Keynote transcript, Jul 6, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Hello, everybody.

Well, this is going to be—this is going to be something—it never happened before, I understand. And we have some very brilliant people representing two exchanges. First time you've ever come together like this, right? [ Laughter ]

This is going to be very interesting. Why don't we do it every day? [ Laughter ] Bring people together. That's what I'm known for: bringing people together. So, anyway, that's great. Nice to have you both.

Thank you, everybody.

So let's see, the status is: We have the press. They don't want to know anything about soccer-slash-football. Fortunately, they won't be asking any questions on that.

Nobody cares about that, right? This is about the Trump Accounts, which are absolutely incredible for children. Children can, at the age of 18 and after, become very wealthy people. Come into the world with essentially no money and end up, at a pretty young age, being very rich, and that's something that we've wanted to do—this country's wanted to do for 25 years.

Michael and Susan, you've been so great. My Gerstner man has been so fantastic. You pushed everybody. It was so good. [ Laughter ]

And I just want to thank everybody. It's a great honor. We'll have a little fun. And we want to be exactly on time.

Are we allowed to be 15, 20, 30 seconds late? Look at that clock. [ Laughter ] Typically, no good, Jeff, right? [ Laughter ] And I'm going to ring that bell. And does that bell—does it stay in the White House?

It does, sir.

Because I'm not giving it back. [ Laughter ] I'm going to put that in the middle of the new ballroom. I'm not going to give that bell back. [ Laughter ]

The bell is yours.

It looks to me like it's going to stay.

Yes.

It's staying here.

Well, we'll watch the clock.

Okay. I'll get over at the bell, right?

Yes.

Yes, good, I'll introduce you, sir.

I want to stand next to these soon-to-be very rich people. [ Laughter ]

Good. So we'll get going. And good morning. I'm grateful to be with you on this historic occasion. The American Dream belongs to every child, and today we are equipping the next generation with the right to claim their rightful share of it. Through Trump Accounts, our President is creating an ownership economy—an ownership economy where all citizens become shareholders.

Thirty-eight percent of American families do not have any exposure to our great equity markets, but with Trump Accounts, over time, we can get that number to zero.

Already, 6 million American children have signed up, 86 percent of them with families earning less than $200,000. U.S. Treasury—1.4 million of those accounts will receive $1,000 from the U.S. Treasury to seed the accounts.

When the markets open in just a few minutes——

No, right now. [ Laughter ]

You'd better speak a little faster.

Oh—Trump Accounts will benefit——

You'd better speak——

——so ring the bell, Mr. President.

He's become a superstar—[ laughter ]—so he just takes his time. One of those things. I get it.

So I will just finish by saying, on the eve the—of our—or on the heels of our 250th anniversary, that this will be one of the President's most enduring legacies and the great bounty of this will go for generations to come.

It is my privilege to invite President Trump to the—speak after—we had two firsts today. First time we've ever had the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, they do a joint opening, and first time they—we've ever had the opening bell rung in the Oval Office.

So, Mr. President.

Well, this is very exciting, an amazing achievement.

People—we don't know this, Michael—but people have been trying to do this for 30 years. And they were so generous. He put up and she put up—I think she more than him, maybe—[ Laughter ]—both very much involved. But Michael and Susan put up $6 billion 250 million. And I'm sure if I make a phone call, they'll do it again.

The job they've done is incredible in life. So we want to thank you very much. Amazing. Really amazing.

And our friend from Micron, by the way, called me on Friday, and he said Micron is putting in $250 million——

Wow.

——and he's done a phenomenal job. And $250 million.

And many other companies and people are putting up tremendous amounts of money, and it's something I'm very proud of. Some people think it's going to be—go down as one of the most important things we've done during the administration.

So, after a truly historic weekend celebrating the 250th anniversary of America, today we're thrilled to officially launch the Trump Accounts. And we had some beautiful people and speeches and tremendous crowds.

