Keynote transcript, Jul 15, 2026 (Donald Trump)

And then I guess it will be even better. But you know, even during this, it's been amazing. I mean, to think—I call it a "military operation," but I call it whatever you want. It's incredible. It's—it hasn't made a dent.

A lot of people thought oil would go up to $350 a barrel, and it's—today it's at $79. A couple of days ago, it was at $68. It went up a little bit because I had to take tough action because they did not obey what they're supposed to obey. I mean, they just didn't do it.

So we took a little action, but it'll all—when that settles down, you'll be—I think you're going to have $55 oil, which is all great for what you're doing. Maybe less than that.

But this year alone, we've added 18,000 new manufacturing jobs, and that number could go up by 10 and 15 times as these factories begin to open, including—remember, Obama used to say, "You'll never have another manufacturing job in the United States." Can you imagine? And they're—these are the best jobs. These are the highest paying jobs. They're the best jobs.

He used to say it all the time. People would say, "Oh, that's so bad you talk about him that way." But he did a bad job, and he was very bad on Iran because he basically gave them the money. He made a—what a horrible deal.

He went away from Israel, and he went to Iran, and that's part of the reason that we're stuck with this whole situation.

But including more than 3,000 new manufacturing jobs right here in the Commonwealth. And the number will go up many times that over the next couple of years.

And less than 2 years ago, we were a dead country. I say it all the time. The King of Saudi Arabia told me. I was with him 2 years ago. He said: "You know, it's amazing. Just a little while ago, you were a dead—you were a dead country, and now you're the hottest country anywhere in the world."

Every leader—I just got back from NATO. Every leader said the same thing: "You're the hottest country anywhere in the world." And they treated me like that. They're not treating me—they're treating because of the country. We're the hottest country anywhere in the world. And a year ago, 2 years ago—we were a dead—country. It was an embarrassment.

So, now, with all of that being said, just yesterday it was announced that inflation saw the largest monthly decline in 6 years. Can you imagine that? Six years.

So we inherited——the highest inflation in the history of our country, and it was really amazing. You know, we inherited it, and then I had my first news conference the day after I took office. And they said, "Affordability." "Affordability," they go. That's a fake word that they use. They caused the affordability problem. It's called "high prices." They came up with this word.

They're good at coming up with words, but we came up with a good word too. They're "Dumocrats." Dumb. You take the—the "b" out. Most people don't know that "dumb" has a "b." Okay? But the "u" replaces the "e," and you have a "Dumocrat."

And I just don't understand, because their policy is so dumb—what they've done to this country and what they will do to the country—if we don't win the midterms or win the election, everything that I'm talking about, you could just write it off because it'll revert back to open borders, it'll revert back to ridiculous high interest rates.

And, again, we should have the lowest interest rate of any country anywhere in the world because we make them all sing.

But since I took office, defense investments in Pennsylvania are up by nearly 25 percent compared to Crooked Joe Biden. And today, we're adding $10 billion, and I think the number is going to end up being about $19- or $20 billion.

And we'll be building two massive national security, multimission vessels at the beautiful and historic Philadelphia Shipyard—I met all the guys doing this—worth up to $1.5 billion, and it's a purchase of lots of vessels. We're going to have a lot of vessels being made there. We're also thinking about doing some purchases outside of companies that come here and build. They have to reteach us.

You know, we used to make a ship a day, and now we're a laggard in that department. We do lots of great things, but we're a laggard there.

And a lot of our shipyards were sold for real estate projects on the water. I bought one, actually. It was quite nicely located. But I didn't know I'd be President. If I knew I'd be President, I wouldn't have done it. I'd say, "I'd rather have a shipyard," right? [ Laughter ] But it worked out okay.

You know, they had the best locations. A lot of those locations were sold. And we have to build our Navy, Pete. Right? We've got to get it going.

So we're going to probably look at some of these companies that are coming in from South Korea and other places. And they're working with us on ships.

And we're going to also build—we're going to also buy some ships that are made outside of the area. And we're going to have a lot of—we need a lot of ships for our Navy—a lot of ships—despite the fact we have the greatest Navy in the world, but our ships are getting older.

