LIVE: Trump and Hegseth address hundreds of military leaders
President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are addressing U.S. military officials at a Virginia base. The Pentagon summoned top commanders globally without disclosing the purpose. Live updates are available through the provided link. Stay informed on this significant military gathering and its implications for national security.
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to the fourth century of Rome and has been repeated ever since, including by our first commander in chief, George Washington, the first leader of the War Department. It captures a simple yet profound truth. To ensure peace, we must prepare for war. From this moment forward, the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this, war fighting. preparing for war and preparing to win, unrelenting and uncompromising in that pursuit. Not because we want war. No one here wants war, but it's because we love peace. We love peace for our fellow citizens. They deserve peace and they rightfully expect us to deliver it.
Our number one job, of course, is to be strong so that we can prevent war in the first place. The president talks about it all the time. It's called peace through strength. And as history teaches us, the only people who actually deserve peace are those who are willing to wage war to defend it. That's why pacifism is so naive and dangerous. It ignores human nature and it ignores human history. Either you protect your people and your sovereignty, or you will be subservient to something or someone. It's a truth as old as time. And since waging war is so costly in blood and treasure, we owe our republic a military that will win any war we choose or any war that is thrust upon us.
Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department. In other words, to our enemies, F-A-F-O. If necessary, our troops can translate that for you. Another way to put it is, peace through strength brought to you by the warrior ethos, and we are restoring both. As President Trump has said, and he's right, we have the strongest, most powerful, most lethal, and most prepared military on the planet. That is true full stop. Nobody can touch us. It's not even close. This is true largely because of the historic investments that he made in his first term, and we will continue in this term.
But it's also true because of the leaders in this room and the incredible troops that you all lead. But the world, and as the chairman mentioned, our enemies get a vote. You feel it, I feel it. This is a moment of urgency, mounting urgency. Enemies gather, threats grow. There is no time for games. We must be prepared. If we're going to prevent and avoid war, we must prepare now. We are the strength part of peace through strength. And either we're ready to win or we are not. You see, this urgent moment, of course, requires more troops, more munitions, more drones, more Patriots, more submarines, more B-21 bombers.
It requires more innovation, more AI in everything and ahead of the curve, more cyber effects, more counter-UAS, more space, more speed. America is the strongest, but we need to get stronger and quickly. The time is now, and the cause is urgent. The moment requires restoring and refocusing our defense industrial base, our shipbuilding industry, and onshoring all critical components. It requires, as President Trump has done, getting our allies and partners to step up and share the burden. America cannot do everything. The free world requires allies with real hard power, real military leadership, and real military capabilities.
The War Department is tackling and prioritizing all of these things. And I'll be giving a speech next month that will showcase the speed, innovation, and generational acquisition reforms we are undertaking urgently. Likewise, the nature of the threats we face in our hemisphere and in deterring China is another speech for another day coming soon. This speech today, as I drink my coffee, this speech today is about people. And it's about culture. The topic today is about the nature of ourselves. Because no plan, no program, no reform, no formation will ultimately succeed unless we have the right people and the right culture at the War Department.
If I've learned one core lesson in my eight months in this job, it's that personnel is policy. Personnel is policy. The best way to take care of troops is to give them good leaders committed to the war fighting culture of the department. Not perfect leaders, good leaders. Competent, qualified, professional, agile, aggressive, innovative, risk-taking, apolitical, faithful to their oath and to the Constitution. Eugene Sledge in his World War II memoir wrote, quote, war is brutish. in glorious and a terrible waste. Combat leaves an indelible mark on those who are forced to endure it. The only redeeming factors are my comrades' incredible bravery and their devotion to each other.
In combat, there are thousands of variables, as I learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, and as so many of you did in so many more places. Leaders can only control about three of them. You control how well you're trained, mostly how well you're equipped, And the last variable is how well you lead. After that, you're on your own. Our war fighters are entitled to be led by the best and most capable leaders. That is who we need you all to be. Even then in combat, even if you do everything right, you may still lose people because the enemy always gets a vote.
We have a sacred duty to ensure that our warriors are led by the most capable and qualified combat leaders. This is one thing you and I can control. and we owe it to the force to deliver it. For too long, we have simply not done that. The military has been forced by foolish and reckless politicians to focus on the wrong things. In many ways, this speech is about fixing decades of decay, some of it obvious, some of it hidden. Or as the chairman has put it, we are clearing out the debris, removing the distractions, clearing the way for leaders to be leaders.
You might say we're ending the war on warriors. I heard someone wrote a book about that. For too long, we've promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts. We've pretended that combat arms and non-combat arms are the same thing. We've weeded out so-called toxic leaders under the guise of double blind psychology assessments, promoting risk averse go along to get along conformists instead. You name it, the department did it. Foolish and reckless political leaders set the wrong compass heading, and we lost our way.
We became the woke department, but not anymore. Right now, I'm looking out at a sea of Americans who made a choice when they were young men and young women to do something most Americans will not, to serve something greater than yourself, to fight for God and country, for freedom and the Constitution. You made a choice to serve when others did not. And I commend you. You are truly the best of America. But this does not mean, and this goes for all of us, that our path to this auditorium on this day was a straight line, or that the conditions of the formations we lead are where we want them to be.
You love your country, and we love this uniform, which is why we must do better. We 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 English. to point out the obvious things right in front of us. That's what leaders must do. We cannot go another day without directly addressing the plank in our own eye, without addressing the problems in our own commands and in our own formations. This administration has done a great deal from day one To remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department.
To rip out the politics. No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris. As I've said before, and will say again, We are done with that shit. I've made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal. That said, the War Department requires the next step. Underneath the woke garbage is a deeper problem and a more important problem that we are fixing and fixing fast. Common sense is back at the White House, so making the necessary changes is actually pretty straightforward.
President Trump expects it. And the litmus test for these changes? It's pretty simple. Would I want my eldest son, who is 15 years old, eventually joining the types of formations that we are currently wielding? If in any way the answer to that is no, or even yes but, then we're doing something wrong. Because my son is no more important than any other American citizen who dons the cloth of our nation. He is no more important than your son. all precious souls made in the image and likeness of God. Every parent deserves to know that their son or their daughter that joins our ranks is entering exactly the kind of unit that the secretary of war would want his son to join.
Think of it as the golden rule test. Jesus said, do unto others, that's what you would have done unto yourself. It's the ultimate simplifying test of truth. The new war department golden rule is this, do onto your unit as you would have done onto your own child's unit. Would you want him serving with fat or unfit or under-trained troops? Or alongside people who can't meet basic standards? Or in a unit where standards were lowered so certain types of troops could make it in? In a unit where leaders were promoted for reasons other than merit, performance, and war fighting?
The answer is not just no, it's hell no. This means at the War Department, first and foremost, we must restore a ruthless, dispassionate, and common sense leaders. I don't want my son serving alongside troops who are out of shape, or in combat unit with females who can't meet the same combat arms. Troops who are not fully proficient on their assigned weapons platformer task. or under a leader who was the first, but not the best. Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high. If not, they're not standards. They're just suggestions. Suggestions that get our sons and daughters killed.
When it comes to combat arms units, and there are many different stripes across our joint force, The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don't hurt anyone's feelings, leadership ends right now. At every level, either you can meet the standard, either you can do the job, either you are disciplined, fit, and trained, or you are out. And that's why today at my direction, and this is the first of 10 Department of War directives that are arriving at your commands as we speak and in your inbox. Today at my direction, each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated combat arms position returns to the highest male standard only.
because this job is life or death. Standards must be met. And not just met, at every level we should seek to exceed the standard, to push the envelope, to compete. It's common sense and core to who we are and what we do. It should be in our DNA. Today at my direction, we are also adding a combat field test for combat arms units that must be executable in any environment at any time and with combat equipment. These tests that look familiar, they resemble the Army Expert Physical Fitness Assessment, or the Marine Corps Combat Fitness Test.
I'm also directing that war fighters in combat jobs execute their service fitness test at a gender-neutral, age-normed male standard scored above 70%. It all starts with physical fitness and appearance. If the Secretary of War can do regular, hard PT, So can every member of our joint force. Frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations, or really any formation, and see fat troops. Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon and leading commands around the country and the world. It's a bad look. It is bad, and it's not who we are.
So whether you're an airborne ranger or a chair-borne ranger, A brand new private or a four-star general, you need to meet the height and weight standards and pass your PT test. And as the chairman said, yes, there is no PT test. But today, at my direction, every member of the joint force at every rank is required to take a PT test twice a year, as well as meet height and weight requirements twice a year, every year of service. Also today, at my direction, every warrior across our joint force is required to do PT every duty day.
Should be common sense. I mean, most units do that already. But we're codifying it. And we're not talking like hot yoga and stretching. Real hard PT either as a unit or as an individual. At every level, from the joint chiefs to everyone in this room to the youngest private, leaders set the standard. And so many of you do this already. active, guard, and reserve. This also means grooming standards. No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We're gonna cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. Because it's like the broken windows theory of policing.
