Remarks transcript, Sep 2, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Well, thank you very much. And this is a very exciting time in our country's history, frankly, and today I'm thrilled to welcome some of our Nation's top leaders in the travel industry to celebrate the record-setting summer of travel in the U.S.A. It's a total record we've had. The country is thriving.

These are the men and women who help make our country the greatest travel destination anywhere in the world. I've known them in private life, many of them, and they're tremendously talented people.

I want to thank president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association, Geoff Freeman, along with executives from great companies like American Airlines, Hilton, Marriott, IHG Hotels and Resorts, Booking.com, MGM Resorts, Caesars, the Venetian, Hard Rock, Carnival, Universal, Raffles and Fairmont Hotels and Resorts—some of the most successful companies anywhere in the world.

I want to give a very special thank you to the great job that Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy is doing. Done a job like nobody else could do. Doing a great job.

In the last 3 months, travelers logged 290 billion miles on American highways. Our national parks welcomed 78 million visitors. All records. And, on 11 separate days, more than 3 million travelers flew through the American flies—they—the American skies were loaded up with planes and loaded up with a lot of happy people going to various destinations.

In June, America welcomed visitors from all over the globe for the 2026 FIFA World Cup, and Andrew Giuliani did a fantastic job. Andrew is with us also.

Thank you, sir.

Match-day spending at local restaurants rose 80 percent. And across 11 host cities, the tournament added more than $18 billion to our economy and supported more than 160,000 jobs, and there literally wasn't a riot or a fight or any problem at all. It was amazing from the standpoint of law enforcement—what law enforcement did, working along with the National Guard in certain cases and others. We had a summer of real freedom and great entertainment and great soccer. But they set a record. And I believe it was five times greater than any Olympics or—or any FIFA World Cup that they've ever had. So—and we have the Olympics coming in, and the Olympics are going to be, I think, equal.

This summer, we also celebrated the 250th anniversary of American independence. From the historic UFC fight that we had right outside where there is now—we just completed it, essentially, today—one of the most beautiful heliports you've ever seen. Something that they've wanted to have at the White House for many years, where the helicopter was landing on grass, which is not good and very unsafe. We have a beautiful new helipad that just—if you want to take a trip outside, you'll see it. It's beautiful. Incredible the job that they've done. Carved granite with the seal of the President of the United States, a beautiful eagle. And it's something very special. And we built it a little ahead of schedule, and it came out even more beautiful than I thought. I thought it was going to be good. It turned out to be beyond that.

And, as you know, we had a Supreme Court victory on the ballroom. The ballroom is under budget, ahead of schedule. It's a gift of 400—the ballroom is a gift of $400 million by a lot of great American patriots, and we are proceeding. We're actually under budget and ahead of schedule, so it's been great to watch.

We have a lot of very happy construction workers, however.

From the historic UFC event on the White House lawn, which was a record in the history of fighting on television—there were more viewers on that—watching that than any other fight ever.

To an unforgettable race through the streets of Washington—that was Roger Penske's group—the Indy cars were incredible, and Roger was here, and he thought it was amazing. He—he said he's come here for 25 years trying to get that race approved, but we got it done in about 15 minutes. We got it all taken care of. And it was likewise—like UFC, it was a tremendous success.

To the largest fireworks display in world history. And I don't know if you noticed the television ratings. You know, we got—we thought we were going to be rained out, but we wouldn't put up with the rain, so we just said, "Let's just wait till it didn't rain." And even though the event got started at 11 o'clock instead of 9 o'clock—we waited for the rain to go and pass—it got record television ratings. It was amazing, and it was the greatest fireworks display. The largest ever, but I thought it was also the greatest that I've ever seen, certainly, and I've seen a lot of them.

But we welcome hundreds of thousands of people to our Nation's Capital that night. That—that day, that period of time was incredible. July 4 was not to be forgotten by anybody.

To support your industry during this busy travel season, our administration cut visa wait times by 40 percent, provided faster international connections through the One-Stop Pilot Program, and invested $12.5 billion to modernize American air travel.

And Secretary Duffy is going back to Congress. He wants to be able to modernize the safety equipment on airports, the airport towers, all of the things that will make it really the safest anywhere in the world. We're very safe right now, but we are—we're using 50-year-old equipment, and we're going to have the latest and the greatest.

And Sean's going to be going back to Congress very soon, asking about that. Also, asking for permission to build new towers. Tower design and structures are—have changed a lot, including the height of the tower. So we're going to be asking for that to redo the towers in the country. They're very obsolete—very old, very obsolete. Some of them aren't particularly safe. But all of that safety equipment—you know, that horrible accident that took place with the helicopter and the airliner would never have happened if we had the modern equipment. Bells would have gone off 2 minutes before they unfortunately met, and we have to have that.

