Remarks transcript, Aug 24, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Well, thank you very much.

What a nice setting this is. This is something. We spent a lot of time and effort making the—bringing the White House back to a level that it should be at. For essentially 200 years, no work was done on it. It lived on its own merit, but we thought it was proper.

If you look at the exterior, you'll see it's all been redone and in perfect shape. It's good for another 200 years. Okay? That's the way I look at it.

But very important. It's such a symbol—such a representative symbol of us, of what we stand for. And we're very proud to have done it.

We're building—outside, we're building a beautiful heliport, which has been asked for for many, many years. A helicopter would land on wet grass, and it was bad and dangerous.

And, as you know, over there, we're building a military complex and a ballroom that will be second to none anywhere in the world.

We have President Xi JinpingXi coming in 2 weeks. And I was over in China 2 months ago, and we saw the Great Hall of China. Well, now we're going to have a "Great Hall" too in the United States, so it's very important—very, very important.

And I want to thank you all and welcome you to the White House as we celebrate back-to-school season in America. It's a big deal. We're delighted to be joined by many incredible parents, devoted teachers, exceptional educators, and star students from all across the Nation.

In fact, we have so many star students, I want to make offers for some of you to come and join us as soon as you get out of college, because we want stars. We want smart people. We like smart people. Some people say, "Oh, that's not nice to say." [ Laughter ] No, we want smart people.

I want to thank our great Secretary of Education—a fantastic woman, by the way—my friend and all of that, but she's a fantastic woman—nobody like her—Linda McMahon.

Nebraska Governor Jim Pillen. Jim, thank you very much. Thank you. Look good. [ Laughter ]

Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Thank you. Thank you, Sarah.

Chairman of the House Education Committee, Tim Walberg. Thank you very much, Tim. Good job.

And our Press Secretary, a mother of two, and—well, she decided she loved her children more than she loved Donald Trump. I'm very upset about this. [ Laughter ] She has to go home and spend time with her children, and that does happen on occasion with some people when they love their children, and she does. And, Karoline, congratulations on your newborn—your perfect newborn.

And she's done a fantastic job. She's been a great, great Press Secretary. Now, if I say you're the best of all time, I have Sarah sitting here, so I'll have—[ laughter ]—but let's put it this way: They were both great. Okay? Is that all right?

But from the very beginning of our country, Americans have understood that there's no job more important than teaching our children to become happy, healthy, proud, productive, and flourishing citizens.

And unfortunately, in the 4 years I took office and since I took office, our educational system itself was really—I mean, it was incredibly—before I got here, it was weaponized like everything else in our Government. Everything was weaponized against the goals that we all stand for.

And under the last administration, extreme ideologies such as critical race theory and transgender insanity were forced on—upon our children as young as 4 and 5 years old. Transgender. It didn't work.

Students were taught that our heroes are villains. The FBI was used to target patriotic parents at school board meetings. And meanwhile, far too many government-run schools failed at the basics—and you just have to look at the charts; they were failing at a thing called education—with only 30 percent of the students proficient in reading and math. That was under the last administration.

Under the Trump administration, we're systematically ending every single one of these radical-left betrayals, and we're putting the parents back in charge. They're the ones that love our children. They're the ones that should be in charge.

So, immediately upon taking office, I signed an Executive order to ban critical race theory and to ban transgender ideology from public schools. That was a big deal.

We banned men from playing in women's sports. That was so easy to do. I don't get it. They're still arguing. They're still fighting.

I saw a Democrat Congressman the other day fighting an anchor—an anchor that was, I would say, somewhere in the middle—but fighting an anchor on men playing in women's sports. And I said, "I hope they keep doing that because it's got to be impossible to win a race politically." It's just crazy. I've never seen anything like it. But it continues out there. Although, we've had big court victories, as you know, and we've largely stopped it.

Every public school in America is now on notice that if they tell a child that they're trapped in the wrong body, they are committing child abuse.

And, as we remove the far-left extremism from the classroom, we're taking historic action to ensure that every child in America has access to a first-class education.

The United States spends more money on education than any other country in the world by double, and our results should be better than they are. I would look at lists where we're rated—out of the 40 top nations, we're rated number 38, 39, and number 40, with all the money we spent.

But Linda has changed that so rapidly and so drastically. And frankly, it's shocking how fast it's gone under her leadership.

One year ago, as part of the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," we passed the education freedom tax credit, the largest ever expansion of school choice. And we want—thank you. And we want every parent to have the power to send their child to a high-quality school that shares their values. It's so important.

With us today are Caleb and Jocelyn Griffith, and their beautiful family from Statesville, North Carolina. A great place. They have three biological sons and two foster children. School choice and education freedom scholarships are going to give these kids more opportunity than ever before.

And I'd like to ask Caleb and Jocelyn to come up and say a few words, please.