It's like when you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff. This is on duty in the field and in the rear. If you want a beard, you can join special forces. If not, then shave. We don't have a military full of Nordic pagans. But unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refused to call BS and enforce standards or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards. Both are unacceptable. And that's why today at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over.
No more beardos. The era of rampant and ridiculous shaving profiles is done. Simply put, if you do not meet the male level physical standards for combat positions, cannot pass a PT test or don't want to shave and look professional, it's time for a new position or a new profession. I sincerely appreciate the proactive efforts the secretaries have already taken in some of those areas, service secretaries. And these directives are intended to simply accelerate those efforts. On the topic of standards, allow me a few words to talk about toxic leaders. Upholding and demanding high standards is not toxic.
Enforcing high standards, not toxic leadership. Leading war fighters toward the goals of high gender neutral and uncompromising standards in order to forge a cohesive, formidable, and lethal department of war is not toxic. It is our duty, consistent with our constitutional oath. Real toxic leadership is endangering subordinates with low standards. Real toxic leadership is promoting people based on immutable characteristics or quotas, instead of based on merit. Real toxic leadership is promoting destructive ideologies that are an anathema to the Constitution and the laws of nature and nature's God, as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence.
The definition of toxic has been turned upside down. And we're correcting that. That's why today at my direction we're undertaking a full review of the department's definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying, and hazing to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing. Of course, you can't do like nasty bullying and hazing. We're talking about words like bullying and hazing and toxic. They've been weaponized and bastardized inside our formations, undercutting commanders and NCOs. No more. Setting, achieving, and maintaining high standards is what you all do. And if that makes me toxic, then so be it.
Second, Today, in our direction, we're ensuring that every service, every unit, every schoolhouse, and every form of professional military education conduct an immediate review of their standards. Now, we've done this in many places already, but today it goes across the entire Department of War. Any place where tried and true physical standards were altered, especially since 2015 when combat arms standards were changed to ensure females could qualify, must be returned to their original standard. Other standards have been manipulated to hit racial quotas as well, which is just as unacceptable. This too must end. Merit only. The president talks about it all the time.
Merit based. Here are two basic frameworks I urge you to pursue in this process. Standards I call, my staff's heard all about them, the 1990 test and the E6 test. The 1990s test is simple. What were the military standards in 1990? And if they have changed, tell me why. Was it a necessary change based on the evolving landscape of combat? Or was the change due to a softening, weakening, or gender-based pursuit of other priorities? 1990 seems to be as good a place to start as any. And the E6 test. Ask yourself, does what you're doing make the leadership, accountability, and lethality efforts of an E-6, or frankly an O-3, does it make it easier or more complicated?
Does the change empower staff sergeants, petty officers, and tech sergeants to get back to basics? The answer should be a resounding yes. The E-6 test or O-3 test clarifies a lot and it clarifies quickly. Because war does not care if you're a man or a woman. Neither does the enemy. Nor does the weight of your rucksack, the size of an artillery round, or the body weight of a casualty on the battlefield who must be carried. This, and I want to be very clear about this, this is not about preventing women from serving. We very much value the impact of female troops.
Our female officers and NCOs are the absolute best in the world. But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral. If women can make it, excellent. If not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result, so be it. It will also mean that weak men won't qualify because we're not playing games. This is combat. This is life or death. As we all know, this is you versus an enemy hell bent on killing you.
To be an effective lethal fighting force, you must trust that the warrior alongside you in battle is capable, truly physically capable of doing what is necessary under fire. You know this is the only standard you would want for your kids and for your grandkids. Apply the War Department Golden Rule, the 1990 test, and the E6 test, and it's really hard to go wrong. Third, we are attacking and ending the walking on eggshells and zero defect command culture. A risk averse culture means officers execute not to lose, instead of to win. A risk-averse culture means NCOs are not empowered to enforce standards.
Commanders and NCOs don't take necessary risks or make tough adjustments for fear of rocking the boat or making mistakes. A blemish-free record is what peacetime leaders covet the most, which is the worst of all incentives. You, we as senior leaders need to end the poisonous culture of risk aversion and empower our NCOs at all levels to enforce standards. Truth be told, for the most part, we don't need new standards. We just need to reestablish a culture where enforcing standards is possible. And that's why today at my direction, I'm issuing new policies that will overhaul the IGEO and MEO processes.
I call it the no more walking on eggshells policy. We are liberating commanders and NCOs, we are liberating you. We are overhauling an inspector general process, the IG, that has been weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues, and poor performers in the driver's seat. We're doing the same with the equal opportunity and military equal opportunity policies, the EO and MEO at our department. No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complainants, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells. Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formation since 1948.
The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal. Those kinds of infractions will be ruthlessly enforced. But telling someone to shave or get a haircut 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 discrimination we want. We are not civilians. You are not civilians. You are set apart for a distinct purpose. So we as a department need to stop acting and thinking like civilians and get back to basics and put the power back in the hands of commanders and NCOs.
Commanders and NCOs who make life and death decisions. Commanders and NCOs who enforce standards and ensure readiness. Commanders and NCOs who in this war department have to look in the mirror and have to pass the golden rule test. My kids, your kids. America's sons and daughters. So I urge you all here today and those watching, take this guidance and run with it. The core of this speech is the 10 directives we're announcing today. They were written for you, for Army leadership, for Navy leadership, for Marine Corps leadership, for Air Force leadership, Space Force leadership. These directives are designed to take the monkey off your back and put you, the leadership, back in the driver's seat.
Move out with urgency because we have your back. I have your back. And the commander in chief has your back. And when we give you this guidance, we know mistakes will be made. It's the nature of leadership. But you should not pay for earnest mistakes for your entire career. And that's why today, at My Direction, we're making changes to the retention of adverse information on personnel records. that will allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity. People make honest mistakes, and our mistakes should not define an entire career.
Otherwise, we only try not to make mistakes, and that's not the business we're in. We need risk-takers and aggressive leaders, and a culture that supports you. Fourth, at the War Department, promotions across the Joint Force will be based on one thing, merit. Color-blind, gender-neutral, merit-based. The entire promotion process, including evaluations of war fighting capabilities, is being thoroughly reexamined. We've already done a lot in this area, but more changes are coming soon. We'll promote top performing officers and NCOs faster, and get rid of poor performers more quickly. Evaluations, education, and field exercises will become real evaluations, not box checks, for every one of us at every level.
These same reforms happened before World War II as well. General George Marshall and Secretary of War Henry Stimson did the same thing. And we won a world war because of it. As it happens, when he started the job, Chairman Cain gave me a frame and a photo to hang in my office. A matching frame and photo hangs in his. It's a photo of Marshall and Stimson preparing for World War II. Those two leaders famously kept the door open between their offices for the entirety of the war. They worked together, civilian and uniform, every single day.
Chairman Kane and I do the same. There is no daylight between us. Our doors are always open. Our job together is to ensure our military is led by the very best, ready to answer the nation's call. Fifth, as you have seen, and the media has obsessed over, I have fired a number of senior officers since taking over. The previous chairman, other members of the Joint Chiefs, combatant commanders, and other commanders. The rationale for me has been straightforward. It's nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that culture, even if that culture was created by a previous president and previous secretary.
My approach has been simple. When in doubt, assess the situation, follow your gut, and if it's the best for the military, make a change. We all serve at the pleasure of the president every single day. But in many ways, it's not their fault. It's not your fault. As foolish and reckless as the woke department was, those officers were following elected political leadership. An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that, quote, our diversity is our strength. Of course, we know our unity is our strength. They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI-plus statements.
They were told females and males are the same thing, or that males who think they're females are totally normal. They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refuse an emergency vaccine. They followed civilian policies set by foolish and reckless political leaders. Our job, my job, has been to determine which leaders simply did what they must to answer the prerogatives of civilian leadership. and which leaders are truly invested in the woke department and therefore incapable of embracing the war department and executing new lawful orders.
That's it. It's that simple. So for the past eight months, we've gotten a good look under the hood of our officer corps. We've done our best to thoroughly assess the human terrain. We've had to make trade offs and some difficult decisions. It's more of an art than a science. We have been and will continue to be judicious, but also expeditious. The new compass heading is clear. Out with the Shirellys, the McKenzies, and the Millies, and in with the Stockdales, the Schwartzkoffs, and the Pattons. More leadership changes will be made of that I'm certain. Not because we want to, but because we must.
Once again, this is life and death. The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies. Personnel is policy. But I look out at this group, and I see great Americans. Leaders who have given decades to our great republic, at great sacrifice to yourselves and to your families. But if the words I'm speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign. We would thank you for your service. But I suspect, I know, the overwhelming majority of you feel the opposite. These words make your hearts full.
