Remarks at the White House Summit of Faith and Business Leaders

The President. What a nice sound that is, isn't it? What a nice—please sit down.

Hi, Scott.

So I always said that if I ever became President, I would play that all the time, no matter where I went in the building. [Laughter] But I've never really gotten to do it. I wanted it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. [Laughter] It's so beautiful.

And pardon me for being late. We had a great meeting with NATO, the Secretary General, and we're going to do something a little different for this country. We're going to supply weapons to NATO at a large amount, they're going to deliver the weapons, and they're going to pay for a hundred percent of the weapons. So a little different. A little different.

Hi, Jon.

So we're really—that's a big thing. And we thought we had four deals—Howard, right?—with Putin. Somehow, they end, and we get off the phone, "Oh, that was a very nice conversation," and then he sends missiles into buildings someplace. I say, "What was that all about?"

So anyway—so we're going to be doing that with NATO, and it's fully approved, fully done. And we'll send them a lot of weapons of all kinds, and they're going to deliver those weapons immediately to the site—to the site of the war, different sites of the war. And they're going to pay for a hundred percent of them. This all was made possible by going from 2 to 5 percent a month ago, when I went there. So—[applause]. Yes.

And those countries, those European countries—and I said, "Look, we have an ocean." It's not fair that we did—because under the Biden administration, we paid about three and a half times more than they did. We were in for $350 billion. Got nothing for it. We were in for 350, and they were in for 100, so—which really meant one thing, because you have great business leaders here—it meant, very simply, that they were better negotiators than our president was. [Laughter]

But—so this is a very important—a very important thing, and hopefully that will come to an end. At the end of 50 days, if we don't have a deal, then we're going to have to do—we have no choice but to do secondary tariffs. You call it secondary tariffs, which are pretty tough, which we don't want to have to do. But let's see what happens.

But we thought we had a deal numerous times. I'd get home, I'd say: "First Lady, I had the most wonderful talk with Vladimir. I think we're finished." And then I'll turn on the television, or she'll say to me one time, "Wow, that's strange, because they just bombed a nursing home." [Laughter] I said, "What?" [Laughter] So we don't like that.

But I want to thank you all for being here, and welcome to the first-ever White House Summit of Faith and Business Leaders. You're really some of the greatest business leaders in the country. When I looked at some of the names, I said, "Whoa, that's big stuff we have here today." In fact, before I was President, I would have been very intimidated, but now I'm President, so I don't have to be. [Laughter]

But today we celebrate the core values that built this country: freedom, hard work, risk-taking, and, above all, trust in Almighty God. You're very much into God in this room, and it's very nice. You're business leaders who believe strongly. We have some business leaders that don't believe strongly, and somehow you and I don't like them as much.

But I want to thank Pastor Paula White—she's been my friend for a long time—and Jon for convening this incredible group. By—you know, her husband is one of the most talented musicians in the world. Stand up, Jon. Stand up. [Applause] See.

He—I stole a couple of his songs for the rallies, and he never sued me, so I was very happy. [Laughter] But we all come from the same place, right? So is—it was great, and we appreciate it, Jon.

Thanks, as well, to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who's doing a fantastic job. He goes on television, and he calms the market. [Laughter] I go on television, I rile the market. [Laughter] And I say, "We'd better send him in there, Howard," right? And the markets become so calm and nice. So you're doing a good job, Scott. Thank you very much.

You make any deals today? We've got a lot of them. Boy, I tell you, we have—but the best deal is just sending out the paper. You know, they keep saying, "Well, he hasn't made the deal." Well, we made a number of deals. "But why isn't he doing deals?" Because the paper is better than any deal we can make. Do you understand?

The people in this—Kevin, they asked you that question this morning. You were great this morning, but they said, "Well, when is he going to start making deals?" The next time, we could say just, "No, every time he sends out a document that you have to pay 35 percent or 25 percent or 50 percent or, in one case, 100 percent, those deals—you can't beat those deals." But we're still willing to talk. And they all—every—literally every country wants to make a deal. We're in a good position.

You would call it a position of strength. I don't talk that way because I'm a politician now, unfortunately. [Laughter] And I don't want to talk about strength or—I just want to say we have to be treated fairly. Because we were treated—we were ripped off on trade and the military for—you know, we protected other nations. Nobody paid us, nobody did anything for us, nobody helped us. And that's much different.

You know, NATO is a much different situation now. When I got in, I believe we were paying for 100 percent of NATO, and now they're paying—they went from 2 percent, but they were paying 1 percent to 5 percent that they're paying. That's a big difference. It's about a trillion—$1 trillion difference. And they're wealthy—for the most part, wealthy countries, and some of them very—you know, they're among the most powerful, among the wealthiest countries in the world. So they're going to start paying, and they want to pay.

