Speech transcript, Sep 9, 2026 (Donald Trump)

Well, thank you very much, everybody. And, Lee, thank you. He's been with me right from the beginning. You know, a lot of singers have wanted to introduce me. Once you win, they want to all introduce you, you know. And I said, "No way, nobody is introduce—only Lee. Lee is the only one going to introduce me." Thank you. Great honor.

And, friends, distinguished guests, Vice President Vance, and the proud citizens of the United States of America: Welcome to the first-ever midterm convention of any party. Took a little imagination to think of it, but we thought of it. I'm sure it will become a staple in the years to come. But this is the first ever for any party.

Two months ago, we came together to celebrate one of the most glorious days in history, the 250th anniversary of our Declaration of Independence. And, in 1776, our founders lit the immortal flame of American liberty in Philadelphia. What a time that was.

Tonight we gather in the great State of Texas. And by the way, I have to brag. It's a State I won all three times in massive landslides and got the highest vote. Got the highest vote in the history of Texas politics. Can you believe that?

But we all hold the flame high and carry it boldly forward. We love this State, and we love this country. That's all we can say. But what an honor it is to be in Texas. What a place. What a place. Love it.

With your support, we will make our Nation stronger, safer, richer, freer, and greater than it has ever been before. That's what's happening. You know that's what's happening. I wish the fake news would report it. [ Laughter ] There they are. Boy, that's a lot of fake news. Look. [ Laughter ] That's a lot of fake news.

Boo!

You have to remember, when we originally announced this 8 weeks ago, they said: "Who's going to go to a midterm convention? That's never going to"—this place is packed. And not only is this packed—this is a big arena. Not only is this packed, but you have an equal number of people standing outside. If anybody would like to give up their seat or whatever they're——

Noo!

——whatever—if they're standing or if they have a seat, would anybody like to raise your hand and give up your seat? I thought so. No, we have an amazing response. They love our party. They love what we're doing.

In 55 days, Americans will be going to the polls in one of the most important elections in our country's history. Your vote will decide whether our country stumbles at the starting gate of the next 250 years or surges forward and never ever looks back.

If we hand America's future to the radical-left Democrats, and our Nation will spend the next decade just getting back on its feet, it will be a tragedy. Vote Republican, and we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come. There'll be nothing like it. We're right at that gate.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Thank you.

The choice in this election is very, very simple. Democrats are asking you to vote for their failed far-left agenda—it's never worked—that destroyed your finances and delivered you 4 years of disaster, bedlam, and death under Sleepy Joe Biden.

Boo!

And I'm asking you to let us finish the job we began with the greatest 2 years in the history of the Presidency. This has been the most successful 2 years, financially and every other way, in the history of the Presidency.

And together, we will turn a 2-year comeback into a 250-year lead. We've never—nobody's ever had a start. It's not even 2 years. But we have more money being spent from outside countries and companies, over $20 trillion. That's five, six, seven times higher than any country ever—not just here—any country ever. Twenty—over 20—remember, I've been saying 19.2, but now it's over 20 for less than 2 years, substantially less than 2 years.

When the 2-year number comes out, that number could be $25 trillion being invested here. The record, by the way—think of it. Over $20 trillion. The record, by the way, is another foreign land. You probably know the land I'm talking about. In fact, the head of that land will be coming to the White House in 2 weeks. Three trillion. So $3 trillion versus $20 trillion, but the $20 trillion, after 2 years, is going to get close to 23, 24, 25. Nobody has ever seen anything like it ever, and it probably will never happen again.

And I want you to remember me in 4 or 5 years when this country is rocketing—remember, I'm the one that got it started. I'm the one.

You know who they are, right? Oh, look who we have. Front Row Joes. Look at them. Wow. That's great.

And we have the great ladies from North Carolina. Can you imagine? So, they've been to 217 rallies. They're beautiful, they have wonderful husbands, but I never see the husbands. [ Laughter ] The husbands—I think you're driving your husbands crazy. No, they've been fans right from the beginning of our policy. I guess they like me, but of our policy.