You love the War Department because you love what you do, the profession of arms. You are hereby liberated to be an apolitical, hard-charging, no-nonsense, constitutional leader that you joined the military to be. We need you locked in on the M, not the D, the E, or the I, not the D, E, I, or the D, I, E of dime. By that, I mean the M, military, of the instruments of national power. We have entire departments across the government dedicated to diplomatic, informational, and economic lines of effort. We do the M. Nobody else does. And our GoFos need to master it in every domain and every scenario.
No more distractions, no more political ideologies, no more debris. Now, of course, we're going to disagree at times. We would not be Americans if we didn't. Being a leader in a large organization like ours means having frank conversations. and differences of opinion. You will win some arguments, and you will lose some arguments. But when civilian leaders issue lawful orders, we execute. We are professionals in the profession of arms. Our entire constitutional system is predicated upon this understanding. Now, seems like a small thing, but it's not. This includes as well the behavior of our troops online.
To that end, I want to thank and recognize the services for their new proactive social media policies. Use them. Anonymous online or keyboard complaining is not worthy of a warrior. It's cowardice masquerading his conscience. Anonymous unit-level social media pages that trash commanders, demoralize troops, and undermine unit cohesion must not be tolerated. Again, 03s, E6s. Sixth, we must train and we must maintain. Any moment that we are not training on our mission or maintaining our equipment is a moment we are less prepared for preventing or winning the next war. That is why today, at my direction, we are drastically reducing the ridiculous amount of mandatory training that individuals and units must execute.
We've already ended the most egregious. Now we're giving you back real time. Less PowerPoint briefings and fewer online courses, more time in the motor pool and more time on the range. Our job is to make sure you have the money, equipment, weapons and parts to train and maintain and then you take it from there. You all know this because it's common sense. The tougher and the higher the standards in our units, the higher the retention rates in those units. Warriors want to be challenged, troops want to be tested. When you don't train and you don't maintain, you demoralize.
And that's when our best people decide to take their talents to the civilian world. The leaders who created the woke department have already driven out too many hard chargers. We reverse that trend right now. There is no world in which high intensity war exists without pain, agony, and human tragedy. We are in a dangerous line of work. You are in a dangerous line of work. We may lose good people. But let no warrior cry out from the grave, if only I had been properly trained. We will not lose war fighters because we fail to train or equip them or resource them.
Shame on us if we do. Train like your warrior's lives depend on it. Because they do. To that point, basic training is being restored to what it should be. Scary, tough, and disciplined. We're empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits, ensuring that future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack, they can toss bunks, they can swear, and yes, they can put their hands on recruits. This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and true methods to motivate new recruits to make them the warriors they need to be.
Back to basics at basic as well. Of course, and you know this basic training is not where mission readiness should end, The nature of the evolving threat environment demands that everyone, in every job, must be ready to join the fight if needed. A core credo of the Marine Corps is, every Marine, a rifleman. It means that everyone, regardless of MOS, is proficient enough to engage in enemy threat at sea, in the air, or in a so-called rear area. We need to ensure that every member of our uniformed military maintains baseline proficiency in basic combat skills, especially because the next war, like the last, will likely not have a rear area.
Finally, as President Trump rightly pointed out when he changed the department name, the United States has not won a major theater war since the name was changed to the Department of Defense in 1947. One conflict stands out in stark contrast. The Gulf War. Why? Well, there's a number of reasons. But it was a limited mission with overwhelming force and a clear end state. But why did we execute and win the Gulf War the way we did in 1991? There's two overwhelming reasons. One was President Ronald Reagan's military buildup gave an overwhelming advantage. And two, military and Pentagon leadership had previous formative battlefield experiences.
The men who led this department during the Gulf War were mostly combat veterans of the Vietnam War. They said never again to mission creep or nebulous end states. The same holds true today. Our civilian and military leadership is chock full of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. who say never again to nation-building and nebulous end states. This clear-eyed view, all the way in the White House, combined with President Trump's military buildup, postures us for future victories if, and we will, and when, we embrace the War Department. And we must. We are preparing every day. We have to be prepared for war, not for defense.
We're training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend. Defense is something you do all the time. It's inherently reactionary and can lead to overuse, overreach, and mission creep. War is something you do sparingly on our own terms and with clear aims. We fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy. We also don't fight with stupid rules of engagement. We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country. No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement. Just common sense, maximum lethality, and authority for war fighters.
That's all I ever wanted as a platoon leader. And it's all my E6 squad leaders ever wanted, back to that E6 rule. We let our leaders fight their formations. and then we have their back. It's very simple, yet incredibly powerful. A few months ago, I was at the White House when President Trump announced his liberation day for America's trade policy. It was a landmark day. Well, today is another liberation day. The liberation of America's warriors, in name, in deed, and in authorities. You kill people and break things for a living. You are not politically correct and don't necessarily belong always in polite society.
We are not an army of one. We are a joint force of millions of selfless Americans. We are warriors. We are purpose-built, not for fair weather, blue skies, or calm seas. We were built to load up in the back of helicopters, five tons, or Zodiacs in the dead of night. in fair weather or foul, to go to dangerous places, to find those who would do our nation harm, and deliver justice on behalf of the American people in close and brutal combat if necessary. You are different. We fight not because we hate what's in front of us.
We fight because we love what's behind us. You see, the Ivy League faculty lounges will never understand us, and that's okay, because they could never do what you do. The media will mischaracterize us, and that's okay, because deep down, they know the reason they can do what they do is you. In this profession, you feel comfortable inside the violence so that our citizens can live peacefully. Lethality is our calling card, and victory, our only acceptable end state. In closing, a few weeks ago, at our monthly Pentagon Christian prayer service, I recited a commander's prayer. It's a simple yet meaningful prayer for wisdom for commanders and leaders.
I encourage you to look it up if you've never seen it. But the prayer, it ends like this. And most of all, Lord, please keep my soldiers safe. lead them, guide them, protect them, watch over them. And as you gave all of yourself for me, help me give all of myself for them. And amen. I have prayed this prayer many times since I've had the privilege of being your secretary. And I will continue to pray this prayer for each of you as you command and lead our nation's finest. Go forth. and do good things, hard things.
President Trump has your back and so do I. And you'll hear from him shortly. Move out and draw fire. Because we are the War Department. Godspeed.
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Ladies and gentlemen, the Secretary of War.
We've heard from me. So now it's the main event. our Commander-in-Chief, I have the privilege every single day of watching him put America first, of ensuring that our war fighters have everything they need. His compass is clear. He's easy to follow, because you know he has our back. I was thinking backstage, the man who was the Commander-in-Chief when the War Department was created was George Washington, the man who was President when the War Department was reestablished is President Trump. And when he found out about this gathering of senior leaders, he said, I would be honored to come in order to address and thank the incredible Americans who defend our nation.
He has a heart full of gratitude and love for what you do, and 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 ladies and gentlemen, join me in welcoming the 45th and 47th President of the United States, our Commander in Chief, Donald J. Trump.
Thank you very much, Pete. Great job you're doing, too. Fantastic job. I've never walked into a room so silent before. This is very — don't laugh. Don't laugh. You're not allowed to do that. You know what? Just have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you 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. But you just feel nice and loose, okay? Because we're all on the same team.
And I was told that, sir, you won't hear her. You won't hear her. A murmur in the room. I said, we got to loosen these guys up a little bit. So you just have a good time. But I want to thank Secretary Hegset and General Kaine. General Raising Kaine, for a reason they call him that. When I heard his name, I said, you're the guy I'm looking for. The Joint Chiefs of Staff and so many others in this room who together represent the greatest and most elite fighting force in the history of the world, the United States military.
We're very proud of our military. We built the military during my first term. It was one of the greatest achievements. We had the greatest economy in history, and I built the military. Those are the two things I say more than anything else. And I also kept us safe at the borders. We had very good borders. We didn't have people coming in from jails and prisons and everything like took place over the last four years. I'll never forget what happened to this country over the last four years with the incompetence. There could be no higher honor than to serve as your Commander-in-Chief.
It is a great honor. I look at you, just incredible people. Central casting, I might add. To each and every one of you, I thank you for your unwavering devotion to the armed forces and to the country. We've all sworn a sacred oath to defend. We all have that oath, every one of us. I'm thrilled to be here this morning to address the senior leadership of what is once again known around the world as the Department of War. I know Pete spoke about it. He gave a great speech, I thought. Great speech. I don't want him to get so good.
I hate that. You know? No, I hate it. I almost fired him. I said, you can't. I don't want to go on after that. Now, he gave a great speech, but he talked about Department of War. We were sitting there. I said, didn't it used to be called the Department of War? And he goes, yes, sir. They change it like in the early 50s. So we won the First World War. We won the Second World War. We won everything in between and everything before that. We only won. And then we went, in a way, woke.
