Transcript
0:01All right, generals, admirals, senior leaders, good morning. Wow, what a uh
0:09what a group here today. I will tell you that our enemies are terrified right now
0:16that we are all in the same room and that is a a true statement. Welcome
0:21everyone to Marine Corps Base Quantico and the first ever key leaders all call
0:28to the comedant and uh all of the Marines that have made this event possible. Thank you. This was no small
0:36feat to put this event together in short order. And I’m glad there’s pull-up bars
0:41just outside. The seals in the corner out there are very happy about that. I am regret to inform you there will not
0:48be a PT test after this event um because I know you all would crush it.
0:55Last night I had the privilege of joining the secretary and the joint chiefs in honoring 50 gold star families
1:04at the White House as the president, the first lady and our nation honored their
1:09loved ones service and sacrifices. teammates. It was a quiet and deeply
1:16meaningful event that reminded all of us that were lucky enough to be there of
1:21the serious and unforgiving nature of the business that we are in fighting and
1:28winning our nation’s wars. Leaders, we are living in dynamic and potentially
1:34dangerous times. Global risk is on the rise. Our adversaries are no longer
1:41aligning. They are aligned and we must align with equal resolve and unity. Even
1:48as we strive for and seek peace, we must be prepared for war.
1:55Now more than ever, it is vital that we hear from our civilian leaders,
2:01understand where they’re taking the department and the joint force. And
2:06today we have the unprecedented opportunity and honor to hear directly
2:12from the Secretary of the War, Secretary of War, and our commander-in-chief.
2:17Together, you and I and our civilian leaders have the honor of leading the
2:22finest military in the world, and we must seize every opportunity every day
2:29to prepare our joint force for the future. I am deeply humbled to serve with each
2:37and every one of you. And now it is is my distinct honor to introduce our
2:43nation’s Secretary of War, the Honorable Pete Hegsth.
2:57Please take your seats.
3:06Well, Mr. Chairman, the joint chiefs, generals, admirals, commanders,
3:13officers, senior enlisted, NCOs’s enlisted, and every member of our
3:19American military. Good morning.
3:25Good morning, and welcome to the War Department. Because the era of the Department of
3:32Defense is over. You see, the motto of my first platoon
3:38was, “Those who long for peace must prepare for war.” This is, of course,
3:43not a new idea. This crowd knows that. The origin dates to the 4th century Rome and has been repeated ever since,
3:50including by our first commander-in-chief, George Washington, the first leader of the War Department.
3:57It captures a simple yet profound truth. To ensure peace, we must prepare for
4:05war. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department
4:11of War is this. War fighting, preparing for war, and
4:17preparing to win. Unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. Not
4:23because we want war. No one here wants war. But it’s because we love peace. We love
4:31peace for our fellow citizens. They deserve peace and they rightfully expect
4:37us to deliver it. Our number one job, of course, is to be
4:42strong so that we can prevent war in the first place. The president talks about it all the
4:48time. It’s called peace through strength. And as history teaches us, the only
4:54people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to
4:59defend it. That’s why pacifism is so naive and dangerous. It ignores human
5:06nature and it ignores human history. Either you protect your people and your
5:13sovereignty or you will be subservient to something or someone. It’s a truth as
5:20old as time. And since waging war is so costly in
5:25blood and treasure, we owe our republic a military that will win any war we
5:30choose or any war that is thrust upon us. Should our enemies choose foolishly
5:37to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of
5:44the War Department. In other words, to our enemies,
5:50F A FO. If necessary, our troops can translate
5:57that for you. Another way to put it is peace through
6:03strength, brought to you by the warrior ethos. And we are restoring both.
6:10As President Trump has said, and he’s right, we have the strongest, most powerful, most lethal, and most prepared
6:17military on the planet. That is true. Full stop. Nobody can touch us. It’s not
6:23even close. This is true largely because of the historic investments that he made in his first t term, and we will
6:30continue in this term. But it’s also true because of the leaders in this room and the incredible
6:36troops that you all lead. But the world and as the chairman
6:42mentioned, our enemies get a vote. You feel it. I feel it. This is a moment
6:48of urgency. Mounting urgency. Enemies gather. Threats grow.
6:56There is no time for games. We must be prepared. If we’re going to pre prevent
7:01and avoid war, we must prepare now. We are the strength part of peace through
7:07strength. And either we’re ready to win or we are not.
7:14You see, this urgent moment of course requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more patriots, more submarines, more B21 bombers. It
7:22requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve. More cyber effects, more counter UAS, more
7:29space, more speed. America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly.
7:35The time is now and the cause is urgent. The moment requires restoring and
7:41refocusing our defense industrial base, our ship building industry and onshoring all critical components. It requires, as
7:48President Trump has done, getting our allies and partners to step up and share the burden. America cannot do
7:55everything. The free world requires allies with real hard power, real military leadership, and real military
8:02capabilities. The War Department is tackling and prioritizing all of these things and
8:08I’ll be giving a speech next month that will showcase the speed, innovation, and generational acquisition reforms we are
8:15undertaking urgently. Likewise, the nature of the threats we face in our hemisphere and in deterring
8:22China is another speech for another day
8:27coming soon. This speech today as I drink my coffee.
8:35This speech today is about people and it’s about culture.
8:42The topic today is about the nature of ourselves
8:47because no plan, no program, no no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people
8:54and the right culture at the war department. If I’ve learned one core lesson in my
9:00eight months in this job, it’s that personnel is policy. Personnel is policy.
9:07The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to the warfighting culture of the
9:13department. Not perfect leaders, good leaders, competent, qualified, professional,
9:21agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to
9:26their oath and to the Constitution. Eugene Sledge in his World War II memoir
9:32wrote, quote, “War is brutish, in glorious, and a terrible waste. Combat
9:38leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it. The only redeeming factors are my comrades
9:45incredible bravery and their devotion to each other. In combat, there are thousands of
9:51variables, as I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as so many of you did in so many more places. Leaders can only
9:58control about three of them. You control how well you’re trained, mostly, how
10:04well you’re equipped, and the last variable is how well you lead. After
10:10that, you’re on your own. Our war fighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders. That is
10:18who we need you all to be. Even then, in combat, even if you do everything right,
10:23you may still lose people because the enemy always gets a vote. We have a sacred duty to ensure that our warriors
10:29are led by the most capable and qualified combat leaders. This is one thing you and I can control,
10:36and we owe it to the force to deliver it. For too long, we have simply not done
10:43that. The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to
10:49focus on the wrong things. In many ways, this speech is about fixing decades of decay.
10:56Some of it obvious, some of it hidden. Or as the chairman has put it, we are
11:01clearing out the debris, removing the distractions,
11:07clearing the way for leaders to be leaders. You might say we’re ending the war on
11:15warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that.
11:21For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons.
11:26based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called
11:31firsts. We’ve pretended that combat arms and non-combat arms are the same thing.
11:37We’ve weeded out so-called toxic leaders under the guise of double blind psychology assessments, promoting
11:44riskaverse goal along to get along conformists instead. You name it, the department did it.
11:51Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading and we
11:57lost our way. We became the woke department.
12:03But not anymore. Right now, I’m looking out at a sea of Americans who made a choice
12:09when they were young men and young women to do something most Americans will not.
12:16to serve something greater than yourselves, to fight for God and country, for freedom and the Constitution. You made a choice to serve
12:23when others did not. And I commend you. You are truly the best of America.
12:32But this does not mean, and this goes for all of us, that our path to this auditorium on this day was a straight
12:38line or that the conditions of the formations we lead are where we want them to be.
12:45You love your country and we love this uniform, which is why we must do better.
12:52We just have to be honest. We have to say with our mouths what we see with our eyes to just tell it like it is in plain
13:00English. To point out the obvious things right in front of us. That’s what
13:07leaders must do. We cannot go another day without directly addressing the plank in our own
13:14eye. Without addressing the problems in our own commands and in our own
13:19formations. This administration has done a great
13:25deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic
13:30ideological garbage that had infected our department to rip out the politics.
13:38No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses.
13:45No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris.
13:52As I’ve said before and will say again, we are done with that
13:59I’ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal.
14:06That said, the war department requires the next step.
14:12Underneath the woke garbage is a deeper problem and a more important problem that we are fixing and fixing fast.
14:20Common sense is back at the White House. So, making the necessary changes is
14:25actually pretty straightforward. President Trump expects it. and lipmus
14:31test for these changes. It’s pretty simple.
14:36Would I want my eldest son who is 15 years old
14:42eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding? If in any way the answer to
14:48that is no or even yes, but then we’re doing something wrong because my son is
14:55no more important than any other American citizen who dons the cloth of our nation. He is no more important than your son.
15:04All precious souls made in the image and likeness of God. Every parent deserves to know that their son or their daughter
15:11that joins our ranks is entering exactly the kind of unit that the secretary of
15:16war would want his son to join. Think of it as the golden rule test.
15:24Jesus said, “Do unto others that’s what you would have done unto yourself.” It’s the ultimate simplifying test of truth.
15:33The new War Department golden rule is this. Do unto your unit as you would
15:40have done onto your own child’s unit. Would you want him serving with fat or
15:47unfit or undertrained troops or alongside people who can’t meet basic standards or in a unit where standards
15:54were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in? In a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other
16:00than merit, performance, and war fighting, the answer is not just no, it’s hell no.
16:08This means at the War Department, first and foremost, we must restore a ruthless,
16:14dispassionate, and common sense application of standards.
16:20I don’t want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape or in combat
16:25unit with females who can’t meet the same combat arms physical standards as men or troops who are not fully
16:31proficient on their assigned weapons, platform, or task or under a leader who was the first but not the best.
16:41Standards must be uniform, genderneutral, and high.
16:47If not, they’re not standards. They’re just suggestions.
16:53Suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.
16:58When it comes to combat arms units, and there are many different stripes across our joint force, the era of politically
17:07correct, overly sensitive, don’t hurt anyone’s feelings leadership ends right now
17:15at every level. Either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job, either you are disciplined, fit, and
17:22trained or you are out. And that’s why today at my direction,
17:28and this is the first of 10 Department of War directives that are arriving at your commands as we speak and in your
17:35inbox today, at my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for
17:41every combat MOS, for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male
17:49standard only. Because this job is life or death.
17:54Standards must be met. And not just met at every level. We should seek to exceed the standard to push the envelope to
18:01compete. It’s common sense and core to who we are and what we do. It should be in our DNA.
18:09Today at my direction, we are also adding a combat field test for combat arms units that must be executable in
18:16any environment at any time and with combat equipment. These tests, they’ll look familiar.
18:22They’ll resemble the Army Expert Physical Fitness Assessment or the Marine Corps Combat Fitness Test.
18:30I’m also directing that war fighters in combat jobs execute their service fitness test at a genderneutral,
18:36agenormed male standard scored above 70%.
18:42It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the Secretary of War can do regular
18:48hard PT, so can every member of our joint force.
18:53Frankly, it’s tiring to look out at combat formations or really any formation and see fat troops. Likewise,
19:01it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around
19:07the country and the world. It’s a bad look. It is bad and it’s not who we are.
19:12So whether you’re an airborne ranger or a chairborne ranger, a brand new private or a four-star general, you need to meet
19:19the height and weight standards and pass your PT test. And as the chairman said, yes, there is no PT test.
