country is 250 years old—[laughter]—so that person is substantially older than our country.

Under our administration, there will be no tolerance for Social Security fraud. We will not allow anyone to cheat our seniors, and those who will do that will be prosecuted by Pam Bondi and others.

We are also going to Fort Knox. I'm going to go with Elon. And would anybody like to join us? Because we want to see if the gold is still there. We want to see. Wouldn't that be terrible if we open up this—Fort Knox has got nah—it's just solid granite that's five feet thick. The front door, you need six musclemen to open it up. I don't even think they have windows. Wouldn't that be terrible if we opened it up and there was no gold there? Oy. [Laughter]

So we're going to open those doors. We're going to take a look, and if there's 27 tons of gold, we'll be very happy. I don't know how the hell we're going to measure it, but that's okay. [Laughter] We want to see lots of nice, beautiful, shiny gold in Fort Knox. Don't be totally surprised if we open the door, we'll say: "There's nothing here. They stole this, too." [Laughter]

No, we have a very corrupt group of people in this country, and we're finding them out. We're removing all of the unnecessary, incompetent, and corrupt bureaucrats from the Federal workforce. That's what we're doing. And under the buyouts we offered Federal employees, more than 75,000 Federal bureaucrats—think of that—have voluntarily agreed to surrender their taxpayer-funded jobs.

We want to make Government smaller, more efficient. We want to keep the best people, and we're not going to keep the worst people.

And you know, we're doing another thing. If they don't report for work, we're firing them. In other words, you have to go to office. Right? Right? Look at her.

If you don't report to work—you know, that's another scam. You know, who the hell—if I'm staying home, I'm going to—let's see, my golf handicap would get down to a very low number. [Laughter] You you'd be shocked if I told you the real number. But I would be so good, I'd try and get on tour. I'd get—I would be so good. I'd call up, I'd say: "Listen, I'm really working here. Where are my clubs? Where are my clubs?" [Laughter]

Either that or, in many cases, they have second jobs while they're getting paid by us. So, one of the reasons they're leaving is because they don't want to have to show that, and we're demanding to see that information: How many jobs have you had? Who paid you while you were working for the Government? And all—and we are demanding that people, if they work for the Government, they have to show up and sit in an office and do their job. Right?

And we've also effectively ended the left-wing scam known as USAID. The agency's name——

Audience members. Boo!

The President. ——has been removed from its former building, and that space will now house agents from Customs and Border Patrol. Beautiful.

Audience members. Yes! Woo!

The President. And at the ultraleft CFPB, established—which was terrible. So many people have been hurt by that. I used to call—I used to get calls from lending officers, from owners of small banks, and they were almost crying. What they did to those people—they destroyed them, put them out of business.

They established—it was established by Elizabeth "Pocahontas" Warren. [Laughter] Does anyone know——

Audience members. Boo!

The President. ——remember the Pocahontas scam? "I'm an Indian, therefore I'm entitled to be a Senator." [Laughter] "I'm an Indian," she said. "Could we see proof of that, please?" She said, "Well, the only proof I have is my mother said I have high cheekbones." Oh, that's nice. [Laughter] That's no good, right?

Remember, she went out—I really spooked her, I tell you. Remember she went out? She couldn't take it anymore. I was calling her "Pocahontas." "Pocahontas." Everyone knew she was not an Indian. I had more Indian blood than her, and I have no Indian blood. [Laughter] I—I had—I'd be honored to, but I don't have any, but I had more than her.

Do you remember, she went out, and she had a blood test, and it came back, and she was so happy because it said 1,024th. That means everybody in this room had more than her. [Laughter] But because there was even a scant—in other words, you know, 1 million years ago, something could have happened—[laughter]—and she was so happy that she released it, and she got killed. That was the end of her Presidential career.

She does not like me very much. [Laughter] But she's a very angry person. You notice the way she is? She's always screaming, and she's crazy. These people are crazy.

The radical left is meaner.

Audience members. Yes!

