in term one, things that i hoped could have been done, but we didn't quite have the political will to do it yet. we had a democratic congress at the latter half there, the house. these were ideas in the main that have percolated through the conservative movement, and really center right for decades. host: remind people what was in project 2025. was it a department of government efficiency, was that in project 2025? guest: the whole thing was about efficiency. there wasn't the department, but the idea with project 2025 was that the conservatives had to be ready to help the next president govern. particularly independent streak that we all have in us, the conservatives have never come together as a group. and it was really important that we put aside the petty differences and support the next president. so what we did with project 2025

was the first of its kind, looking at our friends on the left, looking how they always get ready, and saying to the entire country, be ready, be prepared. you know, to the extent that there's a reflection of project 2025 in what's being done by president trump now, it's that his team is ready to roll. they really want to be prepared to hit the ground. host: what do you think the reputation of project 2025 was by the end of the 2024 election? guest: you know, i think the ideas of project 2025, and what you see now are extremely popular. what the democrats have done was >> watch this program in its entirety at c-span.org. now to remarks from president trump speak at a republican governors association dinner. live coverage from the national building museum in washington, d.c. >> i want to start by thanking

president trumper for being here this evening. i asked him to come to this when the in-- when he invited the governors to a dinner at mar-a-lago for a dinner last year. he never hesitated just said i'll be there. we appreciate that. that's the promises made, promises kept approach which is exactly what we've all been watching as his administration keeps up a historic pace of executived offers, events and accomplishments. but also believe it's that same mind set that president trump had in his first administration working with myself and other governors. he knows just like we do that winning is a team sport. i think i can speak for everyone in this room and millions across america tonight in saying that we are excite and thankful to have a new quarterback calling the plays.

over the last four years, republican governors have been the last line of defense defense against the disastrous 1-2 punch of joe biden and kamala harris. of on the southern border the economy, government bureaucracy, energy production, our military, you name it, the biden administration did their best to leave it worse than they found it. contrast that with the last few months. we have seen an american comeback that has left the democrats in disarray, given hope and optimism to the american people, and put our country back on the path of freedom, security, and prosperity for all. mr. president, republican governors aren't tired of winning and we stand tissue we're ready to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with your administration to ensure that america's best days are ahead. so i hope you all will help bia

warm r.g.a. welcome in joining the 45th and 47th president of the united states, donald j. trump. welcome, mr. president. >> ♪ and i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free and i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today because there ain't no doubt i love this land god bless the u.s.a. ♪♪ [applause] >> ♪ from the lakes of minnesota to the hills of tennessee across the plains of texas

from sea to shining sea from. net to houston and new york to l.a. there's pride in every american heart and it's time we stand and say i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free and i won't forget the men who died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today because there ain't in no cut i love this land god bless the u.s.a. ♪♪ ♪ and i'm proud to be an american where at least i know i'm free and i won't forget the men who

died who gave that right to me and i gladly stand up next to you and defend her still today because there ain't no doubt i love this land god bless the u.s.a. ♪♪ [applause] pres. trump: thank you very much. that's such a great song. hard to cut it off, isn't it? you know? i want to get you home for the hockey game, i guess. we'll get this done real quick. quickly. and i want to thank you all. we have so many great friends here. great governors. a lot of talent. thrilled to be with the republican governors and they have done an amazing job and i look forward to working with each and every one of you as we complete the mission of saving america. they left us a real mess didn't

they, huh? and making our country great again. we're going to do it. we've made a lot of progress. given credit for having the best four weeks anybody has ever had as an opening. now a few hundred more weeks like this and we'll be in great shape. but we've had a lot of fun doing it too. it's a pleasure to do it. just ripped down whatever they've done. almost like i want to do one executive order, anything he signed is now terminate. easier than, you know, point after point after point. i sign and sign. just do one. everything he signed is no good because that's really what basically it's all about. i especially want to thank the chair of the republican governor's association, brian kemp, who is fantastic. he was fantastic. we won georgia by a lot. where's brian. we won georgia by a lot. where are you, brian. there you are. we did a gate job together. i appreciate it. won't forget it. thank you, brian.