19:26But today, at my direction, every member of the joint force at every rank is required to take a PT test twice a year,
19:34as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year. Every year of service.
19:42Also today at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do PT every duty day. Should
19:50be common sense. I mean, most units do that already, but we’re codifying. And we’re not talking like hot yoga and
19:56stretching. Real hard PT there’s either as a unit or as an individual at every level from the
20:04joint chiefs to everyone in this room to the youngest private leaders set the standard. And so many of you this do
20:10this already. Active guard and reserve. This also means grooming standards. No
20:17more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We’re going to cut our hair, shave our shave our
20:24beards, and adhere to standards because it’s like the broken windows theory of policing. It’s like when you
20:30let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty in the
20:37field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave. We don’t have a
20:44military full of Nordic pagans. But unfortunately, we have had leaders
20:49who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they
20:54were not allowed to enforce standards. Both are unacceptable.
21:00And that’s why today at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos.
21:08the era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male
21:14level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test, or don’t want to shave and look
21:20professional, it’s time for a new position or a new profession.
21:27I sincerely appreciate the proactive efforts the secretaries have already taken in some of those areas. Service
21:33secretaries and these directives are intended to simply accelerate those efforts.
21:40On the topic of standards, allow me a few words to talk about toxic leaders.
21:46Upholding and demanding high standards is not toxic.
21:52Enforcing high standards, not toxic leadership. Leading war fighters toward
21:58the goals of high, genderneutral, and uncompromising standards in order to forge a cohesive, formidable, and lethal
22:06department of war is not toxic. It is our duty, consistent with our
22:12constitutional oath. Real toxic leadership is endangering subordinates with low standards. Real
22:19toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas instead of based on merit. Real
22:26toxic leadership is promoting destructive ideologies that are an anathema to the constitution and the
22:32laws of nature and nature’s god as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.
22:39The definition of toxic has been turned upside down and we’re correcting that.
22:45That’s why today at my direction, we’re undertaking a full review of the department’s definitions of so-called
22:51toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards
22:57without fear of retribution or second-guessing. Of course, you can’t do like nasty
23:03bullying and hazing. We’re talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They’ve been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations,
23:10undercutting commanders and NCOs’s. No more. Setting, achieving, and
23:16maintaining high standards is what you all do. And if that makes me toxic, then so be
23:22it. Second, today at our direction, we’re ensuring that every service, every unit,
23:29every schoolhouse, and every form of professional military education conduct an immediate review of their standards.
23:36Now, we’ve done this in many places already, but today it goes across the entire Department of War. Any place
23:44where tried and trueue physical standards were altered, especially since 2015 when combat arms
23:51standards were changed to ensure females could qualify, must be returned to their
23:56original standard. Other standards have been manipulated to hit racial quotas as well, which is just
24:03as unacceptable. This too must end. Merit only. The president talks about it all the time. Merit based.
24:10Here are two basic frameworks I urge you to pursue in this process. Standards I
24:15call my staff heard all about them. The 1990 test and the E6 test.
24:24The 1990s test is simple. What were the military standards in 1990?
24:30And if they they have changed, tell me why. Was it a necessary change based on
24:37the evolving landscape of combat or was the change due to a softening,
24:42weakening or genderbased pursuit of other priorities? 1990s seems to be as good a place to
24:49start as any. and the E6 test. Ask yourself, does what
24:54you’re doing make the leadership, accountability, and lethality efforts of an E6 or or frankly an 03, does it make
25:03it easier or more complicated? Does the change empower staff sergeants,
25:08petty officers, and tech sergeants to get back to basics? The answer should be a resounding yes. The E6 test or 03 test
25:18clarifies a lot and it clarifies quickly because war does not care if you’re a
25:24man or a woman. Neither does the enemy. Nor does the weight of your rucksack,
25:30the size of an artillery round, or the body weight of a casualty on the battlefield who must be carried.
25:37This, and I want to be very clear about this, this is not about preventing women from serving. We are we very much value
25:44the impact of female troops. Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best
25:51in the world. But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in
25:58combat, those physical standards must be high and genderneutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not,
26:06it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it.
26:13That is not the intent, but it could be the result. So be it.
26:18It will also meant that weak mean that weak men won’t qualify because we’re not playing games. This is combat. This is
26:25life or death. As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hellbent on killing
26:30you. To be an effective, lethal fighting force, you must trust that the warrior
26:36alongside you in battle is capable. truly physically capable of doing what
26:42is necessary under fire. You know, this is the only standard you would want for
26:48your kids and for your grandkids. Apply the War Department golden rule,
26:53the 1990 test, and the E6 test, and it’s really hard to go wrong.
26:59Third, we are attacking and ending the walking on eggshells and zero defect command
27:07culture. A risk averse culture means officers execute not to lose instead of to win. A
27:16risk averse culture means NCOs are not empowered to enforce standards. Commanders and NCOs’s don’t take
27:22necessary risks or make tough adjustments for fear of rocking the boat or making mistakes.
27:29A blemish free record is what peacetime leaders covet the most, which is the
27:36worst of all incentives. You, we as senior leaders need to end
27:43the poisonous culture of risk aversion and empower our NCOs at all levels to
27:48enforce standards. Truth be told, for the most part, we don’t need new standards. We just need
27:55to reestablish a culture where enforcing standards is possible. And that’s why today at my direction,
28:02I’m issuing new policies that will overhaul the IGO and MEO processes.
28:09I call it the no more walking on eggshells policy. We are liberating commanders and NCOs.
28:17We are liberating you. We are overhauling an inspector general
28:22process, the IG, that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues, and
28:28poor performers in the driver’s seat. We’re doing the same with the equal opportunity and military equal
28:34opportunity policies, the EO and MEO at our department.
28:40No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat
28:45complaintants, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking
28:52careers, no more walking on eggshells.
28:57Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948.
29:04The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal. Those kinds
29:10of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced. But telling someone to shave or get a
29:16haircut or to get in shape or to fix their uniform or to show up on time or to work hard, that’s exactly the kind of
29:22discrimination we want. We are not civilians. You are not civilians. You are set apart for a
29:30distinct purpose. So we as a department need to stop acting and thinking like civilians and get back to basics and put
29:37the power back in the hands of commanders and NCOs. Commanders and NCOs who make life and death decisions.
29:45Commanders and NCOs who enforce standards and ensure readiness. commanders and NCOs who in this war
29:52department have to look in the mirror and have to pass the golden rule test.
29:59My kids, your kids, America’s sons and daughters.
30:05So, I urge you all here today and those watching, take this guidance and run with it.
30:11The core of this speech is the 10 directives we’re announcing today. They were written for you.
30:17For Army leadership, for Navy leadership, for Marine Corps leadership, for Air Force leadership, Space Force
30:23leadership. These directives are designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back
30:30in the driver’s seat. Move out with urgency because we have your back. I have your back and the
30:38commander-in-chief has your back. And when we give you this guidance, we
30:44know mistakes will be made. It’s the nature of leadership. But you should not pay for earnest mistakes for your entire
30:51career. And that’s why today at my direction, we’re making changes to the retention of adverse information on
30:58personnel records that will allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered
31:05by those infractions in perpetuity. People make honest mistakes and our
31:10mistakes should not define an entire career. Otherwise, we only try not to make mistakes and that’s not the
31:16business we’re in. We need risktakers and aggressive leaders and a culture
31:22that supports you. Fourth, at the War Department, promotions across the joint force will
31:29be based on one thing, merit. Colorblind, genderneutral, merit-based.
31:35The entire promotion process, including evaluations of warf fighting capabilities, is being thoroughly re-examined. We’ve already done a lot in
31:43this area, but more changes are coming soon. We’ll promote top performing officers
31:48and NCOs’s faster and get rid of poor performers more quickly. Evaluations,
31:55education, and field exercises will become real evaluations, not box
32:00checks, for every one of us at every level. These same reforms happened before World
32:07War II as well. General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson did
32:13the same thing. And we won a world war because of it. As
32:18it happens, when he started the job, Chairman Kaine gave me a frame and a photo to hang in my office. A matching
32:26frame and photo hangs in his. It’s a photo of Marshall and Stimson
32:33preparing for World War II. Those two leaders famously kept the door open between their offices for the entirety
32:40of the war. They worked together, civilian and uniform, every single day.
32:47Chairman Kaine and I do the same. There is no daylight between us. Our doors are always open. Our job together is to
32:55ensure our military is led by the very best, ready to answer the nation’s call.
33:03Fifth, as you have seen and the media has obsessed over, I have
33:11fired a number of senior officers since taking over. The previous chairman, other members of the joint chiefs,
33:17combatant commanders, and other commanders. The rationale for me has been straightforward.
33:22It’s nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that
33:28culture. Even if that culture was created by a previous president and previous secretary.
33:34My approach has been simple. When in doubt, assess the situation, follow your
33:40gut, and if it’s the best for the military, make a change. We all serve at
33:47the pleasure of the president every single day.
33:53But in many ways, it’s not their fault. It’s not your fault. As foolish and
33:59reckless as the woke department was, those officers were following elected political leadership.
34:07An entire generation of generals and admirals were were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that quote,
34:14″Our diversity is our strength.” Of course, we know our unity is our
34:19strength. They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI plus statements.
34:26They were told females and males are the same thing or that males who think they’re females totally normal.
34:35They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refuse an
34:42emergency vaccine. They followed civilian policies set by foolish and
34:47reckless political leaders. Our job, my job has been to determine which
34:55leaders simply did what they must to answer the prerogatives of civilian leadership and which leaders are truly
35:02invested in the woke department and therefore incapable of embracing the war department and executing new lawful
35:09orders. That’s it. It’s that simple. So for the past eight months, we’ve gotten
35:15a good look under the hood of our officer corps. We’ve done our best to thoroughly assess the human terrain.
35:22We’ve had to make trade-offs and some difficult decisions. It’s more of an art than a science. We
35:29have been and will continue to be judicious, but also expeditious.
35:36The new compass heading is clear. Out with the Charellis, the McKenzies,
35:42and the Millies, and in with the Stockdale, the Schwarzoffs, and the Pattons.
35:48more leadership changes will be made of that uncertain. Not because we want to, but because we must. Once again, this is
35:55life and death. The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies. Personnel is policy.
36:04But I look out at this group and I see great Americans, leaders who have given decades to our
36:12great republic at great sacrifice to yourselves and to your families.
36:19But if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink,
36:24then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service.
36:32But I suspect, I know the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These
36:40words make your hearts full. You love the War Department because you love what you do, the profession of
36:46arms. You are hereby liberated to be an a-political hardcharging nononsense
36:54constitutional leader that you joined the military to be.
37:01We need you locked in on the M, not the D, the E or the I. Not the DEI
37:08or the DIE of dime. By that I mean the M. military of the instruments of
37:14national power. We have entire departments across the government dedicated to diplomatic,formational and economic
37:21lines of effort. We do the M. Nobody else does. And our goof need to master
37:27it in every domain and every scenario. No more distractions, no more political ideologies, no more debris.
37:34Now, of course, we’re going to disagree at times. We would not be Americans if we didn’t.
