President Trump Hosts a Cabinet Meeting, Dec. 2, 2025

Nice to be with you. Welcome to the final cabinet meeting of 2025, a year that will go down as the most consequential and successful first year of any administration. They're saying that. Not me. Although I say it too, actually. But a lot of people are saying it, and a lot of that is thanks to the men and women in the cabinet. We have the new and improved cabinet room, I might add. We took pictures down from the vaults. We have vaults downstairs with lots of pictures that haven't been exposed to the world for in many cases over a hundred years. We brought them up and we're using them as they should be used. But the cabinet room looks beautiful, like it should now. The Oval Office looks beautiful, like it should. It was like the rest of the country, it was in disrepair. One year ago, our country was dead. It was said to me by many leaders, we had a dead country. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. It's true. The hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. In four long years of the Biden administration, there were just one trillion dollars of new investments in the United States. In ten months, we've secured commitments of over 18 trillion dollars. So they had in one year less than—they had less than one trillion dollars. That's in a period of four years. Think of it. Four years they had less than a trillion. In ten months, we have more than 18 trillion. Is that right, Scott?

That's correct, sir. It'll probably be higher by December 31st.

It'll be higher, but we're going up. And we're waiting for the Supreme Court case, and it's so important and so vital for this country because we're not only respected again, we're putting out wars by our trade policies. And we're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars, and our country is wealthy again and secure again, and it's part of national security. And I hope that goes well. I think it's very important. But think of the number: we're going to be over 18 trillion dollars in ten months, which is a record times probably eight or ten times—I think more than that—for any country. There's never been a country that's had that kind of an investment, ever in history. And there's never been a country that's had half of that. It's a tremendous thing that's taking place. We have companies moving in from all over the world: from Mexico, from Canada, from Europe, from China, from Japan a lot. We just had Toyota is going to spend ten billion dollars they just announced on building new plants in this country. Our workers. They're going to be our workers. But they're spending a tremendous amount. So the stock market has set 46 all-time highs. And this last Friday, which is called Black Friday, was the biggest ever online sales that there's ever been, by a lot. More Americans are working today than at any time in the history of our country. I mean, these are the facts we have to get out. And, you know, there's this fake narrative that the Democrats talk about: affordability. They just say the word. It doesn't mean anything to anybody. Just say it. Affordability. I inherited the worst inflation in history. There was no affordability. Nobody could afford anything. The prices were massively high. Do you remember when we took over eggs? You did a great job on that, Madam Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke. Eggs were four or five times higher than they had ever been. We—they said don't order eggs for Easter at the White House. And we ended up doing it and we got the egg prices way down, lower than what they were before. But the word affordability is a con job by the Democrats. They say affordability. I watched the other day where some very low-IQ Congresswoman talked about affordability, affordability, affordability. She had no idea. The prices were much higher. As an example: energy, gasoline. We're now at about $2.50 a gallon. We're going to be, I think, at $2.00 a gallon. We could even crack that at some point. I'd love to do it. And we could do it more easily if we weren't building up the strategic national reserves, which Biden emptied out before the election so that he could try and get elected. Meaning she—he started it, then he got thrown out of the race, and then she took over and she kept it going and they emptied out the strategic national reserves, which are really meant for something else. They're not meant to keep people happy with their gasoline prices. They're meant for war. They're meant for problems, big problems. He emptied it out and then she continued it during the process of trying to get elected. Didn't work out too well for them. And they virtually brought them down to the lowest level, I believe, in history. And it didn't have much of an impact because the prices were very high. But our prices now for energy, but for gasoline, are really low. Electricity is coming down. And when that comes down, everything comes down. But the word affordability is a Democrat scam. They say it and then they go onto the next subject and everyone thinks, oh, they had lower prices. No, they had the worst inflation in the history of our country. Now, some people will correct me because they always love to correct me, even though I'm right about everything. But some people like to correct me and they say 48 years. I say it's not 48 years, it's much more. But they say it's the worst inflation that we've had in 48 years. I say ever. But whether it's 48 years or ever, it's pretty bad. We had the worst inflation that we've ever had. Since last January, we've stopped inflation in its tracks. And there is still more to do, there's always more to do, but we have it down to a very good level. It's going to go down a little bit further. You want to have a little tiny bit of inflation, otherwise that's not good either. Then you have a thing called deflation, and deflation can be worse than inflation. But we have it almost—we'll soon be at a perfect level. But we inherited the worst inflation. But we have 20 states that are now selling gasoline at less than the $2.75—think of that, $2.75. And it was at $5.00 under sleepy Joe. Grocery prices are down, with the cost of Thanksgiving turkey this year down 33%. It was lower than—33% lower than under the Biden administration. Egg prices are way down, 86% down. Thank you. And mortgage rates, despite the fact that we have an incompetent chairman of the Fed, a real dope who should reduce rates. I saw even Jamie Dimon said he should be reducing rates. I never saw Jamie Dimon say that. I wonder why he said that. But he really said it because he's right. But we have a guy that's just a stubborn ox who probably doesn't like your president, your favorite president. But they're going to be coming down. We'll be announcing somebody probably early next year for the new chairman of the Fed. I talked to Scott about taking the job, but he doesn't want it. You got the greatest job here. Right? He said, no, I want to stay chairman—I want to stay right where we are, Treasury. And I think we're doing really great, aren't we? Yeah. No, it's amazing. Under my executive order to lower prescription drug prices, which I think is the single biggest thing we've ever done that nobody writes about because you're fake news. I've made unprecedented deals along with Bobby and Oz and all of the people that work on it. A lot of people, a lot of people that you wouldn't even think work on it, but they do, to slash drug prices by 200%, 300%, 400%, 500%, 600%, 700%, 800%. Nobody's ever heard of it before because I instituted favored nations. And no nation agreed to do it, and then I said to the nations, if you're not going to do it, I'm going to charge you 100% tariff, which is more money than we're talking about. And they said, sir, we'd love to do it, please. We would be honored to do it. And they agreed that they would go along with the whole thing. Nobody—nobody thought you could do it because they agreed—they felt number one you couldn't get the drug companies to do it. So we're paying, as an example, for the—let's go with the fat drug. The fat drug, F-A-T, for fat people. Anybody using it at the table? Don't ask. But the fat drug was $135—think of that—for certain people, $1,300 for certain countries, $1,300 in New York. So in New York, it was $1,300, and in London, it was $135. And a friend of mine called me, he said, what is this? Why is it? He got used to paying $1,300. Well, now what we have it down to is, Bobby, what's the number? Like $150 or something? We have it down to a low number, don't we?

Yeah, it's between $125 and $150.