That was probably the first sign of wokeness. And we changed it to defense instead of war. And 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 immediately. Some people think thought about it. You know, they gave it a little thought. But in the end, we did it. And I have to be honest, it's so popular. I thought it would be met with fury on the left. But they're sort of 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 years now. Here we are. Here we are. Come to the White House any time you'd like. Now they've given up. A lot of bad people. But all over, it's been so popular. It's been very popular. I really thought that we were going to have to sort of fight it through. There's been no fight. There's been no fight. Like what I call the Gulf of America, the Gulf of America. Because to me, it was always the Gulf of America. I could never understand. We have 92 percent of the frontage.
And for years, actually 350 years that were there before us, it was called the Gulf of Mexico. I just had this idea. I'm looking at a map I'm seeing. We have most of the frontage. Why is it Gulf of Mexico? Why isn't it the Gulf of America? And I made the change and it went smoothly. I mean, we had a couple of fake news outlets that refused to make the change. And then one of them, AP, took us to court and we won. And the judge, who was a somewhat liberal judge, said the name is the Gulf of America because AP refused to call it the Gulf of America, they wrote.
They're not 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 judge actually said that, in fact, you can't even go into the room because what you're doing is not appropriate. The name is the Gulf of America. Google Maps changed the name. Everybody did, but AP wouldn't. And then we won in court. How about that? Isn't that so cool? As Secretary Heg says, beautifully described, the name change reflects far more than The shift in branding, it's really a historic reassertion of our purpose and our identity and our pride.
That's when we go with the word war. And, you know, we want war because we want to have no wars. But you have to be there. And, you know, sometimes you have to do it. I have settled so many wars since we're here. We're here almost nine months and I've settled seven. And yesterday we might have settled the biggest of them all, although I don't know. Pakistan, India was very big. Both nuclear powers are settled that. But yesterday is could be the settlement in the Middle East. That hasn't happened for 3000 years. I said, How long have you been fighting 3000 years?
So that's a long time. But we got it. I think settled. We'll see Hamas has to agree. 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 have agreed. Israel has agreed. It's an amazing thing. It just came together. War is very strange, you know? You never know what's going to happen with war. The easiest one of them all is Putin. I said, number one, it's a war that would have never happened if I were president, if the election weren't rigged, and if I were president, that war would have never happened.
Not even a little chance. And it didn't happen for four years. But I knew Putin very well, and I thought that would be easy because I know him so well. Well, that wouldn't turn out to be the hardest of them. We had some that were not settleable and they all got settled. So if this works out that we did yesterday with the Middle East, then that'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 over there in many different capacities in many different countries.
That was a that's a big that's a big part of the earth. But if that works out, it would be eight plus. How could I give myself two or three for that one? And then we just have the one to settle, and we have to settle it up with President Putin and Zelensky. Got to get them together and get it done. But the only way we can do that is through strength. I mean, if we were weak, they wouldn't even take my phone call. But we have extreme strength. We had the horror show. in Afghanistan, which is really the reason, I think, that Putin went in.
He saw that horror show by Biden and his team of incompetent people. And that showed, I think it gave him a path in. I wasn't there any longer. I watched that, and it was so, so horrible. I think it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country. And 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 terrible. reawakening the warrior spirit. And this is a spirit that won and built this nation and from the cavalry that tamed the Great Plains to the ferocious and yielding power of Patton Bradley and the great General Douglas MacArthur.
These are all great men in this effort. We're a team. And so my message to you is very simple. I am with you, I support you, and as President, I have your backs 100 percent. You'll never see me even waver a little bit. It's the way it is. And that includes our great police officers and firemen and all of these people that are doing so well. Together, over the next few years, we're going to make our military stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer, and more powerful than it has ever been before. I rebuilt our nuclear as you probably know, 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 because the power of that is so incredible. I see things. I don't think they'd show it to you. I really wouldn't want them to show it to you. But when you see the result of what's left, you never want to use that. Never, never, ever. We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine — nuclear submarine — the most lethal weapon ever made. Number one, you can't detect it. There's no way — we're 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.
Russia is actually second in submarines. China is third. But, you know, they're coming up. They're coming up. They're way lower in nuclear. They're way lower in nuclear, too. But in five years, they'll be equal. They're coming up. And you don't have to be that good with some that works for I mentioned the word nuclear moved a submarine or two. I won't say about the two. over to the coast of Russia, just to be careful, because we can't let people throw around that word. I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can't use either of them.
You can use either of them. And frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else. We have better, we have newer, but it's something we don't ever want to even have to think about. But when somebody mentions that that submarine started immediately thereafter, and it's just lurking, but I'm sure we're not going to have to use it. But it's an amazing — it's undetectable. Totally — ours is. Theirs isn't. Theirs are totally detectable. We can detect them easily. We go right to the spot. But we have genius apparatus that doesn't allow detection.
It doesn't allow detection at all by anybody above water or below water. It's incredible. We're way ahead of everybody in that — and other things. As a result of the exciting renewal of the spirit of our own forces, and that's what it is, it's really reaching at spirit unprecedented heights. Over the past eight months, new enlistments, I'm so proud of this, have surged to record highs, the highest we've ever had. And we used to have recruiting shortages. If you remember, about a year and a half ago, I was at the beginning stage of a campaign, And things came out that you couldn't get people to join the armed forces.
And by the way, the police also, fire department, I always put the fire department in because they're great. They're great. And I got 95% of their vote too, that helps. When you get 95% of their vote, you always have to mention them. But they're great. And they're brave in our inner cities, which we're going to be talking about, because it's a big part of war now. It's a 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 don't even know if anybody heard that.
And I said, don't talk about it much, but I think you have to. Our firemen are incredible. They're up in one of these ladders that goes way up to the sky, rescuing people. And you have animals shooting at them, shooting bullets at firemen that are way up in death territory. You fall off that ladder, it's over. It's over. They don't even have to inspect you when you hit the ground. And you have people shooting bullets at them in some of these inner cities. We're not going to let that happen. So I always mention the firemen because that's actually a big problem we have.
They are unbelievable, like you. They're unbelievable people. For the first time on record in 2025, the Navy Air Force and Space Force all met or surpassed their recruiting goals three months early. That never happened before. And the Army did even better. Congratulations, Army. They met everything. And these were the highest standards because we're making it larger. So these were much higher standards than you had four years ago, three years ago during the sleepy Joe Biden era. And the Army did it four months early. And you remember a year and a half ago, they said the big stories that were way behind with the Army Air Force, the Navy, the Marines were way behind, Coast Guard, and even Space Force.
I love Space Force because that was my creation. You know, when you create something, I love it. And the people we put in there were good. I got that right. We put in great people initially, and we really dominated. We really dominate in that sphere now. We were way behind China and Russia, and now we dominate. Space Force turned out to be a very important thing. I said from the beginning, you know, when Biden came into office, he wanted to terminate. He said, and this thing called Space Force so we could get rid of that.
And he got hammered by the people in this room. for even suggesting it, because it's very important, one of the most important. And as time goes by, it'll get more and more important. But we're now at 106 percent of our recruiting targets for the year, and that's the best in far more than a generation. And for the Marines, morale is so strong that the Marine Corps will meet its 2026 retention targets before the end of October, which never happens. And that's the earliest it's ever happened in the history of our country. And it makes you feel good, you know?
I felt guilty. I'd go make a speech in front of never people like you. You are the you are the leaders, but people soldiers and I felt embarrassed because there'd be stories about, you know, we couldn't fill up our Army, Navy, Air Force, we couldn't fill them up. And it was headlines, it was during Biden's four years, the auto pen, I call him the auto pen. It's, how would you like to have your thing signed by an auto-pending? You know, when I have a general and I have to sign for a general because we have beautiful paper, they're gorgeous paper, I said throw a little more gold on it, they deserve it, give me, I want the A paper, not the D paper.
We used to sign a piece of garbage, I said this man's gonna be a general, right? Yeah, I don't wanna use this. I wanna use the big, beautiful, firm paper. I wanna use the real gold writing when you talk about the position, and they're beautiful. And, but how would you like to have that where some kid sitting in the back office is having it signed with an auto pen? I thought about it and I thought about you people first, admirals, generals. I said, somebody works his whole life. He gets into maybe the academies or wherever, but however you got there and you go through years of work and now you become an admiral or a general or whatever.
And when you do, the President of the United States signs your commission, as you know. And that commission is beautifully displayed. And I sign it. Actually, I love my signature. I really do. Everyone loves my signature. But I signed it very proudly. And I always think to myself, how can you have an auto pen sign this? It's just so disrespectful. To me, it's just totally disrespectful. And it turned out that almost everything he did was signed by auto pen, except for when he gave his son Hunter pardon. He signed that one. And that's actually the worst signature I've ever seen.