And Front Row Joes, it's number 412, I think. [ Laughter ] What do they do for a living? They make a lot of money, I think. [ Laughter ]

But you guys are fantastic. Thank you very much.

And we have a special guest, Mr. Wall. I want to get a suit like that. Someday I'm going to go out and get a suit like that. Where do you get it? You walk up here—because we built over—think of this: We built over 1,400 miles of wall right on your Texas border. One thousand four hundred.

And because of that, we have the great—the greatest numbers ever on immigration. We stopped it cold. It was a disaster. It was destroying our country. But we'll get onto that.

When I'm on the ticket, Republicans always do very well. We won the Presidency three times, and we won't—[ laughter ]. By the way, now you notice numerous people on the other side are actually admitting it. How about that? But this was a cool way of doing it.

But we won it big, and we also won everything else, because, you know, whatever it is—I was on the ticket, people came, and they did tremendously with the Senators and with the Congressmen. But for some reason, when a President wins, even if he's really a good President or a great President—there aren't too many of them—they don't win the midterms, and nobody quite knows why. It's 2 out of—think of it—2 out of 25 races. We're going to change that. There's no reason for it. There's no reason for it. It's something deep down and psychological. You're going to have to explain it.

But I've asked people, "What is the reason for it?" You—if you have a President that's doing a great job—I don't think anybody has ever had 2 years like we have. All over the world, they're admitting it. Other countries are failing and failing badly. But I say: Why is it that no matter how well you're doing, we seem not—a President, Democrat or Republican, almost never wins the midterms. We've got to change that, because we have something going that's so good, we can't let that string be broken.

So I'm asking you to pretend that I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. I'm on the ballot. Just one more time. Because if we lose, you're going to lose your border, you're going to lose your tax cuts, you're going to lose your safety and security, you're going to lose your wealth. Our country is going through hell. You will be going through hell just like you did just 2 years ago. We went through hell. We were a laughingstock all over the world. We were a laughing—they don't laugh at us anymore, do they? They don't laugh. But that's what would happen.

The pundits, the fake news media, and the radical-left Communists will say anything they can to try and stop us. But in this election, all that matters is that we are united, we are together, and what we say counts. That's all that matters.

And on November 3, the great American majority is going to stand up and continue to make America great again, and we will make our voices heard, perhaps like never before. That's the beautiful challenge: that the midterms are not supposed to be won by the sitting President, and we're going to change that, and we'll make it an even more important time in our country and Presidency. It will be something very special. We have to do it.

And, you know, we have a very short period of time, and we really have 35 races. They all count, but we have 35 races that are, I guess you'd call "the swings," right? Like, we had seven swing States; we won all seven, right? Now—so I said—not that I'm looking for the work. You know, I said the other day—I've got so much of a schedule—I said, "I thought I won. What do I have to do? I'm campaigning." But I am—we're campaigning to make it incredible, to really make it great, and to keep it great.

So I am going to visit—and you have so many of those great Senators. And I said, "You know, the ones I want here"—we have some that are leading by 30 points, and they've been there for 25 years. I said: "Don't come, please. Don't come." The ones we need are the ones that you've heard, the ones that are very close. They might be winning by a little or losing by a little or tied. We can win every one of those races, but I'm going to go to every one of those States for Congressmen and for Senators. I'm going to do that. And we're going to have rallies.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

And we're going to have rallies just like this. We're going to have big arenas loaded up with people.

So the Senators are great people. So many just great people. Their policies are—you know, they're common sense. I heard so many of the wonderful politicians who spoke. I watched a lot of them, and they talked about common sense. It's really about common sense more than anything else. It's not about the stupid policies that led us down the drain. We were going down the drain. If we hadn't won the last election, I'm not sure that our country right now would even exist. It was going so bad.

So I'm going to go to every one of them, about 35—in a couple of cases, I'll go twice—and I'll do tele–town halls. And I'll be coming back to Texas because we have to elect Ken Paxton. We have to. We have to elect him.

And if I have to, I'll come back twice or three times. I'll be—you'll say, "Get this guy out of here! Get him out!" You're going to be saying: "Get him the hell out of here. He's here too much." No, I'll come once or twice or three. I'll come whatever's—we have to elect Ken Paxton.

