Remarks transcript, Jun 23, 2026 (Donald Trump)

They're all being forced—a guy like Shapiro, he's going to be forced to the left; otherwise, he's not going to get the nomination.

But they voted against proof of citizenship. Think of it. We'd like to have proof of citizenship. You walk into the voting booth. "Would it be okay, sir, if I looked at your"—"How dare you ask me for my citizenship?"

You know, in California, if you ask that question to a voter, you are criminally liable. In other words, they can put you in jail. If you say, "Sir, do you have proof of citizenship," they put you in jail if they ask that question. You're not allowed to ask that.

Did you know that? It's the craziest thing I've ever seen going on.

Hey, did they screw the kid, Pratt? Boy. He's leading, and, all of a sudden, he's lost. And it was sort of interesting. The election—you ever see an election where they're 2½ weeks in, an election that takes weeks to count the votes? But after the evening, it looked like he was going to win or certainly be in the runoff. And then I started hearing rumors as the days went by—days and days went by, that Pratt is fading. He's fad—I said, "They rigged the election." And then, lo and behold, he didn't qualify, even though he was so far up, and the third-place person that—it was almost impossible, and he didn't qualify.

And then it started happening with the next candidate, Steve Hilton, who's running for Governor. He was up in front, just about leading. No problem. And, all of a sudden, about 4 or 5 days after—this is after the election's over—they said, "Steve Hilton is starting to lose votes." I said, "Here we go again."

And I called up the U.S. attorney in California. They said: "We're going to have a number in the next week. Next week." I called up the very powerful, very good U.S. attorney in California, and I said: "Do me a favor. Take a look. They're trying to steal that election too."

I guess they called up. They said, "This is the U.S. attorney calling"—we have your great U.S. attorney here today, by the way, and your assistant U.S. attorney. They're doing great.

David, thank you.

But—so, over the next week, he was definitely going to lose. But the U.S. attorney called. "We want to check your votes." About an hour after the call, "Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hilton has won." So the—had I not made that call, Steve Hilton would right now be looking—watching the election from home.

So I don't know. You know, he would have a great chance, but the election is totally rigged. California is totally rigged, all mail-in ballots. It's a disgrace.

We got to pass the SAVE America Act. Okay? We got to pass it. We got to pass SAVE America. You, McGee. Thank—look at these guys. These—what love.

A friend of mine is a very big real estate developer, but he's got a problem with speaking in front of crowds. He chokes. You know, he chokes like a dog. He said, "How do you do it?" I say: "It's easy because there's so much love in the room. There's so much unbelievable love, it's easy to do." You know?

No, he's got this tremendous fear of speaking. He said—the guy's a major player—most of you have heard of him—and he's a killer. He destroys people for a living—financially, not physically—financial. Physically, he can't—he can barely walk. He's a basket case. But he's—up here, he's very smart. And he destroys people. He's very rich, but he can't get up in front of a crowd and talk.

I said, "What's wrong with you?" He said: "I don't know. I have a fear of crowds." Do you believe it?

All sorts of people—you know, a lot of people want to do what I did. A lot of people—well, David did it. David was very successful, but he's a great speaker.

But a lot of people, they say: "Well, Trump became President from being a very successful businessman. He ran. He became President. I want to do it too." And that's when they find out that they might have the flaw of speaking. Or even worse is a terrible past. You know, the past will come out to haunt you. It's not an easy thing to do, but I love it.

You know, I say it's real easy to do when you have people that love you. I guarantee—who here voted for Trump? Yes.

Who didn't—this is dangerous, so don't raise your hand and think you're going to be cute, because you might be in big problem. Then they'll blame me for causing problems.

Who did not vote for Trump?

Young man, he wants to be—he's a young man. He thinks he's being cute, as he gets pounded on.

No, he just said: "No, I did. I was the first"—he said, "I'm the first in line." But the "Dumocrats" voted in favor of Iran having a nuclear weapon, and they voted against military spending, but I overrode that.

Let me tell you, if the "Dumocrats" get in, your 15,000 trucks that Mr. Roy is looking to get are dead. They're not going to have 15,000. They're not going to have 15 trucks. They'll be back to the number I originally guessed, right? Fifth—"how many are you making, 15?" Fifteen thousand trucks will be down to nothing—zero—and they'll make you put electric on it. You know, electric, so that when you're in the middle of a jungle someplace and you need a charge, "Where is my charging booth?"

Boo!

