Donald Trump (00:06):
… so now the work begins. We won. We won but now the work begins. We have to bring them home. And tonight I'm going to be signing on the J-6 hostages, pardons to get them out. And as soon as I leave, I'm going to the Oval Office and we'll be signing pardons for a lot of people, a lot of people. And thank you to Steve Witkoff. He's a great guy. He's a friend of mine. He's been a very successful man. He's a great negotiator, he's a wonderful guy. People love him and he's got a tremendous power of persuasion and this is what we need. We don't need stiffs. We don't need stiffs. We got a lot of stiffs. You just had a whole load of them. And to the former hostages with us today, welcome, welcome home. Some of the folks are former hostages, not a good situation. The three young ladies that came home yesterday, you saw that and more coming home every day now, they're coming home. But they were hurt. They were hurt. They were hurt.
(01:24)
One had her hand blown off, fingers on her hand, and her hand indeed was blown off. She was trying to defend herself from a bullet being fired. Do you believe this? A bullet knocked off her hand. I don't know. You look at it, it's a disgrace. We never stopped praying for you, and we're so glad that you're reunited with your friends and families and God bless you all. And some of them are just saying, "I know my son is gone but please just bring home his body." Right Steve? Many of you have told me that, that your son is gone, but bring home his body. It should have never happened. Three years, it's ridiculous. It should have never happened, wouldn't have happened. I also want to express my tremendous gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of proud American patriots who came from all across the country to join us in this celebration. It's a celebration of a big win. And you're witnessing the dawn of the golden age of America. That's what it's going to be. We're bringing it back. We're going to bring it back fast.
(02:42)
We're going to bring it back faster. Let us also thank the incredible service members, National Guardsmen, Police, Secret Service and law enforcement personnel who are keeping us all safe, even though… And they are great people. New York's finest. I grew up with New York's finest and we got to give them their authority back. You won't have any crime. There'll be no crime. You give them a little authority back. The whole way they run things in this country now it's disgraceful, but it's going to change rapidly. We're going to make our city safe again too. Even though we're indoors we've had a magnificent inaugural parade and let's give a big round of applause, they were great, to all of the incredible performers and hardworking men and women who made it possible. Those people, really talented, amazing people. I also want to thank my wonderful family for being here, especially my beautiful wife, our First Lady, Melania. They love our First Lady and also JD. How good has JD been? And his beautiful wife, Usha. How good has JD? JD has been great.
(04:22)
He's another good negotiator, Steve. He's a great negotiator too. We need negotiators in this country. But so many of the people on the stage behind, not only family members, as an example, Lara Trump, the wife of Eric, she was the head of the Republican Party along with my friend Michael. Standup, the two of you. What a job. What a job they did. They worked so hard. They knew there would be rigging, but they said, "We're going to make it too big to rig." And we did. We made it too big to rig. We won every swing state by a lot. We won the popular vote by millions and millions of votes. We won the whole ball of wax. And now we're going to go and drill baby, drill and do all the things that we've wanted to do and bring your costs down, your prices down, and make our country safe. Thank you very much, Michael. Thank you very much. What a job you've done, Michael. I'm never moving you.
(05:29)
He was thinking about getting a nice job in the administration. I said, "No, I'm leaving you right where you are. You've done a very good job. We're not moving you, Michael. I'm sorry." Anyway, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Appreciate it very much. Right here with us also in the arena, I'm about to sign some very important executive orders of our new administration. Hey Don, will you stand up please? Don is another one. How about Don? This guy. He's a popular one. He goes out and speaks, he gets that big crowd. He's a little in the rough side sometimes, but that's what you want. He's done a fantastic job and he loves our country. Thanks Don, great job. You've done a great job. And Ivanka. And Jared negotiated the Abraham Accords, which are the biggest… It's the biggest deal made in the Middle East in many, many years and it's really something. Jared stand up, Jared. The Abraham Accords. And Tiffany's going to have a little baby and Micheal. And then I have a very tall son named Barron. Has anyone ever heard of him? Thank you. He knew the youth vote. We won the youth vote by 36 points. And he was saying, "Dad, you got to go out and do this one or that one." And we did a lot of them. And he respects them all. He understood them very well. And he said, "Dad, you got to go out. Do Joe Rogan. Do all these guys," that we did. We did. And Joe Rogan was great. They were all great, right? Barron, they were all good. He understood the market. Another famous one, how about Kai? Stand up, Kai. Is that Byron Donalds back there? Stand up, Byron. Stand up. What a future this one has. What a future. That's great, Byron. Thank you very much. And how about
Donald Trump (09:00):
… Lutnick, Secretary of Commerce, he's going to take in more money than any country has ever even thought about. He's going to take in some money. We have many others. Look, I'm not going to go through it, but we are going to sign some orders right now. That's really what I want to do. So we're going to sign executive orders. First, I'll revoke nearly 80 destructive and radical executive actions of the previous administration, one of the worst administrations in history. Not one of them, the worst. Anybody that would allow millions of people to pour through our borders from jails, prisons, mental institutions, insane asylums, gang members to be taken off the streets of Venezuela and deposit in our country. Many, not just Venezuela. Crime in Venezuela is down 74% because they took their criminals and gave them to us through an open border policy of the previous administration. All over the world, they're emptying their prisons into our country. They're emptying their mental institutions into our country. It stops as of 1:00 this afternoon. Okay. It stops.