Together, we're going to continue to have—we have the strongest borders now. In the history of our country, we've never had anything. We have to have strong borders. We have to continue low taxes. I gave you the biggest tax decrease in the history of our country. And no crime. We want no crime. We don't want crime.

We'll have American energy independence, something you know a lot about in Texas, and even—we will have energy dominance.

We will stand with our heroes in the military. Our veterans—we love our veterans, and we take care of our veterans. Ninety-four percent. And our great police and law enforcement—we love our police and law enforcement.

And above all, we'll—and I think it's so important because there is a crazy little sick cloud over our country. I really believe it's not going anywhere, but we have to make sure, because we will defeat communism in America and vote for American freedom. We will just vote very simply for American freedom.

And a big part of that American freedom is going to be electing Ken. We have to elect him. He's really something special. The fact is, in some—and I have to say this about Ken. It's so insulting. You know, I hope he doesn't get insulted. They said, "Sir, you can't say that." I said, "I have to." [ Laughter ] They didn't even put it on the teleprompter, but I don't use the teleprompter that much. [ Laughter ] They said: "Sir, you can't say it. You just—please, it's not good." But I said it once before, and he went through the roof. I've got to say it again.

So I just said how wonderful he is and how we have to—but I—I said it a little differently because the fact is that some may not like the way he dresses. I don't. Although tonight he looked very spiffy in his blue suit, I must tell you. Whoa. [ Laughter ] But the—they may not like the way he talks. They—I can see that, you know? Not everybody. [ Laughter ] A lot of people don't like the way I talk either, but we do get crowds. There's no question.

And then they say: "You can't say this, sir. It's so insulting. Please, sir." These are my analysts that get a lot of money for telling me a lot of nonsense. [ Laughter ] "Sir—please don't, sir." So I talked about dress, I talked about talk, and I even said this. But you know, some people don't like the way I look either. You may not like the way he looks, but here's the news: In the history of Texas, he is the single greatest attorney general you've ever had—and maybe the top attorney general in the whole United States.

So I am very sorry, Ken. I hated to do it. And I'll go backstage. "Sir, you shouldn't have said that. You've given them a"—but let me tell you, it's true. He may not dress right, he may not talk exactly perfectly, and he may not be the best looking guy I've ever seen. [ Laughter ] But you know what he is? He's the greatest attorney general in America, and he deserves to be your next Senator.

I'm sorry, Ken. Where the hell is he? Is he around—I'm so sorry. He'll never speak to me again, but that's okay. We have to—[ laughter ]—but he's a great guy, and I know for a fact because he fought with us so much. He took us—we have the wall because of him. We have so many victories because of Ken. If we didn't have the wall, we'd be overrun. Instead of having zero—you know, we had zero for the last—zero people for the last 16 months. Can you believe it? We had 25 million come in under Biden. Zero.

But you know what? Without the wall that he was instrumental—along with Greg Abbott, by the way—and by the way—and by the way, both Senators—both Senators—see? I'm being very nice. [ Laughter ] Ted Cruz worked very hard on the wall, and so did John Cornyn. So did John Cornyn. They both did, both Senators.

We had a lot of support, but without the wall—you know, we built this massive, beautiful, great wall. Beautiful because it works. We could never have the numbers that we have, which is right now, think of it—and these are made up by Democrats, people that do these statistics—zero illegal aliens have entered our country from the southern border in the last 15 months. Zero.

So the "Dumocrats"——

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

So the "Dumocrats," as I call them—that was the other thing. They said, "Sir, don't use. This a very important speech." I said, "Is it of the importance of State of the Union?" They said, "Maybe not," although I like this arena very much. [ Laughter ] But they said, "Please, please." You know, State of the Union, you have to be very staid. That's much easier to do than what I do, believe me. That's easy to do. "Ladies and gentlemen, it's an honor to be your President. Thank you." [ Laughter ] And you do that for about an hour, and then everybody's falling asleep. This is a much harder routine, let me tell you.

