You all set? So, I have some incredible people and this is a very exciting thing that we're doing and it was fast. They've wanted to do it, I understand they've been here hundreds of times over the years trying to do it and they're going to give you a little bit of history. Roger Penske, everybody knows, he's a legend in many different things, but certainly in racing. He's won the Indianapolis 500 twenty times. On the 18th time, I said, he's been a friend of mine for a long time, but on the 18th time I said, I think I'm going to give him the Presidential Medal of Freedom because, you know, how do you do that? Japan, Germany, Roger, right? Everybody. They want to, they want to win the Indy 500. They spend billions of dollars getting a car and this guy wins it like every year. He won it so many times that he ended up buying the track. So, now he owns the track, he owns the race, it's a pretty good thing. Now he's won it, though, he won it two times since he got it and so it's a total of twenty. And didn't you win the Daytona 500? How many times? Four times? That's all? That's terrible. I can't believe it. Anyway, if you win it once it's like great, but this guy's amazing. He's a genius and a real genius at cars and racing and they are going to put up something that's really amazing. It's really having to do with our great 250th birthday where we're having so many wonderful things. UFC is coming as you know, in front of the White House with a building literally a stadium. They're going to have over a hundred thousand people. And this is going to have a lot of people. I won't even say how many people because I think it can set a record for racing. But it's going to be very, very important. We're celebrating greatness with American motor racing. That's going to be the name of the event. It's going to take place on August 21st through the 23rd. And it's going to be so exciting and I love the racing. I don't have a lot of time to watch it, but I love the racing. And just before we start, I will say numbers came out this morning, they are phenomenal for the country. So we announced yesterday that for the first time in I think 28 years, America made more steel than Japan. Can you believe it? Japan's a big steel country. America made more steel than Japan. The numbers are record-setting numbers, every one of our numbers are doing we've never had anything like it. We have over 18 trillion dollars coming into our country. We're building thousands of plants and all sorts of businesses all over the United States. It's never been anything like it. 18 trillion dollars investment. So we have over fellows we have over 18 trillion dollars being invested in the United States of America. The record was 3 trillion ten years ago. Not by us, by another country. And we're going to do 18 and I think the 18's going to go higher. We're just looking at 11 months, the 12th month hasn't come in yet, but it's going to bring us over 18 maybe even hit 20. So you have 18 to 20 trillion dollars coming in and we've never had anything like it. We have a record, we just set, as you know, S&P 500 just set a new record, 7,000, nobody thought that was possible in this quick of time. They thought maybe at the end of four years or five years or six years. But we did it in the first year. And we had 48 stock market highs, Roger. So Roger's a big beneficiary because he has a lot of stock. But anybody that has stock including people with 401ks. So the economy has never been like this. It was just announced that crime is at an all-time low, lowest number best numbers on crime in the history in the recorded history of our country and the lowest numbers of murders in the history of our country that we have recorded history goes back 125 years, that's not bad. And a lot of that is because of the fact that we have a closed border, we've taken out thousands and thousands of criminals and murderers and drug dealers and everything else and we've either brought them back to their country or in some cases we have to put them in our jails because we don't want to we don't want to have them come back. And so we don't want to just bring them back to their country and then they maybe come back despite our border. They're pretty sneaky, pretty smart. So we're doing things that nobody's ever seen before. The country is really in great shape. We have a large armada, flotilla, you can call it whatever you want, heading toward Iran right now, even larger than what we had in Venezuela. It's still in front of Venezuela. The Venezuelan situation, the leadership is doing a very good job, we're very happy and we're getting along very, very well. And we're inviting the countries of the world very shortly they're going to be starting to take the oil we're going to be heading that with the country and that's worked out really well. We're now sending actually a larger number of ships to Iran and hopefully we'll make a deal. If we do make a deal that's good, if we don't make a deal we'll see what happens. But this is going to be exciting. So I'm going to ask, and he really is a legend, he's a great man, I've known him for a tremendously long time I refuse to say how. We were both young, now we're both a little older. We refuse to say old, but we're a little older. But Roger Penske is the chairman, as you know, of Penske Corporation. He's got everything you can imagine, mostly I think to do with automotive. And I'd like to ask him to say a few words about the event because this is going to be they're putting everything behind it and I think it's going to be really exciting. Roger, please.