Think of that. So we got it down from $1,300 to $125 to $140, depending on various countries. In other words, we're paying the lowest price, tied for the lowest price in the world. It's—people said you could never do that because you couldn't get the countries to agree to it. I did. Every country agreed to it because I said, if you're not going to agree to it, that's okay, I'm going to charge you tariffs. And as soon as I said that, they said, we agree. And then we had to be a little tough with the drug companies, but they came along. The bigger problem was the countries. The countries just wouldn't go along with it, but they did. Every country. So we have reduced drug prices by 500, 600, 700, 800, 900%, depending on the drug, depending on the company, depending on all of the different factors involved. Nobody's ever even thought of drug reductions like that, price reductions. And I told you the story that in my first term I was so proud of myself because I reduced drugs—it was the first time in 28 years that drug prices were reduced—was one-quarter of 1%. One-quarter of 1%. And I was so proud of myself, I said it's the first time in 28 years that drug prices went down over the course of a year, over the course of a presidency. One year, one-quarter of 1%. I had a news conference, I was so proud. Now I got them down not one-quarter of 1%, I got them down 400, 500, 600% and more. And the fake news won't write about it. And it's going to have a huge impact on healthcare because a big part of it is buying drugs, buying prescription drugs, drugs. It's going to have a huge positive impact because Obamacare is a disaster. I said it years ago and I say it now. And the money should be paid, taken away from the insurance companies. Obamacare was made to make the insurance companies rich. Their stocks have gone up a thousand percent in a short period of time because the money goes to the insurance company. I want the money to go to the people. Let all the money go to the people, and let the people go out and buy their own healthcare. And I see on television people are advertising now, we will help you buy healthcare, we will go out and help you buy—that's becoming like an industry because of what I said. So something's going to happen. It's probably not going to be easy because the Democrats frankly, they don't want to make a good deal for the people. They just want to make a bad deal for the country. They want to make a bad deal for the Republican Party. But the Republican Party is united and I will say that what I would like to do is the money doesn't go—trillions of dollars get paid to drug companies. And you still have lousy healthcare. Obamacare is horrible healthcare. We want it to go to the people and then let the people go out and buy their own healthcare and they'll do great. They'll do great. So we're negotiating that now with the Democrats. Well, congressional Democrats want the largest tax hike in history. I proudly signed the largest tax cuts in American history with a great big beautiful bill. The great big beautiful bill, the biggest piece of legislation ever signed, and that includes the extension of the original Trump tax cuts. But it's the biggest tax cut ever signed, and it includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. So think of that. And in addition, you get if you buy a car—this is great for our car industry because we have a lot of car plants—we're bringing back the automobile business. 60% of it was stolen because we had incompetent presidents or incompetent trade people. But 60% of it was stolen over the years and now we're bringing it—I think we're bringing it all back. I think we'll be bigger than ever than we've ever been in the auto business. That's not even to mention AI where we're leading China. You know, we're leading China by a lot. They're not going to catch us. We have to be smart. But if we're smart, they're not going to be able to catch us. They know that. They told me that. Next year is projected to be the largest tax refund season ever. And we're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars. And we're going to be giving a nice dividend to the people in addition to reducing debt. We—as you know, I inherited a lot of debt, but it's peanuts compared to the kind of numbers we're talking about. So we're going to be making a dividend to the people and additionally we're going to be able to reduce debt and as time goes by over the next two, three, four years, those numbers are going to go up. And I believe that at some point in the not too distant future, you won't even have income tax to pay because the money we're taking in is so great, it's so enormous, that you're not going to have income tax to pay. Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun or have it really low, much lower than it is now, but you won't be paying income tax. We've slashed one trillion dollars in costly job-killing regulations, saving Americans an estimated $2,100 for a family of four. The Biden administration was the exact opposite but times four. They went up $6,000, we went down $2,100. Think of that. To bring down energy, electricity and utility prices, I ended the Green New Scam. They call it the Green New Scam. One of the greatest scams in the history of our country. They talked about global warming and all the crap and what they've done to this country. What they've done by allowing 25 million people into our country, many of whom are criminals, many of whom 11,888 are murderers. And we have to get them out, and we're doing it. We're doing it. I think what the job that our law enforcement groups are doing—Kristi, you and Tom and everybody—amazing. What you're doing is amazing. I terminated the insane electrical—electric vehicle mandate. And, look, some people that make electric cars weren't happy with that, but we have to do that because you have to have a choice, whether it's a gasoline-powered car—and we have so much gasoline. You know, China doesn't have gasoline, we do. And whether it's a hybrid, which really are working really well, the combination of electric and gasoline driven. But we—everybody was supposed to by 2030, everybody had to own an electric car under the Biden stupidity. And not everybody wants to do that. I like electric cars, I like all cars. They're all good, they all have reasons. But you want to be able to go and buy what you want. I imposed historic tariffs that are now bringing in so much money that we've never—nobody's ever seen anything like it. And countries that were ripping us off, including allies, but they were ripping us off for years. I won't use the names. I won't mention Japan. I refuse to mention South Korea. We will not mention names. But they were ripping us off like nobody's ever been ripped off before and taking horrible advantage of your country. But now we're making a lot of money. We're making a lot of money because of the tariffs that are pouring in. And it's really national security, among everything else, it's national security. We've also rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history—I believe we had the worst border ever in history. I don't care if you had a fourth-world country. You know, we allowed third-world countries in, we would allow fourth-world countries in also. It doesn't matter. There was never a border that was as bad as our border. We allowed anybody in with no checks, no vetting. So we've rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history into the strongest border in the history of our country and probably one of the strongest borders in the history of the world because we have nobody coming through. And I want to thank our people. The border patrol is so amazing. ICE. And I want to thank the military for the backup because they're standing right behind them and that was really nasty for a period of months and now it's no longer nasty. Now they don't even come up. Nobody comes up. It's an easy job. I made your job a lot easier because they know they're not going to get through. And we take people in, but they have to come in legally. For six months in a row, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. You believe that? Zero. We had millions of people coming in a year. Millions. Now we have zero for six months. And these are given by radical left people that do the—numbers. I mean, they're not doing many favors, but they're being honest. We don't have—our net numbers are unbelievable. But we had zero people in the last six months. Illegal border crossings along the US-Mexico border have plummeted to the lowest level ever recorded. Ever recorded. And nobody talks about that anymore. You know, it's crazy. They don't talk about it. You'd think they'd say, well, Trump's done a great job on the border. This country is being destroyed by the border. But you always find something new. Like, is he in good health? Biden was great, but is Trump in good health? I sit here, I do news—four news conferences a day. I ask questions from very intelligent lunatics, you people. And they always give—I give the right answers. There's never a scandal, there's never a problem. I give you answers that solve your little problems. You go back and you can't find anything, but you do—you do stories about Biden was in wonderful health. The guy couldn't—didn't do a news conference for eight months. If I go one day, I had one day where I didn't do a news conference, there's something wrong with the president. You people are crazy. I'll let you know when there's something wrong. There will be someday. That's going to happen to all of us. But right now, I think I'm sharper than I was 25 years ago. But who the hell knows. I took—by the way, I took my physical, I got all A's, everything. But they said to me, would you like to take a cognitive test? I said, is it hard? They said, yes. I said, well, I'm a very smart person. Who was the last president to take one? No president has ever agreed to take one. Because when you get into the mid-questions, meaning you know, ten, question number 10, 11, 12, 28, 30, they get harder and harder. And they said, would you like to do it? I said, well, no reason to do it, nobody's ever done it. I'll do it maybe, but there's really no reason. They said, sir, the problem is this is Walter Reed Hospital. And that's a military hospital. And that means that things are, you know, sort of open. It's not like private where you have—if you do poorly, we'll have to probably—you'll—they'll find out. I said, I won't do poorly. I'm a smart person, not a stupid person. And as the doctor will tell you, I aced it. Right, Susie? I aced it. I got every question right. And these are tough questions. These are questions that I would say 99% of the people that I'm talking to right now, meaning the people—the people from the fake news, would not do well on those exams. But I'm the only one that took it. I got every single question right. And then I read in the New York Times, 'Is Trump Sharp?' Trump is sharp. But they're not sharp. That's why they're going out of business, the New York Times. I hear they're—they're losing so much money, it's ridiculous. They're a bunch of fakers. But we have—we can never let another thing happen like what happened to us with a fake election, with a rigged election where a guy like Joe Biden assumes the presidency. Because the man was grossly incompetent. And he was incompetent 30 years ago. But he was really incompetent for those last few years and our country was put at great danger because of it. So for six months in a row, we had zero people. Illegal border crossings along the US-Mexico border have plummeted to the lowest level ever, ever, ever. Think of that. And the net benefit to our country is enormous, incalculable. America is strong and respected again. On the world stage, we're really respected. In fact, I went to a NATO and they were calling me the President of Europe. We're doing very well. We have a lot of respect. As you know, we have a problem with a war that our people are trying to settle now with Russia and Ukraine. We are not involved in the war monetarily anymore. Biden gave away 350 billion dollars like it was candy. That's a massive amount of money. And much of it in cash, a lot of it in equipment. I don't give away anything. We sell the equipment to NATO. The European nations pay us for the equipment, 100% price. And then they bring it to Ukraine or whatever they do with it. But we're trying to get that settled. I've settled eight wars. This would be the ninth and our people are over in Russia right now to see if we can get it settled. Not an easy situation. Let me tell you what a mess. It's a war that never—never would have happened if I were president. Not even a chance. And it didn't happen for four years. We've renamed the Department of Defense the Department of War. And I thought that would be controversial and frankly, I tell you what, I haven't met one person—there's not one person I've met that doesn't like it. You know, think of it: we won World War I, World War II, everything in between, everything before it. And then we said, let's change the name. So we changed it back to what it was. Department of War, and Pete's doing a great job. We ended eight wars. Think of that. Eight wars. But we're going to do one more, I think. I hope. I hope. Every time I end a war, they say, 'If—if President Trump ends that war, he's going to get the Nobel Prize.' So I end that war. Well, he won't get it for that war. But if he ever gets it for the next war—now they're saying, 'If he ever ends the war with Russia and Ukraine, he's going to get the Nobel Prize.' What about the other eight wars? India, Pakistan. Think of—think of all the wars I ended. I should get the Nobel Prize for every war, but I don't want to—I don't want to be greedy. Actually, the woman who got the Nobel Prize said, 'You've got to be kidding. Trump deserves the Nobel Prize.' So it was very nice of her, I appreciate it. Which is true, actually. But I don't care about that. You know what I care about? I care about death. I care about all the people that are dying. And last month, 27,000 young people died, mostly young people, mostly soldiers, despite some missiles being shot into Kyiv and other places. But think of it: mostly young people. 27,000 people died between Russia and Ukraine last month. What a shame. So we're restoring law and order to our cities and towns. If you look at what's happened, and I want to pay my deepest respects to those two incredible people from the National Guard in West Virginia they came from. I spoke to their parents. Sarah is gone. She passed away. She's looking down on us now and she loves her parents and they loved her. They—somebody said, 'How are they doing?' I said, 'The word is devastated.' Doing. How are they going to do? They're devastated. The rest of their lives they're going to be devastated. She was an incredible person, highly respected, top of her class, everything. She was like a perfect human being. 20 years old, just started. She was like a baby. She was so proud they were giving her a promotion. And she told her parents she was getting her promotion and they were so proud of her and then they get a call that this happened. And we have one young man who's fighting for his life. He's fighting very hard. I think he's probably doing better than anybody in the—they said he—he didn't have a chance. I'll tell you the one who said he's going to live is his mother. I spoke to his mother, 'Sir, he's going to live.' I spoke to her very soon after this horrible event took place with this scum that is able to come into our country. I spoke to his mother, 'Sir, he's—he's going to be okay, I'm telling you.' No doctor thought that. Nobody thought that. He was hit in bad places and she was like so positive it was incredible. And it's possibly right, Pam, right? Possibly right. Boy, it would be amazing if he lived. It would be amazing, a miracle actually. But we're very proud of those two people. We're very proud of the National Guard. We're very proud of our military and our police and our firemen and women. If you go back and take a look a year ago, a year and a half ago—it all changed I think on November 5th, the day of the election. But you go back before that, you couldn't get people to join the military, Pete, right? They didn't want anything to do with the military. They wanted nothing to do with joining the police or the fire. They wanted nothing to do with anything. They had no spirit. The country was—it had no spirit, nothing. And now we just had the highest recruitment in history and we're getting great people. We're getting great people. And I will say, despite what just happened, Washington, DC has become a really safe place. And I guess this lunatic probably was upset that the National Guard is so effective. Because we were really, really effective and we are. And Washington, DC is now considered a very, very safe city. We had crime numbers a year ago that were so bad. Embarrassment that the city, the capital of—of this country could be—have numbers like that. And Washington now is—I mean, no murders, no this—it's—it's been a miracle also what happened here. And now we're in Memphis and we're going to New Orleans pretty soon. Over the—the governor called me, he'd like to have us go there. Governor Landry, great guy, great governor. He's asked for help in New Orleans and we're going to go there in a couple of weeks and we're doing a real job. Even Chicago's down a little bit because of we have a minor force there. We could knock it down within four or five weeks we could bring it down to almost nothing. But we have a governor that's grossly incompetent and we have a mayor that's even more incompetent than the governor. He's a very—he's a very low-IQ person. And typically, low-IQ people don't make good mayors. So I want to thank all of our cabinet members. They're high IQ. Let me see. One... yeah, generally speaking. A couple of—couple of them I'm a little concerned about. No, but I want to thank—we have a great cabinet, an amazing cabinet, amazing people. All of them, you know, sort of have become stars. We're getting credit for the good cabinet, actually. And I just want to wish everybody a great holiday. We—we've I think done a great job with the White House, bringing the White House back. You see the Palm Court that was redone. The Lincoln Bedroom was redone. The Lincoln Bathroom is now gorgeous, like it should have been. It was terrible green tile that was never the way it was supposed to be. It was done in the 1940s, actually, but it was not proper. And it's—we're restoring the White House just like we're restoring the country and people are thrilled. But we—the First Lady's done a beautiful job with the Christmas trees and all the decorations. I see the wreaths on the windows. I've never seen that before on the windows of the White House. And you know, it's four stories high. I said, how do they get that wreath? They had people going up in a—a little dangerous. I wouldn't want to do it. But they put them up and we have wonderful people working in the White House and they're really proud to bring the building back because this building was a little bit like the country, it was mishandled, it was mistreated and now it's being given love. And we're building one of the great—I think maybe the greatest ballroom. We needed it. For 150 years they've been asking. You see the—the trucks and cranes and excavators in the background. And you hear them, and every time I hear them, I love the sound. To me, I love the sound. I wouldn't say my wife is thrilled when she hears pile drivers in the background all day, all night. They go until 12 o'clock in the evening, day, night, pile drivers. 'Darling, could you turn off the pile drivers?' 'Sorry, darling, that's progress.' But no, we're doing—we're doing great. It's going to be the—I think it's going to be the finest ballroom ever built and we're going to have it here. They've wanted it for 150 years. Think of that. So I will just end by saying I want to thank the cabinet. It's been a great cabinet. Our last—think of it: time flies. But this is our last of the year as I said, and I—I just think you've done a fantastic job. And we're going to go around the room. We'll go quickly. But we're going to go around the room and we'll start with Pete and you'll tell us about some of the achievements. And some of you have achievements that are so big, I don't want you to go through the whole thing because we don't have time. But we'll start with Pete, and then if you want, we'll take some questions at the end. Please, Pete.