And we really got out of that business. We built an aircraft carrier for $19 billion, which is crazy. The price is crazy. It started off at—I came in, one of the first things I went to see was the Ford aircraft carrier. It was way over budget, and it had things on it that you didn't need. Like, it had magnets to lift up the elevators with 10 and 12 planes on them. Think of it. It had all sorts of modern-day things that were all—instead of using steam for the catapults, they used electric. Let's have an electric catapult.

And so when I went to the ship—because I came into office, and the ship was way over budget. Built in Newport News, unfortunately. Was way over budget. It was going to cost $3 billion. It was up to like $18-, $19-. It was terrible.

And I said, "I want to meet the catapulter," and a man came over along with four of his assistants. And I said: "What's better? Electric catapult or steam?" He's been there for 25 years. He said, "Steam is better, sir. We can fix it with a hammer and a blowtorch. When the electric goes bad, I have to send to MIT to get geniuses over here." [ Laughter ]

I said, "Steam is better?" "Yes, sir, it's better." "So why did they do electric?" "Because you can have the catapult go like this."

"But you can't put planes on it, sir. It takes you 39 seconds. By the time the 39 seconds is up, you have a full head of steam. And I love breathing that steam, sir. That's the cleanest air you've ever seen." [ Laughter ] But I said, "So you're saying we spend billions of dollars extra to build electric catapults instead of using"—and I said, "What else do you hear?" He said, "The elevators are no good, sir." They're lifted up by magnets.

So here's my deal. I said, "When Caterpillar tractor"—and I watched—I watched more tractors than any human being on earth rip earth, rip rock—right through rock. It's all hydraulic.

So I said, "When Caterpillar goes into the business of using magnets to lift up their little blades—when they go and—when they go away from hydraulic, I'll tell you what, I'm going to do something: I'm going to start using magnets."

But we don't want to use them. So we're not letting any—Pete, we're not letting any more ships be built with the ridiculous—they're billions of dollars more they spent on electric catapults. And they're not good. They're not nearly as good. Too complex.

And by the way, we had to call the ship in twice because the catapults didn't work, and I predicted that was true.

And the same thing with the magnetic elevators. We want them to be made hydraulic, which it can—it can be hit by lightning. It can be hit by anything. When a little water touches the magnets, it doesn't work anymore.

And you're running—you're in the Atlantic Ocean with waves that are 60 feet high and the Pacific Ocean with waves that are 70 feet high, and they're talking about magnets. It makes you want to get sick.

I actually called in the architect of the ship. And I said, "Have you designed a ship before?" [ Laughter ] "Well, I haven't spent a lot of time on that, sir, no." Even the cab, you know, the tower, they have it in the back instead of in the middle. It's supposed to be in the middle where you have more room. I said, "Why'd you move"—"Well, we thought it was very good." "Why did you do it? And why is the ammunition under the—where the admiral is? The tower." They have the tower, and they have the ammunition under the tower.

I say, "If I'm the enemy, I know where I'm aiming." [ Laughter ] These people. And the thing costs, like, $20 billion. It's ridiculous. All right.

So we're changing all of that, right, Peter?

Yes, sir.

You'll be fired so fast if you don't—[ laughter ].

No, but a lot of this is commonsense stuff, really. I mean, I hope I'm not boring anybody, but it's all common sense. This isn't exactly part of my speech, but I've got to tell you. [ Laughter ] You know, I'm getting it all out now—all the anger I have when I hear about electric catapults that don't work. Crazy. It's crazy.

But—okay. I hate to mention this name now because they're a little slower than we want, but that's okay. General Dynamics will invest $2.5 billion in Rhoads Industries to build Navy submarines. They're—they make the greatest submarine in the world.

We are—we're 10 years advanced over—probably Russia is number two. We have to make them faster. That's the only thing. We need submarines.

But they make a great product.

In all the cases, we make—if you look at the Patriot missile; if you look at the Tomahawk, which is the offensive; if you look at all of the things, they're better. We have to make them fast. That's the only thing.