President Trump Signs Executive Orders, Jan. 30, 2026
Well, thank you, Mr. President. This is really a record time for us as a company to support the 250th anniversary for the country. And there's no better way for us to bring automotive and speed into the DC area and to have the opportunity to be able to compete here with our Indy cars. As you know we own the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and we're taking that history of over a hundred years and the speed and what's taken place there with your different manufacturers and bringing it here to this race will be amazing. Certainly the Freedom 250 when you think about it, it's just a byproduct of what the President has done during this year. And this will be event obviously in August which will make a huge difference. And we're excited, the areas for people to see, most of the grounds will be free. So it's going to be an economic benefit to the area, to the city and obviously with our Fox partner Eric Shanks will be our media partner and believe me what they did for us at Indy this past year they're going to take that and put it on steroids really and take it to the next level. So thank you, Mr. President for allowing us to come into your city. Thank you.
That's so good, Roger. Thank you. Thank you. Great, great man. Eric, I'd like to have you say a few words. He's done a fantastic job at Fox and he's really excited about this and I know they're going to lay it on the line. Eric, please.
Sure. Well, thank you, Mr. President for having us here today. Big shout out to Secretary Duffy. This project was kind of on life support until you stepped in recently and got us here today. Secretary Burgum, your team has been absolutely incredible. explain how many times you came to Washington trying to do this. I think Bud came here 81 times. 81 meetings I had in total. Meetings with senators, meetings with people at the Capitol. And they all wanted it, everybody wanted it, but they couldn't figure it out. It was crazy. 80-some odd times, that's pretty amazing. So go ahead, please. Well, it's it's a real honor to be a partner with Roger and IndyCar. And at Fox Sports we do the biggest events in sports. This year we have the FIFA World Cup that we'll be celebrating here as well. And then dovetailing right after that to be able to celebrate America's birthday on Fox um is an absolutely incredible honor and everyone at Fox Sports can't wait to see exactly how this is going to unfold and and bring it to life. So, Mr. President, thank you again for signing this today.
And the big thing is August 21st through the 23rd and I believe the race is on the 23rd, right? That's going to be incredible. They're going to have practice sessions, it's going to be just a very exciting period I think for Washington. If I could, I'd like to ask Sean Duffy, the Secretary of Transportation who's terrific and doing a great job. Much, much more important than Sean is we have Rachel Campos-Duffy here and she's one of the greatest people I know and one of the greatest people on television. So most of you know her, but I don't think we'll have her speak about the race because she knows less about it than anybody up here. But she is fantastic. Sean, please.
So, the President gave us all a directive which I'm grateful for. We're going to celebrate America's 250th birthday and he asked all of us to think outside the box how do we make this historic and cool and let's all do this together. And he loves the country, loves the birthday. And so, we at DOT were working on this concept. We didn't know at the same time Penske was working on the same project too and so we've come together and and Doug has been a wonderful partner. But to think 190 miles an hour down Pennsylvania Avenue um this is going to be wild. The last time we had a race in the capital city, Bud, was when? 1801, Thomas Jefferson with a horse race. A horse race in 1801, Mr. President. Now we're going to do a we're going to do a real race. That's so great. That's so great. So, listen, this doesn't happen, you know, these we just don't come in and and have the ask the President to sign. There's a lot of work that goes into this as you can tell. Bud and my Chief of Staff Pete all had a lot of meetings on the hill. We couldn't be more excited about this. Again, I'm going to repeat this is free for the American people to come to your nation's capital and see a great road race. Freedom, America, speed, and road racing, it doesn't get more American than that, Mr. President. So thank you for signing this and thanks for all your support.
You are fantastic and what a job you've done. They put it together very quickly. They've been coming here for years and everybody wanted it, you know, every senator wants it, every congress, everybody wants it, but they don't get things done. Trump gets things done. We didn't have 89 meetings, we had maybe a half a meeting. I think this is probably about a half a meeting. I'd like to thank Pete Meacham for the great job you've done representing us and Luke Bunting. These are two young people that work with us and they've really been fantastic. I'd like to ask Doug Burgum to say a few words. He's very much involved through his position of Interior because a lot of the space is interior. He sort of has, I think he's the largest landlord anywhere in the world by far. So, Doug, could you say a few words please?