The President. I don't know what it is, Doug. They're meaner than us, aren't they? We're, like, normal people, you know? We're smart. We get our word across, but we don't go crazy.

Of course, they'll take my little rant from 15 minutes ago, the fake news. "He lost control on the stage." [Laughter] "He lost control." And they'll have me screaming, having to do with Franklin. Poor Franklin. "He lost control on the stage."

These people are bad. They are really sick too. [Laughter] I don't get it. You know, you'd think they'd want to love our country. They have no ratings anymore. Nobody listens to them. Nobody believes the fake New York Times.

Audience members. Boo!

The President. Washington Post is doing no business. They're losing all their business. Nobody believes them.

But we've escorted the radical left bureaucrats out of the building and locked the doors behind them. We've gotten rid of thousands.

I withdrew the United States from the corrupt World Health Organization. I withdrew——from the antisemitic U.N. Human Rights Council—the Council is horrible. And I withdrew from the terror-supporting U.N. Relief and Works Agency. The U.N. has such great potential, but not the way it's run now. It's terrible the way it's run now. We stopped all taxpayer money to these corrupt institutions.

And by the way, just so—because who the hell knows, we got to talk about something very important: the war between Russia and Ukraine. People are being killed, mostly young men—mostly Russian and Ukrainian men, at levels you've never seen before, thousands of people a week.

And I've spoken to President Putin, and I think that thing is going to end, but it's got to end. It's a horrible, horrible thing to watch.

I'm dealing with President Zelenskyy. I'm dealing with President Putin. I'm trying to get the money back that—or secured. Because, you know, Europe has given $100 billion. The United States has given $350 billion——

Audience members. Boo!

The President. ——because we had a stupid, incompetent President and administration. Three hundred and fifty. But here's worse: Europe gave it in the form of a loan. They get their money back. We gave it in the form of nothing. So I want them to give us something for all of the money that we put up, and I'm going to try and get the war settled, and I'm going to try and get all that death ended.

So we're asking for rare earth and oil, anything we can get. But we feel so stupid. Here's Europe—and, you know, it affects Europe. It doesn't really affect us, except we don't like to see—two things. Number one, how Biden got us into this thing in the first place—terrible. But why is it that he didn't ask for equalization? Europe should put up more money than us.

But even if you said the same thing, how come we went so far out front—and he didn't know that Europe gets its money back. They did it in the form of a loan. We don't get our money back. We get nothing. So we're getting our money back. We're going to get our money back because it's not—it's not fair. It's just not fair.

And we will see, but I think we're pretty close to a deal, and we better be close to a deal, because that has been a horrible situation. It would have never happened if I were President.

And by the way, October 7, Israel would have never happened if I was President too. It would have never happened. Iran was broke. They had no money for Hamas or Hizballah. They had no money to give. Everybody knows that. Jewish people in the audience know that. Iran was broke. They were not giving money around.

And when I got out, they took all the sanctions off—Biden—and Iran became rich very quickly. With oil, you can become rich very, very quickly. And the rest is history. What a horrible thing.

Even though the hostages are coming back—I saw it this morning where we got six more back. Biden got none back, by the way, just so you understand. None. Zero. He would have never gotten any of them back.

But they're coming back in pretty bad shape. It's a horrible thing, and many are dead. Many are dead. So we'll see how that all ends up. But it's a horrible thing. But I just want you to know we're working on that. That's a very big part of it. And I don't like talking about it because we're in the middle of negotiations.

But it's a very, very sad—it's a very sad—would have never happened. There was no way—Russia was never going to go in, and they went in because of a lot of reasons. And so many people are dead. Far more people are dead than you're reading about.

You know, when they blow up all these cities—all those cities are—they look like demolition sites. Every single building is down. All of those beautiful golden towers that are a thousand years old, they're lying on the ground in smithereens. Blown to smithereens. There's nothing left of them. They're just lying on the ground, never to be rebuilt again. Not possible to rebuild them again. And all of that heritage is gone.