We had the biggest crowd anyone's ever seen that, unfortunately, lightning caused it to leave, and everybody said, "Well, we'll do it another time." When I heard that, I said, "No, we won't." Everybody had left. I said: "We're not doing it another time. We're doing it on the Fourth of July."

And we actually started the speech on the Fourth of July. We had to wait a little while, like a couple of hours. Let the lightning pass. And everyone had left. And we came back and they had 150,000 people came back from the—they took their car, they're going back home to Texas, they turned their car around, they came back. [ Laughter ]

You wouldn't believe 150—I think the 150 was more impressive than the 425 or whatever it was. It was pretty amazing.

And Mount Rushmore, likewise, was so incredible.

So the people love our country. Our country is doing incredibly well. Strongest military in the world. Has been displayed with Venezuela, who we're getting along with fantastically now. We've taken hundreds of billions of dollars of oil and given them hundreds of billions. They have more money than they've ever made. And we're doing very well. We paid for the war many times over.

And then Iran, we're doing, actually, equally as well. We're just not getting the kind of coverage that we should. But we have eviscerated them military. And the bottom line is: Our country is strong. We have the greatest military anywhere in the world.

I was with President Xi 3 weeks ago, and I said that, and there was no argument. Nobody's arguing. We built it during my first term, and we're using it now for very good reasons, because, in this case, Iran can never have a nuclear weapon. We can never let that happen.

On Saturday, July 4, our administration deposited one-time seed contributions of $1,000 each into the Trump Accounts of over 500,000 American children—it's a lot—and millions more will be getting additional contributions from generous owners, like, as I mentioned, Michael and Susan Dell.

They are truly incredible people—go out and buy a Dell computer. He's not doing it for that. [ Laughter ] But I'll bet his business, Brad, has gotten——

I think so.

——even bigger.

I have a son that loves their—he loves their laptop. I have to tell you. "No, I want a Dell." We're going to get him that money back, one way or the other. [ Laughter ] And then I'll ask for another $6 billion 250. [ Laughter ] We'll start the whole process all over again. No, he makes an incredible product and right from the beginning.

And Brad Gerstner has been pushing this, so he's a very successful man—not quite as famous as the Dell family—right?—Michael. But you are——

Thank you.

But you are—he's an amazingly successful guy, and he's put up a tremendous amount of money. And again, I want to thank Micron and all of the companies that have already called me, and they're putting up a lot of money.

This is nothing—this is not me, and putting the name on it was not my idea. That was a whole group of people that passed legislation, because this is all made possible only by the passage of the "Great Big Beautiful Bill." And I knew that this was happening, but I didn't know.

All of a sudden, I see my name on the bill. But I'm very proud to have my name. They think it would sell—they said, "It will sell better if your name's on it." I said, "Look, leave it on." But I did not—I just want to—I did not ask for it.

Michael, is that a correct statement?

That's true. Yes.

Did I ever go to you, say, "Michael, don't put up the money unless they use my name"? No.

No.

But I have done that in other cases, I will tell you. [ Laughter ] In certain—in certain other cases, I've done that. Right, Scott? But not in this case.

This is a very special kind of a thing that took place. It's—in a way, it's a miracle. Nobody thought it was possible. Think of it. Children that are born without money—without any money. Great parents. They can have—everything can be great, but they have no money. They can become very wealthy children at 18. And they can flip it over, or their people can flip it over into other vehicles at a certain age so that they don't take it out. I would recommend they probably don't take it out. But they can have a lot of money, especially if the market continues.

Can you imagine if you did this during Trump—a year ago, a year and a half ago, where the market's gone up at levels? As an example, everybody said when I got elected there's no way that during the 4-year period we'll ever hit 50,000 on the Dow. And we hit 50,000 on the Dow, I would say, in the first year.

Records—we had records. And What Nasdaq has done, what the New York Stock Exchange—all the stock exchanges. Seven thousand on the S&P was impossible during the first year, but they really thought it was impossible in 4 years, and we hit it before the first year.