37:41Being a leader in a large organization like ours means means having frank conversations
37:46and differences of opinion. You will win some arguments and you will lose some arguments. But when civilian
37:53leaders issued lawful orders, we execute. We are professionals in the profession
38:00of arms. Our entire constitutional system is predicated upon this understanding.
38:09Now, seems like a small thing, but it’s not. This includes as well the behavior of our troops online.
38:16To that end, I want to thank and recognize the services for their new proactive social media policies.
38:22Use them. Anonymous online or keyboard complaining is not worthy of a warrior.
38:29It’s cowardice masquerading as conscience. Anonymous unit level social
38:35media pages that trash commanders, demoralize troops, and undermine unit cohesion must not be tolerated.
38:43Again, 03s, E6s. Sixth, we must train and we must
38:50maintain. Any moment that we are not training on our mission or maintaining our equipment
38:57is a moment we are less prepared for preventing or winning the next war.
39:03That is why today at my direction, we are drastically reducing the ridiculous amount of mandatory training that
39:09individuals and units must execute. We’ve already ended the most egregious.
39:15Now we’re giving you back real time. Less PowerPoint briefings and fewer online courses, more time in the motor
39:21pool, and more time on the range. Our job is to make sure you have the money, equipment, weapons, and parts to
39:28train and maintain. And then you take it from there. You all know this because it’s common
39:33sense. The tougher and the higher the standards in our units, the higher the
39:39retention rates in those units. Warriors want to be challenged. Troops want to be tested. When you don’t train and you
39:46don’t maintain, you demoralize. And that’s when our best people decide to take their talents to the civilian
39:53world. The leaders who created the woke department have already driven out too many hard chargers. We reverse that
40:00trend right now. There is no world in which highintensity
40:05war exists without pain, agony, and human tragedy. We are in a dangerous line of work. You
40:13are in a dangerous line of work. We may lose good people,
40:20but let no warrior cry out from the grave, “If only I had been properly trained.”
40:27We will not use lose warf fighters. because we failed to train or equip them or resource them. Shame on us if we do.
40:34Train like your warriors lives depend on it. Because they do.
40:40To that point, basic training is being restored to what it should be, scary,
40:45tough, and disciplined. We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits,
40:52ensuring that future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack. They can
40:58toss bunks. They can swear. And yes, they can put their hands on recruits.
41:03This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and trueue methods to motivate new
41:12recruits to make them the warriors they need to be back to basics at basic as
41:19well. Of course, and you know this, basic training is not where mission readiness should end. The nature of the evolving
41:26threat environment demands that everyone in every job must be ready to join the
41:31fight if needed. A core credo of the Marine Corps is every Marine a rifleman.
41:38It means that everyone, regardless of MOS, is proficient enough to engage an enemy threat at sea, in the air, or in a
41:46so-called rear area. We need to ensure that every member of our uniform military maintains baseline
41:53proficiency in basic combat skills, especially because the next war, like the last, will likely not have a rear
42:01area. Finally, as President Trump rightly pointed out
42:08when he changed the department name, the United States has not won a major theater war since the name was changed
42:15to the Department of Defense in 1947. One conflict stands out in stark
42:22contrast, the Gulf War. Why? Well, there’s a number of reasons,
42:28but it was a limited mission with overwhelming force and a clear end state. But why did we execute and win
42:34the Gulf War the way we did in 1991? There’s two overwhelming reasons.
42:40One was President Ronald Reagan’s military buildup gave an overwhelming advantage. And two, military and
42:46Pentagon leadership had previous formative battlefield experiences.
42:53The men who led this department during the Gulf War were mostly combat veterans
42:58of the Vietnam War. They said never again to mission creep or nebulous endstates.
43:06The same holds true today. Our civilian and military leadership is chock full of
43:11veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who say never again to nation building and nebulous endstates.
43:19This cleareyed view all the way in the White House combined with President Trump’s military buildup postures us for
43:26future victories if and we will and when we embrace the War Department
43:34and we must. We are preparing every day. We have to
43:39be prepared for war, not for defense. We’re training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend.
43:46Defense is something you do all the time. It’s inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach, and
43:51mission creep. War is something you do sparingly, on our own terms, and with clear aims. We
43:59fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy.
44:07We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our warf fighters to intimidate, demoralize,
44:14hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and
44:20overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense, maximum lethality and
44:26authority for war fighters. That’s all I ever wanted as a platoon leader. And
44:32it’s all my E6 squad leaders ever wanted. Back to that E6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations and then
44:40we have their back. It’s very simple yet incredibly powerful.
44:47A few months ago, I was at the White House when President Trump announced his liberation day for America’s trade
44:52policy. It was a landmark day. While today is another liberation day,
44:58the liberation of America’s warriors in name, in deed, and in authorities.
45:05You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and
45:11don’t necessarily belong always in polite society.
45:16We are not an army of one. We are a joint force of millions of selfless
45:22Americans. We are warriors. We are purpose-built,
45:27not for fair weather, blue skies, or calm seas. We were built to load up in
45:32the back of helicopters, five tons or Zodiacs in the dead of night in fair
45:39weather or fowl to go to dangerous places to find to find those who would
45:44do our nation harm and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in
45:50close and brutal combat if necessary. You are different.
45:59We fight not because we hate what’s in front of us. We fight because we love what’s behind us.
46:06You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us. And that’s okay because they could never do what you do.
46:14The media will mischaracterize us. And that’s okay because deep down they know the reason they can do what they do is
46:21you. In this profession, you feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens
46:27can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card and
46:32victory our only acceptable end state.
46:37In closing, a few weeks ago at our monthly Pentagon Christian prayer service, I recited a
46:45commander’s prayer. It’s a simple yet meaningful prayer for wisdom for commanders and leaders. I
46:52encourage you to look it up if you’ve never seen it. But the prayer, it ends like this.
46:58And most of all, Lord, please keep my soldiers safe. Lead them, guide them,
47:06protect them, watch over them, and as you gave all of yourself for me, help me
47:14give all of myself for them. And amen. I have prayed this prayer many times
47:20since I’ve had the privilege of being your secretary, and I will continue to pray this prayer for each of you as you
47:27command and lead our nation’s finest.
47:32Go forth and do good things, hard things.
47:38President Trump has your back and so do I.
47:44And you’ll hear from him shortly. Move out and draw fire because we
47:52are the War Department. Godspeed.
48:57Heat. Heat.
54:58Heat. Heat.
55:18Heat. Heat.
55:40Sing.
56:07Where?
56:22Heat. Heat.
57:22Heat. Heat.
1:00:27Heat. Heat.
1:00:49Heat. Heat.
1:01:43Everything.
1:02:22That was so
1:02:47It’s alive. It’s alive.
1:04:32Good morning.
1:04:52Heat. Heat.
1:07:02Heat.
1:07:15Heat.
1:09:43Whatever.
1:10:42Heat. Heat.
1:10:48Hallelujah.
1:11:48Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of War.
1:12:01Well, you’ve heard from me. So, now it’s the main event, our commander-in-chief.
1:12:07I have the privilege every single day of watching him put America first, of
1:12:13ensuring that our war fighters have everything they need. Uh his compass is clear. He’s easy to follow because, you
1:12:21know, he has our back. I was thinking backstage, the man who was the
1:12:27commander-in-chief when the War Department was created was George Washington. The man who was
1:12:34president when the War Department was reestablished is President Trump. And
1:12:39when he found out about this gathering of senior leaders, he said, “I would be honored to come in order to address and
1:12:47thank the incredible Americans who defend our nation.” He has a heart full of gratitude and love for what you do,
1:12:55and we get a chance to see it every day, and I’m honored that this morning you all firsthand get to see it as well. So
1:13:02ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the 45th and 47th president of
1:13:09the United States, our commanderin-chief, Donald J. Trump.
1:13:36Thank you very much, Pete. Great job you’re doing, too. Fantastic job. I’ve
1:13:41never walked into a room so silent before. This is very Don’t laugh. Don’t laugh. You’re not allowed to do that.
1:13:48You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want,
1:13:54you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future.
1:14:02But you just feel nice and loose, okay? Because we’re all on the same team. And
1:14:07uh I was told that sir, you won’t hear you won’t hear a murmur in the room. I
1:14:13said we got to loosen these guys up a little bit. So you just have a good time. But I want to thank Secretary Hexa
1:14:20and General Kaine, General Raisin Kane for a reason they call him that. When I heard his name, I said, “You’re the guy
1:14:27I’m looking for. the Joint Chiefs of Staff and so many others in this room who together
1:14:32represent the greatest and most elite fighting force in the history of the world, the United States military. We’re
1:14:39very proud of our military. I rebuilt the military during my first term. It’s one of the greatest achievements. We had
1:14:44the greatest economy in history and I built the military. Those are the two things I say more than anything else.
1:14:50And I also kept us safe at the borders. We had very good uh borders. We didn’t
1:14:56have people coming in from jails and prisons and everything like took place over the last four years. They’ll never
1:15:02forget what happened to this country over the last four years with the incompetence.
1:15:08There could be no higher honor than to serve as your commander-in-chief. It is a great honor. I look at you just
1:15:14incredible people. Central casting, I might add. To each
1:15:19and every one of you, I thank you for your unwavering devotion to the armed forces and to the country that we’ve all
1:15:27sworn a sacred oath to defend. We all have that oath, every one of us. I’m thrilled to be here this morning to
1:15:33address the senior leadership of what is once again known around the world as the
1:15:39Department of War. I know Pete spoke about it. He gave a great speech. I thought great speech. I don’t want him
1:15:47to get so good. I hate that, you know. No, I hate it. I almost fired him. I
1:15:52said, “You can’t. I don’t want to go on after that.” No. He gave he gave a great speech, but he talked about Department
1:15:59of War. We were sitting there. I said, “Didn’t it used to be called the Department of War?” Then he goes, “Yes,
1:16:04sir. They changed it like in the early 50s.” So, we won the First World War. We
1:16:10won the Second World War. We won everything in between and everything before that. We only won. And then we
1:16:16went in a way woke. That was probably the first sign of wokeness and we changed it to defense instead of war.
1:16:22And I said, “What do you think? How do you think if we change it back? Would that be a nice idea?” And Pete loved it
1:16:29immediately. Some people think thought about it. You know, they gave it a little thought, but in the end, we did
1:16:35it. And and I have to be honest, it’s so popular. It’s I thought would be met with fury on the left, but they’re sort
1:16:44of giving up. I must be honest with you. They’ve had it. They’ve had it with Trump. They’ve been after me for so many
1:16:50years now. Here we are. Here we are. Come to the White House anytime you’d like. No, they’ve given up. Bad. A lot
1:16:58of bad people. But all over. That’s been so popular. It’s been a very popular. I really thought that we were going to
1:17:03have to sort of fight it through. There’s been no fight. There’s been no fight. Like what I called the Gulf of
1:17:10America. The Gulf of America. Because to me, it was always the Gulf of America. I could never understand. We have 92% of
1:17:17the frontage and for years, actually 350 years, they
1:17:23were there before us, it was called the Gulf of Mexico. I just had this idea. I’m looking at a map. I’m saying, we
1:17:29have most of the frontage. Why is it Gulf of Mexico? Why isn’t it the Gulf of America?