And so the technology is there, but we're not using—we're using very old technology. It should have been done by other Presidents, but we're getting—get it done. And Congress has been very good about it, hearing us, and they've given us the additional seed money. The initial seed money is already there, and the system will be second to none, and you won't have horrible things happen, even on runways where they bonk into each other or crash into each other. You won't have any of that.

But I'm thrilled to report that 91 percent of the recent international visitors said they were satisfied with their trip to the United States, and I don't know what about the other 9 percent. I don't know the numbers on that. [ Laughter ] I'm trying to figure, why were they unhappy? I'm not sure I like that statistic. [ Laughter ]

But you'll—you guys will inform me later on who they were. [ Laughter ]

In less than 2 years, the world will return to the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, and we're pleased to be joined by the chair of the Los Angeles '28 Olympics, and that's Casey Wasserman, who's a very good friend of mine. And he's—you've really done a great job.

Thank you, sir.

You've done a great job in getting it together. Now we have to make sure it goes off——

Yes.

——like FIFA: flawlessly. Right?

Yes, sir.

But he's a real professional, a great professional, very respected all over the planet and especially in Los Angeles. And he's going to do a fantastic job.

We're working closely together to ensure it is a really incredible success. We want to make this the best Olympics of them all.

So this is a summer that showed the world America is back and stronger than ever—bigger, better than ever before.

Think of it: FIFA—all those years of FIFA, and we did literally five times the numbers of the second most successful FIFA. It's the United States.

And I give great credit to Gianni. Gianni was with us right from the beginning. He headed FIFA, and we worked together really well. But they've never had anything—they've never had a success like they had.

And with the help of the people here today, we're going to do the same thing with respect to the Olympics and everything else. I mean, it's not only Olympics. It's every day and every night and every weekend. They're not thinking about one event; they're thinking about every weekend. That's why they're so successful.

So now I'd like to ask Geoff Freeman to say a few words; followed by president of MGM Resorts, Bill Hornbuckle; president of American Airlines, Robert Isom; and president of Hilton, Chris—oh, I—this is my—where's Chris?

Right here, Mr. President.

Chris? Oh, there's my friend. [ Laughter ] He's a good—he's a friend of mine. He's done a good job.

Thank you.

So you're going to say a few words.

Yes.

And maybe I'll start off with Sean Duffy, and then you guys can go in that order.

Sure.

Okay? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. President.

This is a group of individuals that represent the travel industry that wanted to come in and thank you for a great summer of travel.

I thought the—the coolest thing from the summer was we—we know the country in which we live in, and it was great to see travelers from around the world come to America and remark on social media how beautiful it is, how friendly people are, the great restaurants and shopping and—the number of flights and car rentals and the busses that they took. People were raving about America. They had a wonderful experience, Mr. President. And also, as they came out for the celebration of our birthday on the Fourth of July, a lot of people came to DC for the Grand Prix—the Indy cars.

Right.

But it's a time that we travel, whether it's with business or families, but it's a time that families can spend together, whether it's in the car and going to see our great national parks or going to a theme park. Justa lot of opportunities for us to put our phones down and spend time together.

If I can make one comment: We got $12½ billion for air traffic control, and there's been no greater supporter of building a brandnew air traffic control system than President Trump. That $12½ billion is going to be completed in the spend—all deployed by the end of your Presidency, by the end of 2028. And we need additional money for software, because that's the magic that's going to bring us more efficiency in the airspace.

We're going to come out with an announcement shortly in the next 30 days on what we're working on. It will be—it—this will be the best in the world.

We have more airplanes in the airspace than anyone, bar none. And I think, as travelers have come to the country, they also remarked at how many flight options we have, how many airlines we have, how many scheduled options they have. So it's been a great experience.

But we have the best hotels, the best cars, the best roads, the best rental companies, the best resorts in the world. And this is a time to say, Mr. President, you drove an economy—an opportunity for us to even make it better. And it's time to say thank you for your leadership and your help in making that happen. So——

Thank you so much.

——appreciate it.

Great job. You're doing a great job.

Okay. Go ahead, fellas.

Geoff.

Mr. President, Mr. Secretary, thank you. We're certainly grateful for all the effort that was put into making the World Cup, America250 an immense success. It's because of policies you implemented on the visa side, on the customs side.

We welcomed millions of travelers this summer. The only thing Secretary Duffy left out was their love for ranch dressing and oversized gas stations. [ Laughter ]

That's right.

They got to see everything the country had to show off, and it made Americans feel a sense of pride—right?—things we take for granted.

We think we can keep this momentum going. You set the record in your first term. In 2018, we welcomed nearly 80 million travelers. We think we can exceed that; we can blow that out of the water. Let's get to 100 million.