As opposed to carrying a nice tank of diesel on your back, throwing it in, and taking off, right? "Where's my charging booth," they'll be saying.

They created the strongest—we created the strongest military in history, and you see that with Venezuela. Venezuela, a 1-day operation, like—great. Good army.

And now we're making a lot of money with Venezuela, and Venezuela is doing great also. We have a—it's a happy country now. But it took us exactly 48 minutes to win that war.

We have the greatest military in the world. Forty-eight minutes, and we've paid for the cost of the war—wait till you hear this—28 times already—more, but 28 times.

So the cost of the war, we've already—because we have—we've brought millions of barrels of oil out, and we're getting along great.

The people running it, they're our people. They're great people. And the people are happy in the country. They have smiles. They were miserable. They were starving. But they have a lot of oil under that ground. You know how you find oil in Venezuela? Just look at the ground. You'll see oil bubbling up. They have so much oil, they don't know what to do with it. But they had a bad system.

They're making more money now for the country than they've ever made before, and we're making a lot of money too.

But also, Iran. We knocked them out. One week, it was, essentially, militarily over. A much bigger country, 91 million people, and much different ideology. The ideology of the Muslims is slightly different than the ideology of the Catholics. We have the Catholics and the Muslims—slightly different.

But Venezuela has been great, and Iran has been great. I mean, you know, if Iran's reasonable, if they're smart—otherwise, we'll have to finish the job, which will take about—maybe less than a week. But they're going to be okay, I think. They're going to do what they have to do, because we want to have it done.

But they voted against lower energy prices—the "Dumocrats" did—and then they went on to create the highest energy prices that we've ever had in the history of our country—people don't realize that—much higher than ours during a war.

They had the highest inflation in history. The highest inflation in history. They say 48 years, but that's sort of history, as far as I'm concerned. And they were absolutely terrible on affordability.

Remember, I got here—my first day, the fake news is screaming at me, "What about affordability?" I'm only here one day. Remember, eggs were up about five times higher than they ever were? And we have—prices coming down right now at levels that you've never seen. And now with oil crashing, you're going to see something really amazing.

And to top everything else, they let 25 million people into our country, many of them criminals and thugs and people from mental institutions and drug dealers.

Boo!

They even let 11,888 murderers into our country—murderers, 11,888—more than 50 percent of which have killed more than one person. And I've gotten the worst of them out. We've gotten them out—Tom Homan and our whole group of people.

But the "Dumocrats" want open borders, and they want them all to come back in. You can imagine that.

The people of this Commonwealth will never let that happen again. What they allowed to happen to our country, we can never allow to happen again.

As an example, the war with Russia and Ukraine would have never ever started if I were President. We can never let elections get rigged again.

But we're pleased to be joined today by one of those Pennsylvanians who's benefiting from the historic tax cuts: Sergeant Sam Elias with the Bethlehem Police Department, who's a great guy. [ Applause ] Ooh, they know him.

Sam works the night patrol so that he can help his wife take care of their six beautiful children during the day, and I'm told their youngest is named "Melania." Can you believe that? They named Melania—where did you come up with that one?—after our great First Lady. So, Sam is taking home thousands of dollars extra because of no tax on overtime.

And, Sam, do you want to come up and say a few words? Come on up. Come on up, Sam.

Thank you for all you do.

Good-looking guy.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. I'd like to express my appreciation to President Trump, Congressman Ryan Mackenzie, and the entire White House administration.

As a father of six children in a single-income household, I can tell you the Working Families Tax Cuts is a policy that helps my family. Hard work should pay off, not get punished with higher taxes.

No tax on overtime, no tax on tips means more money in the pockets of working Americans. For my family, these savings have translated to what was once a trip—a day trip to the park is now an overnight stay at the Jersey Shore.

Additionally, thank you to President Trump and your entire administration. After more than 50 years, the Lebanese people finally have an American ally who advocates for a sovereign and independent Lebanon governed by the Lebanese people.

That's right.

Thank you for that.

That's right.

Mr. President, you have the support of almost 20 million Lebanese people worldwide.

Leadership is more than a title. It's action. I'm grateful for the actions coming from President Trump and Congressman Ryan Mackenzie.

Your actions have prioritized the American dream: less taxes, safer communities, and America-first policies.

I thank you, President Trump. Happy belated birthday, and happy birthday to the United States of America.

