Remarks #3 transcript, Jul 1, 2026 (Donald Trump)

But we fixed it up after a hundred and—think of it. It was 1922 that it came about, and from the day it was built, it leaked. From the day it was built, it didn't work. But when it did, when they had water, it was beautiful. It reflected Washington—the Washington Monument. It reflected Lincoln and Washington. Think of it. How beautiful. How beautiful.

And these people went in and cut it up, and they got caught. We'll see what happens with them, but they got caught. But they put a big gash, 350 feet long. Think of that—350-foot gash along the side of this very expensive material.

But we'll have it all—it's already good. We wanted to have it done for July 4, and it was done for July 4. And it's operating right now, but we'll let a little water out. We'll fix it up very quickly, Doug, and it will be just as good.

But we have, for the first time ever—what they don't say—we spent a very small amount of money too. What they don't say is Barack Hussein Obama—have you heard of him?

Boo!

Barack Hussein Obama spent tens of millions of dollars trying to fix it, and it was a disaster. Sleepy Joe Biden spent millions of dollars trying to fix it, and he was unable to do it. But we did it, and it works beautifully. It's a beautiful—we got rid of the algae, which they put in. They put in algae. Who the hell put in algae?

They had a couple of people with signs, "Protect the algae." [ Laughter ] Can you believe this? This world has gone crazy. [ Laughter ]

But today I'm proud to say that, after 4 years of decline, America is once again a nation that has strong borders, is respected by everyone—all countries all over the world. They respect your President, and they respect you. When they respect your President, they respect you.

And we solve problems, and we take things on, just like Theodore Roosevelt took things on. He took them on directly, right at them. He stared in their face. But our laws will be enforced, our laws will be protected, and our law enforcement is respected again.

You know, one of the things that I'm most proud of: When I was running in the campaign, and even before I announced, you could not get people to join the military. We had the worst years we've ever had under Sleepy Joe Biden. He had no idea what the hell he was doing. And people were ashamed of our country. And you couldn't get him to join.

And then we had a beautiful day, November 5, and we won it by a lot. We won by just a lot. It was incredible. We beat a woman named Kamala. We beat a brilliant young woman named Kamala, who had no clue.

She was the border czar. She never went to the border. She never called the Border Patrol. I said: "Fellas, you ever get a call from Kamala? She's the border czar." "No, sir. She never called." I used to call them every other day. "How we doing on the border?" Two months and we had a border that was perfect. Two months. But Kamala never called, and she never went. So, for 4 years, she was the border czar. She never went to the border. It's not—doesn't typically play out very well. And we had the worst border in the world.

But these are the people that were running our Government, and we were a laughingstock all over the world. Not anymore. They don't laugh at us anymore.

A Government that was honest and accountable was the number-one demand of the Declaration of Independence. They want honesty. They want respect.

And on this anniversary, we recommit ourselves to upholding that righteous legacy, and that's why I'm here. I'm in a State that I won by a landslide, but I won a lot of them by landslides, in all fairness. [ Laughter ] But this was a beauty. This was a beauty.

And I refuse to tell you—my son said, "Dad, don't say that." So I won't.

I refuse to tell you who got more votes: me or the legendary—and he was great—Theodore Roosevelt. I refuse to say—[ laughter ]—because you'll say: "He's a braggart. He's a terrible human being. He's a horrible person." So I refuse to say. I told my son, "I will not say." Thank you. Thank you for giving me some good advice, Eric Trump and Don Trump.

T.R. was also a staunch and ferocious opponent of a thing called communism. You've been hearing a lot about that lately. He said: "The doctrines of communistic socialism, if consistently followed, mean the ultimate annihilation of civilization." Other than that, he thought it was wonderful. [ Laughter ]

As we're seeing now, Communism is the greatest threat to our country, including—I believe this. You know, when I said it, I said, "Boy, that's pretty severe," but I think it's true. It's the biggest threat to our country, including World War I, World War II, Pearl Harbor, September 11.

I think it's a—a bigger threat—potentially a bigger threat than that, because it's like a cancer that spreads, and you'd better stop it fast. We will never let the United States become a Communist country. Won't happen. And four, three—you know, thank you.

Fourth, Theodore Roosevelt believed in an America that thinks big. He thought big. He was a big thinker. He was a tremendously big thinker.

On the Fourth of July in 1886, he spoke in Dickinson, North Dakota—anybody from Dickinson?—and said: "Like all Americans, I like big things; big prairies, big forests and mountains. I want them big." He wants big wheat fields. He wants tremendous railroads. Let them be big and beautiful and powerful. And herds of cattle. He wants everything big. He wants big factories, steamboats. He wants everything big.

It was cool. I mean, I thought. It was great, because I feel that way. [ Laughter ] I feel that—I've always felt that way.

Theodore Roosevelt wanted a big future, and he had big dreams for America. And thanks to him, we built the Panama Canal—that beautiful Panama Canal. That is not managed the way it should be, but we won't talk about that now.

But he did all of these incredible things with parks and everything else. And we vanquished every foreign power from the hemisphere, and he raised the American flag on the far side of the world.

He had our American flag planted on every part of the world. He would call—or whatever they did in those days—"Is the flag over there? Is the flag"—he wanted that flag to fly boldly in other countries and other parts of the world.

We built the "Great White Fleet." Did you ever hear of the "Great White Fleet?"

We used to build ships. We're going to start very soon building them again. We're building them like—wait till you see. Although, we do build the greatest submarines ever in—ever in the world. We're 15 years ahead on submarines and other things.