Absolutely. Thank you, Mr. President. This birthday that's coming up, the 250th anniversary of America, Freedom 250 um is the most monumental birthday maybe of any country ever in the history of the world. And President Trump with his directive to celebrate this thing, we've got what's more American than race car driving? What's more monumental um than the Indy 500 as a as a as an icon of what's going on in our country and so merging the the history and the tradition of our capital Washington DC with the speed and the innovation that goes on in the IndyCar series um is incredible and it's a great metaphor because um the speeds we're talking about is the speed of President Trump. I want to reiterate, there weren't 81 meetings with the Trump administration. I think it was they called President Trump. He got Sean and I going and and what was it that was like from Saturday until now we have a race. One week. One week we have a race as opposed to like four months of talking. So I think there's also a metaphor here about President Trump who's an incredible sportsman, he's an athlete himself, but he loves sports. And so whether it's soccer, UFC, the football draft, NFL football draft coming, IndyCar and and all the teams that he hosts here. I mean, to any American who loves sports, you ought to love this President because he's bringing professional sports to our capital and again August 21st through 23rd you talk about the economic impact by the time all the reporters get done telling the story, there's not going to be a hotel room available in this city um on that weekend because everybody's going to want to be here. People that maybe have wanted to see an IndyCar race their whole life are now going to have an opportunity to come to their capital celebrate 250 and see an IndyCar race for free um and they're going to be able to see it on the National Mall and you wherever you put down your lawn chair and watch this race for free you're going to be staring at the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial um and I'm sure there's going to be fireworks this weekend too. I'm sure that and if you need a permit you can get one from the Interior so. So anyway, it's absolutely incredible and congratulations to Sean, the Penske organization, Fox Sports, everybody for putting together this is going to be a great celebration for America.
Thank you very much and you're doing a fantastic job. Could I just ask Bud Denker, he's the President of Penske Corporation to say a few words please?
Well, thank you, Mr. President. You know, Eric Shanks and I from Fox had this dream and just last July and could it ever be possible to bring a race to our nation's capital to celebrate our country's history and everybody said there's no way. It's impossible. How do you put a race on at 190 miles an hour in a city like Washington DC? I came here, I walked this area for a while, I found a racetrack on the Capitol grounds up against a lot of meetings and couldn't get the kind of support we need. So within a week with Secretary Duffy and we we put this together with the President didn't we? And we now have a race here um on our on city property on the national property that's going to celebrate America. The word free shouldn't be overridden because we are going to have a free event here to get people to come out and celebrate our country's history. I also want to thank Mayor Bowser. She has been a great partner in this process as well too. So, I know, Mr. President, she's a great supporter of what you've done here in the city as well too and we thank her for this. But we're going to have an amazing event. We're going to make everybody this country proud. We want everybody to come out for free and enjoy this and celebrate our country the way it should be here in the nation's capital. Thank you, Mr. President.
And I said pick the best site. It's very important, pick the best site. Don't go for second or third because there are a lot of different routes. I said pick even if it's more difficult to get to get approved, pick the absolute best site. And they were actually looking at another site and when I said that they said, well, the best site is this site, the site we're doing. I said let's take a look at it and we think it's the best site too. It's actually better than the original site they were looking at, but if we're going to do it we want to do it right. So this is going to be something in terms of the road width, the crowds and everything else that we can all the best site one of the best sites they've ever seen actually and it'll be beautiful. So I'm going to sign this and if you have any questions on this subject that'd be great. We just named a new Fed chair today, you know that? He's um Kevin Warsh. He's like Roger Penske, central casting. You know him Roger? Very good guy. Roger, no auto-pen. I didn't use an auto-pen. Here, Roger, take that. Here, Eric. There you go, Bud. I don't want to sign each letter, you know they sign each letter they hand pens. I used to watch these presidents, one letter. You're going to see what it looks like at the end. Never looks never looks too good. Here, Rachel, take that. That's for your team. Congratulations, this is really exciting. Any questions?