That was the bad. The auto pen looks much better. But as leaders, our commitment to every patriot who put on the uniform is to ensure that American military remains the most lethal and dominant on the planet, not merely for a few years, but for the decades. Be so strong that no nation will dare challenge us so powerful that no enemy will dare threaten us and so capable that no adversary can even think about beating us. And we've had it recently. I had India and Pakistan were going at it. And I called them both. And in this case, I used trade.
I'm not going to trade with you. You start two nuclear nations, big nuclear. No, no, no, you cannot do that. I said, yes, I can. You go into this freaking war that I'm hearing about. You know, actually, they just shut down seven planes. Seven planes, it was starting. It was a lot of bad blood. And I said, you do this, there's not going to be any trade. And I stopped the war. It was going. It was raging for four days. But that was just the beginning. And we stopped it. It was a great thing. And the Prime Minister of Pakistan was here, along with the Field Marshal, who's a very important guy in Pakistan.
And he was here three days ago. And I didn't even realize it as beautiful as he said it. But he said that to a group of people that were with us, two generals, but a group, He said, this man saved millions of lives because he saved the war from going on. And that war was going to get very bad. Very, very bad. President Trump saved millions and millions of lives. That was a bad war. And I was very honored. I loved the way he said it. Suzy Wiles was there. She said that was the most beautiful thing.
But we saved a lot of them. Saved a lot of them. Even in Africa, we saved. the Congo with Rwanda. They've been fighting for 31 years, 10 million people dead. I got that one done. And very proud of it. So if this works out, we'll have eight. Eight in eight months. That's pretty good. Nobody's ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They'll give it to some guy that didn'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 solve the war.
So he'll get the Nobel Prize will go to the writer. Now, but we'll see what happens. But it'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. It should 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 about deals than anybody. This is what my whole life was based on. And they can change, and this can certainly change. But we have just about everybody.
We have one signature that we need, and that signature will pay in hell if they don't sign. I hope they sign for their own good and create something really great. To have done eight of them is just, like, such an honor. And then we have Putin and Zelensky. The easiest one of them all. I said, that one I'll get done. I thought that was going to be first. The others were much harder. Some of them. Azerbaijan was — this was going on for 36 years. They said, it's not solvable, so you can't — don't do it.
I said, I will do it. I will do it. And I got on the phone with — The two countries, they were great. They were great. I knew immediately. I knew as soon as I started talking to them, we're going to solve that war. We did. Now they're so happy. Now they're friends. One said he's been president for 32 years, 22 years. He said, you know, for 22 years, I did nothing but kill his people. They were in the room together at the Oval Office. And they started off spread like this. They had the beautiful resolute task.
And one was here. And one was here. You couldn't get further away. That's the furthest I've ever seen two people in front of me. And as the hour went by, they got closer, closer, closer. And at the end of the hour, we had it done. And they hugged and hugged and hugged. And I said, 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, he's now my friend. But for 22 years, he's been the head of Azerbaijan for 22 years. And the other guy, great guy too, seven.
And you know that war, that was a war that was not solvable. He said for seven years, the other one said for 22 years, all I did was kill his people. That's all I've done. I said, well, we're gonna put a stop to that, so we solved that. So it's a great thing, it's a great feeling. You know, you're saving Kosovo and Serbia, you're saving so many lives doing this, if you can do it. But our people deserve nothing less than the very best, and we're never going to let them down. And if we can solve wars instead of you having to fight wars, wouldn't that be wonderful, right?
Wouldn't that be wonderful? That's why one of the first executive orders I signed upon taking office was to restore the principle of merit. That's the most important word, other than the word tariff. I love tariffs. most beautiful word, but I'm not allowed to say that anymore. I said, tariff is my favorite word. I love the word tariff. You know, we're becoming rich as hell. We have a big case in front of the Supreme Court, but I can't imagine because this is what other nations have done to us. And do we have, you know, great legal grounds?
Oh, but you still have a case would be very bad. Something happened. But I said, my favorite word And the English dictionary is the word tariff. And people thought that was strange. And the fake news came over, and they really hit me hard on it. They said, what about love? What about religion? What about God? What about wife, family? I got killed when I said tariff is my favorite word. So I changed. It's now my fifth favorite word. And I'm OK with that. I'm OK with that. But they hit me hard. But it is. I mean, when you look at it, we've taken in Trillions of dollars.
We're rich, rich again. And there'll never be — when we finish this out, there'll never be any wealth like what we have. Other countries were taking advantage of us for years and years. You know that better than anybody. And now we're treating them fairly. But the money coming in is — we've never seen anything like it. The other day, they had $31 billion that they found — $31 billion. So we found $31 billion, and we're not sure from where it came. A gentleman came in, a financial guy. I said, well, what does that mean? He said, we don't know where it came.
I said, check the tariff shelf. No, sir, the tariffs haven't started in that sector yet. I said, yes, they have. They started seven weeks ago. Check it. Comes back 20 minutes later. Sir, you're right. It came from tariffs. $31 billion. That's enough to buy a lot of battleships, Admiral, to use an old term. I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way. You know, we have a secretary of the Navy came to me because I look at the Iowa out in California and I look at different ships, the old pictures. I used to watch Victory at Sea.
I love Victory at Sea. Look at these admirals. It's got to be your all-time favorite, black and white. When I look at those ships, they came with the destroyers alongside of them, and man, nothing was going to stop. There were 20 deep And they were in a straight line, and there was nothing going to stop them. And we actually talk about, you know, those ships. Some people would say, no, that's old technology. I don't know. I don't think it's old technology when you look at those guns. But it's something we're actually considering, the concept of battleship.
Nice six-inch side, solid steel. Not aluminum. Aluminum that melts if it looks at a missile coming at it. Starts melting as the missile's about two miles away. Now, those ships, they don't make them that way anymore. But you look at it, and your secretary likes it, and I'm sort of open to it. And bullets are a lot less expensive than missiles. A lot of reasons. I should take a vote, but I'm afraid to take that vote because I may get voted out on that one. But I tell you, it's something we're seriously considering. There were powers.
There were big powers. They were just about as mean and scary as you could be. And so we're looking at that. One of the biggest cases that we won was the decision of the United States Supreme Court to allow us to proceed on the word merit, merit. So those two words are right up there. So this is, I would say, the opposite of you ask for a definition, the opposite of political correctness. We went through political correct where you had to have people that were totally unfit to be doing what you're doing. For many reasons, I won't get into them.
But for many reasons, they were unfit. It's all based on merit. That was such an unbelievable decision. I didn't expect we were going to win that one. We went in. We said we needed it. We went in for colleges, you know, where kids with a C average are getting into the best colleges and the kids with A averages won't get in and kids with the highest boards and the highest marks are the best marks, couldn't get into the best schools and people that had not good boards and not very good marks. I mean, okay, but nothing special.
They were getting into our best colleges. I said, this is just crazy. We can't run. You can't run a country like this. And it was lingering for years and it got to the Supreme Court and we won that decision. Merit. Everything's based on merit. You're all based on merit. We're not going to have somebody taking your place for political reasons because They are politically correct, and you're not. 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 was built. We were built on merit.
We got away from it for a long time. And everyone understands it. And it was done. It was approved. I give great credit to the Supreme Court, because I thought they had tremendous courage. I didn't think they'd do that. That was tremendous. I give maybe for that decision almost more than anything, because it's a hard decision to make. It's really hard. The apparatus of our country was not set up for merit. It was set up for political correctness. And you can never be great if you're going to do that. And we're going to be greater than we ever were before.
We're bringing back a focus on fitness, ability, character, and strength. That's because the purposes of American military is not to protect anyone's feelings, it's to protect our republic, and it's the republic that we dearly love. It's to protect our country. We will not be politically correct when it comes to defending American freedom. We will be a fighting and winning machine. We want to fight. We want to win. And we want to fight as little as possible. You have to count on people like me to keep you out of wars, because we don't want to go into wars.
Many of the wars that I just told you about, we could have entered those wars and settled them in a different way, lose a lot of our troops. And we could have settled them, I guess, differently. Maybe not. Actually, you might not have been able to settle them. We just would have been in the middle of a lot of firepower. But when we do need it, you're going to be so ready. And you know it. But very importantly, with that goal in mind, I've committed to spending over $1 trillion on our military in 2026. And that's the most in the history of our country.
$1 trillion. That's a lot of money. I hope you like that. Mams and sirs, I hope you like it. That's a hell of a lot of money. We have the best of everything. Every branch is seeing major investments. And as I announced in the Oval Office in March, we are rapidly moving forward with the first-ever sixth-generation fighter jet. I didn't name it. I did not name it. Boeing came in and they said, sir, this is our submittal. It's the greatest fighting jet ever done. And, you know, they're testing all these plans. All the companies are testing, and this one tested like through the roof.