How are you? Nice to see you.

Thank you, President Trump. This is my lovely family.

Mr. President, thank you for the honor of speaking today.

I'm Pastor Caleb Griffith, and I'm joined by my five beautiful children. As President Trump said, two of them came to us through foster care, which is wonderful.

But my children, two—one of them has autism, and one has developmental delays. And although they qualify for an IEP, because of the situation, they were unable to get them, so we've been unable to access the support and help they need to be successful. And we're blessed to be from a State that offers school choice, and it has helped part of our children's educational needs.

I personally have seen the benefit of the Opportunity Scholarship for my family and the school my children attend, Cornerstone Christian Academy, who is up for running for the Yass Prize.

But it's thanks to great organizations like Parents for Educational Freedom, who have helped 105,000 families just like mine access the Opportunity Scholarship.

And now, because of you, Mr. President, and because of you, Secretary McMahon, the educational freedom tax credits will give my children the access to the services they need to be successful in the most formational years of their lives.

I want to tell you, we only get one chance to educate our children, and our children are the future of America. The Bible says to "train up a child in the way that they should go," and that's to parents. And this allows parents to do that.

So, on behalf of my family and every family in America that will access this, thank you, President Trump.

Thank you.

And God bless America.

Thank you very—wow.

Thank you.

Nice job. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it.

What a great job. Beautiful. Beautiful family.

Whoop. He made it. [ Laughter ]

Well, as many of you know, no one cares more about America's children and foster youth than our great First Lady. She works hard at it and loves it and loves the children.

Through her "Fostering the Future" initiative, Melania is helping transform the lives of children and young people aging out of the foster care system, and she's bringing hope and countless—and you have to see; so many people, so many phone calls, so much work—but really bringing hope to countless numbers of families and children. And it's really something to see.

It's so difficult. They go through foster care, and then, all of a sudden, they're released into the world. And you know, many people have something to fall back on, but they don't. They can't go back to their parents for a little help or for staying overnight or for staying for years, in some cases. And it's a very—very tough.

So I want to thank Melania. She takes it so seriously. She's done such a great job. She's been so effective. Thank you.

And as part of the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," we have massively expanded 529 education saving accounts tremendously, doubling the annual withdrawal cap from K–12 expenses to $20,000 a year and allowing families to save the education and money for education at the private or religious school of your choice. So that's something that never happened before. Nobody could even think about doing it. They can't believe it's happened now.

And it's largely Linda and her representatives that have done this.

And now, for the first time ever, families can also have their 529 accounts to support homeschool education, and then—thank you.

And then one of the biggest things of all is what's happened with the Trump Accounts, where kids will have money. I mean, every child is given, at birth—newborn—a thousand dollars, and you're going to watch that money grow. People like Michael and Susan Dell have put up a tremendous amount of money, over $6 billion, but we have many people. Some people have taken on an entire State, like the State of Indiana, by a very, very fantastic friend of mine. Brad, thank you very much. And some very wealthy people and very wealthy companies are putting up tremendous amounts of money.

The Trump Accounts is being talked about all over the world. It's very good and very hot.

Joining us today are Marina and Hubert from Jacksonville, Florida. They've been homeschooling their three children for 11 years and will benefit enormously from the new policy. The amount of money they're getting is something that they can very much use, and it's something that wouldn't have happened without the Trump administration.

So, Marina and Hubert, please come up and say a few words.

Hi. Thank you very much.

Thank you, sir.

Thank you.

Mr. President, thank you so much for this opportunity to be here. I have with me my beautiful family and my wife Marina. We homeschool our three kids. We've been homeschooling for the last decade. My oldest son is in—going into ninth grade, my daughter going into sixth, and my youngest son is going into third grade.

Homeschooling is something that is very personal to me. Back in 1988, my parents made the decision to homeschool me, and so I was homeschooled from kindergarten all the way through the 12th grade. And I've been blessed with the opportunity to do the same for my family.

Back in 1988, homeschooling wasn't popular, and there was not, I don't think, a President who was supporting us. At this time, to see your administration and all that you've done for homeschooling families not only means the world to me, but to also all the other homeschooling families that are out there—with the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," the expansion of 529.

Oftentimes, with homeschooling, we're one-income households because I'm working and my wife is schooling the kids. So, being able to have the extra resources to provide them with their needs and also the option to support our children in the way that we see fit means the world.

That's great.

So I just want to thank you for everything that you've done.

Great. Great parents.

Thank you, sir.

Great parents—you have great parents. [ Laughter ]

Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you very much. That's beautiful. Beautiful family. Thank you.

Well, I'm very proud to say that the Trump administration's achieved more for the benefit of American children in less than 2 years than most administrations do in many years. Eight years, or, frankly, you can take two or three administrations, put them together, they haven't been able to do what we did.