And we had a great meeting about 1 month ago. That set the stage for what happened here. But it's very important. So I want to thank Scott for being here.

I want to thank Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick. You are doing a good job, Howard. Am I right when I say I really don't want deals; I just want the paper to get sent? [Laughter] Right? It's true. I can't—I don't know if this is on television—yes, it's always on television. [Laughter]

SBA Administrator and a great person, cabinet member, a friend of mine for a long time, Kelly Loeffler. Kelly, you're doing great. She's small business, right? She only does small business, but when you add it all up, it's the biggest bank in the world by a factor of about 10, right? She's doing a great job.

And Director of the White House Faith Office, Jenny Korn, who's also amazing. Thanks, Jenny.

From the earliest days of our Republic, the steady compass of faith has guided the strong hands of American workers, builders, and entrepreneurs like really no other. Our country was founded by pilgrims and believers. In every generation since, Americans of faith have built our communities and forged new industries and enriched our country by millions and millions of people and ways.

John D. Rockefeller, J.C. Penney, Charles Goodyear, Truett Cathy—and, frankly, we have people I could name right in this room sitting here that their names are every bit as big as that—they were inspired by their love of God. And now the proud tradition continues with all of you.

And this group reminds us as a nation that prays is a nation that prospers, and you see that. I think one of the reasons we went so bad is they really wanted to take God and religion out of your lives. And there was nobody to, you know, look up to. There was just nobody. [Laughter] It was—we were freewheeling. And we can't freewheel. No, we have to bring religion back into the country, and we're starting to do that, I think, at a very high level, Paula—a very, very high level. You see churches are starting to fill up again.

Under the Trump administration, America is prospering, and America is winning like never before. Our country is back.

So I was in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, U.A.E., and then, a month ago, we were in Europe with all of the NATO countries, European countries, and—plus Canada, and almost everyone said almost the exact same words. They said, "One year ago, your country was dead." Terrible term, but that's what it is. "Your country was dead. We thought it was finished, and now you've got the hottest country anywhere in the world."

It's true. It's the hottest country. Did you see they found $25 billion of, essentially, profits last night? They said, "Where did it come from?" It came from management, but it came from tariffs, and it came from, you know, good business skill. And I've always made money. [Laughter] Now I'm—now I'm making it for you people. I've had good days and bad days, but in good days and bad days, I always found a way to make money, and we have to do that for our country.

But—and we did $188 billion in—Scott, just now—$188 billion in tariffs—$188 bi-—and we haven't even started yet. That's only for cars and steel. We actually haven't—have barely started.

The economy is roaring, business confidence is soaring, incomes are up, prices are down, and inflation is dead. It's dead.

We have a bad Fed Chairman—really bad. If he would lower the rates—if he would lower the rates—and I tried being nice to the guy. It doesn't help. He's like a knucklehead. [Laughter] No, he's a knucklehead, a stupid guy. [Laughter] He really is.

You know, each point—think of this. Each point costs us $360 billion—billion. One point, $360 billion. Two points, you've got $600-, $700 billion. And we're way high. We're at 4.50 or 4.25? 4.50.

Secretary of the Treasury Scott K.H. Bessent. Four-twenty—yes.

The President. And how do you go borrow money at 1 percent when the Fed has you at 4.50? And you know, it's not that easy. I get angry at them. "Why are we paying so much?" You know, because he's got you up at this number.

And we are the—we should always be the lowest now that the—we're doing great. We have no inflation. Think of it. Our stock market hit record highs. Everything's hitting a record high. We're really running good with no inflation, and we should be at one p-—we should be at 1 percent. We should be less than 1 percent.

I think Switzerland is the lowest at, like, one-half of a percent. We should be lower. Because, without us, there's no world. There really—I don't want to sound overly aggressive, but without us, you have no world.

And we put our country on solid footing. We had a man as President who was the worst—the worst administration, worst President in the history of our country, and we've had some bad ones, but he's the worst ever. What he did at our border can never be forgotten. Twenty-five million people allowed to pour into our country, all unchecked, unvetted—murderers, gang leaders, gangsters, people that you don't want in our country under any means, terrorists. We have many terrorists in our country, and we're watching them close.

Tom Homan, by the way, is doing a phenomenal job. Kristi Noem is doing a phenomenal job. We had—last week, it was reported nobody, not one—I—even I don't know if I believe that number, but it's done—the numbers are done by liberals, so—[laughter]. They said—did you know that? They said we had nobody, zero crossed our border. That's the first time that ever happened. Zero. I—did you hear that? It's, like, crazy.

But we have people from mental institutions—insane asylums, even. That's a mental institution on steroids, essentially. But we had people coming into our country. We can't have them, and we have to get them out.