And they said, we'd like to name it the F-47. I said, let me think about it. Then after thinking for about two seconds, I said, OK. You know what that means, 47. I'm 47. So I'm 45, 46, and 47. Yeah, if you think about it. I just don't want the credit for 46. I don't want to have their. open borders and people coming in from all over the world, including jails and mental incidents. I don't want that on my record, but I like I like having it. We're investing tens of billions of dollars in modernizing our nuclear deterrence capabilities like never before.
And we've begun construction on what we call the Golden Dome missile defense shield. It'll be the most sophisticated in the world. You watched it do well until they had some problems at the end with a little bit of a Lack of ammunition, defensive ammunition, but they've got that taken care of. But I tell you, it's what we're doing is so good, and we deserve it. You know, we help other countries with it. We don't have it ourselves. And Canada called me a couple of weeks ago. They want to be part of it, to which I said, well, why don't you just join our country, become 51, become the 51st state, and you get it for free.
So I don't know if that made a big impact, but it does make a lot of sense. It actually makes, because they're having a hard time up there in Canada now, because as you know, with tariffs, everyone's coming into our country. We have more investment than we've ever had before. $17 trillion coming in. As an example, in four years, Biden didn't have $1 trillion. We have $17 trillion more than that in eight months coming in. And they're coming in from Canada, Mexico, from Europe, from all over, AI, auto plants. Everybody's coming back to the United States.
Under my budget, we will be expanding the U.S. Navy by at least 19 ships next year, including submarines, destroyers, assault ships, and more. And it's going to be much more than that as we go along, because we basically don't build ships anymore. We do build submarines, but we don't build ships do you know in the second world war they were freighters and different types but we were doing a ship a day and now we don't do ships and i'm not a fan of some of the ships you 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 stealth i said that's that's uh An ugly ship is not necessary in order to save your stealth.
By the way, the B-2 bombers were incredible. That is stealth. They went into that. I was with General Cain and Pete were in the war room. But we're watching them go in, and they were totally untouched. They were not seen. They were literally not seen. They dropped their bombs. They hit. Every single one of them hit its target. It was total obliteration. CNN when we came back fake news CNN know their camera just went off You know their camera every time I mentioned they turn the camera up because it's never good They said this is a problem, but I don't blame them.
You're better off keeping it off But they they have some scammer reporter who started saying without any knowledge that He may not have hit the targets as well as they thought. It may not have been obliteration. He did hit the targets, and I've got to give us a little credit, right? It was obliteration, it turned out. The Atomic Energy Commission said it was obliteration. Not only did they hit the target, they had these chutes. And think of this here. Way up in the sky, there was no moon. It was dead dark. You couldn't see a thing.
You couldn't see them. But they had, I guess, a beam going right into these chutes. Every single one of those bombs went right down those chutes into a granite mountain. I think it's the last time they're going to build air chutes. They had these air chutes that were nice, beautiful. They were meant for us. But it was total obliteration. And now they give us credit for that. But these people were phenomenal. I tell you, for the Air Force people here, you can be very proud of that detail. We just ordered a lot of new ones.
new ones and updated ones, but I'd take the other ones. Let me tell you, they couldn't have worked any better. So they flew for 37 hours total back and forth. No stops, no nothing. We had 52 tankers loading them up. And that's a job I wouldn't necessarily want too much, flying a tanker loaded up with hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel. I don't know if I'd do that job. I asked the question, what happens if it gets hit? Sir, you don't want to know about that, right? I don't want to know about that. But those guys, they're just heroes.
They're incredible. I had them all to the Oval Office. We had the B-2 pilots and a lot of the people, even the people that took care of them, the maintenance people, just as important. We had them all to the White House, gave them a big party on the lawn, brought some of them into the Oval Office. But on top of all this, we'll deliver a hard-earned pay raise of 3.8 percent to every soldier, sailor, airman, coast guardsman, space guardman, and Marine, something you weren't getting from the past administration. They did not do with respect. They're Democrats.
They never do. Not only are we rebuilding our great strength, but for the first time in years, my administration is actually using that strength to defend the core and vital interests of America. And very simply, we are putting America first. And I have since I've been elected. I've always put America first. It's sort of simple, you know, when you think. It's my campaign was run on common sense and
We did great. We got the highest numbers.
Districts, you know, they have it broken up 2,500 versus 525. We won every swing state. We won the popular vote. We won everything. We won everything. You have to take a look at the map. It's almost entirely red, except there's a little blue line on each coast. And I think that's going to disappear, too. We did really great, and part of it is because of our success with the military, the rebuilding of the military, the vote that I got from the military, and they were the vicious people, you know, that we have to fight, just like you have to fight vicious people.
Mine are different, a different kind of vicious, but they spread all these horrible, you know, they made up statements and said what I said about everything, but even about the military. But fortunately, the military didn't believe it. It's hard, you know, they make up a statement and they said, you say, We had 25 people that said he never said that. Twenty-five. We had 25 affidavits. And they said, well, we're going with it anyway. You know, these sleazebags. And that's why the press is really losing all power, because people aren't believing it. We need an honest press.
We need borders. We need borders. We need an honest press. We need fair elections. I mean, those three things. And we don't have an honest press. We have a really corrupt press. But we fight through the corrupt press. And the people understand you have to do this stuff a lot. You have to go on television a lot because you can't get a fair shake if you're going to rely on somebody else. They just don't understand. They've destroyed. The image of media now is at the lowest point it's ever been. It's lower than Congress. Can you believe that?
It's something. But together with many of you in the room, we've brought back the fundamental principle that defending the homeland is the military's first and most important priority. That's what it is. Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don't have uniforms.
But we are under invasion from within. We're stopping it very quickly. After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, With your help, we're defending the borders of our country from now on. We're not going to let this happen. Biden let people come in from prisons, mental institutions, drug dealers, murderers. You know, we had 11,488 murders allowed into our country by this guy who had no clue. He had no clue. He shouldn't have been there in the first place, but he had no clue. The people that ran the office, the White House, were people that surrounded him.
Radical left lunatics that are brilliant people, and they allowed people from all over the world, from the Congo.
They opened up prisons in the Congo. They came into our country totally unmatched, unvetted, unchecked. And from all over, South America, not just South America, you know, you think South America, no, but from all over, a lot came in from Venezuela. Venezuela emptied its prison population into our country. That's why they have Trin de Aragua, one of the worst gangs ever. But we took care of them. We took good, strong care of them. And I just want to thank the National Guard in Washington, D.C. It was — it's embarrassing to say this now. I can't say it because we solved it.
But Washington, D.C. was the most unsafe, most dangerous city in the United States of America. And to a large extent, beyond. And beyond that, go to some — you go to Afghanistan, they didn't have anything like that. You go to countries that you would think there's problems, they didn't have that. And now Washington, D.C., after 12 days of serious, serious intensity, we took out 1,700 career criminals. If you have five career criminals, they can make your numbers look very bad because they'll commit 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 an unbelievable job. Then they started even cleaning. I said, I don't want them doing that, sir. They were cleaning it up. I drove through it two days ago. It was beautiful. People are walking down the street holding hands. Man and wife coming from Iowa. They're not worried about being shot. Washington, DC is now a safe city. In fact, I went out to dinner with my crew. I haven't done that. In theory, I wouldn't do it. And I felt totally safe. And nobody's been attacked, nobody's been hurt.
Washington, D.C. went from our most unsafe city to just about our safest city in a period of a month. We had it under control in 12 days, but give us another 15, 16 days. It's perfect. And people other than politicians that look bad, they think, you know, the Democrats run most of the cities that are in bad shape. We have 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 radical-left Democrats, what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they're very unsafe places.
And we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major port for some of the people in this room. That's a war, too. It's a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can't let these people in. You know, we had no people enter in the last four months. Zero. Even I can't believe that, you know, we had millions coming in, pouring in. 25 million all told, and of those 25 million, many of them should never be in our country. They would take their worst people and their people from prisons and jail, and they'd put them in a caravan and they'd walk up.
CNN was interviewing one person. Oh, why are you coming? I want freedom. Good. Were you in jail? Yes. For what? Murder. She said, you had to see this anchor, a young woman. She's like, I couldn't believe. She'll probably lose her job. But because the left doesn't want to hear that. But we're running it based on common sense and based on love of our country. But I want to salute every service member who has helped us carry out this critical mission. It's really a very important mission. And I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military, because we're going into Chicago very soon.
That's a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor, stupid. They threw him out of his family business. He was so stupid. I know the family. He becomes governor. He's got money. Not money that he made, but he ran for governor. He won, and now he criticizes us all the time. Last week, they had 11 people murdered, 44 people shot. The week before that, they had five people murdered, 28 people shot. Every weekend, they lose five, six. If they lose five, they're considering it a great week. They shouldn't lose any. You shouldn't lose any. This is civilization.