(10:29)
So I'm revoking nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions of the previous administration. They'll all be null and void within about, what, five minutes. Is that them over there? Five minutes. Next, to gain immediate control of the vast federal, out of control, bureaucracy, I will implement an immediate regulation freeze, which will stop Biden bureaucrats from continuing to regulate. Most of those bureaucrats are being fired. They're gone. Should be all of them, but some sneak through, but we have to live with a couple, I guess. I'll also issue a temporary hiring freeze to ensure that we're only hiring competent people who are faithful to the American public. We will pause the hiring of any new IRS agents. We will also require that federal workers must return to the office in person.
(11:35)
We're going to take the 88,000 people that they hired to go after you with guns, by the way, they're allowed to use guns, and harass you like they were so many other people. Remember this. Okay. Remember, do you remember a little statement about tips? Does anybody remember that little statement? I think we won Nevada because of that statement, but they went out and harassed you over the tips. In other words, we are restoring control of our government to the people. We're going to take those 88,000, let's see if they'd like to work on the border because that's where we want them really. So we're going to have no tax on tips, right? No tax on tips.
(12:29)
We may have the speaker of the house. Is he here? He is done. Such a good job. Is Mike here? He's around here someplace. I saw him just a little while ago. Hello fellas. Look at you guys. Yeah, I know it. He's great. He's doing great. They're all doing good. The Republican Party has never been unified like it is right now. They want to save our country and we're going to more than save it. We're going to make it greater than it's ever been before by a lot.
(12:56)
Next, I'm going to sign a presidential memorandum directing every member of my cabinet to marshal every power at their disposal to defeat inflation and rapidly bring down the cost of daily life because your costs have gone through the roof in the last four years. Perhaps you didn't notice. Does anyone notice their costs are like double, triple, quadruple? You can't buy bacon. Apples have doubled in price. You want an apple anybody? Pay twice what you did two years ago? We'll put more money in your pocket and we'll bring back the American dream.
(13:31)
To reduce energy costs and liberate our economy so we have more oil and gas than any country in the world and we are going to use it. We're not going to do the wind thing. Wind. Big ugly windmills. They ruin your neighborhood. If you have a house that's near a windmill, guess what? Your house is worth less than half. Did you see up in New England with the whales? You see what's happening? So they had two whales killed in about 14 years, last year and the year before total they had 28. So if you're into whales, you don't want windmills either, and they're the most expensive form of energy that you can have by far. They're all made in China, by the way, practically all of them. They kill your birds and they ruin your beautiful landscapes. But other than that, I think they're quite good right? Now, remember when we used to joke and kid when we were kidding? But we don't kid anymore. They want to watch the debates on television. They want to watch your favorite president on television, but the wind isn't blowing, so we can't watch television that night, Gladys. Remember Gladys? I'm sorry. The wind is just not blowing. We're not watching Trump tonight.
(14:55)
But I'm immediately withdrawing from the unfair one-sided Paris Climate Accord ripoff. The United States will not sabotage our own industries while China pollutes with impunity. China, look, they use a lot of dirty energy, but they produce a lot of energy. When that stuff goes up in the air, it doesn't stay there. It's not like you got a wall. We love walls, don't we? Not like you have a wall around, it floats into the United States of America after three and a half to five and a half days. It floats across the oceans and it comes right over your neighborhood and it falls into your neighborhood.
(15:44)
So they all say we have to fight for cleaner air, but the other dirty air is dropping all over us. So what the hell are they talking about? Unless everybody does it, it just doesn't work. We had the cleanest air and the cleanest water that this country's ever had under the Trump administration, and we didn't do anything to stop jobs and stop production. Believe me, you're going to see a lot of companies come pouring back because I always say tariffs is the most beautiful word to me in the dictionary. Then I was reprimanded by the fake news. They said, what about love, religion, and God? I said, I agree. Let's put God number one. Let's put religion number two. Love, I don't know, we got to put that number three, I guess, right? Then it's tariff because tariffs are going to make us rich as hell. It's going to bring our country's businesses back that left us.