Well, thank you, Mr. President. As you said, it has been a historic year at the Department of War. Recruiting and retention over this year are at the most historic levels our country has ever seen. I had a chance to be on an aircraft carrier destroyer over Thanksgiving. The spirit in our ranks since the election under President Trump is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it as a soldier myself in uniform, and I know a lot of you feel the same way. We've ripped out the DEI and the political correctness. It's all merit-based at the department. Getting back to basics: accountability, training, readiness, lethality. And that's reviving that spirit. And Mr. President, we're rebuilding the military. Historic investments. I just took briefings on the Golden Dome and F-47, next-generation capabilities that are going to make sure that for generations to come, America has the most powerful, most capable, most lethal military in the world, which you have rebuilt once and we're rebuilding again. And then we're re-establishing deterrence and credibility. If you look at what happened—we deal with every day the outcome of what happened in Afghanistan, the debacle under Joe Biden. We just dealt with it in the streets of Washington, DC, with those two National Guardsmen. And then what happened on October 7th with Hamas, what happened in Ukraine, a war that never would have started under President Trump. We're having to rebuild that. So whether it's freedom of navigation and taking the fight to the Houthis, whether it's Midnight Hammer, those beautiful B-2s going 37 hours back and forth undetected, delivering with precision and Iran not getting nuclear capabilities. Europe and NATO stepping up to 5%. Locking down our southwest border—it's been an honor to work with Kristi and Tom and everyone else down there to lock it to zero, operational control of our border. And then it's getting after and going after narco-terrorists and designated terrorist organizations in our own hemisphere. As I've said, and I'll say again, we've only just begun striking narco-boats and putting narco-terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they've been poisoning the American people. And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed them to come across the border. Cartels take over community. 20 million people, hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned. And President Trump said, 'No, we're taking the gloves off. We're taking the fight to these designated terror organizations.' And that's exactly what we're doing. So we're stopping the drugs, we're striking the boats, we're defeating narco-terrorists and we're standing—