But we can never forgive this administration that's past, and I—and I'm okay with administrations. I mean, I can go through a Democrat administration, say they—"Look, they worked hard, they tried hard." But the things that they did to this country, we can never, ever forget it, from the rigged elections to the border to the transgender from—for everybody, from men playing in women's sport.

Do you ever take a look at some of these records? There was a long-distance race, a marathon, where they had a great female runner, a number of them, but they had one, in particular. And they had a—just an average male runner who had transitioned. He won the race at the end of the day by five hours and 14 minutes. They waited for five hours. [Laughter]

The weight-lifting records are better though. The weight-lifting records are better. You know, where they—they took a record that hasn't been broken for 18 years—18 years. And, you know, they'd add a quarter of an ounce on each side of the barbell, and they're just—a little, tiny piece of stuff, a little—and she'd go up, and she couldn't get it up. Then this guy comes along, "Have you lifted before?" "Yes, at a low level." He was a low-level lifter for—as a man. But transitioned, and he goes up to that thing—bing. Bing, bing, bing, bing. [Laughter] Could have done it all day long. Broke the record by 119 pounds. [Laughter]

The whole thing is crazy. The swimming records are pretty good too. You've got to see that. I told the story. You had this great group of young ladies, and they grew up with each other because, you know, they sort of swam at the top level. And they were swimming, and one girl was seriously injured. She looked left, and she saw the same girl she grew up with, Kelly, in California. Same girls. You know, that young age, they sort of rise to the top. She looked to the right, she saw the same girls, but there was this giant standing right next to her, and he had transitioned. You probably heard this. He had transitioned.

And she was—she'd never seen her before—[laughter]—and when the race was started, he blew by her so fast that she suffered massive wind burn. They had to take her—[laughter]—it's true. And he got out of the race, and he went, had a little lunch, and then he came back and watched the rest of the young ladies finish up.

The whole thing is crazy, and it's so demeaning to women. It's so demeaning to women. But it is what it is.

But what they did to this country, it's—and we ended all of that, as you probably know. We ended the woke. The woke stuff is no longer in favor.

But we're doing fantastically. Wages for blue-collar workers have surged by the most in over 60 years. Gas prices have reached the lowest level in five decades, actually. It's going to be—we're going to see some really good numbers. We're—you know, drill, baby, drill. Drill, baby, drill. I got to make sure that people can afford to produce the gas. But the gas has gone to the lowest level in decades, and you're seeing $1.99, $1.98 cents. And I saw $1.95 at certain states.

Not California, because every time it goes down, they add taxes onto it. You're at $6, $7. They just add taxes. All they do is they keep adding taxes. Terrible Governor. Doesn't know what he's doing. He may be a candidate, but if you go by success, you can't have him be a candidate.

And on Friday, it was announced that the United States Treasury ran a budget surplus—is that true, Scott?—in June for the first time in many, many decades. Wow. I—I didn't know that. That's a good one too. We're going to have to put that in my repertoire, Scott. [Laughter]

But the biggest victory of all came 10 days ago when I signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill" into law. Right? And just as I promised, we—we did something that was amazing. You know, we were—everybody was against it. I wanted it. I know Scott and Howard liked the idea of it too. But it was very risky, because they've never done anything like it, in terms of the size. It's the biggest bill ever passed—of its kind ever passed—by far. And they were going to cut it into two, three, or even as many as seven bills.

And I said, "The problem is that in the one, big bill, everybody gets something. When you cut it into sevens, there are four or five of them or three of them"—right, Kevin?—"that you get nothing." All they're going to do is fight it. You'll never get them passed.

And so, we went with it. I was on—I was on a show called "Deface the Nation." Have you heard of it? [Laughter] They're so bad. They're so bad. These people are so—they're so average. But I was on this show "Deface the Nation." [Laughter] "Ladies and gentlemen, President Donald J. Trump on 'Deface the Nation.'" [Laughter] No, but they're all so bad.

But we were on the show, and she said to me a question. She said, "What would you call this bill? Would you want to have it called 'One Big Beautiful,' or would you rather see it"—I said, "What I want is one great, big, beautiful bill." And Speaker Mike Johnson, John Thune, they were watching, and they said, "What a great name for the bill." We actually ended up calling it that, huh? [Laughter] We took the "great" out. I actually liked it even better—one great, big, beautiful. But they said, "Let's—little bit of a low key." [Laughter]

But we got it passed. But we got it passed because there's something for everybody. And there are things that people don't like, but you need them for the country. You know, you have to—you have to do some things that are great for the country, but they wouldn't necessarily get the votes.

And we got the votes. Think of it: not one Democrat vote. All the goodies that we got, not one Democrat voted in either the Senate or the House. And we're talking about tax cuts and business, so—I mean, so many different things that are so good, right? Not one Democrat vote went—went with us. Not one. So we had to get almost every—in the House, we got 218 to 2. Think of that: 218 to 2. Nobody could do that. It's never been done.