(16:45)
I'll also sign an executive order to immediately end federal government censorship of the American people. In America we believe in free speech and we're bringing it back, starting today. To stop the weaponization, do I know about that? These creeps. Deranged Jack Smith. You ever hear of him? Deranged. He's a deranged prosecutor, he is sick. They suck him on me. He's now been reduced to getting on an airplane, going back to The Hague or wherever the hell he came from. We got to get rid of that guy. Hey, was he one of the many people that got a pardon today? Did they pardon Jack Smith? Did you know that Biden, while I was making my speech pardoned his whole family? The brother, the whole deal was pardoned. Can you imagine that? While I was making my speech. Did everybody hear my speech? Did you like my speech?
Donald Trump (18:05):
Thank you. The only thing wrong with it is I had a lot of tough things to say and I have some great people that work for me. "Sir, this is such a great speech. It's so unifying. Don't talk about Biden with his pardons of his family. We want a unified country." They said, "Don't talk about the J6 hostages that you're going to be releasing today. Sir, don't put that in your speech, please." I said, "But really I want to put it in my speech." They said, "Sir, it won't be unified like it is. It's so beautiful the way it is." And it is getting great reviews. If I put things like that in, I'll get terrible reviews. One little paragraph that's a little bit wrong. The fake news goes crazy, right? I said, "All right, I won't put it in my speech, but you know what? I'm speaking in front of a hell of a lot of people at a place called Capital One Arena and I'll talk about it there."
(19:19)
We're going to be going over to the beautiful Oval Office, one of the great offices in history, even if it wasn't beautiful, it's the Oval Office. But it is beautiful and we love the Oval Office. It all starts with the… The wars start and end there. Everything starts and ends at the Oval Office. We love it. But we're going to go to the Oval Office. We're going to release our great hostages. For the most part, they didn't do stuff wrong. You take a look at what went on.
(19:52)
And look what happens in other parts of the country in Portland, where they kill people. They destroy the city. Nothing happens to them. In Seattle, where they took over a big chunk of the city. Nothing happened. Minneapolis, where they burned down the city. Nothing happened. Essentially, nothing happened. All they want to do is go after the J6 hostages. A 76-year-old grandmother was arrested the other day, I think because she was looking at the Capitol or something like that. No, we're not going to put up with that crap anymore. And to stop the weaponization of law enforcement. I've been investigated more than any human being in the world. I believe I have the all time record. Every day, a subpoena, subpoena. Every single day would get subpoenas. I was more than any person. Alphonse Capone, remember I used to talk about it? Now, Alphonse Capone, Scarface, he was a pretty rough guy. He was investigated about 1/100th what Trump was… My father's looking down at me, my mother, how the hell did this happen? You know what it is? They investigated their political opponent, the opponent of Biden, and then ultimately Kamala. Has anyone ever heard of Kamala?
(21:22)
We had to beat two opponents. We had to beat Biden and we beat him. Now he goes on… The guy was 39 points down. "I think I could have beaten Trump. They should have left me and I would've beaten…" No, his debate performance wasn't the best, right? That's what killed him. And then they had a change. And that's like you get into a fight, the great Dana White spoke last night, we love Dana White, right? UFC. That's like he puts in two fighters, one of them's getting creamed, getting really beaten, and they say, all right, take him out, let's put somebody else in to finish up the fight. That's what they did to us. They gave us somebody new, but we took care of both of them. We beat actually two opponents.
(22:13)
But to stop the weaponization of law enforcement and our government, I will also sign an order directing every federal agency to preserve all records pertaining to political persecutions under the last administration, of which there were many, and beginning the process of exposing any and all abuses of power, even though he's pardoned many of these people. Can you believe it? He's pardoned them.
(22:38)
You know why he did it while I was speaking? Because that way I couldn't speak about it. I was speaking. I didn't know he did it. I finished my speech and they said, "Sir, he pardoned his whole family." I said, "Oh, can I go back out there and talk about it?" Somehow, that wouldn't be very elegant. Our first lady would say, "Please don't do that." But we have plenty of time to talk about it and we will. We're doing all of this on our very first day in office.
(23:05)
Don't forget, we've been in this position, really, where we won the primaries in record time. We were the fastest win of a primary ever in political history, which is a very nice thing. It's nice to know. The second election was rigged, so we knew we were doing well, and if it wasn't, you know what? If it wasn't, I would've never run. But the third one was just a monster. Boy, was that a big one, huh? That was a big one.
