The weather-delayed main event on July 4th in DC was the detonation and launch of some 850,000 fireworks, the most bigly fireworks display (for entertainment purposes, anyway) in our nation's 250 years, maybe longer.
This country is the home of
freedom.
This is the land of liberty,
and this is a flag
that's the banner of
the most extraordinary,
most exceptional, most incredible nation
ever to exist
on the face of the earth.
And we're doing better now than
we've ever done
before.
No people have done more good,
shown more courage,
made more
progress,
righted more injustice or
achieved more greatness
than you,
the
American people.
For 250 years, the United
States of America has been
the
hope, the promise, the light, and the glory
among all of the
nations of the
world.
All over the world
they try and be like us.
Nobody can be like us.
Here on our National Mall, we're celebrating
freedom's
triumph over tyranny,
liberty's conquest over oppression
and the enduring
victory of
the American spirit
from the July 4th, 1776 to July 4th, 2026.
Big
dates. That's big dates. Two big ones.
And tonight our country
is stronger, freer, richer, safer,
and prouder than ever before.
But it all started
with the miracle of history that lives
forever in the heart of every single patriot.
In Philadelphia, our founding fathers
summoned the courage of
giants
and the wisdom of centuries
to boldly proclaim these timeless truths.
They declared that all men are created equal.
That they are endowed with sacred,
unalienable rights by the
hand of our creator.
And that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of
happiness.
In signing their names to the roster of freedom,
those 56 patriots
put everything at risk,
stepped onto the stage of destiny and
seized a victory
for the ages.
And that's what it was.
And this is an evening for the ages,
I believe. This is
something very special.
This is bigger than if we didn't have the lightning
blaring.
We had lightning blaring, but this is bigger.
Little more
inconvenient, but it's bigger.
I think in its own way
it's more beautiful.
From the beginning,
we were a nation that lived
by the motto
victory or death,
and live free or die.
One out of every 100
Americans gave their lives
in the fight
for independence
to remind us of who these heroes were
and what they gave us.
These are the real flags.
These are flags that have seen a lot.
These were the Stars
and Stripes
that flew triumphant when the British waved
the white flag of
surrender at Yorktown.
That was a big surrender.
Nobody thought that was
possible.
They were the greatest power of the world,
and they
surrendered, and that was the beginning.
Ever since, the entire world has been on notice
that
Americans will never let anyone
take our freedom away.
Won't happen.
And all these talks
from the communists,
they haven't got a
chance.
Not even a chance.
We don't want
communists
in our country.
Never worked,
and it never will work.
Americans must never
forget
that we are a historic and
heroic people with a
heroic spirit and a
heroic purpose
on this beautiful
earth of ours.
We are
made
of the
courage
and the fire
and the flesh
and
the blood
of the best and
the bravest people
this world has ever
produced.
Our founders not only won
our liberty, they secured it
with
the most righteous
political document
ever conceived. It's called the
Constitution of the United States.
Very special.
And it's
because of their
genius that we remain
the finest
people on the planet
after 250 years.
Unlike so many
others in the world,
in this country,
we have
freedom of speech,
freedom of religion,
equal justice under the law,
although I
wasn't treated that well,
but we won't get into that.
And the right to keep and
bear arms.
And for the almost six years
that I was president,
I guarded
very,
very powerfully
your Second Amendment,
and they didn't do a thing to it,
and it was not easy.
But we guard your
Second Amendment.
We guard it very, very
strongly and cautiously.
Across the generations
Americans have
fought,
bled
and
died
not just to secure
those rights,
but to expand them
to citizens
of every
race,
religion,
color
and creed
because we
are one people.
We are
one family.
And as our
Declaration of Independence
tells us, we are all made
in the image of
one
Almighty God.
And a communist
will never say that.
Americans expanded
the blessings of freedom,
and we have
never stopped expanding
our ambitions and our dreams.
We had the American
dream.
We never had the American dream,
however, like we have it right now.
The
American dream is
back, very strong,
beautiful.
Our rise
to being the world's strongest
and most powerful
nation was no accident
of history. We rebuilt our military in my first term.
We
use it a little bit in our... Well, actually, I should say
third term, but I
won't do that
because I don't want any controversy.
But we use it and
we've had tremendous success.
You look at
Venezuela,
you look at Iran,
we wiped it out,
wiped out their military.