And, Pete, you may say one thing, that drugs coming in through the sea, by sea, are down 91%. And I don't know who the 9% is.

I'm not sure either, sir, because down 91% by sea. We've had a bit of a pause because it's hard to find boats to strike right now. Which is the entire point, right? Deterrence has to matter. Not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse and repeat approach of previous administrations. This is meant to get after that approach. And I will just end by saying, as President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations. And we do in this case and all these strikes, they're making judgment calls and ensuring that they defend the American people. They've done the right things. We'll keep doing that. And we have their back, Mr. President.

Good job. Thank you very much. Howard.

So we set out to stop the rip-off of the United States of America. This is about global change of trade. We've been ripped off since 1945 when we set this policy. So we set out, and together with my partners Jameson Greer and Scott Bessent, we set out to change that. So we started, the first one was the UK deal, right? Asymmetric. They pay us 10% and we get charged nothing. That allows us to export, and that began the process. Then we did the biggest, the European Union. 450 million people, 20 trillion dollar economy. They completely opened their borders to us and we charge them 15%. That makes America 100 billion dollars a year and turns it back to where our economy is the best. And so it proved that President Trump's trade agenda was the right trade agenda. Then we go to Japan and Korea. They offer us 750 billion in cash to build in America at the president's direction. And we're going to start as an example, nuclear. Right? We need to have a nuclear arsenal in America of power, the generation of power. So we're going to build hundreds of billions of dollars financed by the Japanese and the Koreans, meaning they give us the money, we build it here, and we split the cash flow 50/50. We're going to build ships. 150 billion dollars worth of ships in America. That changes the way things work. Right? After those trade deals, then you go to how are we going to reshore? Right? Let's start talking about the auto industry. Right? We've been competed against by Koreans, the Japanese, the Europeans. We're kicking our tail. President Trump changed it. 25% tariffs, bring it all home. This year, General Motors stock up 40%. Ford up 34%. And on the same day that we announced we had set all the tariffs, Shawn Fain, the head of the United Auto Workers, called and said, 'I can't believe I'm calling a Republican Secretary of Commerce to tell the president that this is the greatest administration for auto workers in America.' Stocks up and auto workers up. That proves that President Trump understands how to take care of the whole ecosystem, both the companies and more importantly, the people who work there. Semiconductors. Right? We didn't build any. The Biden Chips Act was a 60 billion dollar giveaway. Right? We've now turned that. 300 billion dollars is committed to America. That's going to go up to 750 billion dollars in the next 60 days. Right? And then you go to pharmaceuticals. Right? 250 billion being invested in America. And then working together with Bobby Kennedy, right? Pounding away on that M-F-N, working together as a joint team. They're coming to over 250 billion and cutting prices in half. We did the Golden Share of US Steel to make sure the Mon Valley is protected. Intel gave us 10% of the company, make tens of billions of dollars. Right? And the last thing I will say is a year ago today, I was working on transition with President Trump. Right? To build the greatest cabinet ever, for the greatest president ever. And I, as I sit here today, I can't be more proud of how you did it, sir. You've created the greatest cabinet. It is a joy to be at this table.

Thank you. You know, one thing we will mention. So they came to see me from Intel, and they had a problem. I said, 'Look, we'll fix your problem, but I think the United States is entitled to 10% of your company.' And the chairman looked at me and he goes, 'You have a deal.' Tell them how much money we've made since I made that deal.

It's only 40 billion.

40 billion. We made 40 billion dollars. That was, what, three months ago. Does anybody write about it? Nobody writes about it. That's okay. Mr. Secretary, how are we doing with transportation?

Well, Mr. President, just quickly on aviation. Many of you have heard that we have an infrastructure made of copper, we have to transition to fiber. The last administration said it was going to take more than ten years to complete the transition from copper to fiber. They had no plan to actually do it. We have already completed a third of this transition from copper to fiber. Now it's going to take longer for us to go from analog to digital. By the way, the rest of the world transitioned 20 years ago from analog to digital. We are just going to do that at the FAA right now. But we're buying new radios. We're going to buy new radar. By the way, those radar are going to be made in America, Mr. President. This will all be—this phase of the operation will be completed by the time you leave office. It's three years. I do need another 20 billion dollars, Congress, to start the second phase, which is really important and we'll try to get that done also in that three-year time period. But we need the money critically, importantly. With regard to commercial drivers' license, I think we've covered a lot the crashes that have taken place around the country and what we found is there have been states that have issued commercial driver's license to foreigners. And they've gone through sham schools and they're not safe on American roadways. And so in partnership with Secretary Noem, we have driven those numbers down. We got California, Gavin Newsom, to revoke 17,000 unlawfully issued licenses. We've closed down half of the fake schools that give out these fake licenses. All critically important. Governor Tim Walz of Minnesota gave 33% of these licenses unlawfully. People that should never have a driver's license driving a big rig on American roads, endangering the American people. Shameful. We've cleaned up Union Station here in DC per your directive. We're going to rebuild Penn Station in New York. We're going to break ground at the end of 2027, get that project operational. And you know, Mr. President, a lot of us, I fly commercially, I fly back by the bathrooms, I don't know why that happens, they put me in the back. You know, we've asked Americans to bring their better selves, to bring civility back to travel. To say, listen, let's say please and thank you and if you have a—someone's pregnant on your flight and you're as strong as Pete is, well, pick up the bag and help her put it in the overhead bin. Let's be nice to each other, is what we've asked. Maybe not wear pajamas or slippers on the airplane. And I think it's been received fairly well and I think we can all have a better travel experience when we do that. And just the last point I'll make is there was a big football game where the Merchant Marine Academy that falls under DOT actually beat the Coast Guard with Kristi Noem. We beat them by one point, and so we're very proud of that.

