Keynote transcript, Jun 26, 2026 (Donald Trump)

But they'd come up from South America and all through Mexico. They'd go all through. And they'd go through jungles in Colombia. Really tough jungles too. Dangerous jungles. And women would die, and women would be raped.

Remember when I mentioned—when I said, "They get raped"? Crime. Murder. And everyone—my first speech—my first speech was controversial, when I announced I was running. Everyone said, "What do you mean, 'raped'?" What I said was peanuts compared to what happened.

And the women would come up, and they'd die. They'd be raped. A lot of people would die on those caravans. Those—the journeys up were—they called them "journeys through hell," because they had to go through jungles. They had to go through very dangerous areas.

And the people that got here would just walk right into our country. We had no idea who they were. Nobody would even stand there and check. They just came in. "Come on in. Come on in."

This was Sleepy Joe Biden's ideology that was forced on him by much smarter people than him that wanted to destroy our country, because he had no clue.

But, with the help of our law enforcement heroes, in 2025, we achieved the largest drop in the murder rate ever recorded in our country's history, 125 years ago. Think of that: 19—think of that. The year 1900.

That was before my father. My father would hate me saying that because it's a long time ago. But that was before my father was born. I had a wonderful father and mother, but—and family. But the lowest murder rate in 125 years.

Washington, DC, is now one of the safest, most beautiful cities in the country. And just a little while ago, it was a killing machine. Think of that. A year and a half ago, Washington was a very unsafe city. Now it's one of the safest cities in the country. It's one of the most beautiful cities.

Doug Burgum and myself and a whole group of people did a great job on the monuments and fountains. And the Reflecting Pool was so beautiful.

They tried to destroy it. They cut it up with a box knife and tried to destroy it, and it's in great shape now. They're terrible. They're vandals. They're—they've caught six of them, I guess. Maybe more. They've got others in line to be caught.

But we just inspected it. We'll fix it right after the Fourth of July. Got to let the water out. Just fix it. But we caught them.

They would cut it, and they would grab this very expensive and very good material—totally waterproof—and they rip it. These people are sick. They ripped a scar 350 feet long through the side of the Reflecting Pool.

These are the people we're dealing with. These are the people that want to destroy our country.

But we've invested a record $1 trillion in the United States Armed Forces, and we're going, this year, for $1.5 trillion, all made in the U.S.A.

And something that's so exciting: the recruitment. You know, if you go back a year and a half, 2 years ago, you could not get anybody to join the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines, the Coast Guard, Space Force. You couldn't get anybody to join. They had tremendous recruitment problems. But now recruitment in every branch of our military is setting records.

Eighteen months ago, we had tremendous shortages, and we couldn't fill them up. We were never going to fill them up.

That included police and firemen. We couldn't get police men and women, we couldn't get fire men and women—anything with a uniform—because they were ashamed of our country because we had people that were not respected.

You have to respect the President. If you don't respect the President, you're going to have a problem—going to have a problem. They had no respect.

And now we have waiting lists. Now you can't get into the military. Literally, we went from the worst recruitment numbers ever—in 1 year—to the best recruitment numbers ever. And it all started on that beautiful day: November 5. Right? A thing called election day.

And as soon as we won, before I even got to do anything, it—those numbers started going through the roof. People love our country again, and they have spirit. You always loved it, but you were down, you were depressed, you were not feeling too good about our country.

Especially you. As people with a great religion and a fervor for Christianity and religion, you were very—you should be depressed, you should have been. But now you're riding high.

But we have to be careful. We don't want to lose it. We've got to win the midterms. We've got to win the election coming up. And we're going to be in good shape.

But you have to expose them. If you don't expose them—I mean, I stand here, and I expose them. Some people don't do it right.

They say, "They're going to get free rent." Well, that's okay to say, but everyone's going to vote for them, except for a few of the people in this room. [ Laughter ]

But you have to say: "They're going to get free rent, but in 2 years, everything is going to collapse and you're going to live in squalor." When you say that, you can beat the free rent. You can beat the fact that they're going to take your house away and give it to somebody else, which is essentially what they'd like to do.

But it's happened so many times over the years with really powerful countries, and we're not going to let it happen.

So we have the strongest and most powerful military anywhere in the world. I built it in my first term—using it a little bit on my second term. And we're once again using it to defend America's interests and American values.

Look at what happened in Venezuela. We have a great—and by the way, we're helping Venezuela. They had a tremendous earthquake. Lot of people killed. An unbelievable—right in Caracas. And we have a lot of people over there helping.

But Venezuela has been fantastic. We've had a great relationship. It was a 1-day war. We hit them so hard, and—1-day war. Now, we've taken out millions of barrels of oil, and we've paid for the war many times over. But, just as importantly, they are doing better than they've ever done.

Thank you!

They're making more money than they've ever done. They've never made the money that they're making now. And it's really—I mean, outside of what happened last night, with the terrible—that was terrible what happened. It was a big earthquake. Knocked down buildings.

But outside, it was really a—it's a happy country again. The people are happy. They're dancing in the streets. The people running it are doing a very good job.

The United States has never been stronger. We have never been wealthier. We've never been prouder to be an American.

Since 1776, America's story has been a tale of freedom, overcoming oppression, good defeating evil, and faith overcoming every challenge and every foe. We had—everybody was winning, and we're going to continue. Stronger. Maybe stronger.

One generation—think of it. Just one generation after our War of Independence, the British tried—they really tried hard—to conquer America in the War of 1812. That didn't work out too well. But they failed, and the cause of freedom won, and it continues to win.

The war of survival ultimately gave America our national anthem and our Star-Spangled Banner. Many Americans know the story of Francis Scott Key writing the words of the anthem and—watched the flag under attack, and he wrote that beautiful—those beautiful words.

But what few realize is that the very same poem also inspired our national motto. The fourth verse of the song ends in these words: "And this be our motto: 'In God We Trust.'" "In God We Trust."

And, as you know, the "Dumocrats" want to end that. They don't want the words "In God We Trust." They want to have that stricken. They go to court. They take us to court. We're never changing that. We'll fight for that. We're not changing that. In God We Trust. Better believe it.

So today, on the threshold of our 250th year, this room is proof that America is still a nation that lives by those magnificent words, "In God We Trust."

With the help of everyone here today and Americans of faith all across this land, we will continue to protect the promise of the Declaration of Independence—one of which actually is in my office, in the Oval Office. So, with—we cherish it. We will continue to defend our values, our traditions, our faith, and our freedom.

And as we enter the golden age of America—that's what we have. This is the golden age. We've never had anything like it. We have factories all over the country. We have car plants, AI plants, all sorts of plants. Our businesses are expanding. Our numbers are unbelievable.

Remember that we've never had a year with so many number-one stock markets. Good to have number-ones because that affects everybody. That means jobs. That means success. That's good, as we said, for your 401(k)s. It's good for your stock investments. Everyone's doing well.

We have a country that's just the hottest. It just is so hot. And I'm working really hard to make it even better. We're going to get rid of some of the flaws. We're going to make it even better.

But the biggest thing we have to do is, we have to stop this horrible threat of cancer that's permeating our country, called "Communism." We have to stop it, because that's what it's about. That's what they want to do quietly.

And we ask that God will continue to bless the United States of America, and God will bless the United States of America because of people like you.

Thank you very much. And happy Independence Day, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you.