President Trump addressed a room full of Republican Senators at a breakfast event today, speaking for the first time since the elections last night. It was a fascinating speech and I thought you’d like to hear it. You can watch here: FULL TRANSCRIPT: Announcer: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States. President: Thank you. Thank you very much. That was quite a formal entrance. I thought we were just going to sit down and talk a little bit. We talk about exactly one year ago we had that big beautiful victory—exactly one year. President: And last night it was, you know, not expected to be a victory. It was very Democrat areas, but I don’t think it was good for Republicans. I don’t think it was good. I’m not sure it was good for anybody. But we had an interesting evening, and we learned a lot, and we’re going to talk about that. President: I’ll say a few remarks, and then after that I’ll ask the press to leave. The press has been very, very nice to us the last couple of months. They were great to us in terms of the foreign visits with China, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and they were actually terrific. So I want to thank you for that. I’m sure you’ll get back to your normal ways soon, but we did a great job over in China. President: We’ve done a great job in turning off wars. We stopped eight wars—eight wars—and we have one to go, as you probably know, and that’ll get stopped also. We’ve done a great job, so it’s really been an honor to do it, and I did it with many of the people in this room. Every one of you I know, and every one of you I like. I like our leaders. I like everybody. President: But I thought we’d have a discussion after the press leaves about what last night represented and what we should do about it, and also about the shutdown and how that relates to last night. I think, if you read the pollsters, the shutdown was a big factor—negative for the Republicans—and that was a big factor. They say that I wasn’t on the ballot was the biggest factor, but I don’t know about that, though I was honored they said it. I just want to thank everybody for being here. President: A very special thanks to Vice President J. D. Vance, who’s doing a terrific job. J. D., thank you very much. As well as the Senate leadership team that has been working very hard—really, I will tell you, nobody’s working any harder representing the American people—including Senator John Thune. John, thank you. Great job. President: Senator John Barrasso—John, thank you very much. Senator Tom Cotton, wherever you may be. Tom, thank you. Thank you, Tom. Thank you. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who’s been very involved—thank you, Shelley. President: Senator James Lankford from one of my favorite states—77 out of 77. I always say 77 out of 77. Reagan was 56; that was the record. We got—We got every one of them. Thank you, James. And a fantastic friend of mine and an incredible advocate during the election a year ago, Tim Scott. Thank you, Tim. President: So, as you know, we are in the midst of a disastrous Democrat-created government shutdown, and it is Democrat-created, but I don’t think they’re getting the blame they should. That’s now officially the longest shutdown in American history. The Democrat radicals in the Senate have shown zero interest in reopening the government, and I don’t think they’ll act so soon. A lot of people disagree. President: I’ve been saying for the last 30 days, we’ve had four or five different points—“Yes, sir, they’re going to get it right now. We should have it done in a day.” I’ve heard that about four times. I heard it after Kings—you know, they said I was a king and I heard it after Kings. I heard it after a couple of other moments in time, and I said, “No, I don’t believe so.” Now I heard it’s after the election. I don’t believe so. President: I think they will—I think they’re kamikaze pilots. I just got back from Japan. I talked about the kamikaze pilots. I think these guys are kamikaze—they’ll take down the country if they have to. So I don’t think so. Millions of Americans are going to be without SNAP benefits. And I will say about SNAP benefits—when I was President, we had seven billion dollars’ worth. President: Now they have many times that, because these benefits were given to anybody that asked, and they’re up to—I hear many, just many times—47 billion. That wasn’t the purpose of SNAP. It was for people that really had problems—down-and-out people that really had problems. But during Biden they gave it to anybody that wanted it. I think it’s something you have to talk about because the numbers are incredible. President: But countless public servants are now not being paid, and the air traffic control system is under increasing strain. We must get the government back open soon—and really immediately. We have to get it up. We have the hottest economy we’ve ever had, and it’s affecting the stock market now a little bit, but the stock market as of Friday has hit many record highs during the last nine months—many. President: It will again—this is just the beginning—because when these plants that are being built right now start opening up, we’ve never had anything like this as a boom. There’s a construction boom right now, but that’s going to be bigger than that. That’s going to be an economic boom as soon as they open up, and it’s going to be something special. We have car companies coming in. President: When I was in Japan, Toyota—Mr. Toyota. I said, “What’s your name?” “Toyota.” I said, “Oh, you’re rich.” He said—how much of the company do you own? “Ninety-two point one percent.” I said, “I’m glad you said the point one.” I said, “You’re a rich guy.” And he said, “I’m investing ten billion dollars in the U.S.” And you know who I’m talking about, right? President: You introduced me, Mr. Senator. You introduced me originally