Remarks transcript, Aug 17, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Well, thank you very much. And this is a great story, and it's an honor to be with Ryder Williams, who is a 16-year-old lifeguard—California, the Santa Cruz area. And I understand he was a winner right from the time they first saw him as a lifeguard.

There's a lot of training, a lot of work, and he saved this young gentleman, who I had a long talk with. I said, "Would you have made it without him?" And you said, "Not really." Right? Not really. It was trouble.

Yes.

So you're going to have a long and beautiful life.

Thank you.

And I just thought it was—we were all watching—everybody watched and it got a lot of publicity because of the ferocity of the waves.

I think—I've never seen waves—I mean, that was sort of violent. We were just discussing. And at certain times of the year, mostly like right around now, the waves get very rough in that area, and they're swirling. And if you don't know what you're doing, it's going to be tough, or if you're small, if you're young.

So I just want to congratulate Nathaniel Rai for coming through an ordeal, and that means you're going to have good luck in life. You know that?

Yes.

That's called good luck.

I want to say hello to your father and—came along for the—we invited them to the Oval Office and to the White House. After this, if you'd like, we're going to have them brought up to the Lincoln Bedroom, where you see the room of Abraham Lincoln. That's pretty good, right?

Yes.

And also, your sister. It's really nice.

We have some of the people that Nathaniel and—that worked so much on the whole process with Nathaniel and were with Ryder right from the beginning. And the—I guess you learned from these people?

They taught you how to do what you do so well, Ryder. Right?

Yes, sir. They trained me.

And Nathaniel is very happy about that, Ryder, I have to tell you.

Shane Williams, the father of Ryder. Thank you very much, Shane. You did a good job.

Thank you, Mr. President.

I see you—you're in one of my favorite uniforms. [ Laughter ]

Yes, sir.

I'm a big fan of that.

Thank you.

Could—you couldn't be happier, right?

I couldn't be more proud.

When you saw that on television.

Yes.

It was incredible, actually.

Shannon Williams, that's the mom. So you did a good job.

Thank you.

It's good genetics. When you look at him, you can see. Really good.

Sumit Rai, that's the father. Thanks again, Sumit. We appreciate it.

Layla Rai, sister of Nathaniel. Thank you, honey.

Aaron Bohnen, Santa Cruz lifeguard who assisted Ryder, and you're—he became quite famous also. That was a good assist.

He helped you a lot, right?

Yes, sir.

He helped you a lot.

Thank you very much. Great job.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Fantastic.

Alex Luscutoff, chief of law enforcement and emergency service in Santa Cruz, thank you. Great job you guys are doing.

Thank you, Mr. President.

Justin McHenry, assistant chief of aquatics and lifeguard operations, Santa Cruz.

Right here, sir.

Good job.

Thank you, sir.

Were you responsible for the training?

Yes, I help oversee and——

That's good.

——and guide the training for our lifeguard program.

And for a lot of the lifeguards, right?

We train about 200 lifeguards a year.

Great.

Yes.

At that age too?

Starting at 16.

Starting at 16. That's a lot. I read that—that's a lot to do for a 16-year-old. That's not easy.

It's a huge responsibility, and it requires a lot of——

That he did it so well, right?

It requires a lot of integrity and resilience, and I think this particular rescue that Ryder performed really exemplifies what we're looking for in a State park lifeguard.

And you couldn't let go for an instance—if you let go for one instant, it'd be very hard to find, right?

Oh, absolutely. In those conditions, losing a victim would be disastrous.

Yes. Well, amazing what—you have no idea the respect.

Joel? Where's Joel? State park superintendent lifeguard, Santa Cruz.

Right here, sir.

Joel, thank you very much. That's "Dunnanauer"—Dinnauer, right?

Correct.

Good. Good job, Joel.

And Mike McMenamy, State park superintendent, Santa Cruz.

Yes, sir. Right here.

Thank you very much.

Well, we're honored to have all of you.

And, again, what you did was incredible, and everybody saw it, and you'd watch it over and over. I know when I first saw it, I said: "Roll that back. I want to see that again. Is that really happening?" And both of you people have to be very proud. The whole group is proud.

And your father is the happiest man in the world.

Yes.

You know that? Because I asked him a question. I said, "So, if that didn't happen, your life would be ruined?" And you said, "It would be a whole different life." Right?

Absolutely.

Amazing.

No question.

Yes.

It's incredible what Ryder did. I'm just beyond grateful to him and Aaron and the rest of the team, and even the Good Samaritans that were there. I mean, it's just such a privilege to be sitting next to him today——

Yes.

——and to be able to celebrate his birthday tomorrow.

And I'll bet you'll stay a little bit related to this group of people——

Absolutely.

——because you realize what a fantastic job they did.

What a great family.

Probably—you know, it's interesting because they're saying that you have, in that area, so many different saves. You're saying that night you helped somebody out—maybe not to that extent, but you helped somebody out. But maybe lifeguards don't get the credit they deserve. This really showed how important it is.

