President Trump Signs Massive Border Security & ICE Funding Bill

Acting Attorney General Todd Blanch and Todd is up and I hear he's got tremendous support in the Senate and he's got tremendous support everywhere actually. He's doing a fantastic job. And Secretary of Homeland Security Mark Wayne, where's Mark Wayne?

Yep. Amazing, as well as Senate Majority Leader John Thun and Senate Majority Whip John Baraso, who's here, I think.

And John, you're incredible. From day one, we got along.

First day I met him. House Majority Leader Steve Scaliz, one of the bravest people. And what he went through is incredible, incredible. And I actually think it looks better now than he did.

Oh, is it tonight? With a baseball watch. And House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, who is an unbelievable leader, actually just so highly respected. And he's in Minnesota and he's ripping him because he knows what's going on. It's you have your chance now, Tom, because people have really found out about it.

No, but he's working with our people. They look like Elliot Ness and the gang up there, right? They're finding billions of dollars of fraud and Tom Emmer is really helping us. Thanks, Tom.

And thanks as well to Senator Lindsey Graham, who had a big victory last night. He won by a lot, and no runoff, no nothing. They had a lot of very capable people running against him, and he just blew him away. So Lindsey Graham, congratulations. And Chuck Grassley, Rand Paul, who's here. Hi, Rand. Boy, oh boy. It's nice to have Rand.

Where's Bernie? Hi, Bernie. What a job, right?

So how's the race going in Ohio? You're very popular there. And you'll drag every Republican.

We're also pleased to be joined by Representatives Lisa Mlan, Jody Arrington, and Jody, where's Jody?

Favorite budget chairman, Gabberino, Laura Lee, thank you. Riley Moore, a newcomer who's doing really well. Guy Rashianthaler, Derek Venorton, as well as Angel Sister Chris Story. You know that fantastic and we appreciate it, Chris. We appreciate it.

