Keynote transcript, Jul 6, 2026 (Donald Trump)

I will tell you this: The people in Belgium, if they win the game, they can be very proud. If they would win the game with a player missing, it would have been a different feeling. You can't do that.

And I'm very glad. All I did was ask for a review. I didn't say, "You have to do this." I—this man is a smart, tough man, Gianni Infantino. He's a smart, tough man, and his stock has gone through the roof because what—the job he's done has been great.

And I feel we have to have all the best players on the field. You can't take the best players.

Yes, please. In the back.

Mr. President, on the Trump Accounts.

Go ahead.

Thank you. Liam Cosgrove with Zero Hedge.

How—what is your plan to facilitate broad adoption of these. And you mentioned, you know, the communist issue—particularly that crowd, to get them to participate in this?

Yes.

And since I see Anthony Pompliano is here, and he's probably going to ask: Is Bitcoin in any way going to be related to this in the future? Are there plans to put Bitcoin in the Trump Accounts?

Well, I'm a big crypto—I've become a big crypto guy only for one reason. If we don't have it, China's going to have it, and they would like to have it. But now they're not even trying that hard, because we've taken over crypto.

But I'm a fan. I wasn't initially. I didn't know much about it, but—for some of my first term, I wasn't really—I wasn't much involved, but I'd watch. And I watched it grow, and it's a huge industry.

And I got involved in a little bit for politics, you know, because I realized there are a lot of people love crypto. And, even me as a businessman, I'd see a lot of money starting to come in with Bitcoin and, you know, the different forms. And I said, "This thing's got a lot of life." And then I hear China was going to make a heavy move on it, just like they do for AI.

By the way, we're leading China substantially in AI by substantial—and one of the reasons is I allow—when they build these big plants, I allow them to build their electric generating units, whether they use nuclear or oil and gas. Whatever they want to use, they can use, except wind. We don't allow wind. Wind is terrible. It just doesn't work. It's too expensive, no good, bad for the environment.

But—and they're building their own plants with some of the greatest electric-producing plants that you've ever seen. I mean, they're teaching the companies that produce electricity, they're teaching them how to do a plant.

So that was my decision, that was my idea, because we have an old grid. It's tired. It's old. You can't—it would take years to fix it. And now we're actually taking the excess energy that they make.

You know, we need more than double the energy. If you take all of the electric that we have now, you need more than double it to power that industry, which is so shocking. When I first heard that, I said, "No, you mean, like, a little." I couldn't believe that, Jeff. I heard more than double. So all the electric we make for everything to power that one industry.

Now, with that being said, it's a massive industry, and it's going to be for good. I mean, it—look, we're going to have guardrails, and we have guardrails. You know, you saw that couple of weeks ago. We were able to stop something that we didn't like. And by the way, the company was very good. They were very good. You know that.

But it can be used for tremendous good and—mostly good and some bad, and the bad we have to stop. But it's a massive industry. And I think things are going to happen.

You know, what you're seeing here with the kids, I think something could happen in that regard too, with a contribution to the people of our country. I'll give you a little inside information. Am I allowed to do that, Mr.—I—well, we have—Paul, am I allowed to do that? [ Laughter ] That's a little inside information. You understand.

Scott, you know what I'm talking about.

Yes, sir.

No, I think you're going to see a contribution made by those, because they're making tremendous amounts of money. They're also creating tremendous—the medical—the medical, the things that are happening in the world of medicine because of AI is not even—believe it.

I'm friends with many doctors, because of, you know, what I'm doing as President. And I've become very friendly with a lot of them. They're great. They're great as long as they tell me I'm healthy. Okay? [ Laughter ] When they tell me I'm healthy, so far so good.

Where's a piece of wood? There it is.

[ Laughter ] But a couple of them got together last week, and they said, "We can't believe the progress that's been made in disease." Things that they didn't think would happen for 10 years happened in a matter of minutes, a matter of seconds. So that's going to be used for good.

But we're leading China by a lot. We're leading everybody. Crypto is the same thing. If we didn't do it, China would do it. It's a massive industry.

And frankly, when I went very pro-crypto—as you know, Biden was totally against it, but he has no idea what crypto is. He had no—he didn't have a clue, but they were very violently against it. They were putting people in jail. They—what they were doing to the crypto was horrible. It's amazing it survived that onslaught. It was a weaponization of government.

So, when I went very much for it—and I must have gotten—I think I got a hundred percent of the vote. But what happened is—I think it was a hundred million people. That's a big industry, and that means some pretty good things.