And, Dan, you're going to get them going a little bit, right?

Yes, sir.

We have to make them faster.

And Pete and I have meetings with them every month, and they're all building new plant and equipment. Boeing is building it. I see, Kelly, a lot of them—four of them. And it's very important.

So this massive new investment by General Dynamics is going to create, right here, 1,500 new jobs.

The munitions firm Day and Zimmermann in Philadelphia will provide 2.3 dollars' billion worth of operations, maintenance, and support to the Hawthorne Army Depot.

And Eos in Pittsburgh have just agreed to a multimillion-dollar partnership with the Department of War to build—don't we love that name better? We won World War I. We won World War II. Then we decide to go politically correct. "Let's call it 'Defense.'" No, it's War.

And I said to Pete—I said, "Pete, don't you like that better?" He said, "It used to be Department of War." And then we got politically correct. And we go in, knock out the Middle East, and go home. Everybody said: "Why did we do that? What did we get?"

But we had greatness, and that's what we have again. Now we have greatness again.

As an example, Venezuela. Where'd you ever hear—when was the last time you heard that you had a war and you paid for it 50 times over?

We have wars, and we lose money. We have wars, we blow up something, and we leave, and everybody said, "What was the purpose of that?" Nobody can answer the question.

We don't do that anymore.

But Eos in Pittsburgh just agreed to a multimillion-dollar partnership with the Department of War to build energy storage technology in support of our Golden Dome missile defense shield.

We're building a Golden Dome over our country, and it's going to be a very effective one.

We had 111 missiles shot a few weeks ago by our lovely friends from Iran. They were aimed at the Abraham Lincoln , which is a beautiful aircraft carrier, by the way. The SS Abraham Lincoln . A hundred and eleven in a short period of time. Out of the 111 missiles shot, 111 missiles were knocked into the sea, easily. Think of that.

And I called the captain of the ship. He wasn't even sweating. All you guys—Jamie Dimon would be sweating that. You wouldn't like that, Jamie [ Laughter ] We have a different kind of strength, Jamie, right? We don't have that.

But think of it: 111 missiles are coming at you, and he's drinking his coffee, taking it easy. And one after—we have the greatest people, most importantly. But we have the greatest equipment anywhere in the world. There's nothing like it.

Five years ago, 6 years ago, I would imagine you couldn't even think about a thing like that happening.

The JWF Industries is expanding its Windber facility and anticipating over $500 million in new contracts to build new vehicles, weapons, and components. And they make great stuff.

Voyager Technologies will be investing hundreds of millions of dollars in turning Pittsburgh into an international robotics and space technology hub.

And the robotics is so important because, again, we have the most people working right now in the United States than ever before. We need manpower and womanpower.

The AI software company Air will be spending $450 million to expand their Pittsburgh office.

And Carnegie Robotics in Pittsburgh will have the chance to produce hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of autonomous technology for the United States Army and its vehicles.

The Firepoint Energy in Tunnelton will be investing at least $170 million in pilot program to convert coal waste into jet fuel, electrical power, and critical minerals.

And I hope you're going to do magnets. Somebody out there—I hope you're all brilliant people. Magnets. Do magnets. Okay? I'll tell you how to make money: Do magnets. You're doing a lot of great stuff. Do magnets, because one thing we don't have but we're getting close—but do magnets.

So I hope Jon Gray is listening to me so he can give them a couple of bucks and go into the magnet business. I guarantee it's going to be a success.

It's one thing we don't—for some reason—it's not complex, not hard. We have the material. For some reason, they just don't—they don't do it. We need magnets. So one of you companies out there, go out; I'll teach you how to make money. Just do it.

Companies like Edlon, Kratos, Advanced Cooling Technologies, Sphere Brake Defense, JPMorganChase, and Qintel—among many others—will be expanding their investments all across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In addition, the defense subsidiary of the legendary Pennsylvania company Mack Trucks—oh, I met him the other day. Where's Mr. Mack Truck? Where the hell are you? We were—he was—he was great; making a beautiful—thank you. Thank you very much. Making a beautiful truck. He's trying to sell 15,000 of them to us—15.