1:17:36And uh I made the change and it went smoothly. I mean, we had a couple of
1:17:41fake news outlets that refused to make the change, and then one of them, AP, took us to court, and we won. And the
1:17:48judge, who was a somewhat liberal judge, said, uh, the name is the Gulf of
1:17:54America because AP refused to call it the Gulf of America. They wrote, they’re
1:18:00not a good outfit, by the way. They call it the Gulf of Mexico. I said, no, the Gulf of America is the name. And the
1:18:06judge actually said that uh in fact you can’t even go into the room because what you’re doing is not appropriate. The
1:18:12name is the Gulf of America. Google maps changed the name. Everybody did but AP wouldn’t. And then we won in court. How
1:18:19about that? Isn’t that so cool? As Secretary Hex beautifully described the
1:18:25name change reflects far more than the shift in branding. It’s really a
1:18:31historic reassertion of our purpose and our identity and our pride. That’s when we
1:18:37go with the word war and you know we want war because we want to have no wars
1:18:43but you have to be there and you know sometimes you have to do it. I have settled so many wars since we we’re here
1:18:52almost nine months and I’ve settled seven and yesterday we might have settled the biggest of them all.
1:18:57Although I don’t know Pakistan, India was very big. Both nuclear powers I settled that. But yesterday is could be
1:19:05the settlement in the Middle East. That’s hasn’t happened for 3,000 years. I said, “How long have you been fighting?” 3,000 years. So that’s a long
1:19:12time. But we got it, I think, settled. We’ll see. Hamas has to agree.
1:19:17And if they don’t, it’s going to be very tough on them. But it is what it is. But all of the Arab nations, Muslim nations
1:19:25have agreed. Israel has agreed. It’s amazing thing. It just came together. War is very
1:19:32strange. You know, you never know what’s going to happen with war. The easiest one of them all is Putin. I said, number
1:19:39one, it’s a war that would have never happened if I were president. If the election weren’t rigged, if I were president, that war would have never
1:19:46happened. Not not even a little chance. And it didn’t happen for four years. But I knew Putin very well. And I thought
1:19:51that would be easy because I know him so well. Well, that one turned out to be the hardest of them. We had some that
1:19:58were not settled and they all got settled. So, if this works out that we did yesterday with the Middle East, then
1:20:06that’s that’s more than a war. That’s lots of wars. That’s all combined. That’s a lot of wars. Many of you were
1:20:11over there in many different capacities in many different countries. That was a that’s a big that’s a big part of the
1:20:18earth. But if that works out, it would be eight plus. I could give myself two
1:20:24or three for that one. And then we just have the one to settle. We have to settle it up with President Putin and
1:20:30Zalinsky. Got to get them together and get it done. But the only way we can do that is through strength. I mean, if we
1:20:37were weak, they wouldn’t even take my phone call. But we have extreme strength.
1:20:42Uh we had the horror show in Afghanistan which is really the reason I think that
1:20:49Putin went in. He saw that horror show by Biden and his team of incompetent
1:20:54people and that showed I think it gave him a path in. I wasn’t there any long longer. Uh I watched that. It was so so
1:21:02horrible. I think it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country.
1:21:07And now we’re back. That’s it. We’re not going to have any of that crap happen. I can tell you that was terrible. So
1:21:14terrible. Together we’re reawakening the warrior spirit. And this is a spirit
1:21:20that won and built this nation. And from the cavalry that tamed the great plains
1:21:26to the ferocious unyielding power of Patton Bradley and the great general
1:21:32Douglas MacArthur. These are all great men in this effort. We’re a team. And so my
1:21:39message to you is very simple. I am with you. I support you. And as president, I
1:21:44have your backs 100%. You’ll never see me even waver a little bit. It’s the way it is. And that includes our great
1:21:51police officers and firemen and all of these people that are doing so well.
1:21:58Together over the next few years, we’re going to make our military stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer, and more
1:22:03powerful than it has ever been before. I rebuilt our nuclear as you probably
1:22:10know, but we’ll upgrade that also and just hope we never have to use it. We have to hope we never have to use it
1:22:16because the the power of that is so
1:22:21incredible. I’ I see things. I don’t think they’d show it to you. I don’t I really wouldn’t want them to show it to
1:22:26you, but when you see the result of what’s left,
1:22:32you never want to use that. Never. Never. Ever. We were a little bit threatened by
1:22:39Russia recently and I sent a
1:22:45submarine, nuclear submarine. The most lethal weapon ever made. Number
1:22:52one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and
1:22:57China in submarines. Russia’s actually second in submarines. China’s third, but
1:23:02they’re, you know, they’re coming up. They’re coming up. They’re way to lower in nuclear, too, but in five years
1:23:08they’ll be equal. They’re coming up. And you don’t have to be that good with
1:23:13nuclear. You could have 120th what you have now and still do the
1:23:18damage that would be, you know, that’d be so horrendous.
1:23:24But I announced that, you know, based on his mention of nuclear, and it was really a stupid person that works for
1:23:30mentioned the word nuclear, I moved a submarine or two. I won’t say about
1:23:36the two over to the coast of Russia just to be
1:23:43careful because we can’t let people throw around that word.
1:23:50I call it the nword. There are two N words and you can’t use either of them.
1:23:57Can’t use either of them. And frankly,
1:24:03if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else. We have better, we have
1:24:09newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about. But when somebody mentions it, that
1:24:14submarine started immediately thereafter, and it’s just lurking. But I’m sure we’re not going to have to use it. But
1:24:22it’s a an amazing. It’s undetectable. Totally. Ours is. Theirs isn’t. Theirs are totally
1:24:28detectable. We can detect them easily. We go right to the spot. But we have
1:24:34genius apparatus that doesn’t allow detection. It doesn’t allow detection at all by by anybody above water or below
1:24:42water. It’s incredible. We’re way ahead of everybody in that. and other things as a result of the exciting renewal of
1:24:49the spirit of our armed forces. And that’s what it is. It’s really reaching at spirit unprecedented heights. Over
1:24:57the past eight months, new enlistments, I’m so proud of this. Have surged to record highs, the highest we’ve ever
1:25:03had. And we used to have recruiting shortages. If you remember about a year
1:25:10and a half ago, I was at the beginning stage of a campaign and things came out
1:25:16that you couldn’t get people to join the armed forces. And by the way, the police also
1:25:21fire department. I always put the fire department in because they’re great. They’re great. And I got 95% of their
1:25:27vote, too. That helps. When you get 95% of their vote, you always have to mention them. But they’re great and
1:25:34they’re brave in our inner cities, which we’re going to be talking about because it’s so it’s a big part of war now. It’s
1:25:40a big part of war. But the firemen go up in ladders and you have people shooting at them while they’re up in ladders. I
1:25:45don’t even know if anybody heard of that, but and I said, “Don’t talk about it much, but I think you have to. Our
1:25:50firemen are incredible. They’re up in one of these ladders. It goes way up to the sky rescuing people and you have
1:25:56animals shooting at them, shooting bullets at firemen that are way up in in death
1:26:04territory. You fall off that ladder, it’s over. It’s over. They don’t even have to inspect you when you hit the
1:26:11ground. And you have people shooting bullets at them in some of these inner cities. We’re not going to let that
1:26:17happen. So, I always mention the firemen because that’s actually a big problem we have.
1:26:23They are unbelievable. Like you, they’re unbelievable people. For the first time on record in 2025,
1:26:30the Navy, Air Force, and Space Force all met or surpassed their recruiting goals
1:26:35three months early. That never happened before. And the Army did even better.
1:26:43Congratulations, Army. They met everything. And these were the highest standards because we’re making it
1:26:49larger. So these were much higher standards than you had four years ago, three years ago during the sleepy Joe
1:26:55Biden era. And the army did it four
1:27:00months early. And you remember a year and a half ago, they said the big stories that were way
1:27:07behind with the army, air force, the navy, the marines were way behind. Coast Guard and even Space Force. I love Space
1:27:14Wars because that was my creation. You know, when you create something, I love it. And the people we put in there were
1:27:20good. I got that right. We put in great people initially and we we’ve really dominated. We really dominate in that
1:27:26sphere. Now we uh we’re way behind China and Russia and now we dominate. Space
1:27:33force turned out to be a very important thing. I said from the beginning, you know, when Biden came into office, he
1:27:38wanted to terminate. He said and and this thing called space force so we can get rid of that and he got hammered by
1:27:44the people in this room for even suggesting it because it’s very important one of the most important and
1:27:50as time goes by it’ll get more and more important. But we’re now at 106% of our recruiting
1:27:58targets for the year and that’s the best in far more than a generation.
1:28:03And for the Marines, morale is so strong that the Marine Corps will meet its 2026
1:28:09retention targets before the end of October, which never happens. And that’s the earliest it’s ever happened in the
1:28:15history of our country. And it makes you feel good. You know, I felt guilty. I’ I’d go make a speech in front of never
1:28:23people like you. You are the you are the leaders, but people soldiers. And
1:28:31I felt embarrassed because there’d be stories about, you know, you couldn’t we couldn’t fill up our army, navy, air
1:28:39force. We couldn’t fill them up. And it was headlines. His headlines. It was
1:28:45during Biden’s four years. The autopen, I call him the auto pen. That’s how
1:28:50would you like to have your thing signed by an auto pen? You know, when I have a general and I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, the
1:28:57gorgeous paper. I said, “Throw a little more gold on it. They deserve it. Give me I want the A paper, not the D paper.”
1:29:04We used to sign a piece of garbage. I said, “This man’s going to be a general, right?” Yeah. I don’t want to use this.
1:29:10I want to use the big beautiful firm paper. I want to use the real gold
1:29:15writing when you talk about the position and they’re beautiful and uh but how
1:29:22would you like to have that where you some kid sitting in the back office is having it signed with an auto pen? I
1:29:29thought about it and I thought about you people first admirals generals I said somebody works his
1:29:35his whole life he gets into maybe themies or wherever but however you got
1:29:41there and you go through years of work and now you become an admiral or a general or whatever
1:29:48and when you do the president of the United States signs your commission as you know and that commission is
1:29:54beautifully displayed and I sign it actually I love my signature. I really do. Everyone loves
1:30:01my signature. But I signed it very proudly. And I always think to myself, how can you have an auto pen sign this?
1:30:07It’s just so disrespectful to me. It’s just totally disrespectful. And it turned out that almost everything he did
1:30:13was signed by uh by autopen except for what he gave his son Hunter pardon. He
1:30:18signed that one. And that’s actually the worst signature I’ve ever seen. That was so bad. The autopen looks much better.