But what happened is Biden then, after he was getting killed—he was down so much—all of a sudden, they became pro-crypto. And their head of the SEC was horrible, unlike Paul, who's really good. No, I mean, he's the best man for the job. Everybody wanted him.

But he was horrible, what he was doing to the crypto—they were putting people in jail. You know that better than anybody.

Yes. Yes.

Good people, great prestigious people, they were putting them in jail. And I said, "You've got to be kidding." And they were trying to destroy the industry.

Okay, ready? So now I'm killing Biden, I'm winning by so much, and, all of a sudden, he becomes totally pro-crypto. They dropped all investigations of everybody. They allowed people to come out of jail. And every time I see a crypto guy that—where they dropped an investigation I said, "You're lucky I'm President because they"—you know, I don't know if you know, the Biden administration became totally pro-crypto that last couple of months because they were getting killed, because crypto has a tremendous audience.

So, yes, I'm very much for crypto because it's—I don't—it's not a question of a personal thing. I—because I let my kids do whatever the hell they do. They can do—I don't talk to them—ever talk to them about it. I'm allowed to, I think. I'm allowed to, but I don't bother, because this is a much higher—this office is a much higher calling.

So I make—as President, the President of the United States get essentially 2½ million dollars for 4 years, right?

Would it——

Spread—wait a minute. It's spread out over a period of 4 years. It's about 2½ million dollars. I waived my salary. Now, I figured—because we've had other wealthy Presidents. We've had Kennedy, and we've had—FDR was very wealthy. Teddy Roosevelt was wealthy.

And one of the wealthiest, believe it or not, was George Washington, who wasn't in the White House, but there are pictures of him surveying this ground. He's the one that sort of picked the location. He picked a—I think he made a good choice. He picked a good location. But George Washington had two desks in his pre–White House. One was for—and they were right next to each other. One was for business, and one was for the Presidency. He had two desks in the same room.

And so you're allowed to, but I choose not to. I don't talk to my kids about, you know, this stuff. But I will say this: To me, crypto is a very powerful—a lot of people using it. Bitcoin—they're using it at levels that nobody—I don't think anybody understands, really, how powerful.

And if we didn't do it, China would do it in a minute. And if we let our guard down on AI, if I didn't come up with the idea for electric plants—producing plants—they become a utility, basically. These guys producing, you might as well put them down—Paul, I think you should mark them down as utilities because, frankly, in many ways, I'm more impressed by their electric plants. And they're building them on top of the buildings, alongside of the buildings, standalones right next door. But you have to see. Some of the electric-producing—the generating plants that they're making, nobody's ever seen, because they're brilliant people. And it's a fantastic thing.

But if I didn't come up with that idea, maybe somebody else would have. I doubt it, because it's too simple. I mean, it's such a simple idea.

Do you know that your friends, Michael, when I came up with that and I told Mark Zuckerberg, I told Bezos, I told all of the people—AI—Sam, Elon. I told them all, I said: "No, no, I'm going to let you build your own plant, and I'm going to get you fast approvals." They thought I was kidding. You know, they said—and they would submit plans without an electric plant. And I'd get calls from Lee Zeldin, who's a star—environmental—fast approvals. Good approvals, but fast. And he'd call up, and he'd say, "Sir, these plants are not taking advantage."

And I call them and say, "Why aren't you producing?" They said, "We thought you were"—every one of them, they thought I was kidding, because they can't believe it. Number one, they can't believe that they're approved in a period of a matter of weeks, because if this was somebody else, it would be 20 years before—they're all under construction. We get—we do rapid approvals.

And some are nuclear plants, because nuclear is now really hot and safe. You know, I was—I was not a huge proponent until 2 or 3 years ago. And then I saw what they—my uncle was a big nuclear guy at MIT. He knew nuclear better than anybody, I think—anybody in the world, probably. He was the smartest guy. He was at MIT, the head for 41 years.

And he said to me one day, he said: "You know, nuclear is going to be the most important thing, but it's also got to be watched. It's got to be watched very carefully, because it can build the world, but it can also destroy the world." He said that. I said, "Uncle John"—that was a long time ago, but he was exactly right. He called it exactly right.

But what they've done with nuclear, in terms of generating energy, is absolutely—you know, a submarine can run at full speed for 30 years without having to refuel. The only thing it has to do is come up every 90 days for food. [ Laughter ] They can't solve the food problem. But think of it: A submarine, without having to gas up, can run for 30 years at full speed without stopping. I mean, would you—who would believe a thing like that?