For more than 100 days, congressional Democrats tried to block all funding for the Department of Homeland Security in a reprehensible attempt to throw open the borders of the United States of America. They want to drag straight back to chaos and crime, the crooked Joe Biden administration, one of the most corrupt administrations, probably the most corrupt ever. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. And we're not going to let him do that. I have to say that Washington just had some crime numbers out and it's the lowest number, best crime numbers that we've had, they say, in 58 years. So we went from being a crime-ridden city, our capital, being a crime-ridden place, to being among the safest cities in the country. I'm so happy. And you're big beneficiaries because most of you live here. You hear all the time, the press, the media, and even actually some of the media, a couple of people that I would not suspect, a couple of people truly treat me unfairly, but they came up and they thanked me because it's so much, we have a safe city now. We also have a beautiful city. We had 22 fountains. Every one of them didn't work. One of them, probably the best, was one that hasn't worked for 50 years. That was about the best. They've all been out of commission for 50 years or more. Can you imagine that? They were graffiti-strewn, grass-strewn, grass growing through the cracks, and they were in terrible shape. And all 22 have now been opened and the most magnificent possibly of all. Although the one in front of Union Station is beautiful. You see that? It was all graffiti all over the place. We, through a lot of work, got it looking maybe better than it was the day they put it in. But the one that they're all talking about is the almost 2,500-foot long. That's taller than any building in the world. Actually, there's no building that's 2,500 ft tall, I don't think. But it's like twice the height of the Empire State Building, as an example, much wider. So we just got that open last night. We went to do it before July 4th, and it is incredible. It's called, it was originally called 1922 was built. It was called the reflecting pond or the reflecting lake some people called it, but it was supposed to be reflection. It never worked from 1922 because it was stone on the base and no matter what it always leaked because you have stone and you have lots of crevices and we have nice stone out there, but if you go between the stone, it leaks and so it never really worked very well and it was a bad color. It was gray. It's concrete and stone so it was gray. And I had the idea along with some great people that worked for us, Doug Bergam, fantastic, his group, Greg, everybody. And we worked very hard, but it was going to cost $400 million. And we did it for about $10 million. It was going to take four years to build. And we did it in like a month, month and a half. And we would have had a construction site out there for years. And it wouldn't have worked when they built it. So when they told me what they were going to do, I said, "That's not a good idea." I built many, many, many swimming pools as a builder. I built hundreds of them. And I got one of our contractors. I had him take a look. And he said, "Oh, we can do a great job if you could just give us a decent surface." The surface was inside. So we sandblasted the surface. We fumigated it. We took out 11 dumpsters, big dumpsters, full of garbage. It was all garbage. Some of the garbage was there for years. It was all disgusting and it smelled. And anyway, we took 11 dumpsters of garbage out with shovels. We had a shovel inside of what's called a pool or a lake and got it cleaned. We then fumigated it. We then sandblasted the entire thing. We washed it, cleaned it, scrubbed it, sandblasted it. Then we gave it a test. Then we rinsed it out and we gave it a beautiful surface. And then they put a swimming pool topping, but industrial strength. It's industrial strength. It's used for tanks and lots of other things to hold water. And we worked out the ratios of expansion and contraction because, you know, believe it or not, when you have something that's 2,500 ft long, there's tremendous expansion. And who would think of this? Only a person like me. And they have a lot of expansion and contraction. So when we're putting the surface down, we would leave areas that can expand and contract a little bit because it expands over a foot and a half. Can you believe it? So I would have ripped it apart. So we left areas of expansion and contraction. This, we were testing it for three weeks, four weeks. Works, it works great. And we just opened it last night and people are going wild over it. So it was going to cost $400 million and we did it for $10, probably $10 if you take away a couple of things. We did a much bigger job than originally planned because once we put that in, it looks so good. The sidewalks outside didn't look good anymore. You know, they look like they were in good shape, but