So, if you had—if the children had invested the money a year and a half ago—we should have acted faster, actually. It's too bad. But it's going to go up. We have a hot country. It's going to go up. I think the market's going to go through the roof. When all those factories open—they're being built all over the country at record numbers.

We have never built, in the history of our country, what we're building now. We have $19.2 trillion, and much of that money is going toward building factories, plants, AI, automobile. We've never built as many automobile plants. They're all over, and they're coming from all over the world. You know why? Because they don't want to pay tariffs. If they build their cars here, they pay no tariffs.

So, Japan, instead of making them in Japan or South Korea, instead of making them in Germany with Volkswagen and Mercedes and BMW, they're all building plants here now. They're coming out of Canada. They're coming out of Mexico. Mexico took a lot of our business. So did Canada. They're all coming back. I don't know what the countries are going to do, but they're all coming back.

So today, with the ringing of the opening bell for the stock market, those accounts will now begin to grow right along with our booming economy. And I really believe we're going to have the biggest boom of all right now. You haven't seen anything yet.

Between individual contributions and the seed funds, $800 million in new capital will be invested in the stock market for America's children this week.

And I also think that we're going to be putting numbers in the budget which will be really spectacular, because it's really not costing us anything. We're giving this money to children so they can have a good life. Very early on, they can have a good life.

And we're going to be doing—also something we're working on later on, and it will be also, I think, very popular—and I guess the best definition is they have a plan in Australia, which people really like. It's really worked out very well. Incredibly well, and very respected. And we're going to be talking about that with Congress and see if we can implement it, and that would be more for grownups as opposed to children. But it's something that's going to be great, I think, if we can get it done. And we're going to try very hard.

But, again, I want to thank Michael and Susan; Brad and his son Lincoln; as well as Secretary of the Treasury Scott, who is really—Scott Bessent—who has really been an incredible—if you're casting a movie, you put him as the Secretary of the Treasury because he's central casting. [ Laughter ] Do we agree? Wouldn't you say? He's done—more importantly, he's done a great job.

SBA Administrator Kelly Loeffler, who has been phenomenal.

Chairman of the SEC, Paul Atkins. Paul, thank you. What a job you do.

Well, thank you, sir.

You know, there's always been a problem there. And with you, everything goes smoothly. Although, I have to say, Jay did a very good job also—right?—during my first term. But Paul's been incredible.

Everybody wanted Paul, and he's exceeded expectations, I will say, and everybody knows it. Thank you, Paul. Great job you're doing.

Director of the National Economic Council, Kevin Hassett. I didn't want to lose Kevin. I said, "Kevin, you're at a huge disadvantage," because, selfishly, for a certain other position—and we have another Kevin—we had the two Kevins, and they're—they're both great.

And a friend of mine, Ted Cruz. We fought each other for a while, and he's a very tough competitor. And we became friends. We were actually great friends before the campaign, and everybody said, "Will this ever end?" In fact, he was doing a rally. He said, "Could we do a joint rally?" That's like you people doing a joint bell ringing. It's, like, crazy. Right? [ Laughter ]

But he said—remember we did the joint rally——

Yes.

——outside in Washington. We had a big crowd. And the media was saying, "Will it ever end?" I said, "It will, but not yet." But it ended. [ Laughter ] But then it came together better than—I think better than ever before. He's done a wonderful job as a Senator. Highly respected.

In fact, somebody said, "Would you ever appoint him to the United States Supreme Court?" Because he's a brilliant lawyer, Ted. I said: "Well, he's the only one I can think of that's going to get a hundred votes." All Republicans will vote for him. All Democrats will vote for him, because they want to get him the hell out of the Senate. [ Laughter ]

No, if I was having a—if I was having a hard time with getting the votes, I would appoint Ted Cruz. I'd get a hundred percent. Guarantee.

But when you look at all of the different things that have taken place and you look at the international nature of what we're doing, because these are all international companies—so many I can't mention because they're too big to mention. The kind of money that's being invested is really, really incredible.