We do other things great, but we're going to start with the ships again. We used to build a ship a day. And now they got out of that. A lot of bad—a lot of people that didn't know what the hell they were doing in running our country.

Theodore Roosevelt understood that the grand and righteous ambition is not a vice; it is a American virtue. Having ambition is a positive thing, he said, not a negative thing. And it won us our country, and it's been among the greatest forces for good. It's been the greatest thing: our attitude and the attitude toward our country and making our country great—by some people. Not all Presidents were like that. I don't want to get involved with talking about the individual Presidents.

But we had some good. We had a few great. We had a couple. But we had some good, but we had some really bad ones, and they set us back very, very substantially. In particular, the last one.

A nation, like an individual, either rises or falls, builds or decays, lives or dies by this. As we look into the future of our 250th year, it's time that we get out there and we expand our aspirations and our ambitions and build the country that will inspire the entire world for a generation. So that's what we're doing.

Again, we have more money being invested in the United States of America by other countries and people than ever before, by many, many times over. The fake news doesn't like talking about it, but they see what's happening. Look at the stock market. Every day, it's hitting a new high. I think it's 82 times now. In a short period of time, 82. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing.

And all of you that have 401(k)s, which are many—who has a 401(k)? Four-oh-one-k, yes. Big percentage of the audience. Everyone that has a 401(k) is setting records right now in your 401(k). Your wife, your husband, your kids, they all think you're a genius. I'm the genius. I'm the one that—I'm only kidding. [ Laughter ]

No, I told the story the other day for a first time. A policeman came up to me—a big, strong, good-looking guy—and he said, "Sir, I want to thank you." He was almost sort of crying. I said, "What do you want to talk to me about, Officer?" He was standing on line. He was watching as I shook hands with people.

Some of these people are extremely strong in shaking hands. They break your hand because they're so—"Sir, thank you very much." The guy is an NFL offensive lineman. "Sir, I'd like to thank you very much." "Wha!"—[ laughter ].

But he came up to me and he said, "Sir"—I was leaving—"I want to thank you so much." "Why?" "My 401(k) is up 84 percent. My wife was disgusted with me for years. We just—it was just going in the wrong direction. But it's up 84 percent this year, and I just want to thank you, sir, because it's really helped me with my marriage. My wife is respecting me again. She thought I was an idiot." [ Laughter ]

This is a big, strong guy. But the women, you—you know the women rule. You know that. We know. All the guys in there, you know.

This guy is a big, powerful guy, and he was petrified of his wife. [ Laughter ] But you know what? He said: "My wife now respects me again. She thinks I'm a genius. She thinks I'm Warren Buffett. She thinks I'm one of the greatest investors."

But they are up. But everybody in this room, there's not one person here that hasn't been go- —going up 50, 60, 70, 80 percent—your 401(k)s. You're making a lot of money. Everybody is.

And we have more people working today than any time in the history of our country. We have more people working today than at any time.

And we inherited a tremendous inflation problem from Biden. We inherited the worst inflation in history—48 years, they say, but let's say history. It was the worst inflation, and prices were high, and those prices are all coming down. And you see fuel is coming way down. It's dropping like a rock, just like I said. Because those boats are coming out of the Hormuz Strait. They're coming out by numbers that nobody ever saw.

We're setting records, actually. The oil is dropping. We have some great oilmen here. I don't know if they're happy or sad. I don't give a damn if they're happy or sad. I want the prices to go down, and the oil is dropping like nobody thought possible. But I told you it would.

Total control. We have total control of everything. This is just the beginning of the golden age of America. We're in the golden age of America, and America is going to experience something that I can truly say, I believe, the best is yet to come. It's going to be coming—and it's here.

But it's coming at speeds that nobody thought possible.

Finally, Theodore Roosevelt understood that whatever our background, we are all Americans. We're Americans first, united under one flag, and we don't wipe our hands on a flag.

Did you hear the person? One of our Communist—one of our Communist people.

Boo!

But they cleaned it up. The press cleaned that statement up. You know that, right? She didn't use the word "hand." She used a different word—a disgusting word. They're disgusting pigs. She didn't use the word "hand." They said "hand." She used another word. You know what word I'm talking about. These people are a disgrace.

That's why Theodore Roosevelt boldly fought for what he called "the new nationalism"—the word "nationalism" is a very interesting word—putting the needs of the whole nation and all of these people above partisanship, lobbyists, crooked politicians.

That's this—one thing with these guys, they are honest as hell. I'd let you know if they were crooked. If John or Kevin were crooked, I'd say, "They're crooked pols." But they're honest. Maybe they're too honest, actually. We've got to get a little action going here, fellas.

But no, these are great politicians. They're great people. That's why you put them back in office in record numbers, the two of them, all the time.

But T.R. knew that true patriotism demanded caring for the worker, the environment, and the health and culture and integrity for the Nation itself. He was something special. He was a really great man. He was a man the likes of which you may never see again, but we'll all get close and we'll all try and duplicate what he's done, because he was a man of unbelievable genius and unbelievable toughness and principle.

So I want to just say that it's an honor to be with you. It's an honor to be asked to represent our Nation in the opening of what will be a truly great library, museum, or center. Call it what you want. And he deserves it as much as anybody that's ever been President of the United States, which is such a great honor.

And I just want to thank everybody for being here on this extremely hot day. It's a beautiful day, and it's a beautiful State, and I want to thank you all.

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.