when you do something new in this business, you do something new, the thing that you thought were good, you'd save it. So we ended up sandblasting, steam cleaning, and sandblasting the sidewalks around it. And we had a lot of areas that were in bad shape. We had to fix them. We patched them. And you can't even see the patch. We have granite surrounding the pool. And the granite's great, but it was filthy, dirty, disgusting, and it was broken in some cases. We were able to carve out pieces from other pieces that were identical and put them in. And you can't even see the seam. And it's like, it's in better shape than it was when it was built. I told you from 1922, never worked because it always leaked because it had a stone base. The water leaked through the stone. So we're very proud of it. It's going to be great. Now we're doing a new surface on the World War II fountain because the surface is so bad and that'll be done during the next couple of weeks. We're going to start in a week or so, finish it very quickly. But we've done a great job and the city, everyone's coming up to me saying the city is so beautiful. So we have 22 fountains that none of them worked. The earliest, I'm telling you, it's 50 years, for 50 years. Some of them haven't worked for 100 years, but we have fountains that were not working and were disgusting and dirty, and they're all beautiful now. Every one of them. We also took care of a lot of the monuments, not fountains, but monuments. And they're all in good shape. Some of them are being finished up now. And it's incredible. My goal was to get it all done along with Interior and others that worked with us to get it done before the July 4th date. July 4th was a very important date. So that was the date we looked at and we did a hell of a job. But everybody's looking at that reflecting pool. They can't believe it reflects. We used a dark blue. It's called American flag blue. I wanted to go light but they said sir, light doesn't reflect and light shows leaves and garbage if garbage. One man said sir, when you leave, it'll be strewn with garbage again and you don't want that. See, when I'm here it'll be perfect, but when I leave, I said you're right about that. You're probably right depending on who's president or who's running it. But it's really beautiful. It's something for you to see. It's incredible. It's the largest, it's the longest pool in the world by three or four times. It's pretty amazing. That's where Martin Luther King made his great speech and they say he had a million people. And I made a speech there for July 4th a few years ago. And they said, and I was packed and they said I had 25,000 people. They said he had a million. But when you look at the picture, I said, "Well, wait, the people are even tighter at mine. I had more people than him, but they said I had 25,000 and he had a million." But I'm not going to argue with Martin Luther King because I don't. But the Secure America Act provides $38 billion to ICE, $26 billion to Border Patrol to ensure these critical law enforcement agencies have the necessary resources to do their jobs protecting our borders and getting criminal aliens out of the country. And starting on day one of my administration, we took the most dangerous, unsafe, violent, and open border people out of this country. We got them out. I'll give you an example. In Washington over five, I don't even know if you know this. It's not just policing. You have criminals. You have career criminals. There's nothing you can do to make them nice. They're tough people. They're bad people. Some of them had records 22, 23, one at 28 arrests and rough arrests for murder. And we took almost 5,000 people out of Washington DC. And if you remember, so 2% of the people create 91% of the crime. When you hear that number, it's great. I love that number because you can handle 2%. That's right. If it's 91 create 91, that's no good. Too many people. But 2% of the people and we took 5,000, almost 5,000 people out of Washington DC. They'll never come back. In addition, the National Guard and we work with the police department, law enforcement was great. And we have a very safe city. Everyone's going out to eat now. Restaurants were all closed. They were all closing. The few that were open were closing. And now you can't get a restaurant in Washington. Everyone wants to have a restaurant there. It's a whole different thing. So it's something we're very proud of. New Orleans, the same thing, by the way. It's a little earlier in the process, but I got a call from your governor. I got a call from Steve. They called me together actually and they said safest Mardi Gras. They said we've never had a Mardi Gras like that. They had the lowest crime they've ever had in the history of the Mardi Gras, which has been going on for a long time. They usually, as Steve said, they usually have numerous numbers of murders, but they had none. But beyond murders, I heard it was the best you've ever had, right?

