Remarks at a Dinner With Republican Senators

The President. This is really a celebration, because we hit a lot of home runs, and we're going to keep hitting them. And I just want to thank you, but that's what it is.

I said to John—John Thune, who's done a fantastic job, we have to say, right? Fantastic. But few people could have done what he did and what Mike Johnson did—Speaker.

And I think we've done more in 3 nights—I've been calling people at 2 o'clock in the morning. "Sir, we have three hard noes." I said: "It's 2:30 in the morning. That's okay." That was an early one. And we did this for 3 or 4 nights in a row. Right, John?

Senate Majority Leader John R. Thune. We did.

The President. Between the House and the Senate, there were a few hard noes, but almost always, they came through. And we got things done that few people could have gotten done.

And this is like a easy night, because we're here. And I just said: "Let's celebrate. So, whosever in town, come on over." And a lot of you came over, and we appreciate it.

But we're to—here to really take a little bit of a successful bow and productive—the production that we had over the last 6 months was spectacular. I don't think anybody has done more, and that's all of you together.

And there's never been anything like it, in terms of Republican Senate majorities in all of American history. You know that. We went back very carefully, and we checked. And nobody has done so much so fast and, probably, you could say, with so few votes. I mean, we had 53, which is not bad, but that's not easy, is it?

So let me begin by congratulating all of you. It's a truly amazing group of my friends. And we have a few of our friends that were in their districts and States. And I said: "Don't come back. Just relax." But we wanted to do this.

The Senate GOP confirmed our Cabinet with record speed. It was actually record speed. And now we'll go a little bit faster, because maybe one of these weeks you just hold them all back, and we'll get everybody in. Right, John?

Leader Thune. Yes.

The President. But—we're——

Leader Thune. You heard that, didn't you guys? [Laughter]

The President. But we really—we really did——

Audience member. [Inaudible] [Laughter]

The President. ——we had—we have a lot of great people, a lot of really fantastic people, and they're doing a tremendous job.

You stayed in session for a marathon 10 consecutive weeks, and that's the longest of any Senate in 15 years. And you held over 400 votes, more than any Senate in 35 years, and they were successful votes.

And just a few weeks ago, we had the biggest victory of them all when you passed the "One Big Beautiful Bill," and I just signed it into law. And I call it the "Great Big Beautiful Bill," but I got overridden by a couple of my people. [Laughter] They said, "Let's call it the 'One Big,'" but it is really the "Great Big."

And we delivered the largest tax cut in American history, the largest spending cut in American history, the most deregulation in American history, and the largest border security investment in American history and the biggest success on the border in American history.

As you know, last month—we had—and we went from millions of people coming in—we had zero illegals coming into our country. And we're trying to get our country straightened out, and you can't do that if they're going to come in by the tens of thousands. We had zero. Now I'm not even sure I can believe zero, but it was a very liberal group, as you know, that keeps that tabulation, and they gave us a zero, so I think we'll take it. But it certainly wasn't very many.

And the "One Big Beautiful Bill" delivered on more Republican promises than any single piece of legislation that's ever been voted on before. And I want to thank Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Again, John, it's a—what you did is amazing, record-setting, and you're a good man too. You're a very good man. He really is.

Majority Whip John Barrasso. John, thank you. What a man. What a guy. We got along from day one, right? He knew more about the medical stuff, and I said, "What do you think about this, that?" You did a fantastic job, and for a long time.

Republican Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito. Shelley, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Shelley. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Mike Crapo. Mike, good job. Hey, you know your stuff. I was calling—I was asking him some very tough questions on taxes. You always had the answer, some of which I didn't like, but that was okay. [Laughter] But you always had it. You know that—you know your business. Thank you, Mike. Great job.

Senate Budget committee chairman, a gentleman named Lindsey Graham. Just took a big lead in the polls. You're leading big. [Laughter] That's pretty good. Lindsey Graham.

And all of you—I mean, just everyone in this room is special. We've had—you're all friends, and you've just been incredible people. Because, again, getting all of these votes with, you know—well, you can't get—you can't lose two. And we had a couple—you can't lose two. And we actually had it where we were down much closer than this, and we said, "We're a heart attack away from losing the Senate." We were just hoping everybody is going to stay good and healthy. Right, John?

Leader Thune. That's right.

The President. But we were—we had some pretty close moments. But I don't think anybody has ever come close to doing this with a pretty tight majority, to put it nicely. So now we have three.

And I think we have a chance in the midterms. I don't understand why they say that when you win the Presidency, you always, almost automatically, lose the midterms, because nobody has had a more successful period of time than we have. So, based on that, we should do great, and we'll see.