Nice. Well done, Kings Pointers. So a little bit in a nutshell, we're rebuilding the air traffic control under Buttigieg, and it's supposed to be Buttigieg-Buttigieg. He was another grossly incompetent person. He'd get on his bicycle ride to work and he was just terrible. What they do is they take the fiber optics and they take fiber trying to hook it into copper. And fiber and copper don't mix, you can't do it. But people knew that for the last 30 years since they started doing the fiber. And they spent billions of dollars and it didn't work. And you saw that by the helicopter crash, you saw that by into the plane, you saw that by a lot of things. So we're doing a brand new air traffic control system and it's going to be the best. And it's going to be from top to bottom and we have the three top companies in the world bidding on it. And it's going to be one bid and we're going to have one company responsible and it'll be the best system. And it's going to make the—look, our skies are safe, otherwise we wouldn't let people fly. But we're going to have the safest skies. We're going to have the best system anywhere in the world. We're also going to rebuild Dulles Airport because it's not a good airport. It should be a great airport and it's not a good airport at all, it's a terrible airport. It was incorrectly designed with a good building, actually, it's got a beautiful terminal. Saarinen was the architect, one of the greatest architects in the world at the time. A great architect. And so they have a great building and a bad airport. But we're going to turn that around and we're going to make Dulles Airport serving Washington and Virginia, Maryland, etc. We're going to make that into something really spectacular. We have an amazing plan for it and other things. But you're doing a really good job, I appreciate it.

Thank you. Did you mention the people movers of Dulles? We had a crash recently. So we're going to announce that later today, the request for bids on this, but again, it's a—it's not a great airport which we can make great in this administration, Mr. President.

We have a design that's amazing for Dulles. It's going to take Dulles and make it a really bad—it was a badly designed airport. We're going to make it into as good as there is in the country. It'll be exciting. Okay, please.

All right. Well, Mr. President, it's good to be here at this meeting because in one year, you can look around the table and see the change. And I think one of the biggest changes is how this cabinet works together. And I want to start there. It's often been said, I found out some things this year that I didn't know, that the Department of what was Defense, now Department of War, and the Veterans Department had never really communicated. Now we're fraternal twins, in a way, Pete and I are. He lives better, I'm better looking. But in the looking at this, I mean, he brings them in, he keeps them for a number of years, up to 20 or longer, and then they come into the—what the country is committed to our veterans. And if you don't have both ends working correctly, then recruitment lags, morale lags, and we've been able to work and fix a great deal of that. I didn't need to change our name, but I did do one thing: I put the veteran back first at VA. And we did that in one year. How did we do that? We started taking things that had been neglected for a long time and put them back. We had a backlog in which we've dropped over 160,000. We're not talking year-to-year change at the VA, we're talking five, six years. We have to go back five to six years prior COVID numbers to see the change of backlogs that are now reduced. How do we do it in six months instead of the long time it took? In fact, it grew under the Biden administration, it shrunk over 160,000 under us. CHAMPVA, which is a program we have, is basically been back to day-to-day. It was at a terrible state with delays in claims and everything that's going on, we've got that back. We're doing things like taking a new look. I have one question that I ask when I go to my hospitals, which by the way, over 170 hospitals, 1,200 clinics. And I ask the people one thing, Mr. President. I said, 'What are you doing right now that if you were just honest and I wasn't standing here, you'd say this is stupid?' It's been amazing what we've gotten in the feedback that we've had, we've been able to change how we do credentialing, how we do privileging, how we do hiring. We're all working through that and it has all made a difference for our veterans as we go forward. C&P exams. For veterans out there listening, if this is the one where disability claims, well they say, 'Well let me send you to a doctor to make sure.' Most of the time we have that already in the record. We're working now to where those could actually be changed where we can just look at the record and not have to send them to a doctor. That's almost a three billion dollar savings that we could collect and also not taking what the veterans give. We're also getting ready to announce here pretty soon a reorganization that's going to bring our hospital system organizationally in line with the 21st century. We are the largest healthcare organization, it's about time we acted like it, Mr. President. You've gave that leadership, we're going to do it. And also one thing, community care contracts getting ready to go out. It's one of the largest contracts in the federal government, but it does exactly what you and I have talked about before: making sure that our veterans can get care in the system or in the community wherever they want it, we're getting ready for that. Now I have one thing for all the press who really enjoyed the first of the year saying, 'Oh, you know, they're going to cut all these jobs, 80,000 this, 80,000 that at the VA.' Mr. President, every success that I just gave you came after the fact or pretty much after the fact that we had 30,000 take early retirement. Early retirement, no RIFs, although you reported it is laws and RIFs, you can't help yourself. 30,000 took retirement. Every bit of the success that I just told you about came with a reduced workforce. It was a motivated workforce that said, 'How can we take care of veterans?' That's what this cabinet does, that's what we're doing for you.

Good job. And you've got the highest approval rating we've ever had at the VA. So that tells you something. You're doing a great job. Thank you very much. Jameson, please.

There's been some activity on trade this year. You know, for about 75 years, we had a system, a global trading system that was premised on the United States having totally open borders, right? Not just on immigration, but on goods and services. And everyone else generally kept higher tariffs, higher non-tariff barriers, etc. Obviously, the outcome was we had a huge trade deficit. You took it head-on, you gave all of us who work on the file a lot of leverage. So we spent the past ten months or whatever we've been doing now just going around the world and flipping the script. So now we're in a situation where we've protected our industries, we have the tariffs, and the other countries have decided to take their tariffs down and non-tariff barriers down. And we've done it in a very constructive way. We've achieved agreements on reciprocal trade, which are a new kind of trade agreement that's really focused on making sure we have balanced trade, we have reciprocal trade, that we're treating each other fairly. And it's been embraced by the international community. And it's going to be exciting to see what it's like five years, ten years from now because you've changed it. And that's how it's going to be now. And I think you should be commended for it and we look forward to seeing what comes in the next few years.

Thank you very much. He's doing great. He's doing a great job. Thank you very much. Please.

Thanks, Mr. President. Last time I was here, I said that the amount of dereg that we had for regulatory was 30 to 1. Since then, it's up to 48 to 1. Your goal had been 10 to 1, which was in excess of 6 to 1 in the first term. It's actually much higher than that, but I made my team redo this the threshold a little bit because it sounded so unbelievable. But the amount of work that's being done with this entire team is astronomical. And another detail in that is that when we propose a rule, some of the biggest ones that you care the most about don't go into that count until they are finalized. So next year should be even more eye-popping. One of those to talk about is the Federal Acquisition Regulations, which you gave us a charge six months ago to dramatically reduce. In six months, we've lowered it by 25%, 500 pages, 2,700 mandates, which is a third of the mandates. That's going to lead to savings, competition, and speed. So probably 40 billion dollars for the agencies in savings over the course of 10 years. When we get up and running, it'll be north of between 200 and 400 billion dollars. Competition: about 45% of government bids only have one bidder. So you got no competition in that situation. That will now change. And then we're just getting faster. Months and hopefully we turn them into years, which means you all around this table can buy things that you need quickly and that you have better vendors to come, many of them small businesses who want to participate in the federal procurement process. So making all sorts of improvements on that front is very exciting. Thank you, Mr. President.

That's great. And great on the regulations. We're cutting them at levels never seen before. And I have the record from the first four years, but we're blowing that record away. So it's been really great. Scott.