as well as vice chairman greg gianforte, a friend of mine, done a fantastic job as governor for organizing this beautiful evening. in addition -- hi, greg, how you doing? you look good. you look good. in addition to our fantastic governors we also have secretaries doug burgham and chris wright. they are very important. where are they? where are they? doug, you were great on television. chris, these two guys are going to do it, i tell you if they get the energy pumping, we'll get that energy price down, everything is going to follow. everything is going to follow. we're going to work very, very hard. the gentleman from virginia that i recognize. we almost -- we almost won that, didn't we? we almost won it. we were just a little bit shy. but i want to thank you for the help. we did a great job together. but another man that's with us is really unbelievable.

you're going to be working with him very closely. r.n.c. chairman michael watley. michael, worked with lara and the team of him and lara were petty unbeatable, i would say. she was great. and had the victory. she's solid. there was no nepotism either. nobody said oh, gee, they said how did you get her? and i said to michael, who would you like to work with? how about laura. she came right after we won, dad, i want to go home to my family. she did a great job, wanted to go back home to her family. but what a team that was. we beat them left and right they tried to cheat. but they -- how many lawyers did you have, 2,000 louis some crazy number. 6,500 rathers. i would say that's a lot. and the reason i picked them is because with north carolina in 2020 we did so great in 2020. but the one that just held steady was him with his 601 lawyers at that time.

i remember, i said that's the guy. we're going to win but we have to keep them from being really bad. being naughty. they tried. put you know, we had an expression, got to make it too big to rig. that's what we did. too big to rig. it was a great night. and michael, thank you. great -- just a fantastic job. you'll be working with these ladies and gentlemen on just keeping everything, including keeping governor's seats i assume. working with them on governor's seats too, right? thank you, michael. great job. appreciate it. we're gathered tonight to really exciting time. our nation, i think it's going to be very exciting time. tremendous potential. i have been called by every company, brian just told me about a big one that's going to be moving in in a very big way. but i've been called by so many big companies that are going to want -- they want to beat the tariffs. there's only one way to beat the

tariffs. tariffs, one of the most beautiful words i've ever heard. went around saying it's my favorite word in the dictionary, i got killed by the fake news media. they said what about god, what about religion, what about love? i said all right, i give up. it's my fourth favorite. now i say god, religion, love, then tariffs, number four. and now i'm ok. i can get away with that. i couldn't get away with making it number one. the american people gave republicans a historic mandate november 5. november 5, what a day that was. huh? there was no games. november 5, 2024, will go down as one of the most important days in the history of our country. i believe that we won the house. we won the senate, we won the white house. and in the presidential race we won all seven swing states by a lot. and the popular vote by millions and millions of votes for the first time of any republican in decades.

hard for us to win the popular vote. it's not going to be anymore because we're a much different republican party right now. we're really -- nobody can believe what's happened to this party. become a big party. big and powerful party. we won 85% of all counties in america. think of that. 85%. have you seen the map? it's all red. little blue on the outside here. outside. whole thing is like red. they won 525 counties compared to us, 2,600 counties. think of that. i don't know why we only won by millions of votes. we should have won by a lot more than that. maybe it's because they cheated. who knows. and incredibly all 50 states shifted toward the republican party. that's never happened before. first time ever in history that that's happened. all 50 states. shifted toward the republicans. significantly in many cases. most importantly, for this room,

we're pleased to welcome eight new republican governors. could you stand up, please? just stand up. look at these people. i know them. i know the man. good. great. i know every one of them. bike braun of indiana. mike kiehl of missouri. kelly ayotte of new hampshire. larry rodin, that's great, of south dakota. kelly armstrong of north dakota. patrick morrissey of west virginia. jennifer gonzalez-colon of puerto rico. nikola polo of american samoa. and i want to congratulate you all you had great races. won generally pretty easily. we're going to win a lot of races. you know in presidential races they say when you win the presidency usually the mid terms don't go well. i think we're going to do great.

i think we're going to really increase our margins by a lot. that's why i went to michael and said you got to stay. can't go anywhere, michael. but i can tell you that i did something very different. our win was so big and so con cluesive presidentially and we had great help from donors, we have a lot of great donors in the room tonight. nice room, by the way. very nice place. but we did something differently. i said to my people who do the fundraising. everyone is so happy. usually you wait two or three year goes go back to the doe no, sir. let it rest, let their wallets cool off a little bit. i did it the next morning after we won. i said to meredith, who may or may not be here, i don't think she is, maybe she is. but i said to the whole staff of people. i said call everybody and see if they'll double up. we raised $1.6 billion they raised $2.7 billion. and they're running short.