But nobody has done more than we have as a group. It's not me. It's all of us together.

And I'd like to thank Vice President J.D. Vance, who's here someplace. J.D., thank you. And he's been—he's been so terrific, J.D. And we appreciate it, and you helped us a lot during those late evenings over the last 3 nights. And you really have been tremendous.

And Secretary of State Marco Rubio—this man is traveling all over the place. He's always traveling. He's going to different country. He loves it. He's a natural. He's a natural. There's never going to be anybody better than the job you're doing right now. We appreciate it. We have some big things coming up too. And, Marco, we have some big things coming up, right?

Secretary of State Marco A. Rubio. Yes.

The President. Some big things and some very positive things. And thank you very much. Doing a fantastic job.

Who would have thought? We fought like—he was so tough. Ted, he was tough on that debate stand, right? And you were very tough on the debate stand too. You guys were brutal. [Laughter] Who would think they're my friends? And now they're my friends.

Audience member. [Inaudible] [Laughter]

The President. Well, they said it—they said it about Lincoln. He brought in all his enemies. Well, I don't know, they were sort of enemies, but they were very talented people, I want to tell you that.

Director Russ Vought is here, and thank you very much, Russ. Where are you? Thank you. Great—great job.

And all of the wonderful spouses. The most important people here are the spouses, because without the spouses—without the spouses, it wouldn't—it wouldn't work. And we want to thank you and also for the time, because your wives and husbands, I mean, they were—they were very busy, getting home at 4 o'clock. I can vouch for every single one of them getting home at 4 o'clock. [Laughter] Getting home at 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock in the morning, and you're saying: "Darling, were you really in Congress? Were you really"—[laughter]—"were you really sitting in your nice Senate seat? I don't know."

So—but no, they worked long and hard. [Laughter] And they—and you know what? They laugh. They never complained. They never complained once, and very few of them went back. They'd just sit late into the night while we got those final votes. Pretty amazing.

In 2024, together, we won a mandate from the American people. We won every single swing State and the Electoral College 312 to 226. And it was—that was a big—that was a big—remember, they said, "There is a path to 70." You have to have 70 and—270. "And there's a path to 270," and yes, the path was 312. [Laughter]

I mean, it was—I remember, I went to Nebraska to get a half—to get a vote, a single vote. And I went there, and it turned out we didn't need it. There was a certain circumstance under which that would been a very important vote, and they were great in Nebraska, but we didn't need it.

So we got 312. We won the popular vote by millions of votes, and we won counties throughout America, 2,750 to 525. Think of that: 2,750 to 525. That's called a landslide.

The "One Big Beautiful Bill" delivered on that mandate, and we've fulfilled so many of our promises. In fact, somebody said today—a person that's not particularly good for us said that we actually fulfilled more promises than we promised, which is a pretty nice statement. You don't hear that very often, but it's true—by a lot, actually. And that's just the beginning.

In January, we passed Senator Katie Britt's Laken Riley. Act. Where's Katie? Katie?

And a few months ago, we passed Senator Ted Cruz's—and this was done with a very fantastic woman named Melania. Right? [Laughter] You worked together—First Lady—and you passed the TAKE IT DOWN Act, something that was very important. That actually had very good bipartisan support, almost unanimous support. A couple of people, I won't tell you their names, but—[laughter]—a couple of people. But that was—that was incredible. So that was with Ted Cruz and Melania. We appreciate it, Ted. That was a great job.

And just this week, we passed the Rescissions Act of 2025, slashing nearly $10 billion of waste and, I guess I could say, some fraud and some abuse. But at least we can say waste. Almost $10 billion. And we have numerous other rescissions coming up, adding more—many more, $10 billion to it. So we're saving a lot of money.

And on Wednesday, I signed the HALT Fentanyl Act, and earlier today I signed Senator Bill Hagerty's GENIUS Act, and he named it after me, and I was really—[laughter]—happy. Thank you. Thank you, Bill. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. That's why I liked it very—I pushed very hard because of that. But to make America the crypto capital of the world, and that's what it's become.

China wanted it. A lot of countries want it, but we are so far ahead, I think nobody is going to be able to come close anymore. So I want to thank you very much. Great job.

We also did something that—public broadcasting, they've been looking to get it out of there for billions and billions of dollars, and very, very unfair—very, very unfair reporting. They would—I would say they make CNN look honest. [Laughter] And we got rid of it, finally. We got rid of it. We got rid of billions of dollars that was wasted on that. And Ronald Reagan tried. Everybody tried. You know, everybody tried since Ronald Reagan and before, and, John, we got it out.