People have done a really horrible job. That would have never—if I were President, zero chance that a shot would even have been fired. It wouldn't have happened. So sad.

To further turbocharge our economy, we have launched the most aggressive deregulation program in any nation's history. And we're also going to be seeking the largest tax cuts in American history again. We brought them down, as you know, from close to 40 percent down to 21 percent. Now we're bringing them down to 15 percent if you make your product in the United States of America.

We're defending the American worker like never before, and that's why the autoworkers and the union workers and the Teamsters and so many others, they supported us—the firemen, the policemen, so many others. Whether they were union or nonunion, they all supported us. They supported—they—it's called workers, and they supported us at levels that nobody has ever seen before.

Weeks ago, I imposed a 10-percent tariff on all goods coming from China because of the fact that they're sending fentanyl into our country—through Mexico, by the way. I'm not happy with Mexico, or I'm not happy with Canada, either.

I imposed 25-percent tariffs on all foreign steel and aluminum. And I will soon impose reciprocal tariffs on any country that charges us. And by the way, "reciprocal" means they charge us, we charge them. Same thing. So nobody can be upset, right? But we have countries charging us 200 percent that we charge them nothing. They charge us, we charge them. Our country is going to cut—become rich again. Very rich.

I always say it's my favorite word in the dictionary. The word "tariff" is my favorite word in the dictionary.

You know, we were richest—the richest, relatively, from—think of this—from 1870 to 1913. That was our richest, because we collected tariffs from foreign countries that came in and took our jobs and took our money, took our everything. But they charged tariffs.

And we had so much money, they set up the 1887—eight—think of that, a long time ago, 1887 Tariff Commission. It was a commission of very important people to determine where we should spend all of the tremendous, vast wealth that we had. We had so much wealth. Wouldn't it—nice today? Of course, now we give it away to transgender this, transgender that. Everybody gets a transgender operation. It's just wonderful. [Laughter] No, we give it away, like, to crazy things.

But, in those days, it was different. It was a different world. It was a different country. But we were very rich because of tariffs.

And I get myself in trouble because I say that "tariff" is my favorite word, and the fake news went crazy: What about "God"? What about "wife" and "family"? What about "love"? [Laughter] I said, "Okay, 'tariff' is now my fourth favorite word." [Laughter]

I got myself into a lot of trouble with that. You can't believe it. I said, "'Tariff' is my favorite word in the dictionary," and I got killed by the fake news. [Laughter] So I say now—it doesn't sound good—"'Tariffs,' it's my fourth favorite word." [Laughter] I go, "'Tariff' is my fourth favorite word." It sounds so terrible. But this way, I'm free. I ride free, you know. I don't get clobbered by the fake news.

But tariffs are also a powerful tool of diplomacy. And all around the world, I'm moving quickly to bring back peace through strength. We have the greatest—you know, I rebuilt our entire military in the first term. We left a lot of it—although, a lot of it, but very small, relatively, in Afghanistan, the Taliban has it. You know, they have their parade every year where they take our military vehicles and run them up some little street and, like, it's their form of a military parade. And it makes me angry when I see that. [Laughter] Angry. When I see that, I get angry. [Laughter]

You know, we give them—I don't think anyone knows this. We give Afghanistan about 2 or 2½ billion dollars a year—do you know that?—for aid. Aid. We need aid ourselves. We give it—and I'm going to go back—and I told them yesterday, I want to look at it. But if we're going to give them money, it's okay. But I want them to give us back our military equipment that they have. Right? They're selling it.

Doug, would you take that, please? All right? Write something up. No, I want them to give back. If we're going to give them that kind of money, let give back the military equipment, which they have—where they have tanks and trucks and guns and goggles. They have goggles. They have night goggles better than we have—brandnew, right out of the box. It's unbelievable. So, I want to do that.

And I want the—if we're going to pay them, I want to get that equipment back. Okay? Doug can do it. He's one of the guys. He's a business guy. He—to him, he's sitting there saying, "How the hell did this ever happen?" Right?