condition raise the final 28. when you lose it's hard to raise money. when you win it's not so hard. i said see what you can do. call everybody and say thank you very much, appreciate it, would you like to make a contribution? so this was not a good situation but they fully understood. they were so happy they didn't care. michael, we raised $608 million in three weeks. can you believe that? so we got that money. and i got to spend it somewhere. and they tell me i'm not allowed to run. i'm not sure. is that true? i'm not sure. so if i can't spend it on me i guess that means i'll be spending it on some of my friends, right? a lot of any friends who are going to be running. think of that we raised $608 million. think of that. i think i'll keep going. keep bugging them, bugging them. build it up. it's going to be great. i think we'll do fantastically. i think the mid terms will be a big surprise. it just seems, i don't know what

it is. you go back to the last, i think, eight elections in a row, the mid terms haven't been great for the person that wins the presidency. i think so far we're very popular. i had a -- an approval rating today of 71 and another one of 69. i haven't heard of those numbers before. so it's, we're going to fight very hard. the better i do, the better you do. make yours races easier if we do well and we're going to keep doing well. with the help of everyone here tonight the golden age of america has officially begun. and the golden age of jus this whole thing, the red state, it's going to be leading the way to making our country richer and safer and stronger than ever before. the red states are going to do good. and the blue states, i don't know. maybe they'll totally disappear off that map. you know, they don't learn because you know like men and women -- men in women's sports. i say we've become the party of common sense. men in women's sports is not a

winner for them. but i saw somebody fighting like hell that a man should partake in women's sports, a democrat, a radical left lunatic. and they're still going at it we shouldn't fight them too hard until a week or two before the election. let them go. don't convince them not to. i'm always saying they haven't learned. i don't want to say that. don't say that. let them keep going. then about a week before the election just blast the hell out of them. it's like in a race. hang in there and then just go, there's no way, open borders with prisoners coming in. jails. the worst, some of the worst murderers in the world. we had one guy kill five people, separately killed five different people. this is not going to be a great person for our country. but we had 11,088 murderers right now. some of them have been already brought back. and you know, when you think abit, transgender everything. everybody should be transgender. these are not things that play very well. i would say they're 7% issues

for them. and they're over 90% for us. put they keep going. so don't tell them they're wrong. it's too long, two years or four years, it's too long. let them continue to go and say i think it's a brilliant idea. to have open borders to allow prisons and mental institutions people to pour in from all over the world. they came from everywhere. but about a week before that election go crazy. just save up your money and explain, we can't live like this. and they understand it. every day my administration we'll be fighting to help your states succeed and prosper and together we're going to bring back the american dream. something nobody talks about anymore. in our last four weeks, our new administration has accomplished more than most administrations do in four years and the last administration was a negative. it was accomplishment, i would say negative 50%. wasn't any accomplishment. it was a de-accomplishment. on day one i declared a national

emergency on our southern border. i sent our military to the border to secure the sovereign territory of the united states of america. we ended catch and release, we began the largest deportation operation in american history. larger even than that of president dwight d. eisenhower. you know he was sort of a moderate guy. he was very strong on the fact he didn't want people pouring into our country from owl over the world. very tough. he had the record, we now have the record. it's not a record i'm really proud of. don't like to do that. but we have no choice. we can't let them come in. they let criminals, many, many criminals, hundreds of thousands of probably millions of criminals, 21 million people i believe is the number and of that millions of people are hard stone cold criminals. in the past four weeks, illegal border crossings have plummeted by nearly 100% and the tiny number of illegals that do make it across are being apprehended and sent right back to their home where they belong.