1:30:26But as leaders, our commitment to every patriot who put on the uniform is to ensure that American military remains
1:30:33the most lethal and dominant on the planet. Not merely for a few years, but for the decades and generations to come,
1:30:39for centuries. We must be so strong that no nation will
1:30:45dare challenge us, so powerful that no enemy will dare threaten us, and so capable that no adversary can even think
1:30:52about beating us. And we’ve had it recently. I had uh India and Pakistan
1:30:59were going at it and I called them both. And in this case, I use trade. I’m not
1:31:04going to trade with you. You start to two nuclear nations, big nuclear, no, no, no, you cannot do that. I said
1:31:10yes, I can. You go into this freaking war that I’m hearing about. You know, actually, they just shot down seven
1:31:15planes. Seven planes. It was starting. There’s a lot of bad blood. And I said,
1:31:21you do this, there’s not going to be any trade. and I stopped the war was it was going
1:31:27it was raging for four days but that was just the beginning and we stopped it was
1:31:32a great thing and the prime minister of Pakistan was here along with the field
1:31:38marshal who’s a very important guy in Pakistan and he was here three days ago
1:31:44and I didn’t even realize it as beautifully as he said it but he said that to a group of people that were with
1:31:50us two generals but a group He said, “This man saved millions of
1:31:55lives because he saved the war from going on and that war was going to get
1:32:01very bad. Very, very bad. President Trump saved millions and millions of
1:32:07lives.” That was a bad war. And uh I was very honored. I love the way he said it.
1:32:13Susie Wilds was there. She said that was the most beautiful thing. But uh we saved a lot of them.
1:32:20Saved a lot of them. Even in Africa, we saved the Congo with Rwanda.
1:32:28They’ve been fighting for 31 years. 10 million people dead. I got that one done. And uh very proud of it. So, if
1:32:36this works out, we’ll have eight. Eight in eight months. That’s pretty good. Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get
1:32:44the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it They’ll give it to some guy that
1:32:49didn’t do a damn thing. They’ll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump and what it took to
1:32:55solve the wars and he’ll get the Nobel Prize will go to a writer now. But we’ll see what happens. But
1:33:02it’s be a big insult to our country. I will tell you that. I don’t want it. I want the country to get it. But it
1:33:08should get it because there’s never been anything like it. Think of it. So if this happens, I think it will. I don’t say that lightly because I know more
1:33:14about deals than anybody. That’s what my whole life was based on. And they can change and this can certainly change.
1:33:20But we have just about everybody. We have one signature that we need and that
1:33:26signature will will pay in hell if they don’t sign. I hope they sign for their
1:33:31own good and we create something really great. But to have done eight of them is just
1:33:39like such an honor. And then we have Putin and Zalinski.
1:33:45The easiest one of them all. I said that one I’ll get done. I thought that was going to be first. The other was much
1:33:51harder. Some of them Azeraijan was this was going on for 36 years. They
1:33:59said, “It’s not solvable, sir. You can’t don’t do it.” I said, “I will do it. I will do it.” And I got on the phone with
1:34:06the two countries. They were great. They were great. I knew immediately. I knew as soon as I started talking to them,
1:34:11we’re going to solve that war. And we did. Now they’re so happy. Now they’re friends. once said he’s been president
1:34:17for 32 years, 22 years. He said, “You know, for 22 years, I did nothing but
1:34:23kill his people.” They were in the room together at the Oval Office and they started off spread like this. I have the
1:34:29beautiful Resolute desk and one was here and one was here. You couldn’t get
1:34:36further away. That’s the furthest I’ve ever seen two people in front of me. And as the hour went by, they got closer,
1:34:42closer, closer. And at the end of the hour, we had it done. And they hugged and hugged and hugged. And I said,
1:34:49″That’s so nice. And you’re going to remain friends.” And I spoke to them, one of them the other day, he said, “No,
1:34:54he’s now my friend.” But for 22 years, he’s been the head of Azeran for 22
1:35:01years. And the other guy, great guy, too. Seven. And you know that war, that was a
1:35:07war that was not solvable. He said, “For seven years.” The other one said, “For 22 years, all I did was
1:35:13kill his people. That’s all I’ve done.” I said, “Well, we’re going to put a stop to that.” So, we solved that. So, it’s a
1:35:20great thing. It’s a great feeling. You know, you’re saving Kosovo and Serbia. You’re saving so many
1:35:27lives doing this if you can do it. But our people deserve nothing less than the
1:35:32very best. And we’re never going to let them down. And if we can solve wars
1:35:37instead of you having to fight wars, wouldn’t that be wonderful? Right? Wouldn’t that be wonderful? It’s why one
1:35:44of the first executive orders I signed upon taking office was to restore the principle of merit. That’s the most
1:35:51important word other than the word tariff. I love tariffs.
1:35:56Most beautiful word, but I’m not allowed to say that anymore. I said tariff is my favorite word. I love the word tariff.
1:36:04you know, we’re becoming rich as hell. We have a big case in front of the Supreme Court, but I I can’t imagine
1:36:10because this is what other nations have done to us and we have, you know, great legal grounds and all, but you still
1:36:16have a case. Would be very bad something happened. But I said, “My favorite word
1:36:23in the English dictionary is the word tariff.” And people thought that was strange and the fake news came over and
1:36:29they really hit me hard on it. They said, “What about love? What about religion? What about God? What about
1:36:35wife? Family? I got killed when I said tariff is my
1:36:40favorite word. So, I changed. It’s now my fifth favorite word. And I’m okay with that. I’m okay with that. But they
1:36:48hit me hard. But it is. I mean, when you look at we’ve taken in trillions of
1:36:53dollars. We’re rich. Rich again. And there’ll never be when we finish this
1:36:58out, there’ll never be any wealth like what we have. Other countries were taking advantage of us for years and
1:37:05years. You know that better than anybody. And now we’re treating them fairly, but the money coming in is we’ve
1:37:12never seen anything like it. The other day they had 31 billion that they found $ 31 billion.
1:37:19So we found $31 billion and we’re not sure from where it came. A gentleman
1:37:24came in, a financial guy. I said, “Well, what does that mean?” He said, “We don’t
1:37:30know where it came.” I said, “Check the tariff shelf.” “No, sir. The tariffs haven’t started in that sector yet.” I
1:37:37said, “Yes, they have. They started seven weeks ago. Check it.” Comes back 20 minutes later. “Sir, you’re right. It
1:37:44came from tariffs. 31 billion. That’s enough to buy a lot of battleships,
1:37:49Admiral.” to use an old term. I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships.
1:37:54By the way, you know, we have a secretary of the Navy came to me because I look at the Iowa out in California and
1:38:02I look at uh different ships in the old pictures. I used to watch Victory at
1:38:07Sea. I love Victory at Sea. Look at these admirals. It’s got to be your alltime f in black and white. When I
1:38:13look at those ships, they came with the destroyers alongside of them. And man, nothing was going to stop. They were 20
1:38:19deep and they were in a straight line and there was nothing going to stop them. And we actually talk about you
1:38:25know those ships. Some people would say no that’s old technology. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s old technology when
1:38:32you look at those guns. But it’s something we’re actually considering the concept of battleship.
1:38:38Nice 6in size solid steel not aluminum. aluminum that melts if it looks at a
1:38:44missile coming at it starts melting as the missiles about two miles away. You
1:38:49know, those ships, they don’t make them that way anymore. But you look at it and uh your secretary likes it and I’m I’m
1:38:55sort of open to it and and bullets are a lot less expensive than missiles. A lot of lot of reasons. I I should take a
1:39:03vote, but I’m afraid to take that vote because I may get voted out on that one. But I tell you, it’s uh it’s something
1:39:09worth seriously considering. There uh there were powers. There were big powers. They were just about as uh
1:39:17mean and scary as you could be. So, we’re looking at that. One of the
1:39:22biggest cases that we won was the decision of the United States Supreme Court to allow us to proceed on the word
1:39:30merit. Merit. So, those two words are right up there. So, this is I would say
1:39:36the opposite of you ask for a definition. The opposite of political correctness.
1:39:43We went through political correct where you had to have people that were totally
1:39:48unfit to be doing what you’re doing. For many reasons I won’t get into them, but for many reasons they were unfit. Now
1:39:56it’s all based on merit. That was such an unbelievable decision. I didn’t expect we were going to win that one. We
1:40:02went in, we said we need it. We went in for colleges, you know, where kids with
1:40:08a C average are getting into the best colleges and the kids with Averages won’t get in. And kids with the highest
1:40:15boards and the highest marks and the best marks couldn’t get into the best schools. And people that had not good
1:40:22boards and not very good marks. I mean, okay, but nothing special. They were getting into our best colleges. I said,
1:40:28″This is just crazy. We can’t run You can’t run a country like this.” And it
1:40:34it was lingering for years and it got to the Supreme Court and we won that
1:40:39decision. Merit, everything’s based on merit. You’re all based on merit. We’re not going to have somebody taking your
1:40:45place for political reasons because uh they are politically correct and you’re
1:40:51not. We take the people that are going to do the best job. That’s all. It’s very simple. And that’s the way our country
1:40:58was built. We were built on merit. We got away from it for a long time.
1:41:03and everyone understands it and it was done. It was approved. I I give great
1:41:09credit to the Supreme Court because I thought they had tremendous courage. I didn’t think they’d do that. That was
1:41:15tremendous. I give maybe for that decision almost more than anything because it’s a hard decision to make.
1:41:22It’s really hard. The apparatus of our country was not set up for merit. It was
1:41:27set up for political correctness. And you can never be great if you’re going
1:41:33to do that. And we’re going to be greater than we ever were before. We’re bringing back a focus on fitness,
1:41:40ability, character, and strength. And it’s because the purposes of America
1:41:46military is not to protect anyone’s feelings. It’s to protect our republic.
1:41:52And it’s the republic that we dearly love. It’s to protect our country. We will not be politically correct when
1:41:59it comes to defending American freedom. And we will be a fighting and winning machine. We want to fight. We want to
1:42:06win. And we want to fight as little as possible. You have to count on people like me to keep you out of wars because
1:42:11we don’t want to go into wars. Many of the wars that I just told you about, we could have entered those wars and
1:42:17settled them in a different way. Lose a lot of our troops and uh we could have settled them, I
1:42:22guess, differently. Maybe not actually. Actually, you might not have been able to settle it. We just would have been in
1:42:29the middle of a lot of a lot of firepower, but uh but when we do need it, you’re
1:42:34going to be so ready. And you know it. But very importantly, with that goal in
1:42:40mind, I’ve committed to spending over $1 trillion on our military in 2026. And
1:42:48that’s the most in the history of our country. $1 trillion. That’s a lot of money. I hope you like that.
1:42:54Ma’ams and sir, I hope you like it. That’s a hell of a lot of money. We have the best of everything. Every branch is
1:43:02seeing major investments. And as I announced in the Oval Office in March,
1:43:08we are rapidly moving forward with the first ever sixth generation fighter jet. I didn’t name it. I did not name it.
1:43:16Boeing came in and they said, “Sir, this is our submitt. It’s the greatest
1:43:21fighting jet ever done.” and and you know they’re testing all these planes all the companies are testing and this
1:43:26one tested like through the roof and they said we’d like to name it the F47.
1:43:33I said let me think about it. Then after thinking for about two seconds I said okay
1:43:40you know that means 47 I’m 47. So I’m 45 46 and 47. You know if you think about
1:43:46it I just don’t want the credit for 46. I don’t want to have their uh open
1:43:52borders and people coming in from all over the world, including jails and mental instit. I don’t want that on my
1:43:58record, but I like I like having it. We’re investing tens of billions of
1:44:03dollars in modernizing our nuclear deterrence capabilities like never before. And we’ve begun construction on
1:44:10what we call the Golden Dome missile defense shield. It’ll be the most sophisticated in the world. You watched
1:44:15it do well until they had some problems at the end with a little bit of a lack
1:44:22of ammunition, defensive ammunition, but they’ve got that taken care of. But I
1:44:30tell you, it’s uh what we’re doing is so good and we deserve it. You know, we we help other countries with it. We don’t
1:44:35have it ourselves. And Canada called me a couple of weeks ago. They want to be part of it. to
1:44:42which I said,”Well, why don’t you just join our country? You become 51, become the 51st state and you get it for free.”