But fortunately, we have the best technology, and we have the best submarines. It's something we lead the world in by 15 years.

Any other questions?

Go ahead, please.

Thank you so much, Mr. President.

What?

I said, "Thank you so much, Mr. President."

Yes, thank you.

Jennifer Schonberger with Yahoo Finance. On the Trump Accounts, SpaceX president has said that she's going to donate shares to the Trump Accounts. Have you spoken at all with Elon Musk about further share donations, as well as other corporate——

I speak to everybody.

leaders about share donations specifically?

Yes, look, I'm like a cheerleader for geniuses. I love geniuses. [ Laughter ] I love high-IQ people. He's a high-IQ person. I love high-IQ people.

And I speak to Elon, I speak to Mark, I speak to Jeff, I speak to everybody.

Do you expect more share donations?

By the way, in the first term, less so.

In fact, at my first Inauguration, none of them were standing behind me. They were just the opposite. And now, at this last Inauguration, every one of them was standing behind me. It was sort of amazing. No, I speak to all of them, and I encourage them. I want them to be tremendously successful.

Now, there's a thing called TikTok. Have you heard of it? I was watching a show this morning, Maria Bartiromo. She's fantastic. And on her show, they were talking about the dangers of TikTok, and it's Chinese—you know, a whole thing with spying and what they're doing with it.

Well, except it was announced about 2 days ago—the new numbers just came out—you know who the number one person in TikTok is by far? Trump. Me. I just got—they—I'm number one. Like, Taylor Swift was number 11. [ Laughter ] I'm number one in TikTok by far. And the numbers just came out.

And I said, "Well"—you know, I'm hearing about how they influence. They're talking about they're a tremendous danger because they influence. But if they influence so badly, I mean, I'm saying all things like, "I love our country," "We've got to stop communism," "We've got to"—this and that. We're going to do a lot. We're doing a lot of things. But I'm by far number one.

It was sent to me by—you know, the list comes out—number one, number two. I was number one by a lot. So I guess maybe—I don't know—maybe they're bad, maybe they're not. I know one thing: Great American people, tremendous businesspeople and companies bought it.

I called President Xi, and everyone said he was a hard no. He was a hard no, but I said, "You know, it's a good thing for TikTok, but it's good for us too."

American companies—great ones—own our TikTok, and it's very influential. But I'm number one by a lot. So, you know, I hear this thing was on today—Gordon Chang. I like Gordon Chang, but he's always so negative. You know, nobody's been tougher on China than me, but Gordon Chang—and he's a nice guy—it's like the world is falling down.

It's not true. It's not true. We have to be careful because China is a great competitor. But, you know, he was talking about "We must stop TikTok." I'm number one on TikTok. I think it helped me win the election in a landslide, if you want to know the truth.

Yes, please.

The work on the White House, sir. The work on the White House. Are you building a helo pad? Are you——

Yes.

building a helo pad out here?

That's a helo—yes.

So, for 50 years, we've been landing helicopters on grass. The grass is wet, soggy. The helicopters sometimes miss their little mark. You know, they send people out—marines. I watch them do it. They march out so beautiful. Great guys. They have a piece of metal that they put down. And except for the fact that these pilots are so good—they almost hit the mark all the time, but sometimes they miss. They're half the size of this desk.

Think of it. You're landing a big chopper. But you know, years ago—and they just got produced—but during my administration, they ordered brandnew helicopters. The big ones—the ones for President—it's called Marine One.

And our other Marine Ones are about 40 years old. They're old, like Air Force One. You know, it's time to make a change. And other Presidents wouldn't do that, because I think it's not good to make a change to luxury, but you've got to do it. You know, other countries have them.

So Sikorsky gave—we ordered a number of Sikorskys as the helicopters back and forth. Well, they're about two-and-a-half times more powerful than the old ones.

And when you land on the grass, it's not that the grass gets discolored; it gets ripped out. Ripped out. And it was all over. They landed it once—and nobody planned for this. This was a little bit of a planning mistake. [ Laughter ] So they landed the helicopter, and half of the grass was sitting in front of the Oval Office front door. [ Laughter ] The rest of it was scattered all over the—I mean, literally, it didn't singe it, it also singed it, by the way. [ Laughter ] But it literally lift—because of the power, it's tremendous.

And everybody said: "Well, we'll keep using the old helicopters when we have to land at the White House, and for everything else, we use the new helicopters." I said, "That's a pretty expensive deal."