all countries are taking the illegal aliens back. every single one. even though they said and strongly, we're never taking them back don't even try. they said that during the biden administration. didn't work. they're taking them back. they have no choice. they're taking them back. they know we're not playing games. you remember venezuela saying it. we're not taking them back. don't waste your time. he said they have us over a barrel. the brick states, they were trying to destroy our $. they were going to say, you know, wanted to create a new currency. probably wanted to you china's wan. and biden said, this is a tough situation. there's not much we can do about that. we can't help that. i said we can help it. when i came in, first thing i said is, any state that even mentions the destruction of the collar will be charged a 150%

tariff and we don't want your goods. we don't want to par takes and the brics states broke up. i don't know what the hell happened to them. we haven't heard from the brics states lately. they said the brics states are going to take over the dollar, create a new currency to rule the world. i said no they're not. they said yes they are. i said no they're not. tell them 150% tariff plus we're not going to do wiz them. that includes china. and all of a sudden they went to the wrics states, how do you feel about that? i have no comment on this, i don't know what you're even talking about. it was an amazing turn around. no, we're not playing games. just this week i officially designated the drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations including trendy aragwu a&m s-13. a which gives us great power.

and to facilitate the rapid deportation of the worst criminals anywhere in the world we opened the full capacity of the detention facility at guantanamo bay. that thing was built, we hear about a few prisoners but it was built for thousands and thousands of people and we're using that prior to bringing back to their country. we use it for the bad one, the really bad youngs. in some cases they're so bad we don't want them to go back to their country, we want to watch them, because if they do sneak in, we don't want them anywhere near our country. in addition we're waging war onager joe biden' inflation disaster. the worst inflation probably now history they say 48 years which isn't bad but probably in our history. and to bring down the price of energy i declared a national energy emergency, it's going to be an emergency and you know what -- what we say, what doug is going to do, doug, you are so important. you and chris.

chris is known i got this from doug, as the best energy guy in the country. there was nobody bigger, nebraska better. is chris wright here? is he here? where is he? this guy is, this is from doug. i said doug i want to make you the energy czar. he said there's one man that blows me away. there's chris wright. he employees me away. i said i want to see this man. i agreed immediately he was far superior to doug. so what i did, we have a weird deal. we have the department of interior and department of energy. chris has none of the energy but got a hell of a good title we want the guy with the energy to be able to drill.

i think it's going to set records like never before. we have the man that controls the energy. the man that drills the energy. now we put them together. you can see some action. you'll see something come way down. thank you, doug. he was a great governor. did a fantastic job. made a lot of money in the technology business. sold to microsoft for a lot of money. won't tell you how much. don't want to embarrass him. some people would say it's a lot. some would say it wasn't that much. when you get close to $1 billion that's pretty good. he didn't know much about energy when he became governor. he became one of the great experts of energy anywhere. did an unbelievable job with the state he did like me he did well in business then he said let's run for politics.

and they love him in the state. i watched him runs. -- running. he was running against me. i still liked him. i said that guy's got real talent. he's one of the first people i called. doing a great job. thank you for giving us, for leading us to chris. i'll give you a bringer thank you in two years if chris is as good as you say. ok. many -- if we can bring energy down, everything coming down. the eggs are coming down, the bacon is coming down, that's the biggest thing, the energy. those two guys are very important to cut through the red tape i established a national energy dominance council chaired by the former colleague and your former colleague secretary burgham. he's going to do a fantastic job. i west drew from the one-sided, very expensive paris climate accord. it's a one-bayway street. under that accord we pay $1

trillion. think of it. we pay $1 trillion they pay nothing. china doesn't pay anything. india doesn't pay anything. russia doesn't pay. we just pay everybody. it's like health organization and every one of -- every deal is no good. but we're changing we terminated health. you know, world health. we paid $500 million a year. and china paid $39 million a year. that doesn't sound good. they have $.4 billion. we have nobody knows what the hell our number so. so many people pour into our country. we used to say like 325. i have no idea. we'll figure it out eventually. let's put it this way. should be substantial, less than 1.4. let's say we have 325 million, they have 1.4. we're paying $500 million.