And I know it doesn't sound so nice when they hear—"That's terrible. Public broadcast"—it sounds so innocent. It's not innocent. It was brutal. It was brutal. Very unfair.

We achieved more in 6 months than almost any administration could accomplish in 8 years, and we're going to have a lot of good 6 months left. We're going to have a 6 and another 6 and another six. So we'll keep going, and we're going to really do something.

Something I'm very proud of: We stopped a lot of wars. A lot of wars. And these were serious, serious wars that would have been going on—[inaudible]. You had India-Pakistan, that was going. In fact, planes were being shot out of the air. Five—four or five, but I think five jets were shot down, actually.

And, Lindsey, that was getting worse and worse, wasn't it, huh? That was looking like it was going to go—these are two serious nuclear countries, and they were hitting each other. You know, it seems like a new form of warfare. You saw it recently when you looked at what we did in Iran, where we knocked out their nuclear capability—totally knocked out that—it's going to be gone for a long time.

But there seems—there seems to be a hit and then another hit; a hit and another hit. It's a different thing. But India and Pakistan were going at it, and they were back and forth, and it was getting bigger and bigger. And we got it solved through trade. We said, "You guys want to make a trade deal. We're not making a trade deal if you're going to be throwing around weapons, and maybe nuclear weapons." Both very powerful nuclear states.

We did the Congo. This was going on for over 30 years—the Congo and Rwanda—and close to 7 million people were really violently killed. This was a rough—a rough one, but going on over 30 years, and we had the various representatives here last week. The Presidents will be coming to sign final documents, but we got that one solved.

Armenia and Azerbaijan. We worked magic there, and it's pretty close—if not, it's already done.

And Gaza, we got most of the hostages back. We're going to have another 10 coming very shortly. And we hope to have that finished pretty quickly. And Steve Witkoff has been fantastic. He's done a great job in that. He's a very good man, good dealmaker. I said, "I need a good dealmaker with a good personality." And there aren't too many of them, but Steve is—[laughter]—and he's done a great job.

Serbia, Kosovo; they were going at it. They've gone at it for years—I guess for centuries—but they've gone at it for years, and we got that one taken care of.

In Egypt and Ethiopia, as you know, they've been fighting over the dam. Ethiopia built a dam with United States money, largely. It's one of the largest dams in the world, and it has one little problem. It doesn't allow much water going into the Nile River. So you can imagine, Egypt is not thrilled, because they—live off the Nile River. The Nile River, it's its blood, its heart, its everything. And we think we have that one pretty well taken care of. But that was a pretty bad thing.

I—was watching this as it was going up. I get pictures and satellites and everything, and I'm looking at this massive dam, and I'm saying, "Is that going to be blocking the water to the Nile?" And anyway, that should have never sort of happened the way it happened, but financed by the United States of America. The whole thing is a little crazy, but we got that solved. I think that's going to be solved pretty long term.

Over the next year and a half, we'll have an incredible record to share with the American people. As long as we continue to keep our promises to the voters, Americans will continue to stand by our side. And in 2026, the Republican majority, I think, is going to be stronger in both the House and the Senate, and I really think it's going to be, potentially, much stronger.

Look, nobody has done what you people have done, I think, ever, I can say, just about ever in the Senate. And we did it all in 6 months. It's—I think Sunday night is actually 6 months.

So I really congratulate the people in this room. It's incredible. And you know, I did a good job, but I couldn't have done it without you. I couldn't have done it without great leadership. And it's really—it's really terrific, and I appreciate it very much. And I guess we have a very, very simple phrase that we've gone by: Make America great again.

You know, it's as simple as it can be. And I remember our opponent, Biden, saying, "We will stop America great again." I said: "No, no. You want to make America great again, Joe." He said: "We will stop MAGA. We will stop MAGA." I said: "No, no. MAGA is a good thing. It's 'make America great again.'"

But the election we had was unbelievable. The result was, you know, pretty—they say the—one of the great—one of the great elections in 129 years, they're talking about. I said, "Well, I don't know where the 129 years goes, but we'll take it."

But I just want to thank you, because without your help, we could not have done what we've done or even come close. So great job to John and everybody. We appreciate it very much.

And we're going to have a good—we're going to have a good meal tonight. I said, "Give us the A meal, not the B or the C." [Laughter] And it's really a celebration of great political people, great political minds, and wonderful men and women.

Thank you all very much. It's a great honor. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.