And that says—you know, and we have Rand Paul, Jr., who's a guy from—we call him "Rand Paul, Jr." because he always votes no. A guy named Massie always votes no.

We had another guy, who I helped very strongly helped him with a very personal situation, got him through it, and he voted no. I said: "Thank you very much. I appreciate it." [Laughter]

And then we went to the Senate, and you had, of course, Rand Paul, who always votes no. They call him "Just say no." I think they think it's—[laughter]—no, I think they—and, you know, I got him elected. I had to go to Kentucky twice to do rallies to get him elected twice. But they forget. A lot of politicians forget.

And then we had a couple of others. Susan Collins, she's another one—just say no. She always—brutal. Brutal. And we had some people—Tillis, I guess, was a no, right? He was a no. And he—they said: "He was brave. He said no to the President," but he resigned the following morning. [Laughter] So, anyway. That was terrible, I thought.

But—but we couldn't lose more than three, and we had three that said no. And so we won that 50—50 to 3, so it was pretty close.

And a Senator came over to me, said, "I can't believe you won the House." Great guy, this guy—this Senator—Eric Schmitt, who's doing a great job. He said, "I can't believe you won the House." I said, "Actually"—so, remember, 218 to 2. We needed three, so we could have lost three. We actually only lost two. I said, "No, actually, the Senate was tougher than the House, of the two." That question is asked to me, "Who was tougher?" I'd say the Senate was tougher, actually, amazingly. It shouldn't have been. We had a slightly bigger margin in the Senate, proportionately, but it was brutal. It was a—they said, "Sir, we have 12 hard noes." You know, a hard no is not recoverable, right? This was at 2:30 in the morning. Mike Johnson called up. "It could be 20, but it's at least 12. So could you call them, sir?" I said, "What time is it?" 2:30 in the morning, and we have to win, right? We can never give up. The people in this room—right?—you never gave up. My supporter right from day one and her husband with a bad damn back, right?

How's his back? Is he okay?

Audience member. He's good.

The President. Every time I see him, he's got a bad back, but he's got a lot of cash, so—[Laughter]. A lot. He's got a lot of cash. But no, they're great people. Thank you very much. I do appreciate—you were there right at the beginning, you know? Always was there.

But we have—so we have a situation where we call up these—these people at 2:30 in the morning, and I call up—I got along with them all great. I liked them, but they're tough. You know, they're Congressmen. When you're a Congressman for 20 years or you're a Senator for years, you're smart, and you're a survivor, because you go through all sorts of hell.

But I called up a Congressman. And I said: "Jim—hi, Jim. How are you doing?" And he said—he said, "Fine, sir." I said, "The family is good?" "Yes." He said, "Sir, you have my vote." I never said what I was calling about. [Laughter] I said: "I do? Thank you very much. But how do you know what I'm calling you about?" Well, he said, "Sir, I've been your friend for 2½ years. You've never called me during normal hours, so I assume that if you're calling me at 2:30 in the morning, you're not calling me to ask me how's the family doing." [Laughter] I said: "Yes. It's true." It's pretty good.

So I called up everyone—I think everyone with the exception of one. I had to speak a little bit. But they—I call up, "Sir, you have my vote." "Thank you." "Sir, you have my vote." Think of that. And we got 12 votes in a matter of—I called back 20 minutes later. I said, "You've got all the votes." That's spirit, right? That's spirit.

They wanted to maybe hear—they wanted to have a little love. You know, the sad part is that some of the best people are the people that don't get any publicity because they go with something because it's good, so a guy like some of the people I'm talking about. But some of the people where you didn't even have to call, they vote "yes" a hundred percent. You don't have to waste any time with them. You don't have to beg them. "Come on. You can do it. Come on. Let's have lunch. Let's have dinner."

And then you have other guys, they want you to suffer. I mean, some of these people that I just mentioned, whose names I just mentioned, you got to go through hell. And the ones that are really good and they love the country and they're doing right—I mean, what's the alternative? You know the alternative here, you're getting the biggest tax cut in history, and with the Democrats, you're going to have the biggest tax increase in history. Now, we could go into a hu-—hundred other details that are equally as crazy.

So I said: "So what's the difference? So you're going to say no and you're going to have the biggest tax cut in history this way, and you're going to have the biggest tax increase the other way, and you'll probably end up in a depression"—because if you ever did that, it would be a shock to the whole world. That's what happened in 1929. I said, "So are you going to vote for the other side?"

"Well, sir, I'll do what's really appropriate." You know, they're losers. But you have that—[laughter]—really, they're grandstanders. You know, you have grandstanders. And you have them in every business.