Can you believe it? We give them billions of dollars, and we gave them our military equipment, just tremendous numbers of billions of dollars worth of military—billions and billions.

We have a ceasefire in Gaza. And we're joined today by several survivors of the captivity under Hamas, including Noa Argamani and Ilana Gritzewsky. Gritzewsky. Wow, look at that. How beautiful. What a beautiful group of people.

Wow. Thank you very much. [Applause]Wow. Thank you very much.

And you're sitting next to a great guy, Sebastian Gorka—who's also now in the administration. From day one, right, Sebastian? He's been—he's been a loyalist from day one. We love Sebastian. Thank you very much, Sebastian.

Thank you, everybody. That's very nice. Beautiful. We're going to make it work somehow. You know, we're doing the best we can. We started—it should have never happened. That's the sad part. It would have never happened. If I were President, that I should have been—if I were President, it would have never happened. But it did, so we're doing the best we can with it. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Also with us are family members of some individuals who are still hostages, and we will not rest until all of the hostages have been returned back home. Some of them are coming home in very bad condition, and some of them are coming home only as bodies. They're dead. We have—a lot of them coming home now, they're dead.

And these are largely young people. Young people don't die. Young people are young people. They don't die like this, but they're dead.

And the parents come to me and they say, "Please, sir, could you get my son back?" "How old is he?" "Sir, my son is dead." It's important—just as important as if that son were alive to get the body back. It's amazing, actually. Amazing. Just as important. [Applause] Thank you. Thank you.

It's amazing, though, the parents—these—the parents are strong. I mean, look, "strong." What does "strong" mean? "Strong" is their life is ruined. Really, it's ruined. I see the people. But they come up to me, and it's so important to get the body back. They know.

And some are—are not sure. They're 80-percent sure he's dead or she's dead, but they have that little glimmer of hope. And I say let him have that hope, right? Let them have that hope. But getting the body back is just as important as getting the son back healthy or the daughter back healthy. It's amazing to see, when I see the level of intensity and love and sorrow and tragedy.

As I said in my Inaugural Address, it's my hope that my greatest legacy will be as a peacemaker, not a conqueror. I don't want to be a conqueror.

Under the Trump administration, every day brings more good news for America. I've ended all of the so-called diversity, equity, and inclusion programs across the entire Federal Government—and the private sector and notified every single Government DEI officer that their job has been deleted. They're gone. They're fired. You're fired. Get out. You're fired.

I made it the official policy of the United States Government that there are only two genders: male and female. That was easy.

I banned men from competing in women's sports. And I also proudly banned the use of—no, thank you. We banned the use of puberty blockers, hormone injections, and other chemical and surgical mutilation of your youth.

Could you imagine making a speech like this 10 years ago? People would say, "What the hell is he talking about?" Right? [Laughter] This is a sickness that came along with critical race theory and all of the other things that we had to put up with. And it's all out now. Critical race theory and transgender insanity, it's all gone from our schools and from our military.

And I believe it's gone too. I think we've turned the heads of even the people that—if you can believe they're believers, I don't know if they were, but I believe that it's all gone.

And I've directed the reinstatement of any servicemember who was expelled from the Armed Forces due to the COVID vaccine mandate. They will be returned to their former rank with full backpay. Full backpay.

I banned Government censorship from your voices and brought back free speech in America. We have free speech. We didn't have free speech. We do have it now, actually.

No, this was a very vicious regime. You know, I was put under investigation more so than the late, great Alphonse Capone, one of the great killers of the world. [Laughter] Trump—my father would look down, my mother: "How the hell did this happen to my boy? This wasn't"—no, I was under investigation at a far greater level than Al Capone or anybody else probably in the history of our country.

These people are sick. They're sick. They're bad people.

I ended Joe Biden's weaponization. As soon as I got in, I said, "I'm going to hit him with the same stuff." But I ended his whole weaponization of our Government and removed his handpicked, radical left, Marxist prosecutors from the Department of Justice. I was so happy to do that. They weaponized Government. They weaponized Government.