I said, "How many are you looking to sell?" "Sir, 15,000." I thought he said "15" because it's a big, beautiful truck. I made a speech 2 or 3 weeks ago, and they had a sample of the truck right behind where I spoke. It made me look very small, sort of like Dukakis—remember?—in the tank. [ Laughter ]

I said, "Get that truck the hell out of here." I—immediately—I immediately thought of Dukakis with the helmet and the—massive helmet, the massive tank, and he—you—didn't even see him. That was not good. He went down 20 points after that. [ Laughter ] So, I said, "Get the hell"—they get that truck out.

But the truck was amazing, actually. But I said, "How many?" He said, "15,000." I thought he said 15. So I said: "He's going to sell 15. That's a lot of trucks." He said, "No. Actually, 15,000, sir." So—but it's a beautiful truck, and I think he's got a good shot at doing it.

And he'll be building to 222 dollars' million worth of powerful new vehicles for our military already in a different truck. And Mack Truck is doing really well, and they've been great.

And because we're here in Pennsylvania, where State Trooper Michael Pahira was killed just 2 weeks ago by an illegal alien operating a semitruck on a commercial driver's license, which he should never have had. He shouldn't—he was here illegally. Came in through Biden.

Today I'm making one more important announcement: My administration will soon take historic action to get illegal alien truck drivers who are just killing a lot of people—they can't read signs. Many of them are on drugs or alcohol. And they shouldn't be driving these things. And they're—they came in totally illegally, and they—we don't want them. But they are driving all over American roadways, and we're going to replace them with proud American veterans.

And we're going to take our veterans. We're going to make them—we're going to teach them a lot about driving trucks. And, in many cases, they know. We're going to say, "Any American who's driven a heavy truck for our military will automatically be eligible for a commercial driver's license." So we're going to get them taken care of.

And the radical left is very much opposed to that, but it doesn't matter what they want because we're the ones that are running it.

And just to—finish, I want to thank our great Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson—he's fantastic, that man—and the House Budget chairman, Jodey Arrington, for launching an effort to get the SAVE America Act passed, including voter—I mean, it's so—basic: voter photo ID identification, proof of citizenship, and hopefully, no corrupt mail-in ballots. We'll have exceptions for the military. We'll have exceptions for disability, for people that are not feeling well, or for people that are on vacation or anything. We're going to make it very easy.

But the mail-in ballots—you see what happens in California. The vote still isn't counted. Can you believe it? What—it's, like—what?—6 weeks? The vote still isn't counted.

But the kid really—he was—Spencer Pratt. I don't know Spencer Pratt. He came to the White House and saw me. But Spencer Pratt was an automatic lock, and he didn't make it. There was a little thing, Dina. They said: "Well, Spencer's falling behind a woman that nobody ever heard of. He's falling behind."

No, it's very corrupt, and they were going to do that to Steve Hilton too. And I had—the U.S. attorney did a great job. He started an investigation. They said, "Steve Hilton is starting to fall badly behind." And I said, "That doesn't mean falling behind. That means cheating is going on." This is 2 weeks after the election.

So I got the U.S. attorney involved, and, like, 20 minutes after they made that statement, they said "Steve Hilton just made the runoff."

These are crooked people. These are crooked people. The whole thing is terrible.

But along with our incredible farmers and funding for our troops—and we're getting a tremendous amount of funding for our farmers, and we take care of our troops. We got them a great pay raise. But I support those efforts, and we're cheering them on.

And the actions that we've announced today will create thousands of new Pennsylvania jobs, and they'll make our entire nation stronger and more prosperous than ever before.

We have the strongest nation that we've ever had. We have the most successful nation that we've ever had. We've never had a thing happen—so many people, the biggest people, came—the financial people said, "Well—sir, I've been in business for 35 years." One gentleman—he looked like a young man, but he said 35 years, so he blew it. But he said, "I've been in business for 35 years. I've never seen anything like what's happening right now."

I think—I'll bet Jamie would say that. I'll bet Jon would say that. There's never been a period of time like this.