And the Democrat has far fewer. They have grandstanders, but you know, they—the one thing about them—they have bad policy, they're evil people in many ways, but they stick together. You don't have it where—you don't have—I don't want to use too many names, but you don't have a Mitt Romney in the midst who makes you suffer. You don't have some of the people that I mentioned who make it so hard. They make it so hard.

And the alternative is one of two things. You can either get all these things and make the economy strong, or you're going to literally have, perhaps, a depression where you people—so rich, so beautiful, so nice to look at—will be totally busted. And let's see how long your wife stays with you. You're beautiful. [Laughter] She'll stay with you for about 3 weeks, and she'll say: "Darling, I can't take it anymore. I can't take it anymore, darling. I'm leaving you."

I said to one guy—he's a very, very unattractive man, but he's—[laughter]—he's smart, and he's rich. And I said, "You'd better hope we get this thing passed, because your wife will be gone within about 2 minutes." [Laughter] He said, "You're right."

But—so we had a tremendous success, and it gives you the biggest tax cut in American history, the largest spending cut in American history, and the largest border security investment of all time. And, again, we're doing great on the border. I almost say, "Why do we need it? We have such good numbers." But you need it. Ultimately, you're going to need it. I built hundreds of miles of border wall. Without that, you could have never had the—you know, the results that we had.

But to lift up the American family, we increased the child tax credit and made school—permanent—we made it all permanent—the school choice, and we expanded school choice. And for every newborn child, we created what's called the Trump Accounts. And this was Michael Dell. I don't know if Michael Dell is here, but Michael Dell—well, you tell him I mentioned his name. Because it's true. He would call me for three, four years.

I didn't know Michael. I just know he's great success story and a great guy. That's all he talked about was the account where you put $1,000 and—as a baby is born, $1,000 into an account, and you let it be invested by—I guess, you pick out some good money determinant or fund or index. And I guess at a certain age, like when they're 30—goes earlier than that—but when they're 30, they're supposed to have, like, $75,000. That would have a huge impact on their lives, and it could even be more than that. So that passed.

And you know, it's funny, that was one of the easiest things we had to get passed. Can you believe it? I thought—so many people loved it. They actually called it the Trump Accounts. And I didn't fight for that name, right? I didn't fight for that. I said, "That's a very great honor."

But Michael Dell was amazing. That's what he—and he's going to put—he said he's going to invest billions of dollars doing it for children. He's going to put a lot of his money into it.

But even more importantly than the economic success, we're restoring the spirit of our country. America is, once again, an optimistic nation. We were so down. It was depressing. We were so down. That's why I ran again. I got cheated. They rigged the election. But I said, you know, if I didn't think I won, I would have never run, because that's like a poll, right? You lose, you lose. It's worse than a poll. But I saw the lack of spirit in this country for 4 years. It was a dark, horrible place.

And for people of religion who—arresting your pastors, they were arresting—if you went to church and you—you had a service outside, and the reason outside because you had the COVID and you could go outside—they'd arrest everybody for even having the service. It—I'll tell you, religion took a big hit because of the way they treated all of us.

And we now have a confident nation, an optimistic nation, and we have one nation under God, and we'll always keep that term.

And we're bringing back, very importantly—and not just evangelicals or protestants or this—all religions. We're bringing them back into our country. As President, I've ended the radical-left war on faith, and we're once again protecting religious freedom like never before in our country. We're protecting it like never before.

We're getting rid of the Johnson Amendment that didn't let the pastors and ministers and everybody speak about politics. Now you're able to speak about politics, Paula. You can speak about—you can say, "I don't like that guy"—[laughter]—and they don't take away your tax-exempt status. You know, they take away tax-exempt.

And I'll tell you, remember when that started? It was at the meeting room before I ran, 2015. A year before the election. And I was with 50 faith leaders. They were great. Very well-known people, mostly Protestant, but you had rabbis, you had an imam—two imams. And we were talking, and I said, "I'd love to have your endorsement." And they looked at me like, "What?" "I'd love to have your endorsement. We have such respect for you and your—you know, you control a—really, very powerful."

And they looked at me, they didn't say anything. Do you remember that? And I said, "Hmm, what's wrong with these people?" I didn't know about the Johnson Amendment. Don't forget, I never did this stuff before. [Laughter] You know, it wasn't like I ran. I was on the other side. I was on the same side as you. You write contributions to people that you like. But I never ran, so I didn't know about the Johnson Amendment.

And I called Paula and Jenny aside. I said: "Could I ask you, when I said, 'I'd want your, you know, support, your political support and endorsement,' they looked at me like—they looked at me very weird. What's going on?" "Well, sir, there's a thing called the Johnson Amendment, and if they even speak about anything having to do with politics, they will immediately take away their tax-exempt status." And if they lose the tax-exempt status in your world, that means you might as well close up your church.