You wouldn't do that for your company. You'd figure out an answer.

So I said—because I have helicopters, and—three of them. I said—because they've been great for my business. They—I think they're incredible. So Sikorskys. Sikorsky 76, right?

And I always was lucky. I always got helipads. Other people don't. Very hard to get. The hardest thing to get is a helipad. Okay? There is no harder zoning thing to get—is a helipad. And I had, like, seven of them at different places so I could go around by helicopter.

And I said to the people, "Have you ever thought"—these are generals, Air Force generals that are brilliant. And you know, you get used to a certain thing. They'd bring out the metal. But this was—now, the metal didn't work because the power of these helicopters is so great, it ripped up the grass, right? So I said, "Has anybody ever thought of a helipad?" Because I build them, and they go quickly, and it solves all of the problems.

Look, he's laughing. It's true, right? It's crazy.

So it was funny. I said, "Has anyone ever thought of a helipad?" I had, like, six generals in front of me. And they're going, like: "Wow. That's a good idea." [ Laughter ] You know, it's like the paper clip. It was such a simple invention. Probably, he says that about a laptop. To him, it's a simple thing. To other people, wow. But the paper clip. Two hundred years ago, a gentleman came up with the idea for a paper clip. And he made a lot of money, became very rich. Not as rich as Michael Dell, but rich.

Mr. President——

In—those money. And what happened is, everybody was jealous. They said, "Why didn't we think of this?" Same thing with the helipad. So now we're building a helipad. Beautiful helipad. And it's got the seal of the White House on it in granite—in carved granite. It's really a beautiful thing.

And I'll tell you, Sikorsky is paying for it. You know why? Because they didn't tell us how powerful these helicopters were, and they felt a little bit guilty. They sold us helicopters—we—look, I like power, by the way. I think it's great for a helicopter. [ Laughter ] But they probably—I don't know. They felt a little guilty. And they are paying for the cost of—it's about $5- or $6 million. They're paying the full cost.

And when I heard they were paying the cost, I went out and said, "Let's do a beauty." [ Laughter ] "Let's not just do a piece of concrete and paint it white," which is what—I just put beautiful concrete, nice, and we paint it white. This one is a beauty. It's got the seal of the White House. It's beautiful. The eagle. And it's carved out of granite. It's done by some of the most talented people you'll ever meet. And you're landing on granite, which is the strongest stone that we can—like, the outside walk is black granite. It's got—that's 35,000 pounds per square inch. It's got a 1-million-plus lifetime. It's the strongest stone there is. And that's being used out there, and it's going to be, I think, really beautiful. And you can see the size. It's going to be beautiful.

It's got—and it could be used for other things. When helicopters aren't landing, you can have other things out there, like events. You could have news conferences literally on it because it's the right size.

So, by doing this, we solved the problem. And we'll be able to finally retire our 45-year-old helicopters.

Okay. How about—how about one or two more, and we'll get out?

Go ahead, please.

Mr. President, about the FIFA decision. Millions of American soccer fans are obviously very happy, but what do you say to the critics who say this starts a precedent in which other powerful leaders—world leaders——

Well, I don't know.

perhaps will chime in——

I mean, I don't—I can only say this.

when there's a——

I had nothing to do with the decision. What I did have to do is, I said, "I think that should be reviewed," because I watched the play, and he didn't do anything wrong. You know, you've got to look—by the way, if he did, I'd feel differently, probably. If he punched him in the face, if he did something wrong.

I thought your young, wonderful basketball player, Caitlin—I thought that she was treated rather rough, if you want to know the truth. That was a much different kind of an event. That was a pretty bad event.

But in this case, he didn't do anything wrong. Two people ran into each other. And by the way, if you look at that game, there were 10 instances where it was much rougher than that. So I think it starts with the fact that it shouldn't have been a foul. And then you have to look at the person that raised the card, and that's up to you people. You'll look at—but I didn't think it was very good, because it was not good.

And I think that Gianni is brilliant at what he does, and I think they made—I don't think it was his decision. It's a big committee.

And after reviewing it, I think they said, look, it's a—this would—this game would have a big mark on it if we lost, if we won. No matter what happened, you have to let them use their best players. And the game tonight's going to be amazing, and we're going to have a full team, and Belgium is going to have a full team.

And you know what? If they beat us, then they can be really proud. The other way, if they beat us, we'll say it was—I say it was rigged, just like the election was rigged in 2020. But I won't get into that.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much. The Trump Accounts are great. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you very much.