And certain areas—so certain areas of the country, you could say, are just very susceptible to people getting in trouble, right? And was this one of the worst in—on the State—on that whole entire coast? I mean, do you have other areas? Because that looks like a very dangerous place.

Yes.

——the way those waves—on a beautiful day, right?

The characteristics on that given day made it a little more difficult. You know, it was a warm day, so there's lots of folks on the beach recreating, and then combine it with that large surf and the strong currents that we had in the area made it treacherous.

But California's coastline is very diverse, and we have very remote and rugged sections of coastline that our lifeguards work on every day.

Do you have areas where you don't have lifeguards that are very dangerous and people innocently go swimming and they don't have a chance, probably, right?

There—yes, there certainly are unguarded areas within the State and around the Nation, and you know, people getting in without the knowledge or ability to recreate in those waters can be extremely dangerous.

And you have a lot of that. Is this one of the more dangerous areas, the swirl?

I would say it's—during the summer months, it's one of our more dangerous summer beaches. Yes.

Yes, it looked amazing, and it didn't stop. You know, the water came in and just keep coming in.

Yes.

It was—and it looked like you were almost on shore, but you weren't really on shore.

It's deceptive.

Yes, sir.

It was a fantastic thing.

Do you have any questions for this——

Thank you so much, Mr. President. And congratulations—and congratulations on being honored here, Mr. Williams.

Let's keep the questions for them, just for this, and then we can ask a couple later.

Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Mr. President. So thank you for doing this, first of all.

Good. Sure.

What do you hope young Americans in our country take away from this incredible young man's story?

That's a great question. I mean, look, they're going to look up to Ryder. They're going to look up to Nathaniel. The way Nathaniel handled it, he was cool, considering the problems he—I was watching. He was—you were very cool.

And they're going to gain respect. I think, you know, very importantly, they're going to gain respect for what these people do, having to do with lifeguards and having to do with safety. This was an unbelievable experience. Anybody watching, like—it's not my world, but I respect that world, I always had, but never maybe so much as I do now.

So I thought you bring—you know, to your profession, to what you do and what you do so well, you brought tremendous grace and experience. And really tremendous grace, tremendous—a feeling that it's so amazing to see this happen, to see it before your eyes. And I don't think any other—I've seen surfs. I've seen rescues before. I've never seen anything quite like this.

It's been a great thing for your profession, and people are going to respect it even more, respect you even more.

So I just thought it was really a very worthwhile event to have it at the Oval Office. So congratulations.

Yes.

Mr. President—okay. So, I actually have a question——

If you don't mind, can I have a question for the young gentleman as well?

Go ahead. Sure.

So, first of all, a lot of people were very inspired by what you did. Can you tell us what was going through your mind at those dangerous moments? And what would you like to do in the future? How has this experience as a lifeguard shaped you?

In those dangerous moments that we have, we always try to fall back on our training. We are trained so well by many to handle that situation as best we can. So I really was thinking about how to get the boy out of the water as fast as I can.

And for shaping my future, I want to be a firefighter in the future. Hopefully, go through paramedic school and hopefully—[ inaudible ]——

He's off to a good start. We'll give him recommendations, I think. [ Laughter ] You may have our—some good recommendations.

Go ahead.

That's all I had. Thank you.

Good.

Mr.—can I—sorry. First of all, thank you. You are an inspiration for all of us, I think. And especially, you give us hope for your generation. And along those lines, do you have a message for your generation about service and what you're doing?

I hope that everybody can take away from this and try to help more people, try to look out for everybody around you, and just try to help everybody out as much as you can.

What's the average age of a lifeguard in your area?

I'd say a lot of this last year, a lot of them were 16 and 17 years old.

And you have some that make it a profession, right?

Yes, sir.

A lot. So do you have 35-, 40-, 45-year-old, right?

Yes, sir.

That's great. And they lead a beautiful life on the surf, right?

Yes, sir.

And they would rather do nothing else, right?

No, sir.

That's very good. I think it's great.

Mr. President, on a different topic. Yesterday Jon——

Well, wait, wait. Let's finish on this topic. This is very exciting to me.

Mr. President——

You know, it's so exciting to see something like this happen. He's a real hero. You know, when you see that, I don't know if I'd do it. I wouldn't, probably. [ Laughter ] You're lucky I wasn't—you're lucky I wasn't on service that day. I don't know.

But no, he's a real hero. It's an amazing thing, and he is a real lucky guy too. God was watching you, right?

Yes.

Great.

Go ahead, please.

Mr. President, I do have a question about Iran, but I would like to ask you something about the rescue as well.

Following this, there's been a push in Congress to officially affirm that open-water lifeguards should be recognized as first responders. That would apparently really open up access to benefits, more Federal programs. Would you support that push?

Well, I think they have gone a long way to get that done. You know, it's something most people don't talk about. We have a lot of other things we talk about. First time I've ever heard the question. But this is something that's been going on, I guess. Is that right?