I said: "You've got to be kidding. So I can't really"—and I told them—we had another meeting a couple of months later, and I said, "You know, you people, in theory, are the most powerful people. You're more powerful than man or woman because we have more than 50-—let's assume men and women are 50-50, but you have 80 percent between all the different religions." I said, "You have more power than anybody, but you're not allowed to use your power." I said, "We're going to get rid of that, because people want to hear what you have to say more than anybody else, pretty much." And we did get rid of it, and we launched something that's great.

And now you see people, if they like somebody, they're able to talk about that somebody for office. Right, Jenny? We're able to talk about a certain politician that has your values and likes your religion. It's okay.

And we got rid—that was Lyndon Johnson, a very powerful guy, and he had a problem with a pastor, I think, in Houston. And the pastor was not a fan of his, and he put the clamps on the guy. He really did. Amazing, actually. And we opened it up.

I looked at them, and we're up at 68 stories in the air at Trump Tower in this beautiful conference room. I look down, I see people walking up and down the street. I said, "That means that that person walking up and down the street, any one of them, have more power than you do, because you're not allowed to even talk about it." You were even afraid to talk about it. But they're not afraid any longer, and I think they appreciate it.

As President, I've ended the radical-left war on faith, and we're once again protecting religious freedom instead of destroying it, and God is once again welcome back into our public square. It's very important.

And I stopped the Biden administration's persecutions of Christians and pro-life activists. They would put people in jail if they even uttered the word. And, well, look at me. I mean, look what happened to me. I was under investigation more than the late, great Alphonse Capone. Think of it. [Laughter]

Al Capone would kill people for dinner. If he left the room and he didn't like him, he'd have him shot, killed, buried under a building someplace as part of the foundation of a building. They were all over the place. And I said—I had more time under investigation than the legendary Alphonse Capone or probably anybody else.

I had—but I had a lot of good people with me. And most importantly, I had the base with me at a level that—it actually became stronger.

The one thing I did that was very helpful—I was indicted five times. Think of that. Indicted. That wasn't a word that was in—my father is looking down, my mother is looking down. They said, "My son's not supposed to be indicted, is he?" [Laughter] I got indicted five times, impeached two times. All bullshit, right? [Laughter] All bull. Terrible stuff.

And I got impeached for making a perfect phone call, a—"Good luck. Congratulations." I had a guy come up to me, a Secretary—a Secretary of Energy from before. "Sir, could you call up"—of all people—"President Zelenskyy?" And I called him—I actually held off. He must have come 10 times. "Please, sir. It's so"—because they wanted to do business or something, oil and gas. Who the hell knows what they wanted? You can imagine what they wanted.

But they wanted—"Would you call up President Zelenskyy?" And I did. When I finally got him, I said, "Congratulations on your win." He had just won. This is early in the process. Should have never been—that war should have never taken place, by the way. If the election weren't rigged, that war would never be happening right now, millions of people being killed. That war would never be happening. But—"Would you call up?" So I say, "Yes" "Hello, President, how are we doing? Everything good? Good. Congratulations on your big victory. Wonderful job. Great, great, great." Hang up. That's it.

I get indicted for making a phone call. I told that Secretary—who wasn't the smartest bulb. He wasn't—Rick Perry. [Laughter] You don't want him on your debate team, let me put it that way. Rick—you're not going to be on my debate team, Rick. But he's the one that asked me to do it, Rick Perry. And I said: "Thanks, Rick, that was a wonderful suggestion. I just got indicted over your stupid call." This is what we have to put up with, right? This is what we have to do. We have to put up with things.

But it's been an amazing—it's been an amazing period of time, and we've straightened out so many bad things in this country. I created a presidential commission on religious liberty and established a Department of Justice Task Force To Eradicate Anti-Christian Bias, because you have a very big anti-Christian bias that you don't think about and you don't hear about it. I established the White House Faith Office to defend and represent people of all faiths. And it's—it's located in the White House. We—you've never had an office. We've never had that.

And Jenny and Paula are there all the time and—but we have it in the White House so people can call up and complain, or—[laughter]—or they can call up and say, "You're doing a great job," whatever. But we have it actually in the White House with no—nobody's ever done that.

We've restored the fundamental principle that God created two genders: male and female. That was a tough one. That was a—[applause].

And we're defending parents' rights where the parents' rights have taken—been taken away from them in schools. You look at some of these school boards, it's like they're brutal dictatorships. And we brought it all back. The parents have the control now.

And last Monday, we effectively eliminated the infamous, as I said, Johnson Amendment—such a big deal—and various other amendments and things that really took away your free speech. That's what they've done. They've taken away free speech.