On your Fed chair nominee since you just brought it up. Did Kevin Warsh commit to you that he will push to cut interest rates if he is confirmed?
No, but we talk about it and I've been following him and I don't want to ask him that question. I think it's inappropriate probably, it probably would be allowed, but I want to keep it nice and pure. But he certainly wants to cut rates, I've been watching him for a long time.
Mr. President, did you have any concerns about his hawkish history uh of pushing for rate hikes?
He's going to want to do the same thing. I think that yeah, I've had times when I think you've had to really have rate hikes too, but he's very smart, very good um strong, young, pretty young, and I think he's going to do a good I mean he he was the central casting guy that people wanted. Kevin was great, I tell you what, I met numerous people, every one of them were fantastic, really fantastic. I wanted to keep Kevin here um and I thought that I call Kevin 1 Kevin 2. And we have as I said it's going to be a Kevin. But you know Kevin really has been fantastic at the White House, you all know him, you know him very well. And so we have Kevin W. Kevin W.
Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the confirmation hearings? We've heard Senator Tillis. Do you think with the DOJ investigation-
This is this is in the whole country, I would say that this was the you know perfect candidate. This was not a surprise or anything. This was the man that's most qualified um top student, best schools, everything was like perfect. Youngest person ever to serve on the Fed. Um got the whole package. Looks don't mean anything, but he's got the look, right Roger? Looks don't mean anything but to have the look is okay. But he's got the whole package and I think he's going to do a great job and he loves the country.
Mr. President, why are you suing- Mr. President, please, in the back. Yes. Um are you giving Iran any kind of deadline to make a deal before potentially taking further action? Have you communicated that to them directly?
Only they know for sure. Have you communicated that to them directly? Yeah, I have. Mr. President, do you have a timeline for when you're going to pull back potentially the federal presence there? No, we'll see how it all works out. You know, they have to float someplace, they might as well float near Iran, but it's a rough situation going on so I stopped 837 people, as you know, last week from being hung. They were going to hang 830, was all set and um I mean I'm looking at the people behind me they're saying what kind of racing's a lot a lot nicer than that, right? Uh they were going to hang 837 people and I told them if you do it you're going to pay a price like nobody's ever paid before and they pulled back. I appreciated that. But a lot of people are being killed. So we'll see what happens. They I can say this, they do want to make a deal. Mr. President, about Virginia, actually. Virginia flipped the governors and now they're looking at 50 proposals to increase taxes. What do you think about that? Well, I think it's terrible. I think a lot of people will leave Virginia. I I saw that. Look um the land was a friend of mine, Glenn Glenn Youngkin and worked so hard on cutting taxes this and this woman came in and in one swoop she raised everything up higher than it ever was. I don't understand it. I mean people voted for Democrat, but she came in and she raised and I'll work with her like I work with everyone else. But she came in to Virginia, raised everything to a point like no taxes that nobody ever even heard of before. And I can't I don't understand how do people get elected with this kind of philosophy. This is only in the very modern age. You know, I grew up and I've always heard politicians will cut taxes, will cut taxes, everyone's screaming we're going to cut taxes. I cut taxes. I gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, the great big beautiful bill. No tax on tips, no tax on social security, no tax on overtime. Interest deductions, Roger, when somebody buys a car they can deduct the interest if they borrow money. That's the biggest thing in terms of the car business, right? American made ones. Correct. So um we have, you know I give tax cuts and they give tax increases. I don't I don't know how they get elected. They get elected because they cheat, you want to know the truth. They If they didn't cheat, if they didn't cheat um they'd have no chance. They have a horrible policy. Transgender for everyone. They have the little thing about open borders so that the world's prison population and mental hospitals could be emptied into our country. It's just a crazy men playing in women's sports. Roger, are you a fan of men playing in women's sports? Only as a bettor, he'd like to bet. If he'll not you're not a big you're not a big fan, I don't think so. I don't want to get him in trouble, but I think he joins 99 percent of They say it's an 80-20 issue. I think it's a it's maybe 99. It's 99-1.