Thank you, and God bless.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Thank you very—you know, I was looking at all these pages. I said: "Oh, we're in trouble. Look." [ Laughter ] This—but you know what? That was good. That was a good job. I was a little worried when I saw the pages after page. Huh? Very good. Great job.

Sam, where's your father? Hello, Pop. How are you? Got a good boy. Got a good boy. Yes. We're taking care of your people.

So our administration is also delivering one historic win after another for another group that works a lot of overtime, and that's our great autoworkers. We have a lot of autoworkers in here today.

But just as I promised the UAW workers—and we did great with them. You know, Republicans, I don't know, for whatever reason, they don't do like I do.

But in the campaign, I ended Biden's insane electric vehicle mandate. That crazy mandate, which meant that, in a short while, all cars had to be all electric, and many of them would be built in China and others in foreign countries all over the world.

That's what was going to happen, and I stopped that. I ended it my first week in office. I ran on it.

And you know what? If you like electric cars, I think that's great. I wouldn't say Elon was thrilled with what I did, but he understood that.

But if you like electric cars, I think it's great, but you have to have the right to buy a regular—I mean, we have more gasoline than any country anywhere in the world. If you want to have gas, if you want to have a hybrid, you can have whatever the hell you want, including electric.

But I terminated Biden's disastrous fuel emission standards that would have crushed Mack Trucks. Your—Mr. Roy, your company would be crushed if I didn't do that. You would have been—you wouldn't be bidding on anything, neither would anybody else.

It was the most insane environmental regulations ever conceived of by man. It was totally unreasonable and ridiculous. And you can sell trucks for much less money that are now much better trucks that work. That actually work.

And we made interest on auto loans fully tax deductible, but only if you buy a car that is made in the U.S.A. Otherwise, we're not interested. Otherwise, we're not interested.

And I saved the auto manufacturing business in America. We have more auto plants being built today than we've had in 60 years, and I think maybe ever, and bigger and better.

They had one, a big one, in a certain State that I love also. I love a lot of places. And they took out this old plant, but it was big. And I said, "Did you redo it yet?" They said: "We're not redoing it. We're ripping down and building a brandnew one, a beauty." You know the one I'm talking about, David.

But we're pleased to be joined today by Pat McHugh—a Marine Corps veteran, a great guy—who spent 28 years with Mack Trucks. And he leads the cab assembly and serves as new product line launch leader. It's a big deal.

And Pat's grandfather worked here, his dad worked here, and now his son is working here and doing well. And they know how important it is to keep manufacturing jobs in Pennsylvania.

Pat, say a few words please.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Wow. Good afternoon, Mr. President. It is a profound honor and privilege to have you here us—with us today to help celebrate the upcoming 250th birthday of our America and, most recently, our 125th anniversary of building Mack trucks.

My name is Patrick McHugh, Jr., and I am a proud Marine Corps veteran. In addition to that, though, I am an even prouder Mack Truck employee.

Standing here with me today is my father and my son, both Mack Truck workers. Together, they have a combined 78 years working experience building the greatest trucks on Earth. You can say Mack trucks runs in our blood.

At Mack Trucks, we work hard to build the trucks that help build America, and we are proud that those trucks are built in the United States of America. Along with our UAW colleagues, we're open for business, and we're producing the best-quality trucks we ever have.

On behalf of our entire team, we warmly welcome you to our plant, Mr. President, home of the finest trucks in America, built by the most skilled and dedicated workforce in the trucking industry.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

So, Mr. President, I want to say thank you for choosing to highlight Mack Trucks on your visit today, and thank you for supporting our American workforce.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Well, thank you, Pat. That's a good family. That's a great family. Great people. They're proud of your company.

I want to also thank two people, very special people, because I know them and I know what they do, and it's not easy, but they've done a great job: David Durgin and Timothy Hertzog of the UAW committee. Where are you guys? Thank you. Thank you very much.

They do a good job representing you. Ease up just a little bit so they can get the contract. Okay? [ Laughter ] Just a little bit. [ Laughter ] Thank you, fellas.

Get this Congressman elected; that's what you got to do.

But we're pleased to be joined also by Labor Secretary Keith Sonderling. Keith. Where are you, Keith? Where's Keith? Hi, Keith. Good job.

Is he treating you guys good? Is he all right? He better treat you good.