But we're also out here to have a little bit of fun. So—and I just came up. I can't believe it's been—I've been doing this for, like, 10 years. It just came up—which isn't long if you're President, to be honest with you. A lot of guys over there, they're a lot—they're a hell of a lot longer. They're not President. They're my friends. I let them know that all the time, by the way. [ Laughter ]

But I just came up with it a couple of months ago, and I said, you know, you take out the "e" and you replace it with a "u," and nobody knows that dumb has a "b" at the end of it. Mostly—most people think it's "d-u-m," and that's fine. So we take out the "e," we replace it with the "u," and they're "Dumocrats" because their policy is so bad. It's so bad.

And I usually don't like talking about how bad. Like, for instance, men playing in women's sports. Okay?

Boo!

And I don't like to do it much before the election. I like to wait about a week before the election. I'm doing it much too early because I'm petrified that they'll change, and they'll say: "You know what? Men should not be playing in women's sport." And that will really hurt us. That's one of our great sound bites of all time. And I thought after we won in a landslide in the last election they would change that.

But I saw two Senators and a Congressman in the last week and a half, on television, fighting like hell for men to play in women's sports, and I hope they continue to do that.

Boo!

They say it's an 80/20 issue. I say it's a 99 to 1, and I have no idea who the 1 is. I have no idea.

You saw the two great fighters. I was so honored to have them. World champions. And I watched them for a little while. And I was going to ask—Bo Nickal hasn't been defeated in years. And Justin Gaethje, who's unbelievable—you saw that fight at the White House. It was the most violent fight.

I've said: "Justin, Bo, come here a minute. Do you have any fear of fighting a particular woman?" [ Laughter ] They didn't even—he didn't—they didn't even know what the hell I was talking about. [ Laughter ] They said, "What's wrong with this guy asking me such a stupid question?" [ Laughter ]

Anyway, we love the women. It's actually very demeaning what they're doing to women, if you want to know the truth. It's very demeaning.

So the "Dumocrats" gave us the worst and most dangerous border in American history, with 25 million illegal aliens pouring in. Can you imagine? Twenty-five million illegal aliens pouring in—totally unchecked, unvetted, including gang members, human traffickers, child predators.

One thousand—think of this. We had thousands—11,888 murderers—and you've heard me say this, because that's the exact number—11,888 murderers, many of whom—over 50 percent—killed more than one person. They allowed them to come into the country.

I guess they think they're going to reform. They're going to be wonderful people. They'll be the head of a bank someday. [ Laughter ]

But today we have the strongest and most secure border in our country's history. And you saw the numbers. They came out just last week. We have the lowest level of illegal immigration ever recorded in our country.

And as I said in the past exactly 16 months—these are Government stats. This is not Donald Trump. This is Government. Although, I think I have more credibility than Government. [ Laughter ]

But in the past 16 months, a historic record of zero—done by Democrats, mostly; a couple of Republicans, I guess, but done by Democrats—zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States through your border on Texas—in Texas.

And, therefore, zero have been admitted into Texas, where they used to be running around, running rampant, killing people, destroying many houses and farms, and ruining property values, and creating havoc all over the State of Texas.

You know that. I watched so often where they're interviewing people on the border and long beyond the border—hundreds of miles away from the border. And their farm, their house is—was overrun. And I saw a program last week where they were interviewing a man who was on a show—one of the shows.

I don't want to say because it's a terrible show—[ laughter ]—on a terrible network, but they're all sort of terrible. You know, they're all fake—a lot of fake news. I couldn't believe it. In fact, they're probably going to fire the producer of that segment.

They went to him, and they said, "How was it before?" They said: "It was horrible. I was living in hell. But since President Trump got elected, we haven't had one single incident. Nobody's charging our house. Nobody's holding us up. Nobody's threatening to beat us up."

He said, "It's like"—it's a very good statement, actually. He said, "It's like we're living in a different country between now and 2 years ago." And we know that.

But we've designated the cartels, as you know, as foreign terrorist organizations—something which no other President had the courage to do. And we're using our military force to totally decimate them.

You probably noticed that the flow of fentanyl coming across our border is down 67 percent. And fentanyl and other drugs coming in through the oceans and the seas and, most importantly, the Gulf of America.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

Thank you.