Mr. President, why are you suing your own administration and the IRS? Why are you suing the IRS? Who are you with? ABC News. You're a loud person, very loud. Let somebody else have a chance. Can you answer the question, why are you suing? ABC fake ABC fake news. Go ahead. I didn't call on you. Go ahead, please. Go ahead. Go ahead. Right here.
ABC by the way is truly one of the worst. Go ahead. Do you think the upcoming talks between Russia and Ukraine stand a chance without US envoy Rick Coffman and Jared Kushner there? I think it's I think they stand a chance. We've been trying I've ended eight wars. All of them I thought were going to be maybe tougher than this one. But Zelensky and Putin hate each other. And it makes it very difficult, but I think we're getting very close to getting a settlement. Um hundreds of thousands of people, mostly soldiers, have been killed. Last week they lost 29,000 people, last month they lost 29,000 soldiers. Can you believe that, fellows? 29,000. You lose one race driver and it's it's a big deal. 29,000 soldiers in one month, 27,000 the month before. Uh I think that yeah I think that we have a good chance of getting a settle. Yeah, ma'am, please.
Sure, Mr. President, um on the Warsh nomination. What what is your strategy for getting past the hold that Senator Tillis has on this process? He's said he won't allow um a nominee that-
Well, that's you know that kind of thinking is why he's no longer a senator, you know he's going to be um out of office. It's too bad. I always liked Senator Tillis actually, but uh he did some things that were not smart. And whatever, I mean if if he doesn't approve we'll just have to wait till somebody comes in that will approve it, right? So that's it. But uh I saw that. You want to be an obstructionist. But we have a lot of obstructionists. I've had a lot and and we've created the best presidency maybe ever. Mr. President, about Iran, in total, if Iran doesn't make a deal, is your plan to replicate there what you just did in Venezuela? I don't want to say that. I don't want to talk I mean I don't want to talk about anything having to do with what I'm doing militarily. But we have a tremendously powerful fleet there. We have the most powerful ships in the world. We have the most powerful military by far in the world. We showed that on numerous occasions. I mean, I rebuilt the military in my term. If I didn't, you know, I wouldn't I think be able to say that. But I rebuilt the military. The entire United States military in my first term. And now we're building it bigger, better, stronger than ever before. We're adding to it. We're adding something called a battleship. You would find this interesting. You know the old-fashioned beautiful battleships? And we're adding up to 25 of them. Um each battleship is 100 times more powerful than the battleships of the 1940s, those big powerful ones with the guns. Because of what the ships carry. But we're going to build ten and then we'll see how we like them and we're going to go and do another 15 after that. Could be up to 25 battleships 100 times more powerful. Can you imagine that? And it's piece so strange. We don't want to use them, but if we have to use them we will.
Mr. President, Mr. President, on the on the Fed. Should uh the DOJ continue with its investigation to J. Powell? That seems to be a sticking point for Senator Tillis.
Well, he's got a building that uh you know I build buildings and I build them under budget ahead of schedule. I build them but they're within a reason always. And uh this is a small little complex that's costing billions of dollars. Most expensive job per square foot ever built. And it's a little complex, it's a little Fed complex. I built the uh hotel on Pennsylvania Avenue and I built it for around 200 million dollars and it's bigger than that. They're spending uh many times that amount to do a renovation of a building. I've heard numbers as high as 4 billion dollars. 4 billion dollars to build a building. I could have I could have renovated that building and fixed it up made it beautiful for 25 million dollars. They're going to spend close to 4 billion dollars on it. So it's either gross incompetence or it's theft. And somebody's making money because you can't spend it's more per square and you have half a building there, you know you have the structure, you have the exterior skin that they're not changing much. Um they're building a building and they're spending almost I mean I'm hearing numbers of between 3 and 4 billion dollars. It's the most expensive structure ever built per square foot. So he's either incompetent or he or somebody is a crook. And we'll find out.
Mr. President, thank you, Mr. President. On Minneapolis, so on Minneapolis, uh Governor Tim Walz recently likened the conflict on the ground to Fort Sumter. Sort of imply that this is the beginning of a civil war. Do you agree with that characterization? Do you feel like there's a civil war brewing?