Americans
crossed the Great Plains,
scaled the Rockies, we
just tamed
the wilderness and conquered the frontier
and built the empire, it's
called the Empire of Liberty.
We laid down the railroads, raised up the
skyscrapers,
those beautiful skyscrapers and dug out the Panama Canal,
considered the eighth wonder of the world,
which everyone said was an
impossible thing to do.
And by the way, 38,000 Americans died to
give us one of
the greatest engineering feats of all time
the Panama Canal.
This was the unstoppable spirit that created the world's
most powerful industries and built
the strongest military anyone had ever seen.
And today, it is stronger and more powerful than
it ever was before.
Americans won the West and built
the modern world because
America
is a nation of winners.
And today our country is winning again,
and
we're winning like never before.
America is back,
and we want to
keep America great.
And we
will do so by approving the Save America Act,
which means all voters must show
voter ID.
All voters must provide a little thing called proof of
citizenship.
And there will be no mail-in ballots,
except for illness, disability,
military deployment or travel.
And you won't have
cheating on the elections anymore.
It's
very simple.
Together,
we are also reasserting the truth
that American
strength and power is not
something to be ashamed of. It is something that we
are very, very proud of. This country has been
the greatest force for peace
and
justice on earth.
In the last century, we defeated tyrants,
demolished evil and
saved freedom again and again and again.
So, ladies and gentlemen,
these are the fighters and the
banners
of the greatest generation.
They are the greatest generation.
I hate to
admit that, but they are.
They saved the world and they made
America very, very
proud.
We are very proud of you here us all.
And after we vanquished fascism,
Americans stood against the evil of communism in the Cold War.
And as I said
last night at the beautiful Mount Rushmore,
what a beautiful place where
Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt loomed
over my shoulder
as I spoke.
America will never be a communist country.
Won't happen. Communism
is a loser and it always will be.
The communist system is
the opposite of the American system
and the communist system has never worked.
Our warriors did not fight communism
on battlefields across the world only to have that menace
rear its ugly head
right back here in America.
We're not going to let it happen.
We like to stop a
threat like that immediately
and before it begins.
It's like a cancer.
You got
to cut it out. You got to cut it out fast.
Congratulations and thank you
for being here very much.
And from the now safe and beautiful
capital of Washington.
Think of it. Washington DC, our capital.
Our capital is
now safe, gleaming and beautiful again.
It's safe again.
Went from a very unsafe place two years ago
to one of the
safest cities in the country
and one of the most beautiful
to the gleaming
waters of the Gulf of America.
There is no challenge Americans cannot overcome.
There is no place we cannot go.
There is no goal we cannot reach and
there is
nothing that Americans cannot do.
And we're proving that right now.
Our stock
market is the strongest it's ever been.
We have $19.2 trillion being invested
in our country,
which is six times more than ever happened before.
We're
building more factories in the United States t
han ever before. Everyone's
401(k)s
are at the highest number they've ever been.
And more people are working today in the United States
than
any time in the history of our country.
But in this country,
we can achieve the
wildest
and most impossible dreams.
And no dream in history
is bigger or more
incredible
than the one that started on July 4th, 1776.
The war for
independence was launched
by minutemen, farmers, blacksmens, tradesmen
who took
up their muskets against
the mightiest army on earth,
most powerful army and
unbeatable army until they met us.
No one made them do it.
They fought because
they knew
that a free people must have a free country over 250 years.
The world
has seen the great empires, vast kingdoms,
mighty nations and terrible tyrants.
They came and they went.
But after two and a half centuries,
this American republic
still stands tall and strong
and we love each other.
That show tonight, you
heard it was over and what happened?
You came back.
And this American flag
still waves
proud and free and beautiful.
We have thrived and flourished
because our founders were great.
Our cause was just
our people are brave.
Our
culture is exceptional
and our destiny is written
by God.
And as we can see
here tonight,
after 250 years, the spirit of 1776 still lives within us all.
It
still roars in the hearts of our nation's capital.
It still burns in the heart of every patriot,
thunders
through every city and town and
it still lights the entire world
with the glow
of American liberty.
And there is nothing like that.
At 250 years old, we may
be the oldest
constitutional republic on earth,
but our country is just getting
started
because the best is yet to come.
On this 250th 4th of July
we declared just as they did
two
and a half centuries ago
that for our country and for our children
and for the
cause of liberty,
we are going to take our country to new levels,
to levels not
reached.
We're going to make it bigger, better, stronger,
and we're going to
love it even more.
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