I pardoned hundreds and hundreds of Biden's political prisoners, including Christians, pro-life activists, and the J6 hostages who were treated terribly for years.

We even got rid of people like Pete Buttigieg, who did the worst job of anybody in the history of Transportation. What a bunch of losers.

I revoked the security clearances of Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, John Brennan, James Clapper, and every nonpatriot who lied to cover up Hunter Biden's laptop from hell. We took away their security clearances. And they're not allowed to enter any Government building either.

I also revoked Joe Biden's security clearances—the Biden crime family security clearances, and they'll no longer be allowed to access state secrets while selling themselves all around the world. Oh, well. No, these were bad people. These were bad people.

And I do that because this should never be allowed to happen again. What happened to me in this administration, what happened on J6, what happened on all of the things they did that were so bad should never, ever be allowed to happen again.

And on a friendlier note, I renamed the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. And we are restoring the name of a great President, William McKinley, to Mount McKinley in Alaska.

And as you know, many years ago, Jimmy Carter gave away the Panama Canal. And Panama started the process of giving the Panama Canal—by the way, the most expensive development ever in the history of our country, relatively. It would have been one and a half trillion in today's dollars. Thirty-eight thousand people died from our country building the Panama Canal. They died from mosquitoes and snakes. Think of it. They paid them five times their salary. They brought them to Panama, and they had a 25-percent chance of dying. They dug under nets so the mosquitoes wouldn't get them.

But we lost 38,000—mostly men—laborers, construction workers, because it was such a harsh way to live. It was very brutal. They died—38,000. Again, it was the most expensive thing we ever built, and they gave it away for $1 to Panama. And last year, it made $5 billion.

Also, that's one of the most successful projects ever built, in terms of money, monetarily. And it's the eighth wonder of the world. It connects two oceans, with one being 16 feet higher than the other. Think of it. The Pacific and the Atlantic, think of what that is. You're going through dikes and canals. Amazing what they did. It was really a wonder of the world.

We gave it away for nothing, but we didn't give it to China. We didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama. We're going to take back the Panama Canal.

In a matter of weeks, we have restored America's pride, America's confidence, and America's spirit. According to a brandnew poll from Rasmussen, the number of Americans who believe we are on the right track now exceeds the number who think we're on the wrong track. This is the first time in 23 years. That's hard to believe.

And we had one poll where we're at 81-percent right track, wrong track. I guess it depends on who. But that one poll, because Rasmussen has been a good poll, first time in over 20 years that we've had a positive number on that. That's great. That's great.

November 5, 2024, will go down as one of the most important days in the history of our country. I'm pointing to Mike Lindell. That man suffered. That man suffered. The FBI thugs went up to him, and they took away everything he had. He suffered. And Mrs. Lindell. He's a great guy. They went after him. It was just terrible. This was a vicious weaponization of your Government.

But he's all—I'll tell you, he stood up. He's all man. He stood up. He stood up strong, and nothing was going to faze him. And I want to thank you on behalf of everybody, Mike. You put up with a tremendous amount. And he never changed his mind. He said, "That election of 2020 was rigged," and he's more of a believer today than he was even 4 years ago. But now it's okay to say it, Mike. Now you—[laughter]—now it's fine.

Now, that's why—you know, when it comes to a day where you can't challenge crooked elections, we've got a real problem in this country.

And as of January 20, 2025, the dark days of high taxes, crushing regulations, rampant inflation, flagrant corruption, Government weaponization, and total incompetence, those days are over. They're over.

But we cannot stop now. We're going to push forward every single day. In the immortal words of that great American hero, Captain John Paul Jones, "I have not yet begun to fight." And neither have you.

Audience members. Fight! Fight! Fight!

The President. So, together, for the next 4 years, we are going to stand strong. We are going to work hard. We are going to fight, fight, fight and win, win, win.

Thank you to CPAC. Thank you, Matt. Thank you. Thank you, Mercedes. Thank you very much.

Thank you, everybody. God bless America. Thank you very much. God bless America. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.