Let's make the U.S. the world's most visited destination. That's France today. It's been that way for decades. We'd like to work with you as an industry to go win that title back, to make the U.S. the world's most visited destination. And we think we've got the momentum right now to do it.

Good. Thank you.

Okay. Go ahead.

Mr. President, I'm Bill Hornbuckle from MGM.

Hi. Sure.

Hi. How we doing?

Good.

Good to see you again.

We——

Good job.

Thank you. So, first and foremost, thank you on behalf of all of us, on behalf of the association. This was a great summer.

And I think Secretary Duffy knows this—we've had an opportunity to meet with Secretary and some of the other Secretaries—travel is difficult. Travel needs your leadership. It needs people like Andrew who helped pull the World Cup together to ultimately help Casey go not only for the best Olympics this country has ever seen but beyond. If we're going to meet Geoff's goal of a hundred million, we need your help, we need your direct involvement, and we know we can make this better.

If we can get there, it's 400,000 more jobs. And in a place like Las Vegas——

Right.

——it means a lot to us.

I want to also thank you on behalf of our employees. No tax on tips has gone a long way. [ Laughter ] So thank you.

That's pretty good.

It's good.

And overtime. [ Laughter ]

Yes, yes.

It's been very good.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good.

Mr. President.

Please.

It's great to be here. Thank you for hosting us.

Good, Chris.

Thank you for all the support you've been giving our industry this summer, but broadly, and thank you for the industry—on behalf of the industry for all the support you're giving the economy and trying to have the economy grow at a faster pace.

This summer, as you heard—as you—you stated, was the best summer we've ever had in the history of our business, bar none. America's 250 was extraordinary. The World Cup was extraordinary. The Indy cup here, in my hometown, was extraordinary. That was fabulous.

But I think the bigger story, which you should be proud of and we would like to thank you on is as a result of the most favorable regulatory policy that we've seen probably in a generation, most favorable tax policy that we've seen in modern times, an investment cycle that is simply breathtaking—both AI but—of course, AI infrastructure, but also reshoring infrastructure that is going on around the world—when you put all of that together, what it is driving, in terms of economic growth, is extraordinary.

And it—and I think the bigger story is that what we have seen, starting in the second half of last year, is a big—of course, a great summer, but a big uptick broadly in the business.

And importantly—I started saying this a year ago when everybody was saying, "K economy, K economy"—you know, the rich are getting richer; the high end is doing better—I kept saying, with all these policies that you're advancing, that everybody else is going to get in the game because the middle class and everybody else has to get in the game to make this happen, and that's what's happening.

So what I've been saying very publicly over the last 6 or 12 months is it's really a C-shaped economy because not only are we seeing broad, you know, growth in—from an economic point of view, but it's growth where you'd want to see it. It's growth that's going to ultimately—I think drive middle class real wage growth in a way we haven't seen in a generation.

So that leadership that you've been providing has been great for our businesses. Thank you——

Thank you.

——for—what you've been doing. I think it's sustainable. I would guess you do too. And we stand ready, as Geoff and Bill said, to do our part both in inbound international and goals there, but otherwise to make sure that we're contributing everything we can contribute to the growth of this incredible economy. So thank you. Thank you.

And you've done a great job. Thank you——

Thank you.

——very much. Appreciate it.

Robert.

And, Mr. President, I just—I'd like to say that——

Please, go.

——from a commercial aviation perspective, the eyes of the world have been on us, and we've certainly delivered records at American—but records for the industry in terms of transportation. And it's broad-based, every aspect. And no doubt, it's a result of the economy and also the job market.

So as we get into the summer, I want to give a shout-out to Secretary Duffy. You've absolutely chosen the best person possible.

That's right.

With these record levels of traffic, we've had to do some things different. And the investments that we're making in infrastructure, the hiring that we've done——

Yes.

——and especially this modernization work that we're doing is leading to great results.

Now, as we finish out the summer, we have a busy Labor Day weekend. We're going to hit all kinds of records this—this weekend. The only thing I could help—ask a little bit of help with is can you help me with the weather a little bit? [ Laughter ]

American has a flight every 14 seconds coming up, and we've got to have clear skies.

That's great. Great job.

But as we look forward, these big events—you know, certainly, the World Cup has—has been fantastic——

Right.

——America250. We can't wait for more of them. And we look forward to the Olympics and many, many other things.

Okay.

So thank you, Mr. President.

Very good.

Great. Say hello to American. We like American. [ Laughter ]

So what's happening is amazing. It's not really covered properly, but it's something that's never happened before. The new number—because I've been saying $19.2 trillion for a while, but the new number's coming out: It's going to be over $20 trillion is being invested in the United States. There's never been a country even close to that number. A lot of it was because of the tariffs, because people don't want to pay tariffs, so they build their plants here.