Yes, sir, Mr. President. Great to be with everyone. And you know, when you were giving your report, which was fantastic, and I listened to the report of all my colleagues here and those that will come, it reminds me when I played in the NFL, we had this thing called 'game film.' You know all about film. And we had a saying that said, 'The film don't lie. The film tells the real story.' And I hope that the American people, when they watch the film that's going on now at this time in our history, that they will see that America is greater today than it ever has been. And so I thank you for that and thank you for giving us good stories that we can tell for the American people.

Scott, we're saving our country. Okay? And I don't want to be braggy, but we're saving our country. Our country was going down and would never have been able to come back. We're saving all of us, but we're saving our country. All right, go ahead, please.

So at Housing and Urban Development, in keeping with your executive order, sir, in making America's streets safe and beautiful again, we've been very intentional about making public housing in our country safe. And I want people to know, our colleagues know this, but people in America know that we actually care about people that live in public housing around our country. A lot of public housing is wrought with crime, sex trafficking, drug trafficking, illicit drugs, illegal aliens living in public housing, but we've put them on notice to let you know that it's not lost on us. We care about the people, we're paying attention to it, and we're going to root out crime in public housing. We've been very focused on working with the Memphis Safe Task Force, the DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force, working with Pam and Kristi and others in law enforcement. Our law enforcement is tremendous. Every single night, they go out and they go to public housing to make sure that our people are safe, mothers and children are safe. And so at HUD, you know, it's a different day, we're running new plays. The film was real bad when I came in, I'm going to be honest. But we are giving the people that live in public housing the assurance that they will be safe. And we also announced a new crime hotline, sir, that people that live in public housing if they see criminal activity, if they see illegals living there, if they see drug trafficking—if you see it, if you hear it, report it. Don't be afraid. And so working with our Office of Inspector General, we've set up this crime hotline. And also working with Kristi and Department of Homeland Security, making sure that everyone that lives inside of public housing is accounted for and that they are American people. And so I say that and I emphasize that to know that we prioritize American people and American people only. Lastly, sir, in Atlantic City, we took over the Atlantic City public housing because the living conditions were deplorable and they have people that have been living there for three generations and they've been treated very bad. And so I took it so that we could now give people a safe place to stay. And working with the First Lady in the Foster Youth Initiative has been a great joy for me and our team. So thank you for doing that executive order to make sure that our foster youth have a safe landing pad and have financial literacy as they age out of the foster youth system. And sir, you talked about affordability. HUD has supported over one million Americans in home ownership and affordability, and over 560,000 are first-time homebuyers. So I hope that the press will write about that good news, that a million people are able to own a home and to refinance their homes. And sir, we're moving our building from DC to Alexandria, Virginia. So thank you for your support. We're going to save the American people about 500 million dollars. So that's my report. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Scott. Very much. Brooke.

Well, coming off of Thanksgiving, moving towards Christmas, I think it's the season of Thanksgiving and gratitude. Two words for me are gratitude and joy. Gratitude to you for, as Howard said, bringing this team together. I say it a lot, but I'll say it again, that this is like family at this point. And I don't know that there's ever been an organization like this, at least in government like this, in the history of our country. These jobs are hard, but the joy every day in getting to fight for America and save the country is the privilege of all of our lifetimes, I believe. So thank you for that. At US Department of Agriculture, the people's department—Abraham Lincoln launched this department in 1862—but under your leadership, we have finally again put farmers and ranchers and rural America first. In the last year, it's no longer DEI, climate change, sending out money based on the color of a farmer's skin. It's now about literally putting farmers back at the center of it. And under the last administration, and we talked a lot about affordability, we'll continue to talk about that, but under the Biden administration and the destruction of our economy and the cost of inflation, interest rates for farmers and ranchers went up 73%. Labor went up 47%. Fertilizer went up 36%. Fuel went up 28%. So when you think about the extreme economic strain that a lot of our farmers are under in our farm economy, these are massive, massive numbers that will take some time to get out from under. But we've already seen the beginnings of the movement toward more affordable food, housing, fuel, etc., and that will only continue to trend as we work to solve those issues. My partners in trade—of course, they do the work, but I'm constantly talking to them about selling more soybean, selling more corn, getting more of our products out. But when we really think about how to solve for this idea that for so long our farmers, many of them have been farming for government checks instead of moving their product around the world, these trade deals change that forever. And it isn't one trade deal or two trade deals, it's dozens of trade deals. And so talking about rural prosperity and bringing the golden age back to rural America, which has been lost for too long—and we're going to focus on that next year, hopefully with our Vice President, many of our cabinet members—but the opportunity to do that under these new trade deals is unprecedented. And so just putting farmers first, our ranchers first, Mr. President, is such a huge, such a huge priority and an accomplishment of the last year. The second quick thing is lawfare. And I know you know this better than anyone in the country, when a government politicizes and weaponizes their power to go after average everyday Americans—well, from you, the top of the heap as president, but all the way down to the ranchers in South Dakota, the Mod family, who were facing jail time over a fence line dispute that had been in their family for 130 years. We fixed that. The family, the Henry family in New Jersey, who were facing their farm being taken away for eminent domain to give to affordable housing. We fixed that. So being able to completely change the trajectory of private property rights, but especially as it has to do with our farmers and ranchers and our rural communities, changes everything for our country. And then the third thing, which we have so much great things to talk about at USDA, but the third thing which became very much a part of the national conversation during the Democrat shutdown was SNAP reform, food stamp reform. When all of America saw what so many of us know and have been working on, but when you have so much rampant fraud in a program that 42 million Americans participate in—now, big good piece of news that I hope is written about: since you became president, about 800,000 of those 42 million have moved off of food stamps, which is hopefully the plan with better jobs, higher wages, etc. But still, when we found 186,000 dead people or dead people's social security numbers being used; 500,000 people receiving benefits more than twice. We had a couple of people receiving benefits in six states. In February of this year, we asked for all the states for the first time to turn over their data to the federal government to let the USDA partner with them to root out this fraud, to make sure that those who really need food stamps are getting them, but also to ensure that the American taxpayer is protected. 29 states said yes, not surprisingly the red states, and that's where all of that data, that fraud comes from. But 21 states, including California, New York, and Minnesota, the blue states, continue to say no. So as of next week, we have begun and will begin to stop moving federal funds into those states until they comply and they tell us and allow us to partner with them to root out this fraud and to protect the American taxpayer. As Joe Biden was working to buy an election a year ago, he increased food stamp program funding by 40%. So now as we continue to roll that back. So the partnership in making America healthy again is also in food stamps, but a lot of what we're going to—Bobby and I are doing together is really remarkable. But again, just gratitude and joy for this work and so, so grateful to you. The final thing I'll say: a lot of gratitude to Secretary Marco Rubio for wearing his Aggie maroon tie as a reflection of Texas A&M beating Florida handily about a month ago. So, Marco, I want to thank you and much gratitude and joy in my heart as well.

But I think we also have to say something about—about China with one of the largest purchases ever in our country, the soybeans.

Yes, sir.

And so I want to thank President Xi. We had a great meeting, we were in South Korea, and I went to a lot of other places too, but we met in South Korea and President Xi was great and China gave us among the largest orders in the history of your world agriculture.

That's right. And sir, may I say, this is the—this is the remarkable result of real leadership and your real leadership. Just a couple of days ago, China announced that they were going to halt all purchases from Brazil because they had found some irregularities in some of the soybeans they're buying from Brazil. And what that means is a continued signal that this country and our farmers produce the best, highest-quality soybean, sorghum, etc., in the world. And what you've been able to do is open those markets up and again move toward an era where our farmers are not so reliant on government checks, but they have the markets to sell their product. Having said that, we do have a bridge payment we'll be announcing with you next week as we're still trying to recover from the Biden years.