A very special guy, somebody that everybody wanted. I have to tell you: Everybody wanted him. He's some person. He was actually an astronaut. He went out, he made a lot of money because he's smart, and he's now the NASA Administrator. You saw that rocket, 2 months ago, up and go around the moon in record levels—the furthest any ship has ever flown—and come back. And he's working very heavily on the Moon. But what he's done with NASA is amazing, and he's a very special person and a brilliant one: Jared Isaacman. Jared, thank you. Good job. Good job. Great job.

As well as—you know, I introduced him a little bit only by the name "David," because he knows me and I know him by David. But David McCormick is your Senator, and he's a brilliant person, brilliant businessman. And he loves the Commonwealth. He loves Pennsylvania, and this is where he wanted to be. And he had a rough—I told you, he had a rough fight. This is a rough beating, like 24 years—and a father for 24 years. I don't know. I said: "I don't know. Are you sure you know what you're doing, David?" But you won, and you won easily.

And I'll tell you what: You have a great Senator, one of the best in the country. So, I just want to thank you very much, David. Thank you.

And four warriors for Pennsylvania in Congress—these are warriors: Lloyd Smucker is here. Lloyd, thank you. Thank you. John Joyce is here. John, thank you.

Dan Meuser is here. Thank you.

And these guys are all in good shape, but we've got to get Ryan Mackenzie elected. We got to get Ryan. I'm not here for them; I'm here for him. We got to get Ryan elected. Run up here, Ryan. Fast. Nobody wants to hear you. Come on. Just run up. Nobody wants to hear you, Ryan.

Do what David did. He'd go up for 1 minute. "Thank you very much, everybody. It's nice to be here. See you." And everybody thought he was the greatest speaker. Right?

Okay. Say a few words.

Absolutely.

Well, Mr. President, I can't thank you enough for coming here to the Lehigh Valley, highlighting the great men and women of Mack Trucks, doing all the work that you do in Washington, DC, for our veterans, our first responders, and everybody across this country to continue to maintain America as the greatest country in the world.

You are the President that is fighting for all Americans. Thank you for being here, sir. Thank you, sir.

This is a great job. Thank you for being here, sir.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

That's great. Wow. That's great. He learned something from you, David, huh? That's great.

We also have one of the greatest writers anywhere in the country, who knows more about the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, I think, than anybody. It's a—she's a terrific person.

Right from the beginning, she said, "Trump is going to win." Therefore, I like her. [ Laughter ] She said, "Trump is going to win" in 2015. In fact, she wrote an article in 2014. She said, "This guy, Trump, should run." I hadn't thought too much about it. I was having a lot of fun putting up buildings. But she was very early on.

And I really mean it: I don't think she—I don't think there's anybody that knows more about—they used to call it the "Rust Belt." I call it the "Money Belt" now. It's gone from the Rust Belt to the Money Belt. Either one is okay. But there's nobody that knows more about it than Salena Zito. She's fantastic.

Where are you, Salena? Where are you, Salena, with your beautiful daughter? Thank you, Salena.

Salena is an incredible woman, and her daughter is following in her footsteps. She's just been so good, a very powerful writer, actually, in some of the biggest papers in the world. It's nice to have good stories on occasion—truthful stories.

Thanks as well to the president of the NRA, who's here with me, Bill Bachenberg. Bill, stand up.

And they always give me their endorsement because I saved the Second Amendment, and you think it's easy. On occasion, it was not easy—right, Bill?—but we did it. We did it with your help, and we're doing a couple of other things working with you and your people, but I think you've done a fantastic job.

The NRA, everybody—they really have been—they've been with me right from the beginning.

And Bill asked me would I support the national right-to-carry legislation. How do you feel about national right to carry?

That's my free poll. You know what that is? That's a free poll. I don't have to pay $300,000 to somebody that doesn't even do polling. You know, they give you phony numbers. See, those are real numbers.

National right to carry. Yes, we're working on it.

And we have a very special guest who you just saw on the highest rated fight show ever in the history of television: the UFC Freedom 250. So this guy—well, I just have to set it up a little bit, if I don't—because I'm thinking, you know, I'm a similar size. I'm actually—I weigh more than he does, actually, so therefore I have a tremendous physical advantage over him. [ Laughter ] His muscles are slightly harder and slightly younger. He's a lot younger, but I think I can do it because I'm a great athlete. He knows I'm a very good golfer, and I'm much better off on the golf course against him than I am on the wrestling mat.