Honda just announced they're coming in with a big one. Monster. Big. We have many car companies that are coming in from Canada, as you probably have been reading. They're not thrilled, but you know, they took them from us, and now we're getting them back. They're coming in from Mexico, from—if you take a look at South Korea, they're coming in from South Korea, Japan, and also from Germany. We have a lot of car plants going up.

AI is going up. We're leading China in AI very substantially.

By the way, we have the President of China coming on the 24th. That will be very exciting. Great. Love to have them. We have a lot of good things to discuss. Very productive things to discuss with President Xi.

But there's never been a time when $20 trillion of investment is coming in. And the other number was by China many years ago, the previous record, but this is a record that's five times greater. It's incredible what's happening with our country.

And I guess it's not covered as much as it should, but it will be covering. And when the—you see the construction numbers, you see the construction workers, but soon you're going to see the people that work in the car plants and the factories.

And, as an example, Eli Lilly announced they're building five major places—labs where they make the drugs that they sell. All of them. They're coming in from other countries. They're coming here—Merck and Pfizer, medicines, everything. They're coming back to the United States at levels never even thought possible before.

And, in a year from now, you're going to see numbers that are incredible. And the next President is going to—I hope you people remember, when the next President comes in in 2½ years, going to say what a great job he or she did. I did it. [ Laughter ] All right? They're going to have numbers—they'll be opening up, and somebody's going to be sitting behind this desk or one of the seven that you have a choice of, and they're going to be saying: "What a great job I'm doing. This is the most incredible thing."

And we did it, and you did it, and you helped us a lot because the investment for your—in your companies are incredible. One of the greatest—great industry.

So I just want to thank everybody here. It's—the numbers are record-setting. The entertainment numbers in our country are—every—just about every number you name, no matter what industry, is record-setting. This is entertainment and hotels and things, and they broke a record by a lot. The airlines are doing incredible business—I think probably better than you've ever done before.

And we do want to modernize your system, though—you know, your system of safety, you could call it. And that's where Sean is doing something very special. A lot of guys wouldn't want to take that one on.

It should have been done a long time ago, actually, but certainly should have been done over the last 20 years. You know, the equipment really became good over the last 20 years, but, actually, the only advantage is, now it's really good.

If we would have done it 10 years ago, it's a—tremendous advancements have been made over the last 10-year period. So we're going to be getting Sean the—the newest and the greatest, and it'll be something—and Congress is very much behind it, obviously. This is safety. I think it'll be bipartisan, but this is about safety.

So do you have any questions?

Peter [Peter Doocy, Fox News].

Thank you, President Trump. You posted today on Truth Social, "When are the Iranian people going to rise up and fight?" If——

Well——

If that's what you want, will you send the CIA in to arm Iranians?

Well, I wouldn't want to say that to you, Peter. I'd love to tell you that, but I—it wouldn't be appropriate to say. But I mean, I understand their plight. They're being shot.

Right now, you know, these gentlemen sit here in the lap of luxury, and they see things. But over there, it's not so luxurious.

As of 3 months ago, they had—52,000 protesters were killed. Can you imagine this, fellas? And now I hear the number is probably 20-, 25,000 more. They have close to 65,000 protesters killed.

So, when I ask that question, I ask it sort of knowing the answer. The only answer is that they're being shot. The regime is getting weaker and weaker by the day. And at some point, they're not going to be able to shoot so easily because I think the people aren't going to take it.

But I did pose that question because, you know, it would be time. But unlike most—most people can't kill their people like that. Most people try and reason, they talk, and then there might be an overthrow. In Iran, they kill the people. When they get out to protest, they kill them. They shoot them right between the eyes.

They have two forms: machineguns and snipers. And they use them—sometimes the machineguns and sometimes the snipers. They like the snipers better because all they do is—they'll have a crowd of 200,000 people, and a person goes down here right between the eyes, and they'll have three snipers doing it. And it's a horrible thing to watch.

So that's why it's not happening. And who can blame them? Who can blame them?

But the regime is getting weaker by the day.

Mr. President, yes. I have two questions. One on the topic here, do you have anything else up your sleeve—big events coming up—between now and the Summer Olympics?

And the second is on South America. I know you're trying to cement a lot of your ties down there. Are there any plans? There are no major—there are basically no military bases in South America. Do you have any plans to——

Well, South America——

——put one down there?

Yes, it's great that you mention South America because, as you know, I endorsed a gentleman, "El Tigre." I liked his name. "El"—I guess that means he's a tough guy. [ Laughter ] But he's now the President of Colombia. He wasn't expected to win. He was 1 of 10 people running. He wasn't the favorite person, and he turned out—and he's doing a great job. But he was elected.