1:44:50So, I don’t know if that made a big impact, but it does make a lot of sense. It actually because they’re having a
1:44:56hard time up there in Canada now because, as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country. We
1:45:02have more investment than we’ve ever had before. 17 trillion dollars coming in.
1:45:07As an example, in four years, Biden didn’t have one trillion.
1:45:12We have 17 trillion more than that in eight months coming in. And they’re
1:45:18coming in from Canada, Mexico, from Europe, from all over. AI, auto plants.
1:45:24Everybody’s coming back to the United States. Under my budget, we will be expanding the US Navy by at least 19
1:45:32ships next year, including submarines, destroyers, assault ships, and more. And it’s going to be much more than that as
1:45:38we go along because we basically don’t build ships anymore. We do build submarines, but we don’t build
1:45:45ships. Do you know in the uh Second World War they were freigherss and different types, but we were doing a
1:45:51ship a day and now we don’t do ships. And I’m not a fan of some of the ships
1:45:57you do. I’m a very aesthetic person and I don’t like some of the ships you’re doing aesthetically. They say, “Oh, it’s
1:46:04stealth.” I said, “That’s not stealth. an ugly ship. It’s not necessary in
1:46:09order to say use stealth. By the way, the B2 bombers were incredible. That is
1:46:14stealth. They went into that. I was with General Kane and every and Pete were in
1:46:21the we call it the war room. But we’re watching them go in and they were totally untouched. They were not seen.
1:46:28They were literally not seen. They dropped their bombs. They hit every single one of them hit its target. It was total obliteration.
1:46:35CNN when we came back fake news CNN oh their camera just went off you know
1:46:41their camera every time I mention they turn the camera off because it’s never good they said this is a problem but I
1:46:47don’t blame them you’re better off keeping it off but uh they they have some scammer reporter who started saying
1:46:54without any knowledge that he may not have hit the targets as well as they thought it may not been obliteration he
1:47:02did hit the targets you got to give us a little credit, right? It was obliteration. It turned out the Atomic
1:47:08Energy Commission said it was obliter.
1:47:18It was dead dark. Couldn’t see a thing. You couldn’t see them. But they had, I
1:47:24guess, a beam going right into these shoots. Every single one of those bombs went right down those shoots into a
1:47:30granite mountain. I think it’s the last time they’re going to build air shoots. They had these air shoots that were
1:47:36nice, beautiful. They were meant for us, but it was total obliteration. And now
1:47:41they give us credit for that. But these people were phenomenal. I tell you, for the Air Force people here, uh you can be
1:47:48very proud that Beto, we just ordered a lot of new ones. New ones and uh updated
1:47:55ones, but I’d be I’d take the other ones, let me tell you. They couldn’t have worked any better. So they flew for
1:48:02uh 37 hours total back and forth, no stops, no nothing. We had 52 tankers
1:48:08loading them up. And that’s a job I wouldn’t necessarily want too much. Flying a tanker loaded up with hundreds
1:48:14of thousands of gallons of fuel. I don’t know if I’d do that job, general. I
1:48:19asked the question, “What happens if it gets hit?” Sir, you don’t want to know about that, right? I don’t want to know
1:48:24about that. But those guys, they’re just heroes. They’re incredible. I had them all to the Oval Office. We had the B2
1:48:31pilots and a lot of the people, even the people that uh took care of them, the maintenance people, just as important.
1:48:37We had them all to the White House, gave him a big party on the lawn, brought some of them into the Oval Office. But
1:48:44on top of all this, we’ll deliver a hard-earned pay raise of 3.8% to every soldier, sailor, airman, coast
1:48:51guardsmen, space guard, and marines. Something you weren’t getting from the past administration. They did not treat
1:48:57you with respect. They’re Democrats. They never do. Not only are we rebuilding our great strength, but for
1:49:04the first time in years, my administration is actually using that strength to defend the core and vital
1:49:09interests of America. And very simply, we are putting America first. And I have since I’ve been elected. I’ve always put
1:49:15America first. It’s sort of simple, you know, when you think it’s my campaign
1:49:21was run on common sense. And we did great. We’ve got the highest numbers
1:49:27ever received in terms of uh districts. You know, they have it broken up. 20 500
1:49:34versus 525. We won every swing state. We won the
1:49:39popular vote. We won everything. We won everything. You have to take a look at the map. It’s almost entirely red except
1:49:45there’s a little blue line on each coast. And I think that’s going to disappear too. We did really great and
1:49:52part of it is because of our success with the military, the rebuilding of the military, the vote that I got from the
1:49:58military and they was they’re vicious people, you know, that we have to fight just like you have to fight vicious people. Mine are different a different
1:50:05kind of vicious but uh they spread all these horrible you know they made up
1:50:10statements and said what I said about everything but even about the military but fortunately the military didn’t
1:50:16believe it. It’s hard. You know, they make up a statement and they said, “You say it.” We had 25 people that said he
1:50:22never said that. 25. We had 25 affidavits. And they said, “Well, we’re going with it anyway.” You know, these
1:50:28sleeves bags. And it’s why the press is really losing all power because people
1:50:34aren’t believing it. We need an honest press. We need borders. We need borders. We need an honest press. We need fair
1:50:40elections. I mean, those three things. And we we don’t have an honest press. We have a really corrupt press, but we
1:50:46fight through the corrupt press. And the people understand you have to do this stuff a lot. You have to go on
1:50:51television a lot because you can’t get a fair shake if you’re going to rely on somebody else. It’s they just uh they
1:50:57don’t understand. They’ve destroyed the the image of media now is at the lowest point it’s ever been. It’s lower than
1:51:04Congress. Can you believe that? It’s something. But together with many of you in the room, we’ve brought back the
1:51:11fundamental principle that defending the homeland is the military’s first and most important priority. That’s what it
1:51:18is. Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of
1:51:25Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within. We’re under
1:51:30invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but
1:51:38more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take
1:51:43them out. These people don’t have uniforms. But we are under invasion from within. We’re stopping it very quickly.
1:51:50After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help, we’re
1:51:56defending the borders of our country from now on. We’re not going to let this
1:52:02happen. And Biden let people come in from prisons, mental institutions, drug dealers, murderers.
1:52:10You know, we had 11,488 murderers allowed into our country by
1:52:15this guy who had no clue. He had no clue. He shouldn’t have been there in the
1:52:21first place, but he had no clue. The people that ran the de the the office,
1:52:27the White House, were people that surrounded him. radical left lunatics
1:52:32that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it came to policy and common sense and uh they allowed people from
1:52:41all over the world from the Congo they opened up prisons in the Congo they came
1:52:46into our country totally unmatched unvetted unchecked and uh from
1:52:53all over South America not just South America you know you think South America no but from all over lot came in from
1:52:59Venezuela vene Venezuela emptied its prison population into our country. That’s why they have Tren dear Ragua.
1:53:06One of the worst gangs ever. But we took care of them. We took good strong care of them. And I just want to
1:53:13thank the National Guard in Washington DC. It was It’s embarrassing to say this
1:53:19now. I can say it because we solved it. Washington DC was the most unsafe, most
1:53:24dangerous city in the United States of America and to a large extent beyond and
1:53:29beyond that. Go to some you go to Afghanistan, they didn’t have anything like that. You go to countries that you
1:53:35would think there’s problems, they didn’t have that. And now Washington DC after 12 days
1:53:42of serious serious intensity, we took out 1,700
1:53:48career criminals. If you have five career criminals, they can make your numbers look very bad because they’ll
1:53:55commit many crimes a day. But we took out 1,700 and they took them out. There was no doubt who the boss was. They did
1:54:02an unbelievable job. Then they started even cleaning. I said, “I don’t want them doing that, sir. They want to.”
1:54:07They were cleaning it up. I I drove through it two days ago. It was beautiful. People are walking down the street holding hands. Men and wife
1:54:15coming from Iowa. They’re not worried about being shot. Washington DC is now a safe city. In
1:54:21fact, I went out to dinner with my crew. I I haven’t done that. Theory, I wouldn’t do it. And I felt totally safe.
1:54:29And nobody’s been attacked. Nobody’s been hurt. Washington DC went from our most unsafe city to just about our
1:54:37safest city in a period of a month. We had it under control in 12 days, but
1:54:43give us another 15, 16 days. It was it’s it’s perfect. And people other than
1:54:48politicians that look bad, they think, you know, the the Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape. We
1:54:55have many cities in great shape, too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones that are run by the
1:55:02radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New
1:55:07York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places. And we’re going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going
1:55:14to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war, too. It’s a war from within. Controlling the
1:55:20physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can’t let these people in. You know, we had no
1:55:28people enter in the last four months. Zero. Even I can’t believe that. You know, we had millions coming in pouring
1:55:34in. 25 million all told. And of those 25 million, many of them should never be in
1:55:39our country. They would take their worst people and their people from prisons and jail and they put them in a caravan and
1:55:45they’d walk up. CNN was interviewing one person. Oh, why
1:55:50are you coming? I want freedom. Good. Were you in jail? Yes. For what? Murder.
1:55:58I said, you’re in for You had to see this anchor, a young woman. She’s like, I couldn’t believe she’ll probably lose
1:56:05her job, but because the left doesn’t want to hear that, but we’re running it
1:56:10based on common sense and based on love of our country. But I want to salute every service member who has helped us
1:56:17carry out this critical mission. It’s really a very important mission. And I told Pete, we should use some of these
1:56:22dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military,
1:56:29because we’re going into Chicago very soon. That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor.
1:56:34Stupid. They threw him out of his family business. He was so stupid. I know the family.
1:56:40He becomes governor. He’s got money. Not money that he made. But he ran for
1:56:46governor. He won. And now he criticizes us all the time. And last week they had 11 people murdered, 44 people shot. The
1:56:55week before that they had five people murdered, 28 people shot. Every weekend they lose five, six. If they lose five,
1:57:02they’re considering it a great week. They shouldn’t lose any. You shouldn’t lose any. This is civilization.
1:57:10And he’s always up there saying, “Uh, we’re in very good shape. We don’t need the military.” No, they need the
1:57:16military desperately. How about Portland? Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a
1:57:22war zone. And I get a call from the Liberal governor. Sir, please don’t come
1:57:28in. We don’t need you. I said, “Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is
1:57:36burning down. I mean, you must be kidding, sir. We have it under control.” I said, “You
1:57:41don’t have it under control, Governor, but I’ll check it and I’ll call you back.” I called you back. I said, “You
1:57:47you this place is a nightmare. It’s probably It’s certainly not the biggest,
1:57:52but it’s one of the worst. It’s brutal. They go after our ICE people who are
1:57:57great patriots and tough job too, but they love it. They love it because they’re cleaning up our country. And so
1:58:04you look at some of the things where they took over parts of Seattle. They actually took over a big percentage of
1:58:10Seattle. Think of that. You remember that? That was a while ago. And I sent
1:58:15in the troops and they were gone as soon as I sent them in. Oh, when we send in the troops, if you have a real leader
1:58:21that says you got to do what you have to do, I put that out the other day. You got to do what you got to do because we
1:58:28don’t want our people hurt as they stand by. I was watching during Biden, they had troops standing up like this, brave
1:58:35standing up at attention the way I should stand all the time. And I like this. And people are standing, their
1:58:43mouth is this far away from their mouth and they’re spitting at him and they’re
1:58:48screaming at him. And that soldier standing there, he wants to knock the hell out of the person, but he’s not
1:58:55allowed to do anything. So they just stand there and they they get abused.