But he went virtually undefeated. I mean, he went 4 years—he was the top wrestler. His friend, Tony, who's a—another champion—I'll introduce you too, Tony, but these two guys were on the Penn State team. And Bo Nickal went—I mean, you couldn't defeat the guy. And then he had every medal—I guess he was a three- or four-time All-American, but then he turned pro, and he went to the UFC.

Did you find them tougher? What—[ laughter ]—yes, it's a little different. You know, a little different. But he's won just about everything.

But he had a big fight last week with a lot of pressure, with the White House in the background, and that—he's a guy that I like. I met him a while ago. I looked at the ears. I said, "Man, this guy is a fighter." You can tell a lot by the ears. And he told me, "No, he doesn't mind the ears." He likes them. It's almost a symbol. For great fighters, it's a symbol.

That's why I'm worried about you, Tony. You have pretty normal ears. [ Laughter ]

But I got to know Bo a little bit, and I've got to root for him, and I was—I almost felt like his father up there. His father is great, but I felt like his father, so I was nervous for the fight. And he was fighting somebody that Dana White—the great Dana White; he's a phenomenal guy—he said, "No, Bo has got a tough one tonight." I said: "Why? Why do you do that to him?" Because if you lose it this night—it was the biggest audience they've ever had, by far. The whole world watched it.

The people at the White House—we had 5,000 seats around the cage we built. And we had 100,000—more than 100,000 people in the park right next door, and we had the largest television audience they've ever had, by far.

I said, "Why do you have to give him such a tough opponent?" He was pretty tough.

But then it happened. So Bo is known as a great wrestler, because he was the best wrestler by far in college. Nobody could beat him, and I figured Bo would be wrestling. But no, he wasn't wrestling. He was punching. I said: "Bo, grab his legs and start wrestling. That's what you do." But he didn't do that. He didn't listen to me, and he got a shot off that was brutal.

And in the first round—right?—knocked him out. He was really knocked out. Good—a good—great fighter. The guy was a great fighter—is a great fighter.

So I just want to thank—you know, he's from Penn State. He loves Penn State. He is the NCAA wrestling champion. And just fantastic.

And his friend—and you probably know is also—I think you were roommates, right? That's a tough room. I wouldn't want to fight these two guys. "Let's go pick on those two guys." I don't think so.

But he was the heavyweight, and he lost a lot of weight. He weighed 35, 40 pounds. I asked him, "How much did you wrestle?" "About 40 pounds heavier." In other words, you want to live, right? You decide to lose it. But he was also the champion, NCAA champion, and his name is Anthony Cassar.

So come up here, fellas, because I want to just ask the audience a question. Come here. Come here, Bo.

So here's my question. If I work out for the next couple of months, really work hard, lifting those weights that were—and really, really work—could I beat Bo or Anthony in wrestling?

You're very disloyal. [ Laughter ] You're very disloyal.

Say a couple of words about your fight.

Thank you. Appreciate it.

Wow. What an honor to be here. I think, walking up here, I was almost as nervous as the fight, but it feels like a fight.

It feels like it, right?

Yes, it feels like it. But this is exciting. I'm grateful to be here with everybody.

So grateful to President Trump for making an event that, in my mind, never seemed possible happen: UFC Freedom 250 on the White House lawn. Unbelievable.

I don't think there are too many Presidents that have the courage to do something like that. And, you know, just so unbelievable.

For me, both my parents were high school teachers. My dad was a wrestling coach, my grandpa was a wrestling coach, and I grew up around sports and just competing from 5 years old. And so, to be able to do something like that is a dream come true. And it's just through hard work, effort, discipline, and a lot of time in the wrestling room, a lot of time in the cage that I was able to do that.

And that's really because America is the land of opportunity. And if you set to your mind to something and you feel passionate about what you do, you can accomplish anything. And thank you.

That's great.

I want to tell—I don't want to take too much time, but I want to tell a quick story about the first time I met President Trump. It was in 2019 at the White House, and our team and I won the nationals, the NCAAs, and—at Penn State.

We are!

We are. [ Laughter ] Let's go.

And we were given the opportunity to meet President Trump, and it was really special because he took a lot of extra time to talk with us as wrestlers. I think he respected the wrestlers a lot. And I told him that when I'm done wrestling, I was going to fight. And he asked me if I needed a manager. [ Laughter ] And I thought that he has better things to do than that.

But really, since then, I feel like we've had a special connection that I'm extremely grateful for.

And you know, fast-forward 7 years: I'm fighting on the White House lawn, and I turn and look at my corner, and President Trump is right next to him.