The governor said? Governor Tim Walz. Well, does he know what Fort Sumter was or do you think somebody wrote it out for him? Uh no this is uh I was elected on law and order. I was elected on a strong border. We had a border that allowed 25 million people to come in many were murderers, they murdered people we had 11,888 murderers. We had prisons including Venezuela, but Venezuela opened its prisons. So did the Congo. The Congo in Africa opened its prisons, they dumped people into our country. Many countries did that. I would have done that if I were leading a country. I would have dumped the prisoners into our country. We had open borders. Uh we had all these things. I was elected on law and order. I was elected on the economy. I was elected on a lot of reasons because when I took over we inherited a mess. I had a prices were too high, inflation was the highest it was in 48 years. I say ever, but the media always corrects me by saying it's only 48 years. I think 48 years almost sounds worse. But when I was elected, I was elected to do a job and one of the big things I was elected to do is law and order. We now have the lowest crime rate in the history of our country. We have the lowest murder rate in the history of our country. We have Washington DC which was a dangerous place to walk is now a totally safe city. You can walk with your husband or your wife, you can walk with your chil your children right down the middle of the city, nothing's going to happen. We did a great job. We have we had the National Guard, we have soldiers, we have people that nobody's going to mess with. And we've taken out, remember, it's not just that. In Washington, we've removed over 2,000 criminals. And you know, if you look at the numbers, uh a very small percentage of your population, 2 percent, 3 percent of your population causes 90 percent of the crime. So when you move a small it's amazing how that works, but the criminals go over and over and over again. So 2 to 3 percent of your population can cause over 90 percent of your crime. So it's not that complex. We moved 2,000 people out of Washington, we brought them back to their countries where they came from. They came through open borders by Sleepy Joe Biden. And I will tell you uh Washington is safe. Uh if you look at New Orleans, as you know, we went there about four weeks ago. I was with the mayor of New Orleans last night, she was at the premiere and she was at the premiere, she was great. Uh I believe she's a Democrat. She came over she thanked me so much. She said crime is down more than 50 percent in just a few weeks. And you couldn't even walk down the street in New Orleans, it's so bad. And now uh they let us in there and she she is thanking me so much. So profusely, she was great last night. I do that if I were Democrat. I'd say call Trump in let them do what they do. But we remove people, criminals from from the cities and they become safe cities. Uh if you look at Minnesota, Minneapolis, we have crime down there because we took out thousands of people. Despite all the mess and everything else. But do these people really want to have rapists, do they really want to have uh drug dealers and people from prisons and murderers, do they really want to have them in the community? Uh you know, it's uh it's really insurrectionists and agitators and they're paid. And you can tell a lot of reasons. Number one they're professionals, you know, with their mouth. But they're also you look at the signs. The signs are all professionally made. They have signs that are gorgeous. In fact, I want to get the sign because I'm a big I need a lot of signs for different things and I want to find out whoever does their signs. They do a beautiful job. You know, everybody has this beautiful sign with brand new wood. It's like uh leather panels they have a leather handle on the bottom. These are not people that These are people that are handed signs and and we know pretty much we're getting very close to who's but we know pretty much who's funding this stuff. These are paid insurrectionists, paid trouble makers. But I was elected by a landslide. I won every swing state, I won the popular vote by a lot, I won everything. I won everything. And I was elected by a landslide on law and order and on strong borders. We had a border that was so bad, so open, where 25 million people came in over a period of four years and now nobody comes in. Nobody even tries to come in. And I can only say I think uh we'll say it very plainly, elections have consequences. The people want law and order. And we have a silent majority. You know, we have a silent majority of people. They don't go and riot and everything else, but they like what we're doing. They like having a safe city. I get calls every single day. Every person I see working in the White House, people I don't know, many people work here. And they say I'd like to thank you, sir. Why? Uh you've made Washington so great, we walk to work. They walk to work. You you people know it very well. You walk to work now. You used to take an Uber or a taxi or something and you even felt like in danger there. Uh every person in this building, I mean virtually every time I see somebody they thank me because a year and a half ago they lived in hell and now they can walk to work and they're totally safe. Nothing's going to happen. And if anything did happen, the person that did it would be living in hell for a long period of time. Thank you very much, everybody. Thank you. Thank you. Keep moving out. Thank you guys. Take care.