To help the—yeah. To help the farmers. We're going to help the farmers. They did not help the farmers.

That's right.

Thank you very much. Thank you, sir. Scott.

Mr. President, it's been a great year on the economy, but the best is yet to come. The tens of trillions of dollars that have come in in investment, both the portfolio investment, investment by companies, investment by countries that is turning into a CAPEX boom for the US. Capital expenditure up 15% in history. When CAPEX is up, jobs will follow. The one big beautiful bill is an incredible—as you said—thanks to your leadership along with Speaker Johnson, Senator Leader Thune, we had that done on July 4th, which everyone said was impossible. And the great thing about that bill, sir, for the American people, it's for industry: 100% expensing, build your factory here, you can write it off immediately. But you also insisted on the four benefits for working people: no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, no tax on social security, auto deductibility for American cars. And that is retroactive. So as a result, in 2026, we are going to see very substantial tax refunds in the first quarter. So the best way to address the affordability crisis is to give Americans more money in their pockets, which is what this bill has done. We're going to see real wage increases, I think next year's going to be a fantastic year. Taxes, deregulation, energy certainty: that's why everyone with your leadership is coming to America. Bond market had its best year since 2020. Everyone said couldn't be done, so we're going to have growth. We've had two 4% quarters before the Schumer shutdown. We're going to go back to that. So not only are we going to have great growth, but it's going to be low inflationary growth. And stock market obviously is following. But next year is going to be the year for Main Street as all this kicks in. And you came in: immigration, I called it the three 'I's: immigration, interest rates, and inflation, that were killing the American people. Close the border, promises kept. Interest rates are down, and 10-year bond, again, best year since 2020. And inflation, led by energy prices, is going to roll next year. I think it's going to be a fantastic year. You know, we can look back, be very proud of this year, but I think 2026 is going to be great for the American people, thanks to you.

It's going to be great. Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President.

Thank you, Mr. President. It's an honor to serve with this great team that you've assembled. And I just want to pick up on something you said, Mr. President, because you hit the nail on the head, that it is absurd that Democrats talk about an affordability crisis that they created and the people around this table work every single day to address. You're going to hear a lot of statistics today, you hear a lot of statistics in our political conversation. I think the most important statistic for the American people is that under the Biden administration, the average American family lost over $3,000 of household income, and under the first 10 months of this Trump administration, they have gained over $1,000 of household income. What that says very clearly is that we are fixing the problem that Joe Biden and the Democrats created in the last administration. If you look at every affordability crisis that's confronting the American people today, it is traceable directly to a problem caused by Joe Biden and congressional Democrats. Why did homes get so unaffordable? Because we had 20 million illegal aliens in this country taking homes that ought by right to go to American citizens. Why did tax bills get so unaffordable? Because Democrats were raising taxes while congressional Republicans under the president's leadership were now cutting taxes. Why did food get so expensive? Because we printed trillions of dollars and threw it into green scams that made our agricultural economy suffer while Americans were paying higher prices for food. On every single one of those issues, Mr. President, I think we've made incredible progress. But it would be preposterous to fix every problem caused over the last four years in just 10 months. I think that we've done incredibly good. But what I see over the next year—and you heard Brooke talk about joy and gratitude—what I really think this season represents for me and I think for the entire administration is that we have now done incredible work to fix what Joe Biden broke. And I think that next year in American growth and American prosperity could be the best year that we've had in the United States of America. It's going to happen because we're all working hard. It's going to happen because we have the greatest country in the world. But I think for congressional Democrats in particular, if they want to talk about affordability, they ought to look in the mirror. We are fixing what they're broken. We're proud to do it. It's the job that we were elected to do. But I think 2026 is going to be the year where this economy really takes off.

Very good. Thank you very much. Pam.

President Trump, thank you for talking about Sarah. Heartbreaks for her family. And Andy is doing well. His parents Melody and Jason wanted me to tell you, and I was with them yesterday in the hospital. He's a miracle. I was there when the surgeons came in and they—they wanted you to know this. He's a miracle, and if everyone in this country can continue to pray for that family. He's got a long road ahead of him, but he is a miracle. And of course our DC initiative is led by our amazing—oh, and the monster will be held accountable who did this. Our—our Marshals of course are leading the DC safe effort. We have made over 7,000 arrests at your direction. DC is safe again. Working with everyone around this table: Pete and everyone, Scott and I were in Memphis together last week, and everyone—and Bobby, your HHS doctors and medics are on the ground to help people in Memphis and DC. In Memphis, we've made over 3,500 arrests so far. And Homeland Security, Kristi, you've been instrumental in this. But it's everyone working together as a team. We even have Treasury agents out there, it's unbelievable, on the ground in DC and Memphis. Of course, law enforcement first. FBI, you know, Cash Patel has led the FBI, we have a 100% increase in the arrest of violent criminals thanks to your leadership. DEA, led by Terry Cole, over 45 million fentanyl pills, 4,200 kilos fentanyl powder. That is the equivalent of 347 million potential lethal doses. That's unbelievable that you've taken off the streets of our country. And the weight of all the drugs combined taken off by DEA is the weight of 17 full semi-trucks of the drugs just since you've been in office, the drugs that had flowed into this country under the previous administration. ATF, led by Rob Socata, has seized more than 31,000 illegal guns. 31,000. Unbelievable, at your leadership. 19,000 of those were from trafficking cases. We've been sued on the legal front now, we've been sued 575 times. 575 times. More than every administration going back to Reagan combined. Most recently yesterday, I was sued by an immigration judge who we fired. One of the reasons she said she was a woman. Last I checked, I was a woman as well. 24 Supreme Court wins, President Trump. 92% success rate. We told you it would take a while to get to the Supreme Court, we're doing it at record speed, led by John Sauer. And of course Sarah and Tosh, all working together. Immigration, we're winning nationwide injunctions, ending DEI funding, working to secure that our federal workforce is aligned with your America First agenda. Representing pretty much everyone in this room. We met with your general counsel yesterday, Doug. Met with—meeting working with everyone, it's nonstop. ICE, of course, we're winning there with Kristi. We're—Brooke, SNAP benefits, won there. Marco, USAID. Pete, National Guard, of course. Going nonstop. Our US Attorneys are fighting violent crime, working around the clock to make America safe again, which was your directive. Our Civil Rights Division, suing Gavin Newsom three times now: Prop 50, keeping boys out of girls' sports and in-state tuition for illegal aliens. We've—sued over election integrity, we are litigating major universities with Linda. Thank you, our Civil Rights Division for everything that you've done to end DEI in our schools. Our Civil Division, fighting sanctuary cities every single day. And of course our Antitrust Division with Google, major settlement. Our attorneys are working on terrorism, TDA, MS-13, Antifa, President Trump. We've charged more than 500 defendants with assault on federal officers, thanks to your directive. And also, we have dropped countless cases against Americans that were prosecuted under the Biden administration, including J6, COVID, FACE Act, and more. And as everyone knows, we cannot talk about pending grand jury investigations, but no one is above the law, and that includes what happened in Arctic Frost. I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, and happy holidays. Thank you for fighting for our country.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Please, Lori.