And he's always up there saying, we're in very good shape. We don't need the military. No, they need the military desperately. How about Portland? Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone. And I get a call from the liberal governor, sir, please don't come in. We don't need you. I said, well, unless they're playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down. I mean, you must be kidding. Sir, we have it under control. I said, you don't have it under control, governor, but I'll check it. And I called you back.
I called her back. I said, this place is a nightmare. Probably, it's certainly not the biggest, but it's one of the worst. It's brutal. They go after our ICE people, who are great patriots and tough job too, but they love it. They love it because they're cleaning up our country. And so you look at some of the things where they took over parts of Seattle. They actually took over a big percentage of Seattle. Think of that, you remember that, that was a while ago. And I sent in 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 that 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 don't want our people hurt as they stand by. I was watching during Biden, there were troops standing up like this, brave, standing up in tension the way I should stand all the time. and like this, and people are standing, their mouth is this far away from their mouth, and they're spitting at them, and they're screaming at them.
And that soldier standing there, he wants to knock the hell out of the person, but he's not allowed to do anything. So they just stand there, and they get abused, and a woman was this far away from his face, and she starts spitting in his face, and he's not allowed to do anything. If it's OK with you, generals and admirals, I've taken that off. I say, they spit, we hit. Is that OK? I think so. They spit, it's a new thing. They spit, we hit. How about the cars? Well, the cars are coming out. They get brand new cars, Border Patrol, ICE, beautiful, nice new cars.
And they're driving along and have to go through a gauntlet of rocks being thrown at the car. So here's this beautiful brand new car. By the time it goes 100 yards, it's destroyed. These guys have pretty good arms, some of them. And they're throwing bricks at full force into the window and into the car. It looks like it's a war zone. And I said, never let that happen again. From now on, if that ever happens. And I said, here, you get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do.
Because those people are, you know, you can die from that. Those bricks go through the windows. You can die. 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 driving, 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 that's different with us. We stop. And since they gave that order, we haven't had that problem. It's very interesting. It's amazing. It's just like in Venezuela. You've seen the boats going.
We can't find any more boats. They're carrying drugs. Every boat kills about 25,000 people. That's what they have. They have fentanyl mostly and a lot of other drugs. And we take them out, and we've taken out four. And it's on air. Everybody gets to see it. Not that we like to do that, but every boat kills 25,000, on average 20. Some people say more. You know, you see these boats, they're stacked up with bags of white powder. It's mostly fentanyl and other drugs, too. And now we have a problem. General Keyes says, sir, there are no boats out there.
Not even fishing boats. They don't want to go fishing. I don't blame them. There'll be no fishing today. But it's amazing what strength will do, because all we want to do is stop drugs from flowing into our country. It's destroying. We lost 300,000 people, died last year. Everybody knows, friends, many friends probably, that you lost a child, or adults too, but you lost a son or daughter because of what's coming into our border. And we're making it very hard. Oh, and we haven't even started yet. Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.
And this is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within. And we have to handle it before it gets out of control or won't get out of control. Once you're involved at all, they all joke. They say, oh, this is not good. You saw it in Washington. We had gangs of 10, 12, 15 kids, and these military guys walk up to them, and they treat them with disrespect, and they just got pounded. They just got pounded. The gang just pounded. Then thrown into paddy wagons and taken back to their country.
Some are so dangerous, we don't want to even do that because we don't want to have some of the stone cold murders. We don't have the confidence, even though they're not coming back very easily. We don't have the confidence. We put them in jails. But these service members are following in a great and storied military tradition from protecting frontier communities to chasing outlaws and bandits in the Wild West. And our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies, foreign and domestic. You know that phrase? very well that's what the oath says foreign and domestic well we also have domestic george washington abraham lincoln grover cleveland george bush and others all use the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace many of our leaders used the military to keep peace.
Now they like to say, oh, you're not allowed to use the military. And you know what the people say? The people in those cities where they're being raped and shot and beat up, you know what they say? We love the military. You ever see where they interview the people on the street? I've never seen somebody say they don't, unless they're radical and paid off, because a lot of these insurrectionists are paid by, whether it's Soros or other people, but they're paid by the radical left. So today I want to thank every service member from general to private who has bravely helped us secure the nation's capital and make America safe for the American people.
It's amazing. The whole world is watching. Everybody in the White House, they come up to me, young women, sir, thank you. I know immediately what they're thanking. They don't have to say it. They walk to work now to the White House. We haven't had a crime in Washington in so long, because we got the careers. We call them the careers. We got these lunatics out. And they'll never be any good. You know, I hate to tell this to the liberal media. You could spend time with them. You could do whatever you want. You could send them to the finer schools, which they couldn't get into anyway mentally.
They couldn't get in. But no matter what you do, they'll never be good. They're bad. They're career criminals. I don't know. Maybe they were born that way. Some people don't like me to say that, but maybe they were. Certainly some were. Together with the leaders here today, we're also restoring a needed focus on defeating threats in the Western Hemisphere throughout this region. Cartel terrorists have been allowed to wage a relentless campaign of death and destruction on our country, all because we had weak leadership on top. And we did a great job with it first term, but this is something else, what we're doing.
And we're taking it to the next level, probably next level times three. But we had COVID come up, and we had to take care of that. We did a great job with COVID. We had the therapeutics. It was just regeneron. So many things we did for COVID. But we had to focus on that, and every other country in the world was being decimated by COVID. So we had to change gear a little bit to take care of that. But under our leadership, the military is now the knife's edge in combating this sinister enemy. We have to put the traffickers and cartels on notice, and we've done that.
And we've put them, a lot of them, we've called them a terrorist organization, which is actually a big thing to do. Nobody's done it, but I've done it with a lot of them. It gives you a tremendous advantage. If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence, because that's the only language they really understand. That's why you don't see any more boats on the ocean. You don't see any boats around Venezuela. There's nothing. As president, I will never hesitate to defend our people from threats of violence, from the horrible plague that's taking place from within the Iran nuclear power, the Iran – all of the great power that we thought existed.
We blew it out to kingdom. We took advantage of it and we just really took advantage of it, and it was a beautiful thing to see. That's what military power can achieve. That's why I chose Raising Cane. He's fantastic, by the way. I hope you all agree. If anybody disagrees, could I please have your hand? Who disappears at Raising Cane is no good. Just raise your hand. I don't see any hands raised. All right. That means you're OK. That means that he's OK now, but I saw his results. He took out ISIS. I was told it was going to take four years.
It took four weeks. I went to see him, and he took him out in four weeks, knocked him out, knocked him to hell. And I was told by military people it was going 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 generals. I call them the television generals. But Raising Cane did it in four weeks, took out 100% of the ISIS caliphate. As a result of these actions and many others since my inauguration, we're witnessing the triumphant return of peace through strength.
We have great peace through strength. America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with Biden. They looked at him falling downstairs every day. Every day, the guy's falling downstairs. He said, it's not our president. We can't have it. I'm very careful, you know, when I walk downstairs, like I'm on stairs, like these stairs, I walk very slowly. Nobody has to set a record. Just try not to fall, because it doesn't work out well. A few of our presidents have fallen and just became a part of their legacy. We don't want that. You walk nice and easy.
You don't have to set any record. Be cool. Be cool when you walk down, but don't. Don't bop down the stairs. So one thing with Obama, I have zero respect for him as a president, but he would bop down those stairs. I've never seen it. You 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 eventually, bad things are going to happen. And it only takes once. But he did a lousy job as president. A year ago, we were a dead country.
We're dead. This country is going to hell. We were dead in every way, from immigration to military. We didn't have the weapons. We were given everything to Ukraine. We had nothing. And by the way, I have to tell you, now, as you know, I went over and I met with NATO and NATO raised from two to five, which everyone said five percent of GDP. Millions and now trillions of dollars are 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 trillions of dollars.
And we're not spending any money on that war, not 10 cents. We sell our equipment to NATO. NATO pays us for the equipment, and they give it to Ukraine or whoever they give it to, but they can keep it. But we're not involved. We have no money going out. Biden gave $350 billion. It's not sustainable. $350 billion. We have a war that should have never started. But we're not doing that anymore. So I just want you to know we're selling equipment. Our people are buying equipment. They're buying — they are buying the equipment at full price, a fair price.
So I don't want to say we're making money because I don't want to say — I don't want to be making money on awards. Too many people dying. They're losing 7,000 soldiers a week. A lot of them are Russian soldiers, but between the two countries. Mostly soldiers, by the way. Sometimes, you know, in Kiev they'll lob a missile in or some drones in, kill some people. But mostly it's soldiers. Russia and Ukraine are losing 7,000 souls. And you know, they're not American. They're not us. They're not you. We have a special obligation. But they're soldiers.