So I want to thank, again, Senator McCormick once again for this incredible get-together but really, much more importantly, for the outstanding work that he's doing as a Senator. He's an incredible person. And Pennsylvania has never had a greater warrior at the U.S. Senate than Dave McCormick.

And it's an honor to be with you all. And we're going to do things that nobody would believe.

If you go back 2 years, where we were a failing nation, nobody would believe that we could be doing business and we could be all—even safety. The lowest murder number since 1900. Think of that. The lowest number since 1900—125 years ago.

Nobody would believe we have the lowest crime numbers, despite the fact that millions and millions of people came into our country illegally, and many of them were—they're gone now. But many of them were from prisons. They were drug addicts. They were from mental institutions.

We have the lowest crime numbers we've had in decades and the lowest murder number in 125 years, so it's really been amazing.

And, David, I'll give it to you. I'll turn it out.

But it's just an honor—I'm with so many people that I've—I respect so much.

I don't know all of you. I know many of you through reputation, through reading. But you're an amazing group of people, and you really are making our country great.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Thank you.

Thank you, sir. We are so honored to have you here. I know you've got a special love for Pennsylvania, and Pennsylvania has a special love for you.

And this is all about your vision of peace through strength. And what's happening here at this summit is, really, all the—the people we need in the room: the prime contractors, the energy leaders, the emerging technologies, the leaders in labor, the leaders in finance—all the team that needs to be in place to implement your vision.

So if it's all right with you, what I'd like to do is turn to the Secretary of War, let him make some remarks, and then—draw in some of the—the business leaders we have here. And I'll say, the—one little story is when I was on the campaign trail with the President, one time, I—walked off the stage, and he said, "You know what I like about you?" He said, "You don't talk too much." He said, "You don't go on and on." There was somebody else there—I won't say who it was—he was going on and on. He goes, "Keep it short." And so we'll all keep it short.

Thank you, Mr. President. [ Laughter ]

Senator, that was a good warning and a good reminder, for sure. [ Laughter ]

Mr. President, it is true to say that there has never been a moment like this or a stage like this where innovators, prime contractors, private equity, titans of industry, labor leaders, defense leaders have come together for this type of moment.

There's never been a moment like this where the aperture has opened up inside the Department of Defense for defense and, the second word, innovation.

And then we're also going to make sure the new runners, the fast runners, the young guys, the companies, the tech companies, our best innovators have the ability to get into the Defense Department. You shouldn't have to sue your way in to the Department of War, which is what companies in the past have had to do in order to compete.

I hope these companies can attest the fact that because of President Trump's leadership, we have an entirely different department. We go——

Woo!

I'll—[ laughter ].

And it's important because we're at an entirely different moment. Not only do we have near-peer adversaries with historic military buildups, but we're at a step change moment. AI and frontier models, autonomy, quantum, space, hypersonics—you name it. If you're ahead now and you—get ahead of the game, you're going to be way ahead. If you fall behind now, you fall even further behind. The have-nots and the haves—or that—that gap is widening.

But that next Midnight Hammer that's required 10, 20 years down the road is because of the F–47 and the B–21 and the autonomy and the carriers that this President will build because of this historic investment—the Golden Dome that protects our country, the AI that allows us to target faster.

This investment is fundamentally—will fundamentally change the battlefield, keep the American people safe now and into the future, and it would not happen with [without; White House correction] Donald Trump.

Mr. President, thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thanks for everything you're doing.

You know—last year it was almost a year to the day, Mr. President, where you were in Pittsburgh for the Energy and Innovation Summit that Dina and I hosted, and one of the biggest announcements on that day was Jon Gray from Blackstone, a $25 billion announcement.

And so I thought we might start with a year later, here's where we are. And I think what you're hearing from the business leaders in this room, the people in Pennsylvania, is the— amount of investment and the level of activity is on fire. And Jon's a perfect example of that. So, Jon, if you could just give us a quick update.

Sure. It's great to be here in Pennsylvania. President Trump, I want to start by thanking you for the deep commitment to supporting investment in American innovation, in infrastructure, AI, and defense.