And Memphis. And that's going to be great for the Super Bowl because we'll keep it that way. I think you're bidding on the Super Bowl coming in 2031. And it's going to be, now you can really say it was a safe city. And the other one is Memphis. Crime is down 77%. Can you believe it? People are calling me up. Friends are leaving Memphis. We're all leaving and now they're staying. And the governors, everyone's thrilled. It's amazing. And if they would call me for Chicago, we'd straighten out Chicago so fast. We'd straighten out New York fast. We'd straighten out Los Angeles fast. We do it really well. And part of it is you have to get the really bad ones. You have to get the career criminals out because they will hit you hard, and they ought to get rid of, by the way, cashless bail and you ought to do that as soon as possible where Mark Wayne.

Where they walk in, they commit a crime, they go out, in the afternoon they commit another crime, and sometimes those crimes are murder.

Cashless, I'll tell you what, cashless bail was a tremendous help to criminals, one of the greatest things that ever happened to a criminal, and they ought to end it in every city. They ought to end it. Chicago, New York, LA, they ought to end it. Starting on day one of my administration, we took the most dangerous, unsafe, violent open border in the world. We had the most unsafe border I believe anywhere in the world. And the numbers came out two days ago that for 11 months, not one person came into our country illegally through the southern border. We had 25 million people come in over a four-year period. We have it good and nobody tries to come in. All the caravans, I came up with the name caravan. It was, you'd have 25,000, 30,000 people coming up and they pour through the border. You've seen the scenes where they're knocking over the fences. Very, very bad, very dangerous situation. We don't have them anymore because they know they can't get through. So when they know they can't get through, they don't come. And a lot of lives are saved. Women were being raped on the journey up. They were being raped in numbers. 25, 30% were being raped coming up. You don't have that anymore because they don't come up in caravans anymore because they know they're not going to get through. So starting on day one, we took the most dangerous and unsafe violent open border in the world and we created the most secure border anywhere in our country. Probably one of the most in the world. I believe it was the most insecure and unsecure border anywhere in the world because there's no country, even a third world country, that has a situation like that where you'd have criminals just walk across totally unchecked. They had the Biden, it wasn't Biden, he didn't know what the hell was going on. It was people that are radical left lunatics who were very smart, very violent, very vicious, politically vicious. And they allowed this open border policy where millions of people came into our country unchecked, unvetted, people from jails, drug dealers, people from mental institutions, jails and mental institutions from all over the world were emptied out into our country. And we've got a lot of them out. We have a ways to go. It's very tough with the courts because these judges have been very terrible. They've been terrible. Very sad. But we're fighting our way through it. We have made this a much, in fact we've made it a country that as you saw last month, they said we had the lowest murder rate that we've had in 125 years. Think of that. And that's despite the fact because we got a lot out. But we do have more. We had 11,888 people come into our country who murdered, committed a murder. 50% more than 50% created more than one murder. Think of that. So you had people coming, one I think seven murders. We allowed them into the country. Got most of them out. In the last 12 months, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. We cut the flow of fentanyl across our border by almost 60%. Think of that. And by the way, coming in by sea, 97%. And we're looking for the 3% because we think they're among the bravest people. But we cut them down, right? We cut it down 97%. And now, I hate to tell this to Mexico, but we're now focused on coming in by land because the sea was tougher. A lot was coming in by sea. Much bigger percentage than anyone would know, safer for them. It used to be said, not safe anymore. But with 97% down coming in by sea, by ocean, by water, and you see what happens to them, and they don't do it a second time. They used to have, they were totally unchecked. When they did capture somebody, they'd bring them in. They'd book them and then let them go and they'd go and they'd be back on their boat the following night. So we're doing a great job. In the last 12 months, the numbers have changed in this country like nobody's ever seen before. But zero illegal aliens have been admitted. And that's made by largely Democrat people. Those lists are made. And I find it hard to believe when I say zero. There must have been some, but they say zero and it's very close to zero. It's hard to believe. You look, you know, they used to have certain areas on the other side of the wall. I built over a thousand miles of wall. Without the wall, you couldn't do it, but I built over a thousand miles of wall. We're building more now in certain areas where you need it. But nobody's ever seen anything like this. They had plazas. We have thousands of people standing in those plazas. They were done. They actually made them out of concrete because the land was so disgusting and dirty and it was so muddy and horrible. So they put massive concrete plazas on the other side for people to wait getting in. There's nobody on them. There's nobody. They took a picture this morning. There was nobody on any of the plazas. They have four of them big ones where they come and stand by the thousands. There was nobody on the plaza. So it's really amazing. I want to speak about in my speeches. I made a speech last week which was really wonderful, Wisconsin. That's right. And I wanted to speak about the great job I've done on the border and my people said, "Sir, nobody cares about that." They said, "What do you mean?" I got elected on that twice actually because I got elected the first time in 2016. And after I left it became horrible, horrible. Second time was far worse. What it was in 2024. It was so bad. Far worse than 2016. 2016 was like a pleasure trip by comparison to what it became. It became worst in the history of the world. I don't think there's ever been a border where 25 million people came across all unchecked and unvetted. You never let that happen. We can never let that happen. What happened to our country again because no country can stand it. No country could have withstood what these people did. We had a border czar who never saw the border. We had a border czar who never called, not once, the people that were giving good paychecks to, never called up ICE. They never called up the border patrol who are phenomenal people by the way. She never once called them. She was the border czar for four years, almost four years, and she never went to the border and she never called. I used to call them all the time. Paul, Brandon, I used to call them all the time and say, "Hi, how are we doing on the border?" "Sir, we're doing okay," but they're great people, amazing people. She never called them. We had the worst border, I think, of any country in history. No third world country would allow people to come into their country like that. So the bill provides crucial funding for domestic law enforcement investigations and combating child exploitation, continuing our work to restore law and order across our nation and to protect America's youth. We're so proud. We're so proud of Washington DC and the National Guard, the job they've done. And we've worked with the Washington, the Capitol Policing. They're great people. I've gotten to know so many of them. Very simply, the radical left Democrats and I'm going to use that term a lot because they're dumb. I mean, who wants open borders? Who wants transgender mutilation of your child? Who wants that? Who wants men playing in women's sports? They're dumb. They're Democrats. They have the worst policy of anybody. I watched that thug up in Maine. He's a thug and they're trying to make excuses for him. I mean, he's worse than any human being that's ever run for office, probably. I don't know him. I don't want to say bad, but I just look, nobody's ever had a record like that. And you'll have Schumer. He goes crazy over this or that or Epstein. Epstein. This guy, why aren't they talking about him? He said, "Well, we don't know, but this guy's got a rapture. I've never seen anything like it. He's a thug. I know thugs. I had to deal with thugs. I built a lot of buildings. I dealt with the toughest people on earth. I dealt with worse than thugs. This guy's a thug. He's a low-level thug. And he's running to be a senator to work with Eric Schmidt. Great. Eric will handle him. I think to be with Baraso, to who do we have to deal with? Rand. Now Rand would be very interesting with him. Rand would figure it out. He'll put him away. But this is a thug. He's a cheap, no-good person. And I watch these senators of the Democrats, "Well, we don't really know." You do know, he's as bad. I've never seen a person like that run for office. And the guy from Texas, different, but he's terrible too. He's terrible. These are radical left communists. But I watched this guy this morning and he was so bad. He was so bad. He's a bad guy, you know, just a bad guy. He must be laughing up his sleeve when he looks at these idiots going like Schumer. "Well, he's okay. He's okay." He's not okay. Can you imagine if the Republicans had him?

How about if we had him, John? Wouldn't let it happen.

Correct.