I also want to recognize the incredible contribution of our great First Lady, Melania. And she says hello. And Melania did the "Be Best" initiative in supporting children in our foster care system. She visits a lot of children—a lot. Yesterday we went to the game, the soccer game—I don't know if you saw it—in the Meadowlands. It was incredible. And she's always thinking about the children that have a hard time and helping America's young people reach their fullest potential.

And it's remarkable to think that it was only 1 year ago, this week, that my time on Earth nearly ended. And if you look at that, God was with me, because that's something. In theory, I should not be with you today.

Well, I believe that—and I do, I believe it that my life was saved by God to really make America great again. I really believe that. I think—I have a son. He's a great shooter, like a championship shooter, Don—and Eric, who's a great shooter, both of them. But they said that, "At that distance with that gun, you didn't have a chance." And we turned the head at the right time, didn't we, huh? We turned the head at the right time.

So I don't know. Some people say it was lucky, and some people say something else. I say something else. I think God helped us.

So I always believed in giving back to this Nation, a nation that we love so much, and I know that everyone lives by that same sacred principle. The people in this room do, I can tell you. I really—I hate when I see complainers—you know, people that complain, and they don't do anything about it. Like, in many cases, the media. Not all of the media. We've—I mean, I must've had something, because we won in a landslide.

Think of it. We won every swing State. We won by millions of votes. We won the popular vote. We won the—there's a district vote that's very interesting. It's where the whole map is—looks red—red for Republican, by the way. But the whole map came out, I think it was 2,750 to 505. Think of that. That's broken into little districts, little areas. We had an unbelievable election, and—so, I don't know, you know, somebody said, "How do you win without the press?" But we have a hidden press, and the real hidden press and the hidden vote is the people and the word of mouth. Word of mouth is more important than the press, and they see what we do, and they see how we do it.

I want to thank all of you and your great communities, and you know, just—it's a blessing to our country that you're here and a blessing to our country that you've become so successful and so great. And people look up to you. You have no idea. You don't know. We take things for granted. You don't know the people in this room are amazing. I even—looking at that list, I really said: "That's something. That's something great."

And you're all believers. I think, Paula, you wouldn't have invited people that——

Senior Adviser to the White House Faith Office Paula White-Cain. [Inaudible]

The President. ——were—not a lot of—is there an atheist in the room? [Laughter] Any atheists? I don't think so. I wouldn't want to raise my hand if I were. If you—be in big trouble.

No, you invited all people that are outstanding in faith and—and success, and it's very—it's a very noble group.

But it's because of the patriotism and goodwill of citizens like you that America remains strong and faithful and free. And together, we're going to continue the fight for Judeo-Christian values of our Founding Fathers. We'll grow our economy. We'll defend our sovereignty. We'll protect our children.

When you look at the job we did—I was just thinking, because President Putin said it to me and other leaders said it to me, when they looked at those B–2s go in and—think of it, they flew for 37 hours straight. We had 52 tankers—tankers, the gasoline tankers, and they rode along with them at different aspects, and they refueled. And not a screw was broken, not a net, not a—not a mark was on those planes. Every engine was perfect. When they landed, they were just as good as when they took off.

Think of that: 37 hours and about 40 minutes through a very rough territory. And they—those machines worked incredibly well and literally not a problem.

And when I honored the flyers—we did it last week—I also honored the mechanics, the people that took care of those machines. And I said, "It's equally important." And you compare that same country, you compare that with what happened with Jimmy Carter, it was a sad situation. The helicopters were coming down, and they were crashing, and they were—the men were all over the place trying to get the hell out of there. And it turned out to be a hostage situation and horrible thing. And probably—it was one of the things that cost him the election, certainly.

But when you think of that and you see this was—in terms of perfection, they say—they think it was a perfect military—we sent the planes to Guam. Everybody thought we were flying to Guam, and they said: "Oh, they're going to Guam. Well, Guam is out of the way." At the same time, we had some others go in a different direction. And we—I watched horrible, horrible CNN. You know, you have to watch, sometimes, your opposition, and they are opposition.

And I saw that they had basically the plans of when we're going in, when we would be entering Iranian oil—airspace and—and I said, "You know, that's weird." And I called the general, "Razin" Caine. He's fantastic. I said, "General"—and Pete Hegseth—I said, "I'm watching newscasts where they're saying what time you're taking off tomorrow and what time we're going to be entering the very dangerous airspace, the most—the worst airspace anywhere there is, anywhere that—in the world." I said, "What do you think?" "Sir, we'll be fine. We blow them away. We'll be fine." Because we—you know, they want those—those B–2s with seven—and they were surrounded by a lot of great planes—F–22s, the most beautiful plane ever built; the fighter jet, F–35s. They had a lot of different planes going with them.