So, again, I want to just—because they're—they're friends of mine. But the Exchange CEO, Jeffrey Sprecher, is here today. We—he's an amazing man, amazing success. His wife has done a fantastic job at Small Business—they call it "small business," but when you add it all up, it's probably the biggest business in the world. Right? But Kelly has been incredible. And, Jeff, thank you very much.

New York Stock Exchange President Lynn Martin, we want to thank.

And Nasdaq Chair and CEO Adena Friedman and Nasdaq President Nelson Griggs.

We have all of them. This is a fantastic group of people. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

We've got them all. Did you ever think you'd be in the same—well, this is a great room. [ Laughter ]

This is an amazing room, yes.

I always—when people walk in, the biggest people in the world, people that are, in many cases, on your exchanges—right?—they walk in and they look around. They go, "Oh, my God. I can't believe it." I must—I don't want to use names. Larry Ellison walked in—[ laughter ]—and he said: "What? Where am I? This is so"—it takes a while.

Actually, if you're negotiating, you have people at a great disadvantage because they're all screwed up, you know? [ Laughter ]

It's a great place. I think it's the most important room anywhere in the world. So I thought it would be good to do this here. Right? We don't—we seldom do that.

But this was the first-ever joint bell ringing between the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq, and hopefully, it won't be the last. I think it's—you know, there are a lot of things you could do together that would be good.

It's amazing the way you came together, and it was really easy. And they're competitors, but it's a great tribute, I think, to all of you that you're able to do this. It's—people are talking about it.

The SEC Chair, let me ask you: Are you shocked that they came? [ Laughter ] This makes your job—

Great.

Doesn't this—Paul, doesn't this make your job a little bit easier? Isn't it nice?

Yes, well, yes, it does.

Why can't we do that with Democrats and Republicans? [ Laughter ] Maybe that's a tougher one. [ Laughter ] I think that's—that might be tougher. We like borders. We like things that they don't like.

But if parents have not done so already—and they are doing so in record numbers—they should go right away to TrumpAccounts.gov and sign their child up for a free investment savings account.

And, again, a lot of people are—people that are uninvolved in terms of they don't have the children, but—or their children are older, but they're putting millions and millions of dollars into the accounts of poor children—financially poor children—and the parents can't even believe what's happening. So it's an amazing thing.

But parents, loved ones, churches, and generous companies and individuals will be able to contribute funds to these accounts to grow throughout the child's life. And, again, if we have a good market like we do now, they're going to become, actually, very rich. They'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Think of that. Think of it: A child that has no money can have hundreds of thousands of dollars at a very, very young age. Accounts could grow to be worth numbers that nobody ever thought even possible just 6 months ago, before we did this.

And, again, I have to thank Michael and Susan because they were so proactive. It was—actually, it was really amazing. I just think they're amazing people.

So Trump Accounts are about giving every American child a stake in America's future and getting some of the upside. And nobody's seen anything like it. And Senators like Ted Cruz were at the forefront, and they should be really commended. People have to remember it in the future. It's like, so many things I did were so good, and that's only got a 2-year life.

Like, as an example, Kevin, I closed the border. We have nobody coming into our country illegally anymore. And I want to make it in my speeches, and they say: "Sir, nobody cares about that. You've solved the problem." I said, "I'd like to talk about it." [ Laughter ] They said: "Nobody cares about the border. You've solved that problem." I say, "What kind of a business—you solve a problem you're not even allowed to talk about it?" Nobody even wants to hear about it. It's pretty tough.

But this is something they're going be talking about for a long time, because this is going to grow to levels that I think people have no idea. I already see the numbers.

So there could be no better way to begin our 250th year. It is so appropriate. Think of that. We're doing it just at this time—this special time. It's pretty amazing.

So, I'd like to maybe ask Michael Dell to come up and say a few words, followed by Lynn Martin and Adena Friedman and Jeff and some of the people that had so much to do. I'd like to have our great Senator, Ted Cruz, say a few marks and anybody else that wants to. This is a big celebration. This is a much bigger situation than anybody can imagine.

And then we'll take a few questions. Okay? Thank you very much.