By the way, you know, I just put out—because, you know, Lake Ontario—we're going to call that now Lake America. You know that. Although, maybe it's going to work out. Canada very much wants to make a deal. They're dying to make a deal. But it's going to be called Lake America.

The other one we came up with today—well, we could go into oceans like the Pacific Ocean—[ laughter ]—or the Atlantic. [ Laughter ] We can't have both. I don't think you can do both. That's too much. [ Laughter ]

But we did come up with one the other day, which we think is appropriate. You have a neighboring State, New Mexico. We think it should be called New America. New America. New America.

Now, I'll tell you, the people love the idea. I don't know about the—the radical left, I'm sure, doesn't like it, but the people love it. New America. Your neighbor is called New America.

But the Democrats, very simply, put handcuffs on our police, and we put handcuffs on criminals. There's a big difference. They handcuff our police.

And last year—I think you saw this—we achieved the largest drop in violent crime ever recorded in the history of our country, with the murder rate falling to the lowest level in 125 years—the year 1900.

And that's despite the fact that—you know, we've removed tremendous numbers of people, and we focused on the bad ones. And we got some really bad—some of the worst killers you'll ever imagine. But that's despite the fact that some of these people, so many have come in.

Again, we've gotten a lot of them out. I can say "most," but soon it will be most of them out. We're working like hell to get them the hell out of here. But that's despite.

The lowest murder rate since the year 1900. That's big stuff. That's long before my father was born. I had a great father. He was born after that number. He never liked talking about age, so he's looking down at me, saying, "What do you have to mention that for, son?" [ Laughter ]

Our predecessors killed and buried the American Dream with trillions of dollars in waste and green energy scams. The greatest scams in American history: green energy. They didn't even know—most of them had no idea what it was. They just said, "Let's go green." And every country that's gone green is down the tubes, you do know that.

But it caused prices to skyrocket. They used the word "affordability," right? It's fake. They are so fake, because it was them that caused the affordability—to use their word—crisis. And I'm bringing the prices way down. Way, way down. They caused the price—but we're fixing it. We're fixing it. No, my first time, if you remember, I was—I won the election. And then, January 20, you take office. And I had my first news conference, like, on January 21. And those people right there—I recognize many of them—the fake news. And they started screaming.

Boo!

They started screaming at me. It's a word they use: affordability. They said, "What about affordability?" And I said: "What about affordability? Tell me."

They said, "Eggs are up four times since your administration." I said, "Well, I didn't really know that. You know, I just got here. Like, I—today, it's my second day." [ Laughter ]

By the way, through Brooke, who you just saw speak, we got eggs down lower than during my administration, and food prices and almost every other item are rapidly going down.

And by the way, oil will be going down as soon as we win the war with Iran, which is taking place right now. We'll win it. We're winning it. We control the Hormuz Strait. I think we should call the Hormuz Strait—we should call it the Trump Strait. I should get something out of it. The Trump Strait.

It's going to be called—ladies and gentlemen, I'll have an announcement. We'll call it the Trump Strait, and I'm sure the Iranian leadership will be thrilled with that. [ Laughter ] They'll be thrilled.

I'd like to tell you it was their idea. It was not their idea. Don't think they're too happy about—I don't think they're too happy about anything. Their country is falling apart. They've been the bully of the Middle East for 51 years, and they're not the bully anymore.

Two years ago, our country was dead. Now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world—hottest in the world.

The stock markets, all of them, have set 80 alltime records since the election. So you're talking about a little more than a year and a half. Eighty days, during that period of time, the stock market has set an alltime record.

And maybe very importantly for some of the people, although they bear some relationship, the typical American's 401(k) has gone up by almost $50,000—and unemployment claims have reached the lowest level ever recorded. I mean, we're doing well.

I only wish the fake news would give us credit for what's happening. It's—there's never been anything like it. I told you about the investment. The investment in our country is record, but everything—right now, in the United States of America, we have more people working than we have ever had before by a lot. By a lot.

The last Democrat Congress took thousands of dollars out of your pocket. Our Republican Congress—and by the way, we have—I think will go down as the greatest Speaker of the House in the history of our country. Mike Johnson.