1:59:00And the a woman was this far away from his face and she starts spitting in his
1:59:05face and he’s not allowed to do anything. Uh, if it’s okay with you, generals and admirals, I’ve uh taken
1:59:12that off. I say they spit, we hit. Is that okay? I think so. They spit. It’s a
1:59:19new It’s a new thing. They spit, we hit. How about the cars where the cars are coming out? They get brand new cars,
1:59:25border patrol, ice, beautiful, nice new cars. And they’re driving the long and they
1:59:31have to go through a gauntlet of rocks being thrown at the car. So, here’s this beautiful brand new car. By the time it
1:59:38goes a 100 yards, it’s destroyed.
1:59:43These guys have pretty good arms, some of them. And they’re throwing bricks at full force into the window and into the
1:59:49car. It looks like it’s a war zone. And I said, “Never let that happen again.
1:59:55From now on, if that ever happens,” and I say, “Here, you get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you
2:00:02want to do because those people are are, you know, you can die from that. As bricks go through the windows, you can
2:00:09die. They’d like it to they’d like it to go through the window, but this was a couple of months ago. They just kept
2:00:14driving and bricks are hitting the car. And I said, “Why aren’t they stopping?” Because they were under orders from the past administration, never stop. But
2:00:22that’s different with us. We we stop. And since I gave that order, we haven’t had that problem. It’s very interesting.
2:00:28It’s amazing. It’s just like uh in Venezuela, you’ve seen the boats going.
2:00:34We can’t find any more boats. They’re they’re carrying drugs. Massive. Every boat kills about 25,000 people. That’s
2:00:42what they have. They had fentinyl mostly and a lot of other drugs. And we take them out and we’ve taken out four. So,
2:00:51and it’s on air. Everybody gets to see. Not that we like to do that, but every boat kills 25,000 on average 20. Some
2:01:00people say more. You know, you see these boats just stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentinol and other
2:01:06drugstore. And now we have a problem. Uh General
2:01:11Kane said, “Sir, there are no boats out there. Not even fishing boats. They don’t want to go fishing.” I don’t blame
2:01:17him. There’ll be no fishing today, you know. But it’s uh amazing what strength
2:01:23will do because all we want to do is stop drugs from flowing into our country. It’s destroying. We lost
2:01:29300,000 people died last year. Everybody knows friends, many friends probably that you lost a child or adults too, but
2:01:37you lost a son or daughter because of what’s coming into our border. And uh
2:01:43we’re making it very hard. Oh, and we haven’t even started yet. Last month, I signed an executive order to provide
2:01:50training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This
2:01:56is going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle
2:02:03it before it gets out of control. It won’t get out of control once once you’re involved at all. They all joke.
2:02:11They say, “Oh, this is not good.” You saw it in Washington. We had gangs of trend day with 10, 12, 15 kids and these
2:02:20military guys walk up to them and they treat them with disrespect and they just got pounded.
2:02:26They just got pounded. The gang just pounded. Then thrown into patty wagons
2:02:32and taken back to their country. Some are so dangerous. We don’t want to
2:02:37even do that because we don’t want to. Some of stone cold murders. We don’t have the confidence. Even though they’re
2:02:43not coming back very easily, we don’t have the confidence. We put them in jails. But these service members are
2:02:49following in a great and storied military tradition from protecting frontier communities to chasing outlaws
2:02:56and bandits and the Wild West. And our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies, foreign and
2:03:03domestic. You know that phrase very well. That’s what the oath says, foreign and domestic. Well, we also have
2:03:10domestic. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, George Bush,
2:03:18and others all used the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace. Many of
2:03:23our leaders used the military to keep peace. Now they like to say, “Oh, you’re not allowed to use the military.” And
2:03:30you know what the people say? The people in those cities where they’re being raped and shot and beat up, you know
2:03:37what they say? We love the milit. You ever see where they interview the people on the street? I’ve never seen somebody
2:03:42say they don’t unless they’re radical and paid off because a lot of these insurrectionists are paid by
2:03:48whether it’s Soros or other people, but they’re paid by the radical left. So today, I want to thank every service
2:03:55member from general to private who has bravely helped us secure the nation’s capital and make America safe for the
2:04:01American people. It’s amazing. The whole world is watching. Everybody in the White House, they come up to me, young
2:04:07women, sir, thank you. I know immediately what they’re thinking. I They don’t have to say it. They walk to work now to the White House. We haven’t
2:04:14had a crime in Washington in so long because we got the careers. We call them
2:04:19the careers. We got these lunatics out. And they’ll never be any good. You know,
2:04:26I hate to tell this to the to the liberal media. You could spend time with
2:04:32them. You could do whatever you want. You could send them to the finest schools, which they couldn’t get into
2:04:37anyway mentally. They couldn’t get in. But no matter what you do, they’ll never be good. They’re bad. They’re they’re
2:04:44career criminals. They I don’t know. Maybe they were born that way. Some people don’t like me to say that, but
2:04:50maybe they were. Certainly, some were. Together with the leaders here today, we’re also restoring a needed focus on
2:04:57defeating threats in the Western Hemisphere. Throughout this region, cartel terrorists have been allowed to
2:05:04wage a relentless campaign of death and destruction on our country. All because
2:05:10we had weak leadership on top. And we did a great job with it first term, but
2:05:15uh this is something else what we’re doing now. We’re taking it to the next level. Probably next level times three.
2:05:23But we had CO come up and we had to take care of that. We did a great job with CO. We had the uh therapeutics
2:05:31was just regeneron. So many things we did for CO but we had to focus on that and every other country in the world was
2:05:37being decimated by CO. So we had to change gear a little bit to take care of
2:05:42that. But under our leadership the military is now the knife’s edge in combating the sinister enemy. We have to
2:05:50put the traffickers and cartels on notice. And we’ve done that and we put them a lot of them. We’ve uh called them
2:05:57a terrorist organization, which is actually a big thing to do. Nobody’s done it, but I’ve done it with a lot of
2:06:03them. It gives you a tremendous advantage. If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of
2:06:10existence because that’s the only language they really understand. That’s why you don’t see any more boats on the
2:06:17ocean. You don’t see any boats around Venezuela. There’s nothing.
2:06:22As president, I will never hesitate to defend our people from threats of of
2:06:28violence, from the uh the horrible plague that’s taking place from within
2:06:36the Iran nuclear power, the Iran, all of the the great
2:06:42power that we thought existed, we blew it out to kingdom. We took advantage of
2:06:50it and we just really took advantage of it and it was a beautiful thing to see and
2:06:56that’s what military power can achieve. That’s why I chose Raisin Kane. He’s
2:07:04fantastic by the way. I hope you all agree. If anybody disagrees, could I please have your hand? Who disappears
2:07:10that Raisin Kane is no good? Just raise your hand. I don’t see any hands raised.
2:07:16All right. That means you’re okay. That means that he’s okay now. But I saw his
2:07:21results. You know, he he took out ISIS. I was told it was going to take four years. It took four weeks. I went to see
2:07:28him and he took him out in four weeks. Knocked him out. Knocked him to hell. And I was told by military people it was
2:07:35going to take four to five years to do it. And I don’t even know if we’ll have it then, sir. These were the Washington
2:07:41generals. I call them the television generals. But Raisin Kane did it in four weeks. took out 100% of the ISIS
2:07:47caliphate. As a result of these actions and many others since my inauguration,
2:07:52we’re witnessing the triumphant return of peace through strength. We have great peace through strength. America is
2:07:59respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every
2:08:06day the guy’s falling downstairs. He said, “It’s not our president. We can’t
2:08:11have it.” I I’m very careful. You know, when I walk downstairs for like I’m on
2:08:17stairs like these stairs. I’m very I walk very slowly.
2:08:22Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall because it doesn’t work out
2:08:28well. A few of our presidents have fallen and it became a part of their
2:08:33legacy. We don’t want that. You walk nice and easy. You’re not have you don’t have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool
2:08:40when you walk down, but don’t don’t bop down the stairs. So, one thing with Obama, I had zero respect for him as a
2:08:47president, but he would bop down those stairs. I’ve never said
2:08:52he’d go down the stairs, wouldn’t hold on. I said, “It’s great. I don’t want to do it. I guess I could do it, but
2:08:57eventually bad things are going to happen.” And it only takes once. But he
2:09:03did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country. We
2:09:09were dead. This country was going to hell. We were dead in every way from
2:09:14immigration to military. We didn’t have the weapons. We given everything to uh
2:09:20we’ve given everything to Ukraine. We had nothing. And by the way, I have to
2:09:25tell you now, as you know, I went over and I met with NATO and NATO raised from
2:09:30two to five, which everyone said 5% of GDP. Millions and now trillions of dollars
2:09:37are pouring in. They didn’t pay the 2% because they know we were there to pay it and now they paid the 5%. That’s
2:09:44trillions of dollars. And we’re not spending any money on that war. Not 10 cents. We sell our equipment to NATO.
2:09:50NATO pays us for the equipment and they give it to Ukraine or whoever they give it to that. They can keep it, but we’re
2:09:56not involved. We have no money going out. Biden gave $350 billion. Not
2:10:02sustainable. $350 billion and uh we have a war that should have
2:10:08never started, but we’re not doing that anymore. So, I just want you to know we’re selling equipment. Our people are
2:10:14buying equipment. They’re buying, they are buying the equipment at at full price, a fair price. So, I don’t want to
2:10:21say we’re making money because I don’t want to say I don’t want to be making money on a war. It’s too many people dying. They’re losing 7,000 soldiers a
2:10:28week. A lot of them are Russian soldiers, but between the two countries, mostly soldiers, by the way. Sometimes,
2:10:35you know, in Kiev, they’ll lob a missile in or some drones in, kill some people,
2:10:40but mostly it’s soldiers. Russia and Ukraine are losing 7,000 souls. And you
2:10:46know, they’re not uh they’re not American. They’re not us. They’re not
2:10:52you. We’re have a special obligation, but they’re soldiers. They’re young people. They leave their parents. They
2:10:58wave goodbye. And then two days later, they’re blown up so unnecessarily.
2:11:03And so that’s the primary reason I want to get it done. Uh we got to get it done. It’s crazy what’s going on. That’s
2:11:10the worst war that there’s been since World War II. The number of soldiers that are being killed there is just
2:11:15crazy. From 5 to 7,000 soldiers die a week. Think of that.
2:11:21So, I think we’ll get that done. But that’s turned out to be the toughest one. I’m so disappointed in President
2:11:26Putin. I thought I thought he would get this thing over with. He should have had that war done in a week.