these -- relative to government these aren't huge numbers but this is an example of what happens when you have bad government, when you have incompetent people. they called me, they said we'll let you in for the same $39 million. i said we should be much less. but i didn't want to do that. i'm not going to talk. i said i'll think about it. it was very public. and when biden came in, he agreed to go back in to the world health for $500 million. he could have gotten, i mean, it's a lot of money. could have gotten it for $39 million joe. that's why you're not president any longer. i guess. could have had it for $39 million. it was very public. he took the $500 million instead because he never laid in bed at night sweating, tossing and turning like half of these governors, not all of them probably. but half of them. that sweating, how are we going to do a great job? he never did that. but that just -- a case study in

how not to run because you know, if we had people at that level that would have negotiated, i bought a plane through a -- two planes. air force one. now if boeing would build the damn thing it would be nice too. i gave the order about six years ago. they're still waiting. getting tired of it. i gave a fixed price deal.i gav. it was 5.7 billion. i got the $5.7 billion down to 4 billion. one penny less than $4 billion. i said it has have a three on it. he said, you want from $5.7 billion to $3 billion? i said, yeah. it has to start with a three. and after months of saying no, no, no, he called up and said, sir -- $3 billion i want and this is what happened. $3,999,999.99.

i said, you have a deal. but we saved $1.7 billion just by negotiating. some of you do do it. you have surplus states. you have incredible states and you have to do that because every time somebody sends you a bill, you expect it to be negotiated. in the past administration, and i guess it happens because people don't kill. -- people don't care. elon says if people don't care, they will send you a bill for $10,000 and you say, no, i will give you $5,000. and they say no way, and you end up paying six thousand dollars or $7,000. but all you have to do is care a little bit and try to get it down. but literally every contract, i don't think there is a contract in government that i couldn't cut and many of you can cut and cut substantially, and what a difference it would make for the

government. i terminated the green new scam, one of the greatest scams in our country. i canceled joe biden's insane electric vehicle mandate, saving our auto industry from destruction. that was an easy one. and all of this helps to combat inflation and bring down costs. we are bringing costs way down. we will bring up jobs like you haven't seen because the companies are pouring in. we will have announcements from some of the biggest companies in the world, and the numbers are staggering. hundreds of billions of dollars of investments. hundreds and hundreds. trillions of dollars, when you added up. to slash billions of dollars in waste and fraud we are talking about also. i created, as you possibly have read, the department of government efficiency. and here are some of the things we have paid and we have stopped, and we have gotten the money back. $520 million for a consultant to do esg.

that is environmental, social, and governance investments in africa. 25 million dollars to promote biodiversity, conservation, and social responsibility behavior in colombia. $40 million to improve the social and economic inclusion of migrants. nobody even knows what that means. $42 million for social and behavioral change in uganda. $10 million for mozambique medical male circumcision. we are doing circumcisions in mozambique to the tune of approximately 12 million-dollar. 14 million dollars for improving public procurement in serbia. $486 million to the consortium for elections and political process strengthening, including $22 million for inclusive and participatory political process in moldova.

and $21 million for voter turnout in india. why are we caring about india turn out? we've got enough problems. we want our own turnout, don't we? can you imagine all that money going to india. i wonder what they think when they get it. now, it is a kickbacks scam. they kick it back to the people who said in many of these cases, any time you have no idea what we are talking about, that means there is a kickback, because nobody has any idea what is going on. 29 million dollars to strengthen the political landscape in bangladesh. nobody knows what they mean by political landscape. what does that mean? 20 million dollars for fiscal federalism and $20 million for biodiversity in nepal. 47 million dollars for improving learning outcomes in asia. what the hell do i care about? we've got enough problems. and all of this is terminated. we terminated this stuff. by the way, so many others. i could read all night long.

but so many were so terrible, and some were actually disgusting. i know you are eating your dinner so i didn't want to. but we are draining the swamp. one of them was $100 million for condoms for hamas. $50 million and $50 million. it was $50 million, then they decided they need more condoms, so it is $100 million. condoms for hamas. that is the good stuff. here is even worse. social security. as you know, generally speaking, people don't live to be over 100 years old. 120, 130, hopefully. but you get near that number, it is like, let's hope we can live a length like this. but here's what we are finding, and these were all found by these computer geniuses. i asked elon, what trick -- they started off with 12 guys and then they had 30 guys and then they had 57 guys. now they have over 100 guys.

and he attracts where young people with high i q's. some people attract very beautiful people. i think i like that better, actually. but he attracts young people who are brilliant, and they love the country, too. but i said, what trait do they really have? and the trait they really have is they are extraordinary with computers. he said they make love to their computer. i said, i don't want to hear about that. he said they can take apart the most complex computer instruments and literally put them back. when they go to some guy who is ripping off the country by doing some of the things you just heard or what you're going to hear, they can be -- they can't be bullshitted. we are finding waste and abuse.