It's just a terrible thing. I mean, I watch it happening. It's unfolding. It's really history because there's never been a guy like that that's ever run for office at any level. I don't think at any level. And the excuses they come up every day somebody comes forward with really proven stuff. Even his business, you know, oh, he's not a businessman at all. His parents supported him. Guy's a loser. Other than that, he might be a very nice guy. But very simply, the radical left Democrats in and I don't look forward to the day when I don't call them Democrats anymore. And I won't if they do their job. If they want to stop crime, if they want to lower taxes, if they want to do the common education, the good things. There's so many things we can do together. I look forward to the day that I don't call them Democrats anymore. There'll be that day, I think. I hope. But they're in Congress and they voted with the cartels, the terrorists, the gang members, the drug dealers, the human traffickers, the child predators, and our great Republican majorities voted to protect law-abiding American citizens. I mean, they voted to raise your taxes. They voted for men in women's sports. They voted in favor of men participating in women's sports. It's ridiculous. They voted for the transgender mutilation of your child. They voted for all these things. They voted for open borders so bad. One of the worst things that's ever happened in this country. Hardest thing to cure because we had 25,000 people. Remember this. When countries put people into a cartel, through the cartels, they put them into a whole group of 10, 15, 20,000 people that come in. They're not giving you their best people. They're giving you people that they don't want and they're sending them into or the Democrats voted in favor of that. It's really a shame and it's so bad for the country. You'd almost think they hate the country because they can't they're not stupid people. You can't cheat like they did. And look at the election in California as an example. After a week, they determined that a kid who's leading and had all the mojo, all of a sudden he doesn't make the run. And then I hit them hard on that. But I started talking about Steve Hilton, who's a fantastic guy. And I saw them say it was going to be two weeks before they knew. And I started hitting them. It's going to happen to Steve Hilton, too. It's watch. You got to watch. And they approved Steve Hilton very quickly. They didn't want there was too much heat on him. The only reason he got approved, he had all the votes he needed probably to be first place. But the only reason they approved Steve Hilton, it was going to be two weeks. They said it. And then they approved them that night because the heat was on them because they're cheating dogs. And you can't have a great country when that happens. That's why Los Angeles, that's why that state is in such trouble. It's the most beautiful place, best weather maybe anywhere in the world, but it's in big trouble. So, we're going to have a tremendous success. The people alongside Amir are amazing people. They're amazing. Every one of them. I know every one of them. They're amazing people. They love the country. They want to do right for the country. And if you have any questions, please let's go.

Well, we're going to be attacking them and attacking them very hard.

Yeah. Well, we are based on the helicopter. I guess we have the right to do that. You know, they shot down a very incredible machine. And at first they said they didn't do it, then they admitted they did it. Sort of easy because we had the bomb. We actually have the bomb. Got very lucky that bomb didn't explode. That bomb was lodged in the helicopter. It didn't explode. It was on fire, but it didn't explode. Those two guys, they knew how to fly, but they got very lucky. And then we had the unmanned boat going very very fast at speeds that you wouldn't want to go. That's why it's unmanned, I guess, because nobody can go in that. But they rescued. So both people are fortunately the pilots are okay. No, look, I've been working with Iran for a number of months, and they should sign their deal. It's a good deal. It doesn't give them the right to have a nuclear weapon. In fact, it totally prohibits them from ever having a nuclear weapon. And it was just tap tap tap. I don't know what they're doing. So they then shot at our helicopter. Very expensive helicopter, by the way. But much more importantly, the two men, fortunately, they're okay. But an amazing rescue. If you ever get a clip, you won't believe the rescue, how cool it was, the equipment we have. Look, we have the strongest military in the world. And I gave them a break at the request of Pakistan. The field marshal and the prime minister of Pakistan are great. We stopped them from going to war with India. You would have had a nuclear war if it wasn't for me. But they became friendly to me, very friendly. And they're close to Iran and they work and they still are working on driving them to do what's right. But we want a deal that's meaningful. We want a deal that works. We don't want to just have a Barack Hussein Obama deal, JCPOA, the worst deal. That was a path to a nuclear. It's the exact opposite. You know, I like on television say, "Oh, they should have kept that deal." First of all, it was over. It was a short-term deal. But that deal was a path to a nuclear weapon. This is a path against a nuclear. You can't have a nuclear weapon. His was a path to a nuclear weapon. They were developing during his administration nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, there'd be no Israel. There'd be no Middle East and they would have absolutely shot at us. So, we'll see what happens, but we hit them hard yesterday and we're going to hit them again hard today in case you miss it, in case you don't turn on your television set. And we'll see what happens with the deal. We were really close to a deal, but they keep tapping us along. They keep playing us for suckers because you know what? They dealt with some very stupid presidents. I have to say that. I'm embarrassed to say some very stupid people were sitting here. Yeah.