(23:35)
On the second one, we got 10 or 12 million votes more than the first one. How about that? We did great on the first one. We did much better on the second one, but man, did we do well on the third one. We're going to have some fun. It's very simple. We're going to make our country great. We're going to make our country great again. We're going to make America great again.
(24:00)
How good a name is MAGA, though, right? I was going to say keep America great, but unfortunately, it wasn't great. Can't say keep it great. It will be great again, but KAG, Keep America Great, KAG, I don't think it's ever going to replace MAGA. Does anybody like KAG? I don't think so. It's never replacing MAGA. Nothing will ever replace MAGA. MAGA was the most successful political operation, political movement in the history of our country, maybe in the history of the world. Let's see what happens. Because we're not finished yet. We're not finished yet. We got a long way to go.
(24:46)
But we're doing this in the very first day in office and, in just a few moments, I'm not only signing the release of the J6 hostages, I'm signing other things that you're going to love. Oh, you're going to be happy reading newspapers tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day. I just want to thank… Look at this place. It's full of the rafters. You don't have any… Look at those people up there. You don't have any empty seats. And by the way, the Capitol One owners, they are so good. We got to root for their teams because they have been so great to MAGA, to us, and I just want to thank Ted and everybody. You guys have been fantastic in there. The ice hockey team's doing great. Ovechkin. Ovechkin's pretty good, right? They're doing great, so I want to thank them, Capital One Arena owners, they have been absolutely fantastic.
(25:44)
And thank you once again to everyone, and I can only tell you, you're going to be very happy. You're going to watch a lot of good things happen. We got to stop some wars that are happening and going on. Some stupid things are happening. The war with Ukraine would've never happened and it has. As you know, Israel would've never been hit on October 7th, and none of you would be up here, none of you would even know anything about this tragedy that you're going through right now. But Iran was broke.
(26:12)
Anybody that bought oil from Iran, they couldn't do any business with us. You're not going to do business with America. China passed. Everybody passed. They were broke. They didn't have money for Hamas. They didn't have money for Hezbollah. And your sons would be alive and they certainly wouldn't be incarcerated like they are. It's a shame, but we're getting a lot of people out in a short period of time. I'm going to go right over to here and I'm going to sign in front of you. Is that okay? Good.
President Donald Trump (27:37):
You have that other one to sign?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
Sorry, what?
President Donald Trump (27:39):
Do you have the other one to sign?
Speaker 1 (27:40):
We don't. We don't have it over here yet, sir. We'll have it for you back at the Oval Office. The first is the Rescissions of 78 Biden Era EOs and Presidential Memoranda.
President Donald Trump (27:54):
Do want to call it up, you want to say it? Do you want say it?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
Oh, if you want me to, sir.
President Donald Trump (27:56):
Why don't you say what I'm signing.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Sure. The first item that President Trump is signing is the Rescission of 78 Biden Era Executive Actions, Executive Orders, Presidential Memoranda, and others. Thank you, sir. Thank you. The second item, President Trump, is a regulatory freeze, as you announced in your speech, preventing bureaucrats from issuing any more regulations until we have full control of the government and this administration. Thank you, sir.
Audience (28:59):
Sir, can I have a pen?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
The next item, sir, is a freeze on all federal hiring, accepting the military and the number of other excluded categories, again, until full control of the government is achieved and we understand the objectives of government going forward.
President Donald Trump (29:14):
Give me the microphone for a second. Could you imagine Biden doing this? I don't think so. I don't think so.
Speaker 1 (29:35):
Sir, the next item, as you announced in your speech, is a requirement that federal workers return to full-time in-person work immediately. Thank you, sir. Next, we have a directive to every department and agency in the federal government to address the cost of living crisis that has cost Americans so dearly.
Audience (30:14):
We love you, President Trump.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
Thank you, sir. The next item here is the withdrawal from the Paris Climate Treaty.
President Donald Trump (30:38):
Say that they're a trillion dollars we're going to save.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Sorry, what did you say?
President Donald Trump (30:38):
Say that they're a trillion dollars we're going to save.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
Yes, sir.
President Donald Trump (30:38):
Over a trillion, we're going to save over a trillion dollars.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
We're going to save over a trillion dollars by withdrawing from that treaty. And the next item, sir, is a letter that will be transmitted to the United Nations explaining that we are withdrawing from the Paris Climate Treaty. Thank you, sir. This next item is a directive to the federal government ordering the restoration of freedom of speech and preventing government censorship of free speech going forward. And lastly, sir, before we go back to the Oval Office to sign a large number of other items, is a directive to the federal government ending the weaponization of government against the political adversaries of the previous administration, as we've seen. Thank you very much, sir. Appreciate it.
Audience (33:00):
USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA, USA.