Senator McCormick, I want to commend you once again—and Dina—for hosting a summit here in Pennsylvania focused on the vital national imperatives.

We see national security as a compelling place to deploy capital on behalf of our investors that also supports a core American interest.

So thank you, President Trump, Senator McCormick. It is an honor to be here today.

Thank you, Jon.

You know, sir, you noted this, but one of the strongest voices in corporate America, someone who has spoken out in very similar terms as you have about peace through strength and about the need for America's military and economy to be strong is Jamie.

And Jamie's really taken this on. He's written extensively about it and made this a priority for JPMorgan in terms of national defense and resilience.

So Jamie, I wanted to just call on you and ask you to describe why you think this is such a priority and how the things we're doing here and the President's agenda is supporting that.

So thank you.

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, Senator, there is nothing more important for our country—and in fact, I would—don't think it's exaggeration to say for the whole free and democratic world—that America maintain the preeminent military, supported directly by the preeminent economy of the world.

It's none too soon. We got behind. But God knows this is now—you guys have ignited the American dream, and you've ignited security and resiliency. You've reignited that arsenal of democracy that we have in this country, and it's just critical.

And this is one small effort, and that's one microcosm. We need to do this around the Nation. In fact, to help some of the other nations around the world, friends and allies, do the best they can to rebuild some of their militaries.

So my hats are off. I applaud everyone in this room who's helped with this effort. There is nothing more important than to leave this world safe for our children.

Mr. President, thank you. Thank you.

Thanks, Jamie.

You know, I know you know Jim Taiclet well from Lockheed. A small fun fact: So when Lieutenant McCormick got on the plane to deploy for the Gulf War, Captain Taiclet was the pilot of the plane out of Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina. And so we've known each other—I guess we got to know each other over the last decade or so.

But Jim and all the major primes have big operations in Pennsylvania. And, Jim, I think I have—you have an announcement even today that I was unaware of until earlier today, which is great news. So please give us a quick update on what you're doing in PA.

Definitely, Senator. First of all——

Remember that thing he said to me about short. [ Laughter ]

First of all, Mr. President, thank you for inspiring all of us to get together at an event like this.

Secretary Hegseth, really appreciate your driving the acquisition transformation that is very much needed, as you just described. And, Senator, this is an amazing gathering. For organizing it, you and Dina, you know, really, we all owe you our thanks. So appreciate doing that.

So I was born and raised on the north side of Pittsburgh. My dad was a boilermaker, and if I could have welded at a straight bead and passed his test, Sean, I'd probably be in Boilermakers Local 154 in Pittsburgh right now. But it worked out that I'm here today with you.

And people like my dad from Pennsylvania, the workers that we have in this State are why we have 5,000 employees here already. And what we're going to announce today is, in our Archbald, Pennsylvania, plant, where we make missile components for air defense missiles, sir, we're going to add another 700 jobs, we're going to double the size of the plant, invest $60 million dollars, and add 160,000 square feet to that plant, doubling its size.

And that's on top of $300 million we just completed investing in our Valley Forge operation, which does strategic missile reentry, among other things.

And you know, Mr. President, that we're going to invest upwards of $9 billion in the next 3 years at 20 different sites. Looking forward to showing you some of those plans when you have time. And we are going to continue to build with you and with the Secretary the arsenal of democracy, and Pennsylvania will be ground zero for that effort.

Thanks, Senator.

Thank you. And just real quickly, I'll keep us going. Danny Deep from General Dynamics. Dan—Danny is the president, and I had a chance to tour that 155 facility in Scranton, and you've got assets across Pennsylvania. Another huge employer.

Just give us a quick update on—what's going on in Pennsylvania, how you see the future expanding based on what's—the President's policies that—that have been put in place.

Thank you, Senator.

Secretary, Mr. President, thank you for your leadership here at home and abroad. It is inspiring.

So, here in Pennsylvania, when you talk about manufacturing muscle, this is really where we have a lot of muscle: 1,100 suppliers, eight facilities around the great Commonwealth. Over the last number of years, we've expanded artillery production by 4x, and over the next several years, we'll see it continue to grow.