After decades of racist policies and illegal quotas, we brought back the merit system into education—we're back on the merit system, which is what made our country great in the first place—so that our children will always be judged by the achievements and qualifications, not by the color of their skin or any other reason.

We issued a guidance for protecting the right to prayer, and we now protect prayer in the public schools. They're totally protected.

And last year, I signed a historic Executive order to begin the process of eliminating the Federal Department of Education, getting them out of Washington and bringing education back to the States—the most important thing.

And working with me on the Council on Physical Fitness, we've proudly brought back a wonderful tradition: the Presidential Fitness Test.

I signed the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act, which people loved. And the farmers love it because they know how good it is more than anybody. But the Whole Milk for Healthy Kids Act. We—they weren't allowed to have whole milk, if you can believe it. They could have anything else, but they couldn't have great milk the way it is supposed to be.

Paving the way for more than 30 million children who drink whole milk in school. And we introduced the real-food pyramid and reformed the vaccine recommendations to protect America's youth. We're making America healthy again.

We're strongly requesting—even telling—people, when you get your shots for your young child—and this has to do, we think, with preventing autism—that you go to the doctor for five small shots instead of one big, massive shot. You do it in five different shots—five different shots—small, little shots, where those beautiful little bodies can handle it. And I think you're going to see a very big difference in the rate of autism, which is like an epidemic, what's happened with autism.

And this year, as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of America's founding, we're also bringing back patriotic education for our youth. Through the Freedom 250 Mobile Museum, students from over 3,750 schools are learning about the heroes who have made America the most exceptional nation in history, and we're teaching our children to love America, not to hate America.

There's a lot of love going on right now. Our country has never done this well. We have billions and billions of different things happening, money pouring in at the rate of not even billions, trillions—19—over $19 trillion being invested in America right now.

The last administration had less than $1 trillion in 4 years. We had 19—more than 19—19.2 to be exact, and that's over a period of 12 months. We haven't even included the additional 5 months.

So there's never been anything like that in history, and no other country in the world has ever had investment like we're having right now being made, which is building factories, car plants, everything all over—AI—all over the country—at levels that nobody's ever seen before. No other country has ever seen what's happened. It's a revolution, a positive revolution.

So, in everything we do, we're empowering our Nation's parents, we're restoring high standards and the pursuit of excellence, and we're proving that the golden age of America education is just beginning.

And I want to thank you all for being here. You're incredible people. I know so many of you in the audience, but one in particular who's just an outstanding person, an incredible woman, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon.

Please come up, Linda. Thank you.

I'm going to get it down to my speed, which is always the case when I come up to the microphone. We have to adjust it.

Thank you, Mr. President, for assembling this incredible event this afternoon, because nothing is more important in our country than education—educating our students.

Parents, educators, and students, happy back-to-school season. This school year marks a return to common sense in American education, and it's all thanks to the leadership of our President, President Trump.

I remember when President Trump called me shortly after the Biden's administration 2024 Nations Report Card—or NAEP, as you've heard—scores were released, and he told me he was angry and he was also embarrassed by where these scores were. We spoke about what a travesty it is that Americans have invested $3 trillion in a Federal Department of Education meant to improve student outcomes, and yet only 30 percent of our students can read or do math proficiently.

This is why President Trump demanded a hard reset to our education system. And under his leadership, we are delivering it. We are taking very deliberate and thoughtful steps to return education to the States. This school year, American parents and students have so much to be excited about because the Trump administration is steering education back to its rightful focus: serving students so that they are prepared for successful futures.

We will remember this as a turning point in our country, where, thanks to President Trump's leadership, American education began to reclaim its place as the very best in the world.

Thank you all, and have a great and wonderful school year.

Great job, honey.

Thank you, sir. Nice to see you. Thank you.

Well, thank you very much. Now, I don't know if anybody wants to do this, but I'm going to be walking down here in about 2 minutes to meet with the people that are building the heliport. And you'll see right alongside of it the great structure that's rising right next to the White House, and that's going to be the ballroom-slash-military complex. It's incredible.

Now, if anybody would like to walk with me—I don't know if Linda's going to have any big events happening now. I don't think so. But if you'd like to follow me, especially with the kids—the kids could see construction.

I love the sound of construction. When I hear all that banging out there, some people say, "Oh, that's too bad," and I say, "I love it." [ Laughter ] You know? So, if anybody would like to follow me—it will be a large group, but it's a large pad. And you'll be able to see some very hardworking people. They're working hard, and they're making a lot of money, and they're doing something great for America.

And they've needed a heliport for many years here, and we're getting it all done. We're doing all the things that should have been done for years.

So, if you want to follow me with the children, I think it will be very interesting.

You'll bring your nice family. [ Laughter ] Okay? Follow me. We'll come up here, and we'll walk down. Good. Thank you.