I said, "But wouldn't a surprise be better?" "Yes, it would be better." I said, "Well, then let me cancel it, and let's make it at a different time." So the day before, you know, I canceled it. I canceled it. I said, "I'm canceling it. We'll do it sometime within the next two, maybe three weeks, but I'm canceling it."

And then I had a meeting, and I said, "I have an idea," because I got slightly big coverage, to put it mildly. So everyone knew it was being canceled. I said, "Let's leave it the exact same time we were supposed to leave"—the following day. And we took off, and that's when the planes went out to Guam and this and that, and we took off—and that was the only time—and they said it, that was the only time they knew we wouldn't be coming in, was the exact same time that I can —I said, "Let's do some"—and they flew in, and they were stealth. Incredible planes. They were stealth, and they hit—every bomb hit their mark. Every single bomb hit the mark. It was unbelievable how they did it. And then they said, "Skedaddle." Skedaddle means get the hell out of there. They had to get out of that airspace. But it was an amazing thing.

And I think it was so great for our country in so many different ways. You know, you see so many incompetent people, like the way we left Afghanistan with Milley and all these incompetent, stupid people. And Biden, I mean, it was him—"Leave everything behind. Leave jets behind." I said to Milley, I said, "So you mean to tell me"—because I was going to leave—we would have left earlier than them, but we were going to leave with dignity and strength. I said to Milley, "You mean you want to leave a jet fighter behind?" "Sir, it's cheaper if we do that." I said: "Wait a minute. Give me a tank of gas, and I'll fly it to Pakistan, or I'll fly it to someplace, or I'll fly it back home. Why is it cheaper?" "Oh, it's just cheaper." That's when I realized the guy was grossly incompetent. Okay? He's telling me it's cheaper to leave a plane than it is to—planes cost $150 million apiece. "Let's leave it, sir. It's just great." And they did.

They left all—you know, they—I was taking everything, but they left it behind. But when you look at what happened and compare that to what we have now, we have a real great machine. I rebuilt the military in my first term, and we left—we left some of it to Afghanistan and the Taliban, and they have their parades. I hate those parades. Every year, they have a parade wheeling down our equipment on some very unattractive street that's, you know, their Fifth Avenue. They show our equipment going down, just—it's getting older and older, but I hate to see it.

But we're going to be working together to protect our children, and with the grace of God and blessing of providence, we will lead our country to heights that it's never seen before. I think we're going to be more successful in many ways, but I think we're going to be more successful than we've ever been.

And I do think this: If we didn't catch it, if we would have lost this election, our country was finished. I think it was—we were run by incompetent people. We were run by an autopen, and nobody knows who used it. I think it's one of the biggest scandals in the history of our country. We were run by an autopen. Nobody has any idea who used it, including Biden. [Laughter] He doesn't know. Saw that interview yesterday. He had—he knew nothing.

So it's a very terrible—we're against an evil group of people, and they're very smart. Very smart. He's not, but they are. They took over the—they took over the Oval Office. They actually took over the Oval Office. We can never let a thing like that happen again.

So, Paula, I want to thank you very much, and I want to thank Jenny, and most importantly, I want to thank the people in this room. You really are incredible people, an inspiration to our country. And I know you don't know that, you don't think it because you're too busy working, but you are. You're a great inspiration to young people that want to be just like you when they grow up. And thank you very much for being here, and it's a great honor.

And, Paula, I think you're going to say a prayer. I'll stay with you while you say your prayer. Okay?

Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you very much.

Senior Adviser White-Cain. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Mr. President. You guys may be seated for just a moment. And he is our greatest champion of faith of any President that the United States of America has ever had. We are deeply grateful for that.

We are very honored that you are all here with us at the White House and—where faith is not sidelined, but has a seat at the table. And as we gather today as leaders of industry, of vision, of faith, I believe that today is going to be very enlightened. And I'm so overwhelmed. We're getting ready to worship and pray and to just think that prayer, worship, and doing good works is welcome back into the White House.

[At this point, Senior Adviser White-Cain continued her remarks, concluding as follows.]

In the mighty, matchless name of Jesus, we pray these things and come in agreement. Bless this food and bless everyone. And everybody said, "Amen."

Audience members. Amen.

Senior Adviser White-Cain. And by the way, it's—it is Secretary Howard Lutnick's birthday, so all wish him a very happy birthday.

We are so grateful for your time, President. And my husband Jon is going to worship. At any time that you have to go—we know that you have spent more than enough time, and you are running the country exceptionally for us, and we are all so grateful.

The President. Thank you very much.

Senior Adviser White-Cain. So he will stay as long as possible.

The President. Thank you.

Senior Adviser White-Cain. But will you let President know how much we love and appreciate him?

The President. Thank you. Thank you. [Inaudible] Thank you, everybody.