Well, thank you, Mr. President. Thank you for allowing me to be at this table. When I came on board, I knew really none of you. In this last year, it's been a year, Mr. President, since I've had the pleasure to serve this country on the workforce. Everybody said the Department of Labor would be quiet, fly under the radar, you won't have to do too much. Absolutely not, because you made the American people realize the American dream is real for the American workforce. And it's been under your leadership, Mr. President, that over 2 million jobs that have been created since you started have been native-born workers. And that is the difference between this presidency, this administration as opposed to the Biden administration, where mostly foreign-born or federal government jobs. And I think through the private sector, over 2 million jobs of native-born. And so the Labor Department has wasted no time in putting that into action with our Make America Skilled Again grant dollars, but the intentionality of the apprenticeship program. 1 million active apprentices across this country. We have done over 250,000 new apprentices so far in the first year and registered over 2,000 new apprenticeship programs. Why do we need the apprenticeship programs? With the men and women in the trades because of the leadership of on-shoring and re-shoring and have a lot of these companies reinvest in America. We have to build this country. We cannot do that without the tradesmen and women and the craftsmen of this country. And I think that, you know, Howard and I, we talked about that from the beginning and we're going to have to lean in on that because we need the labor force, 700,000 new skilled jobs with electricians, construction workers, machinists, and so forth. And as I traveled with the Vice President as well, we see that on the manufacturing floors of this country. They are in desperate need. The Department of Labor are going to get the workforce skilled again. Working with Secretary McMahon as we move a lot of the education out to our respective states, we are now working together and we have deployed 86 million dollars in investments. And a lot of that is in AI infrastructure jobs to have our new workforce proficient and literate in AI if we're going to continue to lead the AI race. And we're working on that and the Department of Labor is now creating and will soon launch the AI infrastructure and workforce hub, which we will be able to track that metric to see exactly if these dollars are going correctly. Integrating education and workforce with obviously Administrator Lutnick and I are on the road a lot together because we're talking about Main Street as well as a lot of the manufacturing jobs and how we're being an ally to our businesses as opposed to an adversary. For far too long under the Biden administration, we were adversaries to our business owners and we want to give them a leg up always and make sure we're paying attention. And we want our workforce to be educated. We do not need the numbers that we have seen across this country where our fourth through eighth graders cannot do—read, write, or do any math and they are our future workforce. We have to depend on the American worker first. Also, lowering healthcare costs. In line with the executive order, I'm working with Treasury and HHS in rulemaking is underway to expand healthcare transparency and make pricing more affordable for our employers who offer these to their employees. Promoting retirement security. The Department rescinded the Biden administration's guidance that restricted the use of crypto in the retirement investments and we're seeing more and more of that, where we also rescinded the supplemental statement that discouraged the fiduciaries from considering the alternative assets for 401(k)s and that will also come through the Department of Labor, that rulemaking. Ending abuse of cheap foreign labor at the expense of the American worker. We launched over 200 investigations into companies who will have abused and/or fraudulently against the American worker. So Project Firewall was released. Thank you, Mr. President. We want the trained workforce, but we will root out the fraud and abuse and protect the American worker first. And slashing the job-killing regulations. The Department has rescinded discriminatory DEI practices, and I will tell you, reducing compliance costs for businesses as it was for DEI has saved American businesses nearly one billion dollars this year by just getting rid of DEI for that compliance cost that they've had to do. So, Mr. President, continuing to skill the American worker. The American workforce is going to be my mission. We have to do it faster, we have to do it quicker, we have to build so that the American people can realize that American dream that you have laid out so elegantly. And it's an honor to serve under this administration and to talk to the American workers who believe in the American dream again. The pride on their face, the pride of the American worker, the skilled men and women who build with their hands. It's an honor. So thank you and Merry Christmas.

Very good job. Thank you very much. Chris.

Mr. President, I am honored and frankly inspired to sit at this table with this incredible team of leaders that work every day for one and only one constituency: the American people. Not this group or that group, the American people. The price of energy that is very much on the mind of Americans. The biggest determinant of the price of energy is politicians, political leaders and policies. That's what drives energy prices. Under your leadership, what we've seen in the United States is just a steady drop in the price of gasoline. A huge consumer cost for Americans. As you mentioned early on, well below three dollars a gallon right now and trending downward. There are a number of stations in the heartland of America with $1.99 signs flying today. That's simply impossible without the leadership and changes you've brought. Now of course you can go to California, where the average price of gasoline is between $4.50 and $5.00 a gallon today in California. That's just bad political leaders there and bad policies in California.

And taxes. The taxes they charge on gasoline are just insane. Terrible.

And electricity prices is a very parallel story, but it's a—it's a bigger moving ship so the changes are a little bit slower. But Americans are outraged at, you know, roughly 30% rise in the average price of electricity across this country. But everything we are doing together is going to reverse that. Not just stop the rises, but start a downward trajectory in electricity prices. And I can say that with confidence not because we think these policies work, we know these policies work, and I'll get to that in a second. We're going to stop closing power plants—we've already done that, of course—stop closing the coal power plants and natural gas plants that were shut down. We've got over 30 gigawatts of generators just sitting there today not allowed to run. Well of course we're fixing that immediately. We're going to bring on from our existing grid tens of gigawatts more capacity. It'll drive down the cost of electricity. But if we look at the last five years to see what works and what doesn't work. The most Trump-aligned policies in the electricity sector were by no surprise one of your cabinet members: Secretary Burgum, for eight years Governor of North Dakota. Over the last five years, production and demand for electricity in North Dakota grew 35%—think what data center boom is going to do—and what happened? Electricity prices went down. Didn't rise slowly, they actually went down those five years. That's the answer. Trump-aligned energy policies increase demand for electricity. Nebraska and Texas, more Trump-aligned states, had significant growth in demand for electricity. They had electricity price rises, but well below the price of inflation. Unfortunately, Biden brought all of us a lot of inflation. If you look at the other end of the spectrum: California, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maryland, I could go on. What happened in those states? Policies and politicians that force the building of unreliable electricity generation, which requires new infrastructure and transmission lines, and what happened? Today they produce less electricity than they did five years ago. A lot of spending money and less electricity. What does that mean? Of course, much faster rises in the price of electricity. Blue states have had one and a half times faster rise in electricity prices than red states. Red states alone less than inflation. We need to bring those policies—you are bringing those policies to the national level. We hope the blue states will come along with us, but your policies are going to start the decline of electricity prices nationwide under your leadership by just bringing back common sense. So thank you for allowing me to be part of this team. For people here who are focused on winning, special thanks to Howard and Scott who were there with me to see the Denver Broncos win on Monday night. Now we want nationwide wins on energy for three more years.

And we're doing more energy production than we've ever done by far right now.

Records across the board that will continue to be reset every year you're in office.

Thank you very much. Kristi.

Well, Mr. President, thank you for giving me a very interesting job. Some days it's a little controversial too, but it's been an honor to work for you. You are a great American. The fights that you pick are the right fights and they're always on behalf of this country. So I appreciate the chance to do this job heading up this department. If you think about what Joe Biden did with the Department of Homeland Security, he used this department to invade the country with terrorists. He opened up the borders, let anybody come in that wanted to. He put them on airplanes, he let them through our airports if they could figure out a way to get to our shores and in our country, he just opened the door and invited them in. So it's our job to get them out, and I want to thank you for this team because I look around the table and I think every single person here has helped me do my job over the last year. They've supported us at the border and given us resources. Marco negotiates all the travel documents and relationships with other countries to take their people home. 2 million people have gone home already. The people that were here illegally, you've removed from our country and sent home. And we're going to send more home for the holidays too and make sure that they get to be with their families in their countries. Yes.