Go ahead. Michael, please, why don't you start it off?

Thank you, Mr. President. Susan and I are very honored to be here as we celebrate the 250th. You know, 42 years ago, I started a company in my dorm room with a thousand dollars. And today, every newborn American child will start their life with a thousand dollars invested in America's greatest companies, compounding for the future.

But Susan and I didn't want the children that were born just before to be completely left out, so we are contributing $6.25 billion: $250 to 25 million eligible American children, born between the ages of 2016 and 2024, invested in America's greatest companies for their future, for their tuition, for downpayments, for start-up capital for a business. And to every business leader out there who hasn't already joined us, please join us.

You know, 250 years ago, our Founders, in the Declaration of Independence—which is right there—pledged their fortunes to an idea. Today we're pledging our fortune to the next generation of children. So, to tens of millions of American children, your American story starts now.

Thank you. Susan.

Thank you, Mr. President. I am so grateful to you for making the Invest America Act happen. You have made investing in America's children such an important initiative for our country. These accounts are a statement of belief in our Nation's young people. And believing in our country's children matters enormously.

The incredible leaders of our—future leaders of our country are the young children that we are raising today. Investing in America's children essentially means investing in our future. It's an investment in America's ability to grow, to lead, and to compete for generations.

Michael and I have believed in this idea for a long time, and seeing this become real is fantastic. A child that has a financial account in their own name is a child who has so many more opportunities and hope. And as a mother, I know that every child deserves that.

So, parents, claim your child's Trump Account today. Years from now, your child will thank you for it.

Mr. President, thank you so much for having us today. It is truly an honor to be here for this occasion.

For the last couple of days, we have celebrated the thing that makes this country unstoppable, and that is our freedom. And out of freedom is born the American Dream.

And today, under your leadership, it is the purest manifestation of that American Dream. You are offering the American Dream to the youngest generation, to allow them to participate in the great wealth of America.

And as the president of the New York Stock Exchange, we couldn't be more proud to be here, more grateful to you and your leadership, and more optimistic about the future of this country, which is going to be led by this next great generation.

We were born on the corner of Wall and Broad Street, where our first President was inaugurated, and we could not be more optimistic about this Nation's future.

Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

Mr. President, thank you very much for inviting us into the Oval Office today to celebrate something very special.

As Americans, over many, many generations, we have come together in unity. And today, the Nasdaq and the New York Stock Exchange have come together in unity for a great common cause: the Trump Accounts.

The Trump Accounts are underpinned by the U.S. capital markets, which are, really, the engine of the greatest economy in the world. But part of that promise of the markets is to make it so every American can share in that great economy. And today, with the Trump Accounts, the next generation of Americans—every American—will have the opportunity to be a part and share in this prosperity of this Nation.

So I want to thank you for your vision, Mr. President, on behalf of Nasdaq and on behalf of the millions of families who will benefit from what you've created. So thank you.

Thank you very much. Great. [ Inaudible ]

So, hi. I'm Jeff Sprecher, the chairman, CEO of the parent company of the New York Stock Exchange.

One of the things that we celebrate on Wall Street, and we—all in this room, we talk about Wall Street as the capital markets.

And I don't think people realize that partly why Wall Street has its prominence is that our first President was sworn in on Wall Street, and the New York Stock Exchange was started to finance a brandnew Government and a brandnew vision for a country.

So it's amazing that 250 years later this President is making that available to all Americans directly. And so it's incredibly fitting, in my mind, that we're here in this Capital, which obviously is no longer New York, to widen the markets for everybody in the country.

So thank you, Mr. President.

Good job.

Thank you.

Mr. President, thank you for having us here.

Thank you.

This is a truly a remarkable day, remarkable setting for what has been a historic event. And at Nasdaq, every day we get to see brilliance come through the doors—companies that have created jobs, that have created an economy. And now the fact that's able to be shared for all these children is—just a remarkable, remarkable feeling to be here and to look at what you've created.

Great.

So congratulations. Thank you.

Great job. Thank you very much.

Brad.