2:11:34And I said to him, you know, you you don’t look good. you’re four years fighting a war that should have taken a
2:11:39week. Are you a paper tiger? And uh it’s a shame, but I think
2:11:46eventually we’ll get that one done just like we in theory. I want to knock on
2:11:51wood because you never know. It’s like we’re going to have the Middle East done, which is actually a much harder
2:11:57thing to do. I mean, thousands of years, but we have to get that war done. So now
2:12:02we’re just think of it, we’re a dead country. I was with the king of Saudi Arabia,
2:12:09great guy. I was with the Amir of Qatar. I was with the great leadership of UAE.
2:12:15I was over there. We brought back uh $2 trillion
2:12:21and more. They ordered 200 planes, Boeings. They ordered so much and they
2:12:26were great. But they all said essentially the same thing. They said, “One year ago,
2:12:33you were a dead country, and now you’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.” We are. We’re the hottest
2:12:38country in the world right now. The absolute hottest country in the world. We have There’s nobody even close.
2:12:45Putin said that to me. We met in Alaska. We had a good meeting. Then he went back
2:12:51and started sending drones into Kiev. I said, “I thought we had a good meeting.” But it’s one of those things. But we
2:12:58were a dead country a year ago and now we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of
2:13:04that. You can be proud of that. And you must have felt like hell when you have a
2:13:09wife or a husband at home and you used to read the numbers that we can’t get people to join the army, navy, air
2:13:17force, marines, coast guard. Uh you you must have felt like, you
2:13:23know, I have a job that nobody wants. That doesn’t feel good. Well, now you have a job that is brimming over with
2:13:30people wanting it. They want it and you’re able to get a much higher quality because now you have your choice. You
2:13:36know, you want so many and we’re going to have many, many people that aren’t going to be able to join because of the
2:13:41fact that we don’t, you know, we don’t need them at this moment. But think of it how what a difference that is from I
2:13:48could just imagine two years ago you’re reading front page articles in the New
2:13:54York Times of course and Wall Street Journal. They always give us unfair stories but they played it so big. They
2:14:01were playing it so big. Nobody wants to join the Army, the Marines, the Air Force. They want they don’t want to
2:14:06join. They don’t want to join the Coast Guard at all.
2:14:11Nobody wants to join. Nobody wants to join our police forces. our police forces also. It’s almost went hand in
2:14:18hand. And I used to say, boy, you know, I’m speaking in front of the military today and it’s embarrassing because I’m
2:14:25speaking in front of people who have a job that other people don’t want, but now you have a job that everybody wants.
2:14:31So, I think that has to make you feel good. It’s one of the reasons I love being here today because I wanted to say that I have to say that everybody wants
2:14:39to be in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines. If you think the Coast Guard and Space
2:14:46Force, our beautiful Space Force, that’s a whole different world. And now they’re
2:14:51signing up, by the way. Seriously big numbers for the police. Dangerous job, isn’t it? Fire department. But that’s
2:14:59the paving the way for progress. Once thought almost impossible. I mean, a year ago, you wouldn’t have thought that
2:15:05was possible. A year ago, uh, they were talking about making the military smaller because they can’t get the
2:15:12people to join. We’re thinking about making it larger because we have so many people and it’s nice to be able to cut
2:15:19people because of merit that aren’t really qualified for any reason, a physical reason, a mental
2:15:26reason. You don’t have to take them anymore because you have you have the pick of the litter.
2:15:32And they all want to be with you. They all want your job. They want to be with you. They want to work with you.
2:15:38They’ll even take your job. You know, got to be a little bit sharp. You got to watch it. But everybody wants to be
2:15:45doing what you’re doing now. What a difference. When I speak to you, and I can say that as opposed to a couple of
2:15:50years ago when I was talking to rooms where they were desperate to get people and they couldn’t get them. What a
2:15:57difference a presidential election can make. That’s all it is. It’s just a presidential election. Yesterday at the
2:16:04White House, we put forward a plan for peace in Gaza. We announced it and we’re
2:16:09going to create something that was my idea, but unfortunately I got drafted.
2:16:15It’s going to be called the Board of Peace and it’s going to rain over that territory and uh we’re going to get that
2:16:23done. And they asked if I’d be the chairman of the Board of Peace. I wasn’t counting on that. I had the idea for the Board of Peace, but I’d said yes. And I
2:16:31guess because of that, every leader, every everybody wants to be on the board of peace. And we’re going to watch over
2:16:37that very volatile part of the world and keep it nonvolatile so you don’t have to
2:16:42get involved. We want to save you for other things or save you for nothing from that standpoint. We don’t want you
2:16:48fighting wars, but if you have to, you’re going to be you’re the most lethal fighting force in the world. And I would say that even two, three years
2:16:54ago, but now I say it with great enthusiasm. It’s so true. And we’re striving tirelessly to end the terrible
2:17:02war in Ukraine. And as you know, we’re also working hard to get the allies to share more of the burden of our defense.
2:17:09Much of that has really already taken place, but all NATO members have
2:17:14committed to the increase that I talked about. Think of that. That was unthinkable. It used to be 1%, then we
2:17:21got it up to two in my last term, and uh they did not like it. And now I
2:17:27got it to five. And I get along great with all of them. In fact, they call me the president of NATO. I said, “I don’t
2:17:33think so.” But they’re great. They’re great people and they’re spending a lot of they’re spending a lot of money and a
2:17:41lot of money that they should have been spending in the past. But I think Putin was a wakeup call for them really. We’re
2:17:47now selling large quantities of Americanmade weapons to NATO and we’re getting uh really fair pricing. We’re
2:17:55making a lot of money. It’s my hope that from Europe to Asia to the Middle East,
2:18:01our allies will make similar commitments to increase their military capabilities
2:18:06and this will greatly strengthen our alliances and also it will make war far
2:18:12less likely. You know, if you have a strong if you’re a strong presence like we are, we are such a strong presence
2:18:17now. And I go around bragging about that. I said we have the strongest military anywhere in the world. I say
2:18:23it. You never heard Biden say that. never heard him say anything, but you
2:18:29never heard him say, did he ever hear him say, “We have the strongest military.” He doesn’t say that. I say it. We have the strongest military
2:18:36anywhere in the world. We have great leadership. And I’ll tell you, Pete and General Kaine, all of the people that
2:18:43I’ve met that have been lifted up in rank, and we got many of them out of
2:18:48here, too. I’ll be honest with you. Didn’t like doing it, but we got many of you out of here because we weren’t
2:18:54satisfied. We have we know everything about everybody. It’ll also help the United States rapidly rebuild our
2:19:00defense industrial base. Each of you can play an important part in getting allies
2:19:05to do their part. So to that end, Secretary Hath will soon be announcing major reforms to streamline military
2:19:13acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales. We have tremendous
2:19:18numbers of countries that want to buy our equipment and you know many cases it
2:19:24takes too long. They have backlogged we’re backlogged on all the equipment which is something that’s new to us a
2:19:30little bit and I told those companies you better get your ass going because we’re you know we’re buying we’re
2:19:36selling you a lot of equipment. We’re getting countries to buy your equipment. You got to produce the equipment. Some of the countries I not going to mention
2:19:43but some of the countries are buying a lot and that’s a good thing. They’re on
2:19:48our side 95%. I’ll never say 100% because it can
2:19:54always turn right you know about that but they’re on our side. The problem is we have to get the companies that make
2:20:00this equipment and we we make the best equipment in the world but they got to make it faster. We have orders for the F-35. We have
2:20:08orders for everything. The new F-47. We have orders for everything. They got to make it faster. A lot faster.
2:20:15Ammunition. They have to make faster. In the coming months, we’ll be making even more historic announcements to fully
2:20:22embrace the identity of the Department of War. I love the name. I think it’s so
2:20:27great. I think it stops wars. The Department of War is going to stop wars.
2:20:33If we are as ruthless and relentless as our enemies, the United States armed
2:20:39forces will be totally unmatched in the future. We have a group of enemies that
2:20:44are very ruthless and very smart, but they can’t match us.
2:20:50They can’t match us. They don’t even come close to matching us. Again, you know, it’s very important for me to say
2:20:55we have the greatest military in the world, but we make the best equipment in the world.
2:21:00I watched our anti-missile missiles. I watched our patriots just knock things
2:21:07out like a needle hitting another needle on the stage. There’s a needle up there and you send another needle up and it
2:21:14hits it every time. During the war, we went 14 for 14. We had 14. This is where
2:21:21Iran. We had 14 missiles coming at us. All 14 were knocked out of the sky.
2:21:27Every one of them. We make the best equipment. From Sparta to Rome to the British Empire to the
2:21:34United States of America, history has shown that military supremacy has never
2:21:39been simply a matter of money or manpower. At the end of the day, it is the culture spirit of our military that
2:21:47truly sets us apart from any other nation. Our ultimate strength will always come from the fierce people and
2:21:54those brilliant people with such pride and the unbending will and the traditions of excellence that have made
2:22:00us the most unstoppable force ever to walk the face of the earth. And that’s
2:22:07what we are. Remember, we never want to use it, but we have the most powerful
2:22:12nuclear capability. And I call it nuclear deterrent of any other country. Nobody close. The men and women in this
2:22:19room inherit the legacy built and won by Washington and Jackson, Grant and Persing, Eisenhower and Patton, Nimmits
2:22:26and Lame. We carry forward the majestic military heritage passed down from
2:22:32father to son, soldier to soldier, and one generation of warriors to the next.
2:22:38You are warriors. You know that, right? You’re great warriors or you wouldn’t be
2:22:43in this room. You’re the best of the best. From Concord Bridge to Fort
2:22:49Mckenry, from Gettysburg to Manila Bay, from Normandy to Sicily, and from the
2:22:56jungles of Vietnam to the dusty streets of Baghdad, America’s military has charged into
2:23:03hellfire, climbed up jagged mountains, crossed roaring oceans, and thundered
2:23:09across open deserts to defend our flag, our freedom, and our homeland. Nobody
2:23:15does it like you. Now we are discovering American muscle, reasserting American
2:23:21might, and beginning the next story chapter in American military legends and
2:23:28lore. That’s L O R E. It is lore. When it comes to defending
2:23:36our way of life, nothing will slow us. No enemy will stop us. They’re not they
2:23:42cannot stop us. And no adversary will stand in our way. They won’t stand in
2:23:47our way. We don’t want them to stand in our way. We don’t want to even put them in that position. But they’re not going
2:23:52to stand in our way ever again. You’ll never see four years like we had with
2:23:58Biden and that group of incompetent people that ran this country that should have never been there because we had the
2:24:05United States military, the best, the boldest, the bravest that the world has ever seen, that the world has ever
2:24:11known. With leaders like we have right here in this beautiful room today, we will
2:24:19vanquish every danger and crush every threat to our freedom in every generation to come because we will
2:24:26fight, fight, fight and we will win win win. I want to just thank you once again and
2:24:32God bless the United States military and God bless America. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Thank you.
2:26:19Ladies and gentlemen, please allow the combatant commanders and any four-star
2:26:24with a detail to proceed out first and we will be begin pulling up the buses. Please remain your seats until all the
2:26:30fourstar with details leave first. Thank you.
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