No, he's amazing. Think of it. He's got a majority of three. [ Laughter ] And three of them aren't the best people, I will tell you.

And we just get approving, approval—we get more stuff, including the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," the greatest bill, maybe, ever passed. Thank you, Mike. Thank you. Great job. He's a fine person, too.

And John Thune is here from the Senate. Where's John? Where is John?

Boo!

No, no. John is—John is working hard. He's got great opposition. He's got great opposition from the Democrat Schumer and these guys. They're terrible. Got great opposition. He's working very hard, and he's going to have great success. You watch. Going to have—we are going to have great, great success with our Republican Senators.

And by the way, we have great—we have great Republican Senators. David, thank you for being here. Eric, thank you for being here. I'm looking over there. I'm looking at our people over there. Thank you all for being here. We appreciate it.

But our Republican Congress puts thousands of dollars into the pockets of working families with the largest tax cuts in the history of our country. So we had the largest in history.

We gave you no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on Social Security for our great seniors. And that's done. That's done.

And we also made interest payments—think of this. People go out. They buy a car. They borrow money. Many people borrow money. And we got tax deductibility of your interest payment all against your income tax. And people are loving it, and they're using it.

And it's great for our car industry, which is, by the way, setting new records. We're building car plants all over the United States. For 48 years, we built none. Now we're building them all over. Honda's coming in, building one of the biggest in the world. Toyota's building one of the biggest in—General Motors is going wild. Ford is going—they're all doing great. It's like the golden age of America. It's a golden age of the automobile business.

But that interest is tax-deductible. But what's the caveat? Only if the car is made in America.

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

With the help of our great energy workers here in Texas, our country is producing more oil and gas today than ever before. Now, listen to this: more than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined. How about that?

And you remember, during the campaign—I loved that campaign. It was so—but I loved the second one too. I loved that one too. [ Laughter ] But they cheat. We can't let that happen. They cheat.

That's why we want to pass the SAVE America Act, to stop the cheating. And we will. And we will. [ Applause ] We will. We will. We will.

You know, the—we have tremendous opposition, because you know what they're talking about. They're talking about—we want voter ID—voter identification. Ideally—ideally, we want it with a photo so that when I see Tim Scott—who made a great speech tonight, by the way—I watched it on television. Senator Tim Scott, South Carolina. So, when he speaks, I won't get him mixed up with—let's see, who's over there?—[ laughter ]—with Scott Bessent. Okay?

I want a photo ID so Tim and Scott don't get mixed up. [ Laughter ]

Now, the only reason the Democrats are fighting us on voter ID—and you know what the second is: proof of citizenship. Okay? So the only reason they're fighting us is because they want to cheat. There's no other reason.

But you have to admit, they're really good at this stuff. They'll—they come up with more excuses. They say: "It's important not to have voter ID because it's extraordinarily difficult for some people. It's"—they have more bullshit than any human beings on the planet. [ Laughter ]

So they're fighting us. A hundred percent—think of it—of the Democrats voted against voter ID. And a hundred percent of the Democrats—hundred percent—and you know the Democrat voters actually like it. It polls at 87 percent for the whole voting public.

A hundred percent of the Democrats voted against all these things—tax cuts, everything else. But they voted against voter ID and they voted against proof of citizenship. Like: "Sir—excuse me, sir. Are you a citizen of the United States?" "It's none of your business. I'm voting."

Can you believe this? A hundred percent. And most Republicans—most, not quite all. You'll have to check them out, but not quite all. But most Republicans—almost all Republicans voted for it.

But we have a huge—a huge bloc. It's the Democrats. They don't want to have voter ID. They don't want to have proof of citizenship. I think it's a disgrace.

But getting back to oil. Okay? We—you are doing—and I—as I said you're now the biggest—we're now the biggest in the world. We were nowhere near that. Now you—we're the biggest in the world.

And that's without Venezuela, which we've just added to our little stockpile. It's the biggest oil deal, and probably, it's the biggest deal in the history of our country: 65 billion barrels are ours. And you know what the say it is, lifetime? Five hundred years.