there are 4.7 million social security members who go and live from 100 to 109. i know one or two who got over that mark. three .6 million people from age 110 to 119. 3.47 million people from age 120 to 129. in other words 120 to 129 years old. 3.9 million people from age 130 to 139, which is pretty amazing because the longest living person ever on record, and they are not sure it was correct, was a woman from a very faraway place who lived to 127 years old.

she was a healthy specimen. but she lived to be a hundred 27. three .5 million people from age 140 to 149. so, we have 140-year-old people, plus. age of 160 years old. including 1039 people over the age of 220 to 229. and we will be investigating this fraud. we have one person who was 300 621 years old. what we're doing now is we are finding how many of these people are paying. we have millions of people who could be well over 100 and our social security roles. so, the good news is -- social

security could be really solid. it could be a lot better than we thought, if you think about it. i am actually going on this. all my life, i heard about fort knox. that is where the gold is kept, right? fort knox, oh. but we are getting a little shaky. we are getting the yips of this stuff. i will see if we have gold there. did anybody steal the gold in fort knox? it is a pretty amazing place. but i'm going to go, we are going to open the doors, we are going to inspect fort knox. we are going to make sure we have 400 tons of gold or whatever the hell it is. it is a lot of gold. i don't want to open it in the cupboards are bare. it could happen. if you look at some of the things -- by the way, wait until we go into the education department. we haven't even done that. we could find as much as 1.5 trillion dollars worth of waste, fraud, and abuse. if we do that, we can balance by

budget's. especially if you couple it with massive amounts of tariffs that are coming in. already, just with what we are charging -- i won't mention the other country because i don't want to anger people that like them. i like them very much. but we are finding at least $60 billion a year in one country alone, and i haven't even started. it is just a very small portion that i have attached to them. i got a call from congress and they said, a lot of money is coming in from these tariffs and they are starting to change their whole thing. if you can add the tariffs, and this is numbers that -- i don't want to say it because then they will say he didn't produce. but they could wipe out your income tax. you could maybe not have an income tax. in the old days, that is what happened. our country was the richest ever from 1870 to 1913. that is when we were richest, and we were a full tariff country.

i just renamed mount mckinley, mount mckinley. i hope you're happy about that. but mckinley was the president. he was a tariff guy and he believed that countries should not be allowed to come in and plunder. he would see beautiful language on tariffs. plunder our wealth, plunder our jobs, stealer companies, and take without paying a very fair price. and he said, that price should be more than fair. it should be high because what they do is they heard our country, and we became very rich. he was assassinated. as you know, roosevelt took over, teddy. and he spent money on parks and on dams and everything. but he really spent a lot of the money. mckinley never got the credit, but he spent a lot of the money mckinley made. but it was the richest we ever were, the 1800s, early 1900s. then in 1913, we went to the income tax system.

to be honest, we did fine, but we were never like we were. they formed the tariff commission of 1887, and it was a commission of people like you, blue bloods. a couple of them, three of them over here. but blue bloods. but it was a commission and it was set up for the sole purpose of we have so much money. this was in the united states. we had no debt, we had no nothing. we had massive amounts of money. the commission was set up to determine where we should spend our money. where do we spend it? wouldn't that be nice? this is money we have to borrow, what they are doing. we will find out this money went to people and got kicked back. we have launched the largest deregulation campaign in our country's history. for every one new regulation, i have directed that 10 old regulations must be eliminated. i will say, in my first term, we

did more deregulation than any president in history by far, not even close. with republicans in congress, we are also racing to pass the largest tax cuts in american history. we brought it down from 41%, much higher if you add the state things, but 41% to 21%, which people said was impossible. now i am trying to bring it down to 15%. so it would go from 21% to 15%, but only if you make your product in the united states of america. otherwise, you pay 21%. to protect american auto, who by the way are going to be one of the biggest beneficiaries of what we are doing with tariffs because they just stopped to big auto plants from being built in mexico because they see, when i got elected, they saw, this is going to be a problem for us because we have big tariffs going on and tariffs going on autos. they don't have to pay tariffs. ther n