when you were the ambassador to Japan. He’s still good. He’s still strong. But he had no interest in investing in this country. Now he’s investing ten billion, as of one week ago, in building new plants. We have auto plants coming in incredibly, but we have AI and all of them. President: And we can’t be extorted to give $1.5 trillion to people that came into the country illegally—many from prisons, many drug dealers. A lot of people came in from mental institutions. They want to give a lot of money to the people that came in illegally. We have to get them out. We can’t—no country can sustain that. President: That’s like an attack on our country, and no country—these are not going to be productive people. These are going to be anti-productive people. And we can all have big hearts. I have a bigger heart than anybody. But we can’t let that happen. It’s time for Republicans to do what they have to do, and that’s terminate the filibuster. It’s the only way you can do it. President: If you don’t terminate the filibuster, you’ll be in bad shape. We won’t pass any legislation. There’ll be no legislation passed for three and a quarter—We have three and a quarter years. That’s a long time. But when they can’t do an extension—and John, I think they’ve done an extension every single time they’ve ever been asked, forever—this is the first time they haven’t done an extension. President: Extensions are supposed to be easy. But if they won’t do an extension, they won’t do any bill—even a simple bill. And we should do our own bills. We should get out. We should do our own bills. We should open up—We should start tonight with, “The country is open. Congratulations.” Then we should pass voter ID. We should pass no mail-in voting. President: We should pass all the things that we want to pass—make our elections secure and safe, because California is a disaster. Many of the states are disasters. But can you imagine when they vote almost unanimously against voter ID? All we want is voter ID. You go to a grocery store—you have to give ID. You go to a gas station—you give ID. But for voting they want no voter ID. President: That’s only for one reason—because they cheat. We would pass that in 15 minutes. If you don’t get it, you’ll never pass that. You’ll never talk about mail-in ballots. Mail-in ballots make it automatically corrupt. If you have mail-in ballots, automatically it’s corrupt. Even Jimmy Carter—they had the Carter Commission after he got out of office. President: He had a group of very distinguished people—Democrats and Republicans—and they recommended things take place. It was a long time ago. They said about mail-in ballots: if there are mail-in ballots, there will definitely be corruption because they pass through too many hands. You go in to vote and they want your card—even me. I went into Palm Beach. President: You go in to vote, they want your card, your this, your that. They say, “I’m sorry to do this, sir, but I have to look at your identification.” I said, “That’s all right. I love that.” You’re really not going to get away with much. It was very, very professional—very good—the way it’s supposed to be. But these people don’t want that. President: They have legislation in California where it’s illegal to ask somebody for voter ID. If you’re an official and you say, “I’d like to see your voter ID,” they can arrest you, okay? They can arrest you because they want to cheat, and they get away with it. And the Republicans let them get away with it. We won’t do that if we have the filibuster. President: So I’m just going to—we’re going to talk about that a little bit, and we’re going to see if we can sway, because I know we have a lot of—not a lot; I’d say half feel this way, maybe a little bit less than half—and it’s time to have a really good talk. If I thought that they weren’t going to pass the filibuster, I wouldn’t even bring it up. They’re going to pass it within the first hour. President: If they take power—and it’s more likely that they take power if we don’t do this—because we’re not going to be passing any legislation. They’re not going to approve anything. We’re going to go three and a quarter years—there won’t be one bill that we’re going to pass, because the easiest thing to pass is exactly what they won’t pass right now. President: They’ll do that, and they’ll wreak havoc. But let’s assume they get in—they’re doing it anyway, so it wouldn’t matter. They’re doing it anyway. And you know, I have a case where I have great U.S. attorneys that can’t be approved because of the blue slips. The blue slips—I think you should terminate blue slips, too. It’s a mental termination because it’s really a custom. President: But if you have a Democrat senator—or two; two is bad, but it doesn’t make any difference—if you have one senator write a negative letter on some great U.S. attorney—we had it in Manhattan, Southern District—Jay Clayton, one of the most respected lawyers in the whole country by far, one of the most respected, couldn’t get approved. The courts approved him. President: The courts couldn’t believe it—they did it instantly. He went to the best schools, got the best marks, top of his class—everything was perfect. He led the perfect life. Went to Sullivan & Cromwell—almost immediately became the head of Sullivan & Cromwell, you know, the most prestigious law firm, I would say, in the country, just about. Whether it’s Sullivan or two or three I could name, but Sullivan I would say maybe number one. President: He was the head of Sullivan & Cromwell for like 20 years. He went to the SEC—was flawless. He did it for me—he was the SEC Chairman. He was flawless. Then he went to Apollo, where he was the chairman of Apollo, and it was flawless. Everything went good. The stock went through the roof and everything. I asked him to go to the Southern District. Backup video here if needed: Share!