They're young people. They leave their parents. They wave goodbye. And then two days later, they're blown up so unnecessarily. And so that's the primary reason I want to get it done. We got to get it done. It's crazy what's going on. That's the worst war that there's been since World War II. The number of soldiers that are being killed there is just crazy. From five to 7,000 soldiers die a week. Think of that. So I think we'll get that done. But that's turned out to be the toughest one. I'm so disappointed in President Putin. I thought he would get this thing over with.
He should have had that war done in a week. And I said to him, you know, you don't look good. You're four years fighting a war that should have taken a week. Are you a paper tiger? And it's a shame, but I think eventually we'll get that one done, just like we, in theory, I want to knock on wood, because you never know. It's like we're going to have the Middle East done, which is actually a much harder thing to do. I mean, thousands of years. But we have to get that war done. So now we're, just think of it, we're a dead country.
King of Saudi Arabia, great guy. I was with the Emir of Qatar. I was with the great leadership of UAE. I was over there. We brought back $2 trillion and more. They ordered 200 planes, Boeings. They ordered so much, and they were great. But they all said essentially the same thing. They said, one year ago, you were a dead country. And now you're the hottest country anywhere in the world. We are. We're the hottest country in the world right now. The absolute hottest country in the world. We have, there's nobody even close. Putin said that to me.
We met in Alaska. Had a good meeting. Then he went back and started sending drones into Kiev. I said, I thought we had a good meeting. But it's one of those things. But we were a dead country a year ago.
And now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. Good meeting. But one of those things.
But we were a dead country. A year ago, and now we're the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. You could be proud of that. And you must have felt like hell when you have a wife or a husband at home and you used to read the numbers that we can't get people to join the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard. You must have felt like You know, I have a job that nobody wants. That doesn't feel good. Well, now you have a job that is brimming over with people wanting it. They want it.
And you're able to get a much higher quality because now you have your choice. You know, 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 fact that we don't, you know, we don't need them at this moment. But think of it. What a difference that is from I could just imagine two years ago, you're reading front page articles and The New York Times, of course, and Wall Street Journal, they always give us unfair stories. But they played it so big, they were playing it so big.
Nobody wants to join the Army, the Marines, the Air Force. They don't want to join. They don't want to join the Coast Guard at all. Nobody wants to join. Nobody wants to join our police forces, our police forces also. Some of us went hand-in-hand. And I used to say, boy, you know, I'm speaking in front of the military today. It's embarrassing because I'm speaking in front of people who have a job that other people don't want, but now you have a job that everybody wants. So 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 to be in the Army, the Navy, the Air Force, the Marines.
If you think the Coast Guard and Space Force are beautiful space force. It's a whole different world. And now they're signing up, by the way. Seriously, big numbers for the police. Dangerous job, isn't it? Fire department. But that's the paving, the way for progress once thought almost impossible. I mean, a year ago, you wouldn't have thought that was possible. A year ago, they were talking about making the military smaller because they can't get the people to join. We're thinking about making it larger because we have so many people. And it's nice to be able to cut people because of merit that aren't really qualified for any reason, a physical reason, a mental reason.
You don't have to take them anymore because you have the pick of the litter. And they all want to be with you. They all want your job. They want to be with you. They want to work with you. They'll even take your job, you know. Got to be a little bit sharp. You got to watch it. But everybody wants to be doing what you're doing now. What a difference when I speak to you, and I can say that as opposed to a couple of years ago when I was talking to rooms where they were desperate to get people and they couldn't get them.
What a difference a presidential election can make. That's all it is. It's just a presidential election. Yesterday at the White House, we put forward a plan for peace in Gaza. We announced it and we're going to create something that was my idea. But unfortunately, I got drafted. It's going to be called the Board of Peace, and it's going to reign over that territory. And we're going to get that done. 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 guess because of that, every leader, every everybody wants to be on the Board of Peace, and we're going to watch over that very volatile part of the world and keep it non-volatile so you don't have to get involved. We want to save you for other things or save you for nothing from that standpoint. We don't want you fighting wars. But if you have to, you're going to be the most lethal fighting force in the world. And I would say that even two, three years ago. But now I say it with great enthusiasm.
So true. And we're striving tirelessly to end the terrible war in Ukraine. And as you know, we're also working hard to get the allies to share more of the burden of our defense. Much of that has really already taken place. But all NATO members have committed to the increase that I talked about. Think of that. That was unthinkable. It used to be 1 percent. Then we got it up to two in my last term. And they did not like it. And now I got 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 think 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 lot of money that they should have been spending in the past. But I think Putin was a wake-up call for them, really. We're now selling large quantities of American-made weapons to NATO, and we're getting really fair pricing. We're making a lot of money. It's my hope that from Europe to Asia to the Middle East, our allies will make similar commitments to increase their military capabilities.
And this will greatly strengthen our alliances and also it will make war far less likely. You know, if you have a strong, if you're a strong presence like we are, we are such a strong presence. And I go around bragging about that. I said, we have the strongest military anywhere in the world. I say, you never heard Biden say that. You never heard him say anything. But you never heard him say it. Did you ever hear him say, we have the strongest military? He doesn't say that. I say it. We have the strongest military anywhere in the world.
We have great leadership. And I'll tell you, Pete and General Cain, all of the people that I've met that have been lifted up in rank. And we got many of them out of here, 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 satisfied. We have we know everything about everybody. It will also help the United States rapidly rebuild our defense industrial base. Each of you can play an important part in getting allies to do their part. So to that end, Secretary Hagsteth will soon be announcing major reforms to streamline military acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales.
We have tremendous numbers of countries that want to buy our equipment. And, you know, In many cases, it takes too long. They're backlogged. We're backlogged on all the equipment, which is something that's new to us a little bit. And I told those companies, you better get your ass going because we're, you know, we're buying, we're selling you a lot of equipment. We're getting countries to buy your equipment. You got to produce the equipment. Some of the countries, I'm not going to mention, but some of the countries are buying a lot. And that's a good thing.
They're on our side. 95%. I'll never say 100% because it can always turn, right? You know about that. But they're on our side. The problem is we have to get the companies that make this equipment and we make the best equipment in the world, but they got to make it faster. We have orders for the F 35. We have orders for everything. The new F 47. We have orders for everything. They got to make it faster. Lot faster ammunition. They have to make faster. In the coming months, we'll be making even more historic announcements to fully embrace the identity of the Department of War.
I love the name. I think it's so great. I think it stops wars. The Department of War is going to stop wars. If we are as ruthless and relentless as our enemies, the United States Armed Forces will be totally unmatched in the future. We have a group of enemies that are very ruthless. and very smart, but they can't match us. They can't match us. They don't even come close to matching us. Again, you know, it's very important for me to say we are the greatest military in the world, but we make the best equipment in the world.
I watched our anti missile missiles. I watched our Patriots just knock things out like a needle hitting another needle on the stage. There's a needle up there and you send another needle up and it hits it every time. During the war, we went 14 for 14. We had 14. This is where they ran. We had 14 missiles coming at us. All 14 were knocked out of the sky. Every one of them. We make the best equipment from Sparta to Rome, to the British Empire, to the United States of America. History has shown that military supremacy has never been simply a matter of money or manpower.
At the end of the day, it is the culture, spirit of our military that truly sets us apart from any other nation. Our ultimate strength will always come from the fierce people, those brilliant people with such pride and the unbending will and the traditions of excellence that have made us the most unstoppable force ever to walk the face of the earth. And that's what we are. Remember, we never want to use it, but we have the most powerful nuclear capability, and I call it nuclear deterrent of any other country. Nobody close. The men and women in this room inherit the legacy built and won by Washington and Jackson, Grant and Pershing, Eisenhower and Patton, Nimitz and LeMay.
We carry forward the majestic military heritage passed down from father to son, soldier to soldier, and one generation of warriors to the next. You are warriors. You know that, right? You're great warriors. Well, you wouldn't be in this room. You're the best of the best. From Concord Bridge to Fort McHenry, from Gettysburg to Manila Bay, from Normandy to Sicily, and from the jungles of Vietnam to the dusty streets of Baghdad, America's military has charged into hellfire, climbed up jagged mountains, crossed roaring oceans, and thundered across open deserts to defend our flag, our freedom, and our homeland.
Nobody does it like you. Now we are discovering American muscle, reasserting American might, and beginning the next story chapter in American military legends and lore. That's L-O-R-E. It is lore. When it comes to defending our way of life, nothing will slow us. No enemy will stop us. They're not. They cannot stop us. And no adversary will stand in our way. They won't stand in our 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 to stand in our way ever again. You'll never see four years like we had with Biden and that group of incompetent people that ran this country that should have never been there.
Because we are the United States military, the best, the boldest, the bravest that the world has ever seen, that the world has ever known. With leaders like we have right here in this beautiful room today, we will vanquish every danger and crush every threat to our freedom and every generation to come. Because we will fight, fight, fight, and we will win, win, win. I want to just thank you once again, and God bless the United States military, and God bless America. God bless you all. Thank you very much. Thank you.
You.