And you know, in Venezuela, you know you find the oil? You know the way Exxon and Chevron—they go around looking. They hire these geniuses. They pay millions of dollars. They spend millions and millions for equipment. They go all over the world, they can't find it.

In Venezuela, what you do is the following: You look on the ground—and you see ground that's soaking wet with oil. [ Laughter ] And you say, "Let's build our rig right there." There's really nothing like it. And we have a great relationship.

But, by the way, I'd like to thank Pete Hegseth, and I'd like to thank—I'd like to thank General Caine. Where is General Caine? I'd like to thank—they're here someplace. This is a big room. This place is packed.

Do you think the fake news—you know what they're going to do? The fake news will go around and—you see that man up there? He's leaving for the bathroom. He'll be back in 2 minutes. [ Laughter ] Up in the—they'll take a picture of his seat while he's gone. [ Laughter ] They'll say: "Trump did fill up the arena. The arena was not filled. Look at the seat." So, please, if you don't mind, don't anybody go to the bathroom. [ Laughter ] Because—no, we had it recently.

So Darline Graham—Lindsey, we loved Lindsey. We loved—Lindsey was a great guy. Good guy. And he's looking down, and he's smiling. But he's a good guy, and he's got a great sister. But she never did politics before.

And we had a rally in South Carolina, and it was great. It was this—really—thank you. Right?

And it was this really beautiful, big arena. But it was, you know, more of a like convention area. And not that big from the standpoint of, like, this. This is a big Dallas Mavericks team, which is going to be, hopefully, good. I don't understand—I must tell you, I don't understand the trade. That trade is not good.

Boo!

What do I know about basketball? I would say was not going to—it's not going to go down as the greatest trade in the history of sports. [ Laughter ] It might go down as the worst trade in the history of sports. [ Laughter ]

No, actually—okay, you know the worst trade in the history of sports, right? The great Babe Ruth. Babe Ruth, 19-year-old pitcher for a 36-year-old third baseman at $100,000—at that time, that was like $10 million, I guess—because Boston needed money. So Babe will always be the worst trade.

But is it Luka?

Yes.

That's not good. That wasn't good. Maybe we could redo that trade. [ Laughter ] I redo deals all the time. [ Laughter ] We've got to redo—[ laughter ]. We've got to redo that deal. I don't get that deal. You know, some deals you understand. I understand deals, but that one I didn't quite get. [ Laughter ] Somebody from Dallas, I'm sure, can explain it to me.

But with Venezuela, Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania—our great Senator David, thank you—and all of our other incredible States, we're more powerful now than OPEC. And prices, right after this very important election on November 3, will be plummeting. The war will be over very shortly after the election.

They're hanging out for dear life, hoping that we lose so they can deal with dumb, weak Democrats and they can have their nuclear bomb. But we're not going to let that happen.

So they're going to be quitting or dropping out or who knows what the hell—whatever it is—right after election day. Because they want to deal—desperately want to deal with Democrats like Obama—Barack Hussein Obama. Have you heard of him?

Boo!

Barack Hussein Obama made a deal: JCPOA. One of the worst deals in the history—it was a road to a nuclear weapon for Iran.

Or Sleepy Joe gave them everything. They thought they could buy their way into a deal, and instead they used all the money they got to create nuclear weapons. And they got very close.

And if we didn't hit them—two things. If I didn't cancel the JCPOA and if we didn't hit them with our beautiful—the wing—our beautiful B–2 bombers, they would have a nuclear weapon right now, and I would be addressing them as Supreme Leader. "Mr. Supreme Leader, sir, how are you?" [ Laughter ]

And now I don't have to do that. If they had a nuclear weapon, I'd be calling the Supreme Leader, and I'd be saying: "Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?" [ Laughter ] As opposed to bombing the crap out of them.

We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. It's very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon.

You know, I decided to do this. We had the best reports that our country has ever had. And I went to Scott Bessent. I went to Howard. I went to all of our guys. I said: "You know, I'm sorry to do this to you. We just announced record"—our stock market hit records. By the way, our stock market's much higher today than it was when I first did the attack